die was now cast. It was as if the little fleet of human souls had
finally cast its moorings and ventured into the unpathed waters of
temporal dominion under the command of one whose skill in pilotage was as
yet unknown. Many changes became necessary in the conduct of the
enterprise, of which not the least was the change of attitude between the
leader and his followers. Mahomet, heretofore religious visionary and
teacher, became the temporal head of a community, and in time the leader
of a political State. The changed aspect of his mission can never be
over-emphasised, for it altered the tenor of his thoughts and the
progress of his words. All the poetry and fire informing the early pages
of the Kuran departs with his reception at Medina, except for occasional
flashes that illumine the chronicle of detailed ordinances that the Book
has now become.

This apparent death of poetic energy had crept gradually over the Kuran,
helped on by the controversial character of the last two Meccan periods,
when he attempted the conciliation of the Jewish element within Arabia
with that long-sightedness which already discerned Medina as his possible
refuge. In reality the whole energy of his nature was transmuted from his
words to his actions and therein he found his fitting sphere, for he was
essentially the doer, one whose works are the expression of his secret,
whose personality, in fact, is only gauged by his deeds. As a result of
his political leadership, the despotism of his nature, inherent in his
conception of God, inevitably revealed itself; he had postulated a Being
who held mankind in the hollow of his hand, whose decrees were absolute
among his subjects; now that he was to found an earthly kingdom under the
guidance of Allah, the majesty of divine despotism overshadowed its
Prophet, and enabled him to impose upon a willing people the same
obedience to authority which fostered the military idea.