Note 19 — Chapter I

Some historians make Mohammed at the age of fourteen fight in defence of the Kaaba, which a hostile tribe threatened to snatch from the custody of the Koreish. They relate, also, how, at a later period of his life, when the Kaaba, having been tumbled down by a formidable torrent of rain, was rebuilding, the honor of fixing the sacred black stone in the wall devolved upon him; and they endeavour to trace a kind of causal connection between these incidents in the earlier life of Mohammed and the religious bias of his later years. But the facts relied upon here partake too much of the nature of fiction, to make these speculative notions of much moment. Before his marriage with Cadijah, Mohammed was in a humble and dependent position; and from the time of his marriage up to when he took upon himself the apostolic office, he was simply a wealthy but obscure citizen.