Life, 1921-04-21 · page 23 of 36
Life — April 21, 1921 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a satirical cartoon illustrating the famous proverb "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain"—a saying about adapting when persuasion fails. The cartoon depicts Mohammed as a pompous figure attempting to command a mountain to approach him, presumably to impress followers with his miraculous powers. When the mountain ignores him, he pivots to walking toward it instead, then congratulates himself on his clever solution. The satire targets human ego and self-deception: Mohammed overestimated his persuasive abilities, failed at his original goal, but then treats his fallback plan as a brilliant success—patting himself on the back for what was actually a defeat. The piece mocks how people rationalize failures as victories through clever reframing, using the religious figure as a universal example of this very human tendency toward self-satisfaction.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
_STengg ren Unfamiliar Anniversaries—No. 4. By TENGGREN Mohammed and the Mountain Mohammed had overestimated his powers of persuasion. SUNDAY, April 17th, was allowed to slip quietly by, with no But he wasn’t a prophet for nothing, He wouldn't let any rcognition of the fact that it marked the one thousand, stupid pile of mineral matter get the better of him. No, sir! three hundred and thirty-second anniversary of Mohammed's So—quick as a flash—he delivered the now famous remark: widel quoted conversation with a mountain. “Well, if the mountain won't come to Mouammed, by heck, ems that the great prophet of Islam was showing off Mohammed will go to the mountain.” of miracles for the fall and winter trade to a select This brilliant bit of repartee is still employed by those who f followers, when suddenly, and for no apparent reason, find themselves similarly stumped. Moreover, the expression rened to a neighboring eminence and casually commanded of supreme self-satisfaction on Mohammed's countenance seems “ome hither.” The mountain greeted this speech with to indicate that he himself was not unmindful of the fact that silence; and for one awkward moment it looked as though he had pulled a pretty darned good wheeze. comicbooks.com