Answer it; _thou_ must find an answer.--Ambition? What could all
Arabia do for this man; with the crown of Greek Heraclius, of Persian
Chosroes, and all crowns in the Earth;--what could they all do for him?
It was not of the Earth he wanted to hear tell; it was of the Heaven
above and of the Hell beneath. All crowns and sovereignties whatsoever,
where would _they_ in a few brief years be? To be Sheik of Mecca or
Arabia, and have a bit of gilt wood put into your hand,--will that be
one's salvation? I decidedly think, not. We will leave it altogether,
this impostor hypothesis, as not credible; not very tolerable even,
worthy chiefly of dismissal by us.

Mahomet had been wont to retire yearly, during the month Ramadhan,
into solitude and silence; as indeed was the Arab custom; a
praiseworthy custom, which such a man, above all, would find natural
and useful. Communing with his own heart, in the silence of the
mountains; himself silent; open to the 'small still voices:' it was a
right natural custom! Mahomet was in his fortieth year, when having
withdrawn to a cavern in Mount Hara, near Mecca, during this Ramadhan,
to pass the month in prayer, and meditation on those great questions,
he one day told his wife Kadijah, who with his household was with him
or near him this year, That by the unspeakable special favour of
Heaven he had now found it all out; was in doubt and darkness no
longer, but saw it all. That all these Idols and Formulas were
nothing, miserable bits of wood; that there was One God in and over
all; and we must leave all Idols, and look to Him. That God is great;
and that there is nothing else great! He is the Reality. Wooden Idols
are not real; He is real. He made us at first, sustains us yet; we and
all things are but the shadow of Him; a transitory garment veiling the
Eternal Splendour. '_Allah akbar_, God is great;'--and then also
'_Islam_,' That we must _submit_ to God. That our whole strength lies
in resigned submission to Him, whatsoever He do to us. For this world,
and for the other! The thing He sends to us, were it death and worse
than death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign ourselves to
God.--'If this be _Islam_,' says Goethe, 'do we not all live in
_Islam_?' Yes, all of us that have any moral life; we all live so. It
has ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not merely to submit
to Necessity,--Necessity will make him submit,--but to know and
believe well that the stern thing which Nec