334 THE DECLINE AND FALL leb was crowned with domestic happiness, his life was prolonged to the age of one hundred and ten years, and he became the father of six daughters and thirteen sons. His best beloved Abdallah was the most beautiful and modest of the Arabian youth ; and in the first night, when he consummated his marriage with Amina, of the noble race of the Zahrites, two hundred virgins are said to have expired of jealousy and despair. Ma- homet, or more properly Mohammed, the only son of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, four years after the death of Justinian, and two months after the defeat of the Abyssinians,^^ whose victory would have introduced into the Caaba the religion of the Christians. In his early infancy, he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his grandfather ; his uncles were strong and numerous ; and, in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was reduced to five camels and an ^Ethiopian maid-servant. At home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu Taleb, the most respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his youth ; in his twenty-fifth year, he entered into [Khadija] the servicc of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage contract, in the simple style of antiquity, recites the mutual love of Mahomet and Cadijah ; describes him as the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish ; and stipulates torn. i. part ii. p. 14, torn. ii. p. 823) ascribes the miracle to the devil, and extorts from the Mahometans the confession that God would not have defended against the Christians the idols of the Caaba. [The expedition of Abraha against Mecca is historical. Ibn Ishak's account of it is preserved in Tabari (Noldeke, p. 201 sgg.), but the earliest notice of it is in a Greek writer — Procopius, Pers. i. 20. The Mohammadan authorities always place the expedition in A. D. 570; but Noldeke, by discovering the passage in Procopius, has rectified the chronology. The expedition must have taken place before Procopius wrote his Persica, that is probably before A. D. 544. It has been questioned whether Abraha actually ap- proached the neighbourhood of Mecca ; but Noldeke thinks that the siira 105 (beginning " Hast thou not seen how thy Lord dealt with the men of the Ele- phant?") proves that Mecca felt itself seriously menaced. Ibn Ishak mentions that Abraha had an elephant with him. As for Abraha, the accounts of his rise to power vary : but he was probably an Abyssinian soldier of low birth who overthrew the vassal king of Yemen and usurped his place. The miracle which caused his retreat from the Hijaz was an outbreak of smallpox.] «SThe safest asras of Abulfeda (in Vit. c. i. p. 2), of Alexander, or the Greeks, 882, of Bocht Naser, or Nabonasser, 1316, equally lead us to the year 569. The old Arabian calendar is too dark and uncertain to support the Benedictines (Art de verifier les Dates, p. 15), who from the day of the month and week deduce a new mode of calculation, and remove the birth of Mahomet to the year of Christ 570, the loth of November. Yet this date would agree with the year 882 of the Greeks, which is assigned by Elmacin (Hist. Saracen, p. 5) and Abulpharagius (Dynast, p. loi, and Errata, Pocock's version). 'hile we refine our chronology, it is possible that the illiterate prophet was ignorant of his own age. [Probably the date A.D. 570 is approximately correct.]
