He died in the eleventh year of the Hegira in the three-and-sixtieth year of his life, “the prophet, poet, priest, and king of Arabia.” On the news of his departure a great wailing was raised in Aisha’s dwelling, and the people thronged round the door in wild excitement, which was still further increased by Omar’s assurances that the messenger of God was not dead, but would shortly return to his people. Finally the judicious words of Abu Bekr succeeded in calming the crowd: “O ye people,” he said, “let him amongst you who served Mohammed know that Mohammed is dead; but let him who served God continue in his service, for Mohammed’s God lives and never dies.” Then he read them a verse of the _Koran_: “Mohammed is only a messenger, many messengers are already gone before him; whether he died a natural death or was slain, shall ye turn on your heels? He who does this (forsakes his faith), can do no harm to God, but the grateful shall be rewarded.” Despair now passed into quiet grief; Omar himself was so moved that he fell to the earth and acknowledged that Mohammed was really dead. Three days later Mohammed was lowered into the earth at the spot where he had died. His tomb at Medina was subsequently included within the bounds of the sanctuary by the enlargement of the mosque, which stood next to the house, and like the Kaaba of Mecca it has remained up to the present time to be a place of pilgrimage much resorted to by pious Moslems. Osama, the youthful son of that Zaid who had fallen at Muta, was absent on a new campaign against Syria at the moment when he received tidings of the prophet’s death. He at once led his soldiers back to Medina, and full of sadness set up his banner before the house.[f] The personal traits of Mohammed are preserved to us in wonderfully minute details and illustrated by numberless anecdotes, many of which are of course apocryphal. We may quote a brief and vivid picture from the _Sirat_ or _Biography of Mohammed_, written by Ibn Saad,[g] the secretary of the Arab historian Wakidi. The translation is from unpublished manuscript notes by Sir William Muir,[e] the modern biographer of Mohammed.[a] “He was fair of complexion with a measure of redness; eyes intensely black; his hair not crisp but depending; beard bushy and thick; cheeks not fat; his neck shone like a vessel of silver; he had a line of hair from his breast to his navel like a branch, but besides this he had no hair on his belly or chest. His hands and feet were not hollow, but filled up. When he walked it was as though he walked from a higher to a lower place; and when he walked it was as though he pulled (or wrenched) his feet from the stones; when he turned he turned round entirely. The perspiration on his face was like pearls, and the smell thereof was pleasanter than musk of pure quality. He was neither long nor short; he was neither weakly nor vile; the like of him I never saw before or after.