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Followed years of gore and glory, for Mohammed entertained no silly qualms about bloodshed and brigandage for pious ends. He never went in for miracles, but calculated a paradise that Arabs would gladly die for, abundant in food, wine, ease and "full-bosomed" houris. Ignorant in most things (he once forbade the artificial fecundation of date palms, precipitating a famine), he violated Arabian chivalry by employing his brains in war; adopted entrenchment and always watched fights alertly from a safely distant hill. Militarily secure, he accomplished great pilgrimages back to the holy well, Zemzem, at Mecca. Before his death from pleurisy in 632, all Arabia was Allah's footstool, with good prospect of Syria, Byzantium and India being lined up for accessory furniture.-
The Man. His avocations were cobbling his sandals, darning his clothes, tarring his camels' feet, praying, marrying. His "divinely conferred preeminence" (as in the later case of lusty Brigham Young) brought handsome women flocking to him, from every part of the rocky, sandy peninsula. His frequent nuptials (not counting concubinations) were usually preceded by revelations, which only one of the wives, irreverent young Ayesha, ever presumed to suspect. He consoled a dying wife with the assurance that his arrival in heaven was eagerly awaited by Moses' sister (Kulthum), Potiphar's wife and the Virgin Mary.
Tall and muscular, he kept his hairless, perfumed bronze body immaculate, especially his teeth, "white as hailstones," which stood far apart from assiduous picking. He eschewed jewelry but put antimony on his eyebrows to sharpen his sight. He let a black wilderness of beard riot down to conceal one thin line of fur on his deep chest, but he clipped his mustache. On special occasions he shaved his poll. Divinely conferred, a large mole adorned his back.
His favorite foods were dates, pumpkin, mutton. He slept on his right side, with his most holy hand supporting his most holy cheek. No flies, it is said, ever alighted on him.
The Significance. Mohammed's presumable life has now been extricated, in flesh and blood, with diverting irony, from the pros and cons of scholiasts. Allah figures in the tale as Mohammed's yes-man. For a more serious and comprehensive study of Allah, Arabia and Islam (though not of Mohammed), read Doughty's tremendous Travels in Arabia Deserta—Boni & Liveright ($10).
The Author. Roy Floyd Dibble, a. gentleman of 39, obtained a Ph. D. at Columbia University in 1921 and later instructed there, in English. Soon after its inception, the American Mercury enlisted his caustic nib, as has the Century Magazine. Last year he caused widespread delight with a biography of the late and eminent pugilist, John L. Sullivan (TIME, April 20, 1925).
FICTION
Sage of Burwash
DEBITS AND CREDITS—Rudyard Kipling—Doubleday, Page ($2).
Mr. Kipling has not "kippled," in storybook form, for ten years. When he did so last week, it caused a minor sensation (see p. 10). It is a meaty volume, 14 short stories and 21 pieces of verse, all new to folk who do not follow McCall's Magazine and the Metropolitan.