The wild Arab of the desert and the comparatively civilized Arab of the cities show, though in different degrees, the same great elements of national character. Among them all the virtues and the vices of the half savage state, its revenge and its rapacity, its hospitality and its bounty were to be seen in their full force. How often have we had pictured before us the simplicity and beauty of such a natural life.
This wild man has been described as generous and hospitable. He delighted in giving gifts; his door was always open to the wayfarer, with whom he was ready to share his last morsel; and his deadliest foe, having once broken bread with him, might repose securely beneath the inviolable sanctity of his tent.
His social life, however, was most degraded. Drunkenness, gambling and unrestrained licentiousness abounded: the horrible practice of female infanticide was prevalent among the pagan tribes: while polygamy, that curse of the East, everywhere prevailed.
Though speaking a language, copious in the extreme, the words of which have been compared to gems and flowers, literature in the strict sense of that word can hardly be said to have existed; but the Arab had a quick intellect, was always ready with a native vein of rhetoric and was easily aroused by the appeals of eloquence and charmed by the graces of poetry. He was naturally an orator, delighted in proverbs and clothed his ideas in florid oriental style with apologue and parable.
While thus a degraded and degrading polytheism was the prevailing religion of Arabia, many Jews were to be found at Medina and in the cities bordering on Syria, and there was also a corrupted form of Christianity incrusted with numerous errors and superstitions, so that in no part of the world did Christianity give forth so feeble a light.
A very decided reform was imperatively needed to restore the belief in the unity of God and set up a higher standard of morality.
It is claimed by his admirers that Mohammed brought about such a reform. He was born in the year 570 of the family of Hashem and the tribe of Koreish to whom was entrusted the guardianship of the pagan temple and the Black Stone. Early left an orphan and in poverty, he was reared in the family of one of his uncles under all the influences of idolatry. This uncle was a merchant, and the youth made long journeys with him to distant fairs, especially into Syria where he became acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, especially with the Old Testament. At the age of twenty-five he entered the service of Cadijeh, a very wealthy widow conducting her immense caravans to fairs in distant cities. His personal beauty, his intelligence and spirit, won the heart of this powerful mistress and she became his wife.