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He combined in his person all the functions now divided between the Sheykh el Islam, the grand Mufti, and the executive authorities. He was king and priest and magistrate, doctor of civil and religious law, and supreme referee on all matters whether of opinion or practice; he was, in a word, the Pope of Islam. Nor did his three successors abate anything of Abu Bekr's pretensions.
Mahomet was now strong enough to insist that none but Believers were to be admitted to the Kaaba and its ceremonies, and although all the idolatrous practices in Mecca were not removed until after Abu Bekr's pilgrimage, yet the power of polytheism was completely subdued, and before long was to be extirpated from the holy places.
Here Mahomet and Abu Bekr, henceforward known as the "Second of Two," remained until the fierceness of the pursuit slackened. Asma, Abu Bekr's daughter, brought them food at sundown, and what news she could glean from the rumours that were abroad, and from the lips of Ali.
Neither Haroun nor Al-Maimoun could, with all their authority and statecraft, stay the steep course of Islam; for the wisdom of a race is wiser than the wisdom of a man, and the sword which, in Abu Bekr's phrase, the Lord has drawn, Islam sheathes but on the Day of Judgment. Then and then only shall the Holy War end.
"This day have I perfected your religion for you, and have filled up the measure of my favours upon you; and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion." The Kuran. A year had passed since Abu Bekr's purgatory Pilgrimage, and now the sacred month drew near once more and found Mahomet secure in his adopted city, the acknowledged spiritual and political leader among the Arabian tribes.
But evidences as to its friendliness were not wanting, and these were renewed when Abu Bekr's cousin, a previous emigrant to Medina, met them half-way and declared that the city waited in joy and expectation for the coming of its Prophet.
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