Obscure tidings of
the most important Event ever transacted in this world, the Life and
Death of the Divine Man in Judea, at once the symptom and cause of
immeasurable change to all people in the world, had in the course of
centuries reached into Arabia too; and could not but, of itself, have
produced fermentation there.
It was among this Arab people, so circumstanced, in the year 570 of our
Era, that the man Mohammed was born. He was of the family of Hashem, of
the Koreish tribe as we said; though poor, connected with the chief
persons of his country. Almost at his birth he lost his Father; at the
age of six years his Mother too, a woman noted for her beauty, her worth
and sense: he fell to the charge of his Grandfather, an old man, a
hundred years old. A good old man: Mohammed's Father, Abdallah, had been
his youngest favorite son. He saw in Mohammed, with his old life-worn
eyes, a century old, the lost Abdallah come back again, all that was
left of Abdallah. He loved the little orphan Boy greatly; used to say
they must take care of that beautiful little Boy, nothing in their
kindred was more precious than he. At his death, while the boy was still
but two years old, he left him in charge to Abu Thaleb the eldest of the
Uncles, as to him that now was head of the house. By this Uncle, a just
and rational man as everything betokens, Mohammed was brought-up in the
best Arab way.
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