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The next and most important convert was Abu Bekr, a powerful citizen of Mecca, by whose influence a number of persons possessing great authority were induced to profess the religion of Islam. Three years were spent in the arduous task of converting six of these men.
He was now strong enough to insist that the rooting out of idolatry was his chief policy, and to make the breaking up of the ancestral gods incumbent upon the whole country. Abu Bekr was commissioned to set forth upon his task with 300 men, and to spare neither himself nor them until the mission was accomplished and every idolatrous practice blotted out.
Behind marched or rode the flower of Islam's warriors and statesmen Abu Bekr, Omar, Hamza, and Zeid, whose names already resounded through Islam for valiant deeds; Abdallah, with Mahomet's chosen leaders of expeditions; the rank and file, three hundred strong, regardless of what perils might overtake them, intent on plunder and the upholding of their vigorous faith, sallied forth from Medina as soon as they could be equipped, and took the direct road to Mecca.
After a prayer to Allah in thanks for their safety, Mahomet and Abu Bekr mounted the camels and sallied forth to meet what unknown destiny should await them on the road to Medina. They rapidly gained the sea-coast near Asfan in comparative safety, secure from the attacks of the Kureisch, who would not pursue their quarry so far into a strange country.
The most distinguished of the Arabian physicians was the man whose rather lengthy Arabian name, beginning with Abu Bekr Mohammed, finished with el-Razi, and who has hence been usually referred to in the history of medicine as Rhazes. He was born about 850 at Raj, in the Province of Chorasan in Persia. He seems to have had a liberal early education in philosophy and in philology and literature.
Shocked and angered, the proud Arabs gradually returned to the desert, while the government fell into the well-worn ruts of traditional Oriental despotism. The famous Caliph Haroun-al-Rashid, the hero of the Arabian Nights, was a typical Persian monarch, a true successor of Xerxes and Chosroes, and as different from Abu Bekr or Omar as it is possible to conceive.
It is certain that in the first four reigns of Abu Bekr, Omar, Othman, and Ali, such a living power to legislate was accorded to the Caliphs; and that on their own authority they modified at will the yet unwritten law.
Ali was too young at this time to manifest his qualities as warrior and ruler, but Abu Bekr was of middle age, and his nature remained substantially the same as at the inception of Islam.
Ali, the warrior par excellence, Abu Bekr, statesman and counsellor, Othman the soldier, Hamza and Omar, are not merely blind followers, but forceful personalities, contributing each in his own manner towards those assets of endurance, leadership, and unshaken faith which ensured the continuance of the Medinan colony and its ultimate victory over the Kureisch.
The first distinguished Arabian physician was Harets ben Kaladah, who received his education in the Nestonian school at Gondisapor, about the beginning of the seventh century. Notwithstanding the fact that Harets was a Christian, he was chosen by Mohammed as his chief medical adviser, and recommended as such to his successor, the Caliph Abu Bekr.
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