We buried the mutilated dead on the slopes of Uhud and returned to Medina, where news of our loss sent waves of grief and panic among the people. Suddenly small voices could be heard wondering why God had abandoned us on the battlefield, unlike at Badr, where He had sent angels to our aid. Soon the voices become louder and some began to question whether our first victory had been merely the product of dumb luck and there had not been any divine intervention in the first place.
The grumbling was silenced by the revelation of verses in the Qur’an that placed the blame for our defeat squarely on our own shoulders. Had the archers not been overcome with greed and fled their posts, victory would have been certain. We could not blame God for our own failings. It was an important lesson, and the people began to see Uhud as a sign from God that His favor was bestowed on the Muslims not because of who they were but because of how they acted. And this point soon became another way to differentiate us from our increasingly antagonistic Jewish neighbors. The Prophet warned that some of the Jews-although, he stressed, not all-had come to see themselves as deserving of God’s blessings as a birthright, without any corresponding moral obligations on their own end, and this had led to their downfall throughout history. Islam had come to erase that sense of tribal entitlement and replace it with individual moral responsibility.
The Jews did not deign to respond to this new charge against them, but their leaders made it clear that Muhammad’s humiliation at Uhud should serve as a reminder that the future of the oasis was not as clear as the Muslims would like to believe. And they were right.
It was the realization of our precarious position in the aftermath of defeat that forced the Messenger to hold a secret a council of his closest Companions. A handful of the most influential members of our community met inside my tiny apartment, with guards placed in the courtyard of the Masjid to ward off any eavesdroppers.
My father pulled his beard, which had begun to turn from gray to cloudy white.
“Now that the Meccans have tasted victory, they think we are weak,” he said grimly. “It will not be long before they attack Medina again with a stronger force.”
Umar grunted in assent.
“We must make new allies among the Arab tribes if we wish to mount a defense,” he said, leaving unspoken the obvious fact that our Jewish neighbors could not be relied upon to uphold their end of the treaty if Abu Sufyan invaded.
Ali leaned forward.
“The Bedouin tribe of Bani Amir is well armed, and they have no love for Mecca.”
I wrinkled my forehead at the mention of the unfamiliar tribe, and then I remembered that the Bani Amir were shepherds who brought their flocks to pasture in Medina every spring. Their wool was actually quite decent, with thick curls that made excellent blankets during the cold winter months, and their shearings sold well in the marketplace. They had remained neutral in our conflict with Mecca, but they definitely had a vested economic interest in the prosperity of the settlement.
Uthman nodded favorably at Ali’s suggestion.
“I know their chieftain, Abu Bara. He is an honorable man and would be a useful ally.”
My father coughed, as if he often did when he had to make an indelicate comment.
“I have heard that Abu Bara’s leadership is in question,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Rumor is that his nephew Husam is seeking to displace him.
Uthman frowned. The complex nuances of such a power struggle could not be grasped by his simple and straightforward nature. A fact that would cause much grief to the Ummah in years to come.
“Husam has many friends in Mecca,” he conceded with some difficulty. “If he seizes control of the Bani Amir and allies them with Abu Sufyan, we will face a formidable enemy.”
Umar banged his hand on his knee.
“Then we must unite his tribe clearly with the Muslims,” he said with his customary intensity. “If we can forge relations of blood and marriage between us, it will cement an alliance.”
There was a long silence as the Messenger’s counselors considered their options. Marriage as a means of establishing treaties between peoples had a long and honored tradition in Arabia. But the question remained as to who among the notoriously independent Bani Amir would be amenable to a match with the Muslims and whom they could be paired with to forge an alliance that would justify the Bedouin risking their lives in Medina’s wars.
And then Ali spoke, his voice ringing like a bell in the small room.
“Zaynab, the daughter of Khuzayma, is a member of the Bani Amir.”
Umar’s bushy eyebrows rose.
“The widow of Ubayda?”
Ali nodded. And then I had a flash of memory of courageous Ubayda on the plain of Badr, his leg cut off by the dying Utbah. He had been the first Muslim to be killed in battle and had expired with his head in the Prophet’s lap. I knew his young widow, Zaynab bint Khuzayma, in passing. She was a quiet soul, who spent most of her time helping Fatima by feeding the People of the Bench or distributing alms to the needy. I had heard the Messenger once refer to her admiringly as “the Mother of the Poor.”
Zaynab was a frail woman whose body was malnourished and small, and I found it hard to imagine that this plain, ghostly lady would find a suitor easily. Glancing at the dubious looks on the faces of the other men, I gathered that they were thinking similar thoughts.
Ali turned to face the Prophet, who had sat uncharacteristically silent throughout the entire discussion. My husband looked worn and tired, and I knew that he was still grieving for Hamza and the dead of Uhud.
“Zaynab is a cousin of the chief of Bani Amir and can turn his heart in our favor,” Ali said. And then he added words that immediately shook my world. “If the Messenger were to marry her, it would create a powerful bond between the Muslims and the Bedouins.”
I felt bile rising in my stomach.
“You are quick to offer my husband’s hand in marriage!”
Ali looked at me with those unreadable green eyes. If he was stung by the vehemence of my reaction, he did not show it.
“I meant no offense,” he said simply. “But the Messenger is the head of our community. For the Bedouins, only a marriage between leaders of tribes would be sufficient to earn their allegiance.”
I sat back sullenly, my arms folded across my chest in defiance. Of course what Ali said made perfect sense from a practical point of view. But I was in no mood for practicality. I had already been forced to contend with one young sister-wife because of the Messenger’s political needs. And now I was being asked to accept another woman in Muhammad’s bed for the sake of state policy.
The Messenger did not look at me. He sat quietly, considering Ali’s words. When he spoke, there was a calm decisiveness in his voice that I had not heard since the tragedy at Uhud.
“Zaynab bint Khuzayma is a good woman,” my husband said. “She is kind to the poor. And she is the first widow of Badr. I know of none worthier to become a Mother of the Believers.”
I felt my heart sink as the Messenger turned to face Ali.
“Send her my proposal. If she accepts, invite Abu Bara to the wedding and let us make a treaty with his tribe.”
Ali nodded and rose to leave. I could not help but give him a furious look as he walked out. He met my eyes, and for a second I saw cold disapproval in his glance. I felt a sudden flash of outrage at his judgmental stare, as well as an inkling of shame at my own jealousy. But as Ali walked out, my wounded pride won the struggle inside me, and I bit my lip in fury until I drew blood.
The Messenger married Zaynab bint Khuzayma a fortnight later, and a fourth apartment was built, the newest, just north of Hafsa’s stone hut. Abu Bara, the head of Bani Amir, attended the wedding of his cousin and publicly proclaimed that the Bedouin tribe was now bound by blood to Medina. The alliance had been successfully formed, and the Messenger’s political marriage had closed the chinks in our armor after the humiliation of Uhud.
And it was an alliance that was tested almost immediately. Abu Bara’s ambitious nephew tried to disrupt the pact by leading a renegade group of his tribesmen to attack a Muslim hunting party that wandered into Bani Amir territory. The survivors of the attack hid in the wilderness and took their vengeance on a group of Bani Amir shepherds who were innocent of complicity in the plot.
The dangerous cycle of retaliation had begun and the Prophet wisely offered to ease tensions with the Bedouins by paying a hefty sum to settle the claims of the shepherds’ grieving families. The sum demanded-a thousand gold dirhams-was substantial and posed a significant strain on the Bayt al-Mal, the Muslim treasury. And so the Prophet sent Ali to seek financial support from the Jewish tribes in accordance with our old treaty.
When I heard this, I shook my head in disbelief.
“The Jews have long forgotten our treaty,” I said to him one day as we sat in my room eating roasted lamb from a wooden bowl.
The Messenger’s hand brushed against mine as he reached in for a shank, and I could feel the coolness of his fingers beside my own. He took the soft shoulder meat and bit down, savoring its delicate taste.
“If our friends have forgotten the pact, then perhaps it is time to remind them,” Muhammad said, as if he were discussing a small bill of goods to be paid in the bazaar.
But I knew that it was not as simple as that. Blood had been spilled and one of the Jewish tribes was now in exile. Pressuring the remaining Jews to pay for a blood feud between the Muslims and the Bedouins would place an even greater strain on relations between the two communities.
And then as I looked into the Messenger’s twinkling black eyes, I realized that he understood this. This was a test of Medina’s power in the aftermath of Uhud. If the Jews failed to honor the treaty, there would no longer be any question as to where their allegiance lay. And with Mecca now assuredly plotting to fan the brushfire that been ignited at Uhud, we could not afford to have neighbors whose intentions were hostile. The Jewish fortresses guarded the mountain passes into the city. Their disloyalty could prove disastrous should Abu Sufyan’s forces again march up the hills toward the heart of Medina.
There was no more time for guessing-the truth of our political situation had to be assessed now. And the blood settlement provided an innocuous means of testing the waters. If the Jewish tribes renounced their obligations under the treaty, the Messenger would have ample reason to expel them from the oasis.
It was an utterly ingenious stratagem. If the Jews paid the Bani Amir, they would be held accountable for any future treaty obligations by a well-armed third party. And if they refused to pay, the Bani Amir would join forces with the Muslims and remove their threat from the doorstep of Medina. I realized that the Messenger would win either way.
I saw the Prophet smile as if he read my thoughts. As he continued to eat heartily of the lamb, I felt a surge of relief that I was his wife and not his adversary.
THREE DAYS LATER, I was walking alone through the marketplace. My husband had been invited to a dinner at the home of Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the leader of the Jewish tribe of Bani Nadir. His request for their help in paying the blood money to the Bedouins had been received with surprising graciousness. Huyayy had sent word that he wished to begin a new era in relations between their peoples. They worshiped the same God, after all, and both communities had a vested interest in the security and prosperity of the oasis. And so he offered to host a feast of reconciliation at which the Messenger would be his honored guest.
The Prophet had departed to attend the gathering with a small band of his Companions. In his absence, I decided to make a trip to the bazaar and see what new goods had arrived on the morning caravan. As I walked through the paved alleys of the city, I marveled at how things had changed in the past few years. Medina had been a dirty and unkempt town, where the streets were littered with refuse and camel dung. Women could not step outside alone without fear of harassment or worse by drunken tribesmen. The heady smell of khamr had hung over the town like a drunken cloud.
But now the cobbled stones were whitewashed and crumbling walls had been rebuilt. Women and children now walked about freely, although the imposition of the Muslim head scarf was still the subject of grumbling by some of the prettier girls, who were accustomed to parading their luxurious locks as a means of enticing a husband.
But the most remarkable change was the ban on wine. Initially Muslims were permitted to drink alcohol, even though the Messenger himself would not touch any strong drink that befuddled the senses. But as the institution of communal prayers was formalized at the Masjid, incidents of believers showing up drunk and disrupting the services had become increasingly problematic. Finally, after a drunken brawl among youths almost erupted into a street battle between the old enemies of Aws and Khazraj, the Messenger received a Revelation prohibiting the consumption of alcohol altogether. Some of the Companions voiced concerns that such a ban would be hard to enforce, as wine and khamr were a traditional part of Arab culture. And yet when Ali recited the new verses in the marketplace, the streets were soon running with wine as the citizens emptied their flasks. It had been a remarkable testament to how deeply faith had transformed these people-although I guessed that there were still a few bottles of wine being consumed in secret every night among the less devout.
Still, law and order had been achieved, and the visiting traders who arrived from all over the peninsula departed Medina with a sense of new possibilities. Perhaps the people of Arabia did not have to live like wild animals, crudely struggling for survival in the wilderness. Perhaps they could build cities and roads and establish courts of law that would end disputes without bloodshed. Medina was becoming a model for a new Arabia, and the word that Muhammad’s way led to peace and security was already spreading like an unstoppable sandstorm through the lonely wastes beyond the hills.
I walked through the stalls that day feeling happier than I had in some time. The sky was crystal blue with nary a cloud in sight. The air was warm and buzzing with life. Despite the horrors I had witnessed at Uhud, life was moving forward. And now that the Jews had renewed our pact, Mecca was unlikely to attack again. The sweet smell of peace was in the air.
I stopped before a cloth dealer and saw a lovely roll of saffron-colored silk. I ran my fingers through the fabric, letting its softness send shocks of pleasure down my wrist. The merchant, a grizzled old man with one eye, leaned forward conspiratorially.
“The finest cloth from India,” he said in a whisper, referring to a mythic land that was said to be south of the even more magical China. A land of vibrant colors and spices that could be found nowhere else on earth. A land where tigers and monkeys roamed the streets and armies fought with the aid of elephants. A land that was said to have so many gods that the idols of the Kaaba were like tiny stars lost amid the glory of the Milky Way.
All rubbish, of course. I doubted that this fabled realm existed anywhere outside the fevered imaginings of campfire storytellers. And in any event, whenever a merchant mentioned India, you knew you were in trouble. Traders always claimed that their goods had been imported from there when they wanted to charge exorbitant prices.
True to form, the merchant smiled widely, revealing a jungle of broken and blackened teeth.
“Only twenty gold dirhams,” he said, after glancing around to make sure no one had heard what a magnificent bargain he was offering the pretty young lady before him.
I suppressed a smile at the old fraud.
“I’m just looking. Thank you.”
And then I saw the silk dealer’s face change. He had recognized me. Suddenly the practiced showmanship vanished and I saw fear and awe in his eyes.
“You…you are the Mother of the Believers…Please, take it as a gift…”
He handed the roll of silk to me reverently, his wrinkled hands trembling, and suddenly it was I who felt like the fraud.
“My husband would not let me take something without paying,” I said hastily. I suddenly regretted having come here alone.
I saw tears well in the old man’s eyes.
“Then take it in exchange for a prayer,” he said in a voice that cracked with emotion. “My daughter Halima is sick with the oasis fever. Please pray for her. I know that God listens to the Mother of the Believers.”
I suddenly felt sorry for this kindly old man. He looked at me with the eyes of a child, completely trusting that I could do something for him. But I could not even find an answer for my own fervent prayers. I had now been with the Prophet for almost four years and my womb was barren. I had been praying every night for the past year for God to quicken my body with new life. And there had been no answer.
“I will ask my husband to pray for her,” I said softly. “And insha-Allah she will be healed.”
The merchant’s face lit up in a smile of pure glee. He fell to his knees and praised Allah so loudly that people in the bazaar stopped what they were doing to stare.
I felt my face flush red. I wished the old man peace and quickly turned to walk away.
And then I walked right into a tall woman whose face was almost completely covered by a black veil. All I could see were her gray eyes, which pierced into me like an arrow.
“Alms for a poor woman…”
She held out her hand and I saw that her fingers were finely manicured, not rough and callused like those of all the other beggars in the town. And yet there was something about the intensity of her gaze that suggested she carried more sorrow than all the hungry women and children who came to the Bench every day asking for food.
I reached into my small leather purse and took out a few silver coins. As I placed them in her outstretched palm she gripped my hand with terrifying strength.
“Let go of me!” I was suddenly afraid, even though I knew that if I cried out, the entire bazaar would rush to the aid of the Mother. But something about the mournful way that she looked into my eyes filled me with greater dread than the violent threats of any enemy.
The woman leaned close to me and I could smell rosewater about her. Even though she was dressed in rags, her flesh had the unmistakable scent of luxury.
“Your husband is in danger.”
My heart forgot to beat for an instant, and then made up for it by hammering with wild abandon.
“What are you saying?” I had to raise my voice to hear my own words over the pounding in my ears.
“The Bani Nadir plan to kill him outside the walls of their fortress,” she said softly, her gray eyes shimmering with tears. “Save him. Or war will be upon us and Medina will be washed in blood.”
I felt all color drain from my face. The woman let go of my hand and I felt my legs moving even though I had not willed them to do so. And suddenly I was racing away from the strange woman, away from the stands of olives and spices and jewelry, away from the cobbled streets of Medina into the palm groves that stood between the oasis and the mighty walls of the Jews.
I did not look back. Had I done so, I would have seen the woman in black bow her head in shame before removing her veil.
And I would have recognized the cold, statuesque beauty of a girl I had seen on a handful of occasions when the Messenger had met formally with the chieftains of the Jews.
A girl named Safiya, who had just betrayed her own people.
I tore through the palm grove, blinking wildly as the wind blew grains of dust into my golden eyes. The sun had set and a blanket of darkness was rapidly descending on the grove. I managed to clamber up the path and suddenly I could see the ominous walls of the Bani Nadir blocking my path.
I was relieved to hear the gentle tones of my husband’s voice in prayer. He was reciting a sura of the Qur’an that had recently been revealed, a beautiful poetic verse meant to ward off evil.
Say: I seek protection from the Lord of Daybreak,
From the evil of that He has created
And the evil of darkness when it falls
And the evil of witches who cast spells
And the evil of the jealous when he envies.
My eyes adjusted to the fading light and I saw the Messenger leading the Maghrib prayers at the base of one of the towers of the wall. I breathed a sigh of relief that he was safe. Suddenly I felt very stupid. I had no idea who the veiled woman was, and yet I had taken her ramblings as truth. Feeling my cheeks flush in embarrassment, I turned to go home.
And then I heard something. A sound coming from above. I looked up and my falcon’s eyes fell upon the old turret high above the ground and I saw the distinct outline of figures pushing hard against the old stone from above.
A tiny cascade of pebbles streamed down the side of the tower and then I understood. My eyes went wide with horror and I ran across the path, hurtling toward the Prophet like a crimson arrow.
“No! It’s a trap!”
And then I crashed against my husband with such force that I knocked him aside in the midst of his prayers. The Prophet fell backward and his followers immediately stopped the ritual and leaped to his defense.
And then with a mighty roar, an avalanche of stone blocks larger than my head came tumbling down the side of the tower as the turret crumbled and collapsed. The heavy boulders crashed right where the Messenger had been standing and would have buried him in their deadly cascade had God not used me to push him out of the way.
I heard a tumult of cries as the Companions grabbed the Messenger and pulled him back from the wall into the safety of the garden. They took refuge under a thick palm tree and formed a protective circle around him. The men had come unarmed to the feast, but I saw such frenzy in their eyes that I knew they would fight any attackers, using their fingers and teeth if need be.
I looked down at my husband, who appeared to be in shock. And then I saw the familiar tremor racing through his bones and I knew that he was having a Revelation. And then he went still and his eyes opened.
He looked at me in surprise, and then at his followers, and finally at the pile of sharp rocks that covered the space he had occupied only moments before. He blinked rapidly as his sense of self returned.
“Gabriel appeared to me as I prayed and said my life was in danger…but God would protect me…”
He ran a hand across my face, which was smeared with dirt.
“Thank you,” he said softly. I suddenly realized that I was trembling as wildly as he did during his mystical trances, and I hugged myself tight and tried to end the shaking.
I heard footsteps approaching and I saw my husband’s face darken. The smile vanished and was replaced by something so terrible that I quickly looked away.
Huyayy, the chieftain of the Bani Nadir, came running to our side.
“My friends! Are you all right?” he cried with an obsequiousness that did not come naturally. “What a terrible accident! I will order our masons to fortify the wall so that something like this will never happen again.”
It was such a transparent ruse that I stared at Huyayy in surprise. And then I saw beneath his protestations of innocence a mix of desperation and fear. This mighty statesman, this merchant renowned for his influence in worldly affairs, had been reduced to employing this crude and ultimately ineffective scheme to eliminate the Prophet.
The Messenger looked at him with both pity and contempt.
“You will not need to rebuild your wall,” he said, ice in his words.
“I don’t understand,” Huyayy said, continuing to feign innocence.
My husband stepped forward with dignity and took hold of Huyayy’s richly embroidered lapel.
“The Bani Nadir have broken the Treaty of Medina with their treachery. Your lands are forfeit.”
Huyayy’s fawning mask fell and his face twisted into an ugly sneer.
“You do not have enough men to compel the Bani Nadir to abandon their homes.”
The Messenger did not move. His eyes remained locked with his adversary’s poisonous gaze.
“Once the Bani Amir learn of your intention to kill a guest under guise of sanctuary, they will stand by Medina,” he said with the power of absolute certainty. “As will their allies among the Bedouins. By God, you will leave your homes. Whether alive or dead, the choice is yours.”
And with that, the Messenger let go of Huyayy and stormed down the path back to the safety of Medina. The men immediately followed, but I lingered for a second. I stared at Huyayy, who suddenly looked lost, as if he could not understand how the journey of his life had led him to this moment.
I saw the sadness in his gray eyes, and I felt a chill race down my spine as I remembered the veiled woman with the same eyes who had betrayed the Bani Nadir. And then I ran to join my husband, the full tragedy of Huyayy ibn Akhtab branded on my heart.
A FEW DAYS LATER, I stood at the edge of the oasis, watching as the Jews of Bani Nadir evacuated their homes and prepared for the long march north. The rumor was that they would take refuge in Khaybar, a Jewish stronghold at the edge of Byzantine territory. As I watched the men load their possessions on camels and mules, my eyes fell upon a young girl with sandy hair sitting alone upon a horse. Her gaze met mine and I immediately recognized the gray eyes, which now shimmered with tears.
I nodded to Safiya in gratitude, but she looked away. And then the daughter of Huyayy ibn Akhtab turned and rode out into the desert, the secret that we shared a burden that would forever haunt her days.
I stood outside the birthing chamber as Fatima’s screams of agony echoed from beyond the thin palm-wood door. The Messenger stood by my side, holding his small grandson, Hasan, in his arms. My husband looked even more pale than usual, and his eyes were red from lack of sleep. Ever since his daughter had begun labor three nights before, he had been holding a vigil in her small house. Each of his wives had alternated spending the hours at his side, and I had just arrived to relieve the elderly Sawda, who shook her head wearily as Fatima’s cries intensified.
“She is in so much pain,” my sister wife said to me quietly. “I don’t understand it.”
I glanced over at my husband, who held his grandson tight, as if afraid that some evil djinn would appear and spirit him away into the netherworld. The boy was now two years old and his face looked remarkably like the Messenger’s, although his eyes were light brown and his curly hair had streaks of gold in it. Hasan looked at us, his grandmothers, with a placid smile, as if he could not hear the heart-wrenching cries from the adjacent room. I was always struck by how perpetually happy the child was. Indeed, I could not remember Hasan ever crying, and he seemed to find every moment of his little life a source of great delight and wonder. The “miracle child,” the people of Medina had called him, the boy who should have died in Fatima’s malnourished and tiny womb.
Hasan’s mother had endured great suffering in the final weeks of her first pregnancy and had been unable to rise from her bed, requiring constant attention from the other women of the household. So when we learned that Fatima was carrying a second child, the women of the Ahl al-Bayt worked feverishly to prepare a comfortable home and bed for the Prophet’s daughter. We expected another difficult pregnancy that would require us to spend many long nights at her side. But this time it was different. Fatima had shown no signs of discomfort in the days and weeks prior to the onset of labor, and we were delighted that our fears had come to nothing.
But the moment her water broke, Fatima had suffered terrifying pain. Her unearthly screams had chilled me to the bone, and for the first time made me thankful that I had failed to conceive a child myself.
My husband saw Sawda and me looking at him and he spoke for the first time in hours.
“It is not her own pain that she feels. It is her child’s.”
I stared at him in confusion, unable to understand what he could possibly mean. But then I realized I shouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing about Fatima had ever made much sense to me.
The Messenger turned his attention to his son-in-law Ali, who sat cross-legged on the hard floor, his head buried in his hands. My husband placed a comforting hand on the young man’s shoulders as Fatima’s wails continued unabated. It seemed so strange to see this mighty warrior hunched over, as if the suffering of his wife were far more painful to him than any wound he had endured at Badr or Uhud. I suddenly realized with a flash of surprise that Ali truly loved Fatima. I had never thought much about it before that moment. Perhaps I had assumed that the marriage was nothing more than a political union meant to bring the young man closer to Muhammad, his cousin and mentor.
But looking at his sagging shoulders, his body trembling from suppressed grief, I finally understood that the bond between Ali and Fatima was deeper than I understood. They were both misfits, people who did not and could not fit into the cruel world, and in each other’s company they must have found solace. And if, as it appeared, Fatima failed to survive the childbirth, Ali would be truly alone. With few friends or supporters aside from the Messenger himself, he would be plunged into a desert of solitude that would make the empty wastes of the Najd look green with life. For the first time in my life, I felt sorry for him.
And then, without any warning, the cries from the birthing chamber ceased abruptly, followed by a terrible silence that was more frightening than all the hours of agony that had preceded it.
Ali lifted his head and met the Messenger’s eyes. I saw both men exchange a look of terrible grief and I felt tears welling in my eyes. The Prophet had lost another daughter. Fatima, his most beloved child, who was the plainest and simplest of his girls, and yet the one he treated with such open devotion that it bordered on reverence. Ever since Khadija had died, Fatima had been the rock that held him steady amid the crashing waves of his destiny. Even though I knew that I was his favorite wife, Fatima held a place in his heart that I could never reach. And now she was gone.
I moved to comfort my husband, when, to my absolute surprise, I heard the cry of a baby. The Messenger and Ali both turned to stare at the door to Fatima’s chamber, which swung open, revealing an elderly midwife named Malika standing in the threshold, her birthing apron covered in blood.
Malika looked as if her face had aged a dozen years in the past hour. And just beyond her weary form, to my disbelief, was Fatima in her bed, alive and holding a tiny baby swaddled in green.
“Blessings to the Ahl al-Bayt.” Malika spoke, her voice as heavy and exhausted as that of a warrior crawling back from the battlefield. “The Messenger has another grandson.”
As if swimming deep underwater, my husband stepped slowly inside the room, followed by Ali. Sawda and I hesitated and then stepped behind the men, keeping a respectful distance as they leaned over Fatima and stared in silence at her newborn baby boy.
As I stepped inside the birthing chamber, I felt as if I were entering a dream. My vision flickered like a candle caught in a storm and I felt a strange chill even though the night air was unseasonably hot.
I watched in awestruck silence as the Prophet leaned close to the new baby. His elder grandson, Hasan, was still held tightly in his arms, and the smiling boy laughed with delight at the sight of his baby brother. The Messenger held Hasan close to the baby, and the child kissed the newborn on the forehead. And then my husband handed Hasan to his father and took the bundled baby in his arms.
I saw the infant’s face for the first time, and I was startled to see that his eyes were already open and were looking at the Messenger with surprising intensity. The Prophet gazed into the baby’s eyes, which, I saw, were as black as his own. And then he whispered the prayer call into the child’s right ear before handing the baby to Ali, who repeated the prayer in newborn’s left ear.
It was a miracle that Fatima and the baby had survived. And it was a blessing that the Prophet had been given another grandson through whom his lineage would continue. But there was no rejoicing. I looked around the room, confused to see the solemn looks on the men’s faces and tears of evident sorrow on Fatima’s bloodless cheeks.
I felt as if I had walked in on a funeral rather than a birth, and I finally turned to Ali, unable to hold back my unease.
“Why are you not smiling? You have a son!”
Ali looked at me with those mysterious green eyes. As always, I felt he was seeing past me to another place, another time.
“My heart smiles, but my lips cannot. He has a burden I wish for no man.”
And then Ali looked down at his son and I was shocked to see a tear roll down his cheek. In all the years that I had known him, I had never seen this strange young man weep, except in prayer.
Shaken, I turned to face Fatima, who was gazing at me as if seeing me for the first time.
“What will you name him?” I asked with a forced smile, hoping to bring some semblance of normality to this otherworldly scene.
Fatima opened her mouth, but it was a long moment before any sound came out. When she finally spoke, her voice was like a whisper carried on the wind.
“He has already been named.”
Fatima turned her head to her father. My husband stood at Ali’s side, stroking his new grandson’s thick black hair with his forefinger. His eyes glistened, but I saw no sign of tears. It was as if a light had been lit in his soul, one that I had seen only during his painful moments of Revelation.
“Husayn,” the Messenger of God said. “His name is Husayn.”
I looked at the three of them, Muhammad, Fatima, and Ali, and at the two boys, Hasan and Husayn, and suddenly felt as if I were intruding. I was the Messenger’s favorite wife, the beloved of the harem, and yet in that moment I was a stranger. My heart ached with the realization that whatever bond linked these five, it was one that I would never truly be able to understand or participate in. Theirs was a world that I could gaze into only from afar, a shore I could never truly step onto because the ocean that divided us was greater than the expanse of the heavens and the earth.
I turned and saw that Sawda and the midwife had already departed, wisely leaving this intimate moment for those in whose veins the blood of the Messenger flowed. I realized sadly that though I shared Muhammad’s bed, I could never share in his blood. I did not belong here, either.
Without another word, I walked out of the room and left the unsettling dreamworld of the Ahl al-Bayt for the refreshingly familiar streets of the oasis.
Muawiya watched with a cold eye as his father hosted a gathering of the allied tribes. The Hall of Assembly had been decked out in flowing curtains of various hues-indigo, emerald, turquoise, and lavender-each representing one of the major clans present at the summit. It was a motley group that included the uncouth Ghatafan Bedouin tribes that grazed their flocks to the north of the enemy in Medina, and their ancient enemies, the proud Bani Sulaym, who had cultivated the lava fields to the east. Muawiya noted with interest that the only thing that unified these disparate and competing tribes was their hatred for Muhammad’s steady accumulation of power. The refugee from Mecca was truly bringing Arabia together in more ways than one.
The hall was buzzing with loud gossip about the troubling turn of events. Muhammad’s diplomatic efforts, once constrained to the northern tribes of the peninsula, had recently expanded southward. He had forged an unexpected alliance with the Yamama, a tribe that controlled the grain routes from the south. The tribal leaders had adopted the renegade faith and had joined in Muhammad’s boycott of Mecca, denying the pagan tribes wheat and barley. Without any warning, one of Arabia’s key suppliers of food had joined the enemy, and the threat of starvation for Mecca and its allies was very real. It was this shocking development that had forced Abu Sufyan to call together the heads of the southern tribes in the hope of uniting them in a final stand against the danger of Medina.
Abu Sufyan clapped loudly to gain their attention, and a blanket of silence fell upon the crowd of tribal chiefs. Muawiya read the men’s faces and saw anger and fear in their eyes. These were desperate people, ready to take desperate action, a fact that his father relied upon to bring together men whose fathers had been at one another’s throats, whose tribes had warred with each other for centuries.
“The situation to the north has become intolerable,” Abu Sufyan said without any preamble. “Muhammad’s alliance with the Bedouins has choked off all our trade with Syria and Persia. And now Yamama has fallen under his spell and the enemy has brought famine to our doors.”
Hind stepped forward, decked in a flowing robe made of red silk that rustled seductively. Muawiya saw some of the men whisper, undoubtedly speaking of her madness at Uhud, which had become the infamy of Mecca. But there was no sign of that crazed demon, hungry for human flesh, and she walked with her usual grace. And when she spoke, her voice was steady and calm, although Muawiya could see an unnerving glint in his mother’s eyes.
“The future of all Arabia is at stake,” she said. “We will live as free men and women. Or as slaves to Muhammad and the voices in his head.”
Her words were met with a loud murmur of assent from the nobles. And then another voice rose above the din. Muawiya glanced over to see that it was his friend, the ever-diplomatic Amr ibn al-As.
“But we have tried military action before, with little success,” he said with his practiced silky ease. “Is it not time to reach an accommodation?”
Muawiya smiled in relief. Amr had the respect of many of the tribal leaders. If he had been persuaded to see the reality of their situation, perhaps the fire of this folly could be extinguished before it blazed out of control.
All eyes were on Abu Sufyan to respond. The old man hesitated and then cast a bitter glance at Hind.
“If ever there was a chance for an accord, it is long past,” he said with a tone of real regret. “The barbarism shown to the dead of Uhud by our women has inflamed their passions.”
Hind turned to face him, one eyebrow raised defiantly.
“Do not place the blame on women for your failure to be men,” she said with a dangerous smile.
Muawiya saw his father wince slightly and he shook his head. After all these years, Abu Sufyan remained in thrall to this madwoman. The most powerful man in Mecca had long been enslaved by the chain that she had tied around his heart. Muawiya vowed never to let that happen to him.
“In any event, Arabia is at a crossroads,” Abu Sufyan said with a heavy sigh. “We have received word that Muhammad is sending envoys to other southern tribes, asking them to join the Yamama against us. If he forges more alliances to the south, our trade routes with Yemen will be compromised. Without food, without trade, Mecca will die.”
His words were meant to silence Amr’s dissent, but the son of al-As was persistent.
“Even without allies in the south, Muhammad is well defended at Medina,” Amr said slowly, as if explaining a complex matter to a child. “We do not have enough men to challenge him.”
His last words were meant to sting, and they did. At best, the Arabs could muster perhaps four or five thousand men. With Muhammad’s new allies, they would be matched on the battlefield. And if Muhammad’s luck prevailed, a match was as good as a defeat for Mecca.
And then Muawiya saw his mother smile. She nodded to one of her servants, a boy of thirteen, who opened a small door that led to an antechamber. A mysterious figure emerged, his face shadowed by a dark cloak.
Muawiya felt the stirrings of alarm. And then the tall man stepped into the middle of the room, standing between Abu Sufyan and Hind, and threw off his hood dramatically.
It was Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the exiled Jew of Medina.
“The sons of Nadir stand with you,” he said in a booming voice.
The room immediately erupted in a tumult of voices, of shock, excitement, disbelief. Muawiya felt the bile in his stomach rising. He was angry at his mother for raising the stakes in this deadly game with Muhammad when the tribes should have been moving toward a treaty. And he was outraged at himself for not having seen this coming, for not having a plan to counter her strategy.
Abu Sufyan raised his hands and shouted over the din.
“Silence! Let us welcome our brother with the dignity of Mecca,” he said, and the crowd immediately went still. Muawiya wondered if his father had been privy to Hind’s scheme to enlist the support of the Jews of Bani Nadir, but the troubled look on his face suggested that he was as surprised by this development as the other tribal chiefs.
Huyayy cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was with a rich fluidity, the naturally seductive tone of an experienced politician.
“My friends, I have lived next to this Muhammad for the past several years,” he said in a measured voice, but his eyes burned with passion. “I have seen his sorcery up close. He claims to be a prophet of my God. But I tell you with certainty that he is a fraud and a liar. He does not even know what is contained in the holy books of Moses, and he contradicts the Word of God with his own fabrications. Such a man is deemed a false prophet in the Torah, worthy of death. And so my brothers in the Bani Nadir stand with you. Together we can wrest Yathrib from the hands of this wizard and restore peace to Arabia.”
His words were met with enthusiastic applause. Muawiya cursed under his breath. Huyayy was a fool who had been outmaneuvered by Muhammad. And now they were expected to follow his guidance to bring Muhammad down? It was madness, but as Muawiya looked around at the hopeful faces of the chieftains, he realized that they were all mad. Old men desperate to hold back the flow of time, they were clinging to the sanctuary of their memories rather than facing the truth of the world as it was today. Hind and Huyayy were playing to their false hopes, and the outcome would be devastating for all of Arabia.
Muawiya looked over at Amr, who shook his head in frustration, as if thinking the same thought. And then a deep voice echoed in the grand chamber, and Muawiya’s head turned.
It was Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the greatest of the Meccan generals and the architect of their sole victory against Muhammad at Uhud.
“Then let us end this once and for all,” he said solemnly. “Let us send against Medina the greatest force ever seen in the sands of Arabia.
If Muhammad is a false prophet, as you say, we will prevail. And if he is victorious, then the heavens will have rendered a judgment that can no longer be gainsaid. In any event, let this be the final battle between us.”
His words were met with shouts of assent from the weary tribal leaders. As the crowd moved in to surround Huyayy, the nobles vying to offer him lodging and hospitality during his stay in Mecca, Muawiya turned and walked out of the Hall in disgust.
He stood outside, gazing up at the clear night sky. The red flame of Mars, al-Mareek, twinkled above him like an angry wasp. It was fitting that the planet of war should rule the heavens tonight. With the Jews and the pagan Arabs united, the bitter skirmishes with Muhammad would now escalate into full-scale war that would tear the peninsula apart. It was not that Muawiya feared war. Conflict was a necessary part of a world where survival itself was a daily battle. What he despised was war conducted under the foolish compulsion of emotion and hubris, the two flags that always led to defeat. A true warrior was dispassionate, saw the battlefield for what it was, not what he wanted it to be. He advanced when the opportunity presented itself and retreated when it was the right thing to do. There was no glory in the reckless death of a warrior. Or of a civilization.
He felt a figure move to his side and glanced over to see Amr. Muawiya nodded to him, and then returned his eye to the stars. Rising across the eastern horizon was the noble star he loved the most-Zuhal, the planet the Romans called Saturn. It was the star of destiny, and the kahina s said it had shone over him at his birth. And so it was that he had been born with a sense of purpose. Muawiya had known that he had been meant to lead his people, to bring these barbaric, illiterate tribes to greatness. But if his mother succeeded in destroying Arabia with her fanatical pursuit of the one man who was bringing it together, then his destiny would be thwarted.
Muawiya realized in that moment that the time had come for a break from his family, his people. The only way he could save them was to distance himself from their madness. Only when they had destroyed themselves could a man like him move in to build something new from the ruins.
“We must make preparations,” he said in a soft voice. Partly to Amr. Partly to himself.
“For victory?” Amr still clung to the false hopes of the masses, even though his diplomatic nature sought conciliation over conquest.
“No.” Muawiya’s voice was sharp. “For defeat.”
Amr stood beside him for a long time before speaking again.
“Khalid has never been beaten in battle,” he said softly, as if trying to convince himself that there was still some hope for the survival of the world he knew.
Muawiya turned to face him, his eagle eyes piercing the other man’s soul.
“Khalid has never been defeated against men. But we are fighting something greater than any man.”
Amr breathed in sharply, surprise lighting his eyes.
“This invisible God?”
Muawiya smiled.
“History. I have read enough of the tales of the past to see when the end of an era is coming. My father is wedded to a dying way. We must be the vanguards of the future. If Mecca is defeated, as I believe it will be, we must secure for its leaders a role in the new order.”
Amr bowed his head, realizing the truth of Muawiya’s words. The end was coming and they needed to prepare.
“What do you propose?”
Muawiya thought for a moment, letting the quick mind he had inherited from his mother spin its threads. And then he realized that the answer was closer to home than he had expected.
“Muhammad is making alliances through marriage,” Muawiya said, his voice rising in excitement. “My sister Ramla is one of his followers, living in exile in Abyssinia. If she marries Muhammad, then the clan of Umayya may yet survive what is coming.”
A smile creased across Amr’s handsome face.
“I will serve as an intermediary, if Allah wills.” Amr had been to Abyssinia before in a failed effort to convince the Negus to surrender the Muslim refugees. He knew the country well, had established profitable relations with its merchants, and could get a message to Ramla without alerting the other Meccans as to Muawiya’s plans.
Muawiya placed a friendly arm on Amr’s shoulder and smiled shrewdly.
“You said Allah and not the gods,” he said.
Amr grinned widely.
I was knitting in a corner of my tiny room when the Messenger’s adopted son Zayd entered. It was a bright winter day, the sun streaming in through my window and warming the crisp air. I was in a cheerful mood, as tonight would be my night with the Messenger. My husband followed a strict rule, rotating nights with each of his wives in order to make sure that each was treated equally as commanded by the holy Qur’an. Accordingly, as the harem steadily increased, my limited time with the Prophet was becoming more precious. There were now five women who bore the title Mother of the Believers: the elderly Sawda, myself, the fiery Hafsa, the ghostly quiet Zaynab bint Khuzayma, and most recently Umm Salama bint Abu Umayya. The latest addition to the household was another war widow whom the Messenger had married out of compassion. Umm Salama’s husband, Abdallah ibn Abdal Asad, had been killed at Uhud, leaving three children and a pregnant wife with no means of support. The Messenger had married Umm Salama after the four-month-and-ten-day iddat, her period of mourning, had ended, and she had given birth to her martyred husband’s son Durra shortly after the wedding.
When I had first learned of the Prophet’s intention to marry Umm Salama, I had been filled with jealousy. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, with sparkling eyes and a gentle smile. And she was still of age to bear children, and I had failed to produce an heir. But I had grudgingly accepted Umm Salama after the wedding, as it was difficult to dislike her patient and pleasant personality. Unlike Hafsa, who was my chief rival to give Muhammad a son, Umm Salama already had many children from her former marriage and did not appear overly eager to bear more. And so life continued largely as it had for the past few months in the house of the Prophet, with the petty jealousies among wives at a low simmer.
I sat by my husband’s side, knitting a woolen scarf for him to keep him warm during early morning prayers. The Messenger was busy with his own handiwork, using a needle and thread to repair the torn leather straps of his sandals. I had never met any other man who enjoyed simple housework like fixing shoes or sewing patches in old clothes. It certainly did not fit the masculine ideals of his followers, who were perplexed by his strange affinity for what they dismissed as women’s work. But the Prophet seemed more comfortable around the quiet hearth of the home than around the boastful jousting of the battlefield. As I watched him slowly suture his footwear, his black eyes utterly focused on and absorbed in the task before him, I realized how difficult it must have been for a boy with a gentle temperament to grow up in a world where cruelty and aggression were the proud hallmarks of a man. It struck me in that instant that the Messenger’s admitted love of the company of women had less to do with sexual hunger than with an innate comfort with their feminine nature.
But I would soon be reminded that, however gentle and nurturing his soul was, his body still belonged to a man, with all the needs and desires of the masculine flesh.
As we quietly continued on with our work, a shadow fell across the open door and I saw that the Prophet’s adopted son Zayd ibn Haritha had arrived. He was tall and lanky, with thinning hair and a face that years of labor under the sun had brutally weathered. His eyes, which always appeared sad, seemed particularly distraught today.
The Messenger caught the haunted look on his face and turned to face him, setting the sandals on the floor with a hard thump.
“What brings you here, my son?” Even as the Messenger spoke, I heard a strange tone in his voice, which in other men I would have recognized as a hint of embarrassment. But that, of course, made no sense coming from God’s Chosen One, the most perfect man in creation.
Zayd knelt beside the Prophet, whose slave he had been before he had been freed and inducted into the family. He hung his head, not looking his adopted father in the eye.
“My wife told me what happened between you two.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“What happened?” I felt the scarf slip through my fingers. Zayd’s wife, Zaynab bint Jahsh, was the Messenger’s cousin and one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, her statuesque features only growing more elegant with age. I had always thought it strange that she was married to the ugliest man I knew. The Messenger had known Zaynab since she was a child and I was always relieved that he treated her like a little sister and was the only man who did not stammer or make a fool of himself in her presence.
The Messenger glanced at me and I could see discomfort in his eyes. And I realized that something had changed.
“It was nothing,” he said quickly. “The matter is closed.”
His words did not alleviate the growing alarm in my heart.
“Tell me,” I insisted.
The Messenger remained silent. And then Zayd spoke up. The Prophet had come to visit him a few nights before, but Zayd had been out. Zaynab had heard the knock on the door and assumed that it was her husband. She had run to the door, forgetting her cloak and dressed in all her finery, her luxurious hair flowing below her waist. But when Zaynab opened the door, she was startled to see the Messenger. He had been struck by her beauty and quickly walked away. But she thought she heard him say, “Praise be to God, Master of the hearts.”
I felt my own heart sink. I knew that my husband had always been fond of Zaynab. Could the sight of her in all her bedecked radiance have inspired love?
Zayd looked up and I could see that whatever emotions I was feeling were nothing compared to the poor man’s torment. It was well known that Zayd and Zaynab had an unhappy marriage. She was from a proud and wealthy family, while Zayd was a freed slave, a social outcast in Mecca. They had wed after the Messenger had asked Zaynab to marry Zayd as an example to the other Muslims that piety mattered more in a mate than social class. Zaynab had always been fiercely loyal to the Prophet and had acquiesced to his request. It was clear to all of the women of the household that Zaynab was very much in love with my husband. Yet the Messenger had never expressed any interest in her, and she had resigned herself to her fate by marrying poor Zayd. But now, if the Prophet’s heart had turned, I knew that Zaynab would seek to escape her loveless union and join with Muhammad.
“O Messenger, you are dearer to me than my family,” Zayd said. “I chose you over my own father.”
I remembered the story of how young Zayd, who had been kidnapped by slave traders as a boy, had found refuge in Muhammad and Khadija’s home. The couple had treated him with great love and respect and he had become for all intents and purposes a son to them after the death of their own infant boys. When the lad’s father had finally found him after years of searching through the desert towns, Zayd had refused to go back to his own family and chosen to stay as a slave to Muhammad. My husband had been so moved by the boy’s devotion that he had freed him and then taken Zayd to the Kaaba and formally adopted him. It had been a momentous occasion, for in Arab society an adopted son was considered to share a mystical bond that made him the same as a flesh-and-blood child. Zayd had risen in that moment from a lowly slave to the heir of one of the most influential families in Mecca.
I realized with a sick heart that Zayd was the Prophet’s son for all intents and purposes. If there were rumors of impropriety between Muhammad and his adopted son’s wife, it would be deemed by the people as vile a crime as incest. My husband’s standing as the Messenger of God and the moral exemplar of the community would be brought into question, and the foundation of our faith would collapse.
The Prophet must have been thinking similar thoughts, because he looked away, unable to face Zayd. But his adopted son leaned forward and took the Messenger’s hands in his, until the Prophet finally met his pleading gaze.
“If it be your desire, then I will divorce her today and you are free to marry her,” he said, making yet another sacrifice for the man whom he loved more than his own flesh and blood.
But this was madness. I felt my heart racing and I stood up, facing Zayd with balled fists
“What are you saying?! The Prophet is your father! It is forbidden for a father to marry a woman his son has lain with!”
My voice was shaking and I was unsure as to whether my rage came from horror at the violation of a taboo or from the thought of my husband in the arms of the radiant Zaynab.
Zayd looked at me indignantly.
“Those are the customs of the ignorant,” he said sharply. “The Messenger and I share no blood tie.”
I felt the bile in my stomach rise.
“That is not how the Bedouins will see it. They will accuse the Messenger of incest and our alliance will be broken.”
I looked at my husband, who managed to meet my gaze. I had never seen such shame in his eyes, and I felt suddenly lost.
“Keep to your wife, Zayd,” my husband said in a soft voice. “And be careful of your duty to God.”
Zayd rose and shook his head.
“Zaynab does not love me,” he said, and I could hear the deep pain in his voice. “Every time I lie with her, I will know that she wishes it was you there beside her. That I cannot bear.”
He looked at me for a moment and then turned his attention back to the Prophet.
“I will divorce her,” he said, with a tone of finality in his voice. “Her fate will be in the hands of God and his Messenger.”
The Prophet rose to his feet, alarm on his features. He moved to stop Zayd from leaving. But the tall man simply took the Messenger’s hand and kissed it with great love, tears flowing down his pockmarked cheeks. And then he turned and walked out.
The Messenger stood frozen for a long moment. I had never seen him look so confused. He finally turned to me, an abject apology on his face. He looked like a little child seeking absolution from his mother. But I could not bear to meet his gaze and I quickly stepped out and stormed over to Hafsa’s house to unburden the rage and jealousy that was threatening to drive me mad.
A few days later, my husband called for a gathering of his followers to address the wild rumors that were spreading in Medina over the state of affairs in his household. A crowd of hundreds gathered in the courtyard of the Masjid, and dozens more stood outside, eager to hear what was happening in the strange drama between the Messenger of God, his son, and his daughter-in-law.
While the other wives of the Prophet stood near him as a sign of their support, I stayed by the threshold of my house, watching the proceedings with sullen intensity.
The Prophet looked at me eagerly and I could tell that he was hoping I would come to take my place beside Sawda and Hafsa, but I crossed my arms and held my chin up defiantly. He turned away and brought his attention to the jumbled gathering of believers. There was a crackling in the air like the coming hint of a thunderstorm, and I realized that this incident with Zaynab was the biggest threat to my husband’s credibility since the day that the Jewish chieftain Huyayy had tried to mock his knowledge of the ancient scriptures. Whispers abounded about the Prophet’s infatuation with his daughter-in-law and the terrible implications for the truth of the Revelation. How could God send a man capable of transgressing one of the most ancient of Arab taboos?
The Messenger raised his hand and the tense murmur of gossip abruptly ended, blanketing the courtyard with a silence so thick that all I could hear was the dull thud of my own heart.
“Today I received a Revelation from my Lord,” the Messenger said in a voice that seemed to echo past the mud walls and into the paved streets of the oasis. He hesitated, the first time I had ever seen him having difficulty relaying the Word of God. I saw the color rise in his pallid face and I realized he was blushing like a bride on her wedding night.
And then Muhammad took a deep breath and recited the Divine command:
And when you said to him to whom God had shown favor And to whom you had shown favor
Keep your wife to yourself
And be careful of your duty to God
And you concealed in your soul what God would bring to light
And you feared men
And God had a greater right that you should fear Him.
But when Zayd had divorced her
We gave her to you as a wife
So that there should be no difficulty for the believers
In respect of the wives of their adopted sons
When they have divorced them
And God’s command shall be performed.
I listened to the newly revealed words of the holy Qur’an. And then I stepped back as if I had been struck in the gut. Allah had nullified the oldest of Arab taboos that had made the sons of the flesh and the sons of oath equal in the eyes of men. I looked at the crowd, uncertain how they would react. If the people rejected the commandment, the Prophet’s standing in the oasis would disappear. He would be proclaimed a self-serving impostor, legislating away ancient values to satisfy the desires of his own flesh. If the people of Medina denounced this remarkable shift in the definition of family, everything we had worked for over the past decade would instantly dissolve. Abu Sufyan would not need to attack the oasis to kill Muhammad. The people of the oasis would do it for him.
There was a murmur of disbelief from some of the crowd. All eyes fell on Zayd, who stood quietly to the side, looking at his feet. For years he had prided himself on being Muhammad’s only lawful son. And now his inheritance had been invalidated by God Himself. If Zayd accepted this, he would no longer be the “son of the Messenger.” He would just be another ordinary freedman, a former slave with no money or standing in society. And he would no longer have a wife and family as well. My heart went out to the poor, ugly, unfortunate man. In this one moment, everything that Zayd had, everything that he could have laid claim to in this world, had been taken away.
And then Zayd raised his head and I was stunned to see a wide, genuine smile on his battered face. He fell to his knees and tears of joy were streaming down his cheeks and making the black tufts of his beard glisten.
He raised his hands in supplication and his voice boomed through the courtyard.
“Praise be to God, who honors this unworthy slave with mention in his Holy Book!”
And then Zayd fell prostrate on the ground, his forehead pressed hard against the stone floor of the Masjid. And then I realized that Zayd was right. Allah had mentioned him by name in the holy Qur’an, an honor given to no other Muslim. Even my father was called by his title “The Second in the Cave”-no mention of the name Abu Bakr was anywhere in the text. And as I looked down at the kneeling man, who was crying praises to his Creator even as his face was pressed to the earth in humility, I realized that the former slave had been given something far greater than everything that had been taken away from him.
Zayd ibn Haritha had been given immortality. Long after he died, after his bones had crumbled into dust, his name would be recited by millions of believers with awe and reverence every time they read the holy Qur’an.
As I watched Zayd’s complete surrender to the will of God, his joyful acceptance of his fate, a wave of shame and sorrow spread through the crowd of believers who had questioned the Messenger’s integrity. And then, one by one, they all fell prostrate in obedience to God’s command.
The tension that had gripped my heart vanished like dew exposed to the rising sun. The crisis was over. The people of Medina had been tested, and they had passed.
And then my eyes fell upon the sparkling beauty of Zaynab bint Jahsh, the source of all this madness. I realized that she had been standing discreetly in the shadows, her face covered by a black silk veil that she had lifted when it became clear that the community would not pounce upon her. Even though her hair was still covered by a dark scarf, her perfect features, her upturned eyelashes and thick, inviting lips shone forth. Zaynab stepped proudly to stand at the Prophet’s right hand, next to Sawda. I suddenly cursed myself for remaining aloof and giving my space up to this woman. Zaynab turned to face the Prophet and smiled at him, her ivory teeth flashing in the sun. And the fire of rage that had been kindled in my heart burst forth again.
Zaynab saw me looking at her and I thought I saw her lips curl in a victorious smile. She had won. I was no longer the crown jewel of the harem. Zaynab would be the most beautiful woman in the household and the Messenger would soon taste of her flesh and be satiated. And unlike all of his other marriages, his wedding to Zaynab was one that came from the heart. The Messenger wanted Zaynab for herself, not for a political alliance or as an act of charity. He wanted Zaynab’s body and soul, even as he had wanted mine.
My heart pounded in despair and I barely heard my father’s voice as he politely spoke to my husband.
“May I serve as a witness at your wedding ceremony to Zaynab?”
I flashed Abu Bakr an outraged look, even though I knew that he was being diplomatic. My father full well understood that Zaynab could easily become the Prophet’s new favorite and that his status as Muhammad’s closest adviser might be diminished as a result. Abu Bakr was trying to show the Messenger that he was a supportive friend, even if he must endure a loss of face for his family. It was a wise and generous act. But at that moment, I felt so alone that I could not bear to see my own father welcome this beautiful interloper and bless her union with my husband.
The Messenger put a gentle hand on my father’s shoulder, which had become even more stooped with age and the burdens of life over the past few years.
“There will no ceremony, my friend,” Muhammad said. “The wedding has already been performed in heaven, with angels as the witnesses.”
At this, I saw Zaynab beam widely. She would not even need to wait for the formalities of a wedding. She could take the Messenger to bed at once and consummate their union that very night.
I felt my face turn hot, and my cheeks burned brighter than my hair. And then I found my feet moving against my will and I was suddenly no longer safely ensconced in the doorway of my little home, but standing in the center of the crowded courtyard facing my husband, the Messenger of God.
“Your Lord is quick to fulfill your desires!” I screamed into his face.
The Prophet stepped back as if I had slapped him. I saw Zaynab’s face turn down in contempt, and I caught a look of warning in my father’s stern glance. I suddenly realized that every eye in the Masjid was on me, and I felt like the greatest fool on earth.
Somehow I managed to hold my head up in dignity. And then, without another word, I turned and stormed back inside my apartment, slamming the door shut and locking out the harsh world.
At that moment, my legs gave way. I fell to the ground and vomited. My body shaking violently, I crawled to a corner of my room and began to cry at the injustice of life and the cruelties of womanhood.
The desert filled with the thunder of hooves as the Meccan army marched steadily toward Medina for the final confrontation. Four thousand men, armored in the finest chain mail from Abyssinia, accompanied by three hundred horsemen and fifteen hundred warriors on camels.
At a wadi four days south of the oasis, they were met by their new allies, the displaced men of Bani Nadir. Huyayy ibn Akhtab led a contingent of two thousand seven hundred infantry and three hundred horses. Joined together, it was the mightiest force ever seen in Arabia.
As the combined juggernaut turned its red eye to the north, a figure hiding in crevices of an ancient lava mound watched their movements carefully. The Muslim scout, a tribesman from the allied Bani Khuza’a, quickly calculated the full extent of the invading army and then crawled back to his horse, which had been tied by the mouth of an old cave that burrowed deep into the ocean of sand.
Saying a silent prayer to Allah to grant him the speed of a falcon, the scout climbed on his mount and raced back toward Medina. If he continued for three days with no sleep, he might be able to get back in time to warn his people. He only hoped that his horse would survive the merciless pace. But if he was forced to complete the journey on foot, he would do so. The scout knew that the dogs of war were bearing down upon the unsuspecting oasis, and if he failed in his mission, the Ummah would be consumed in the jaws of their rage.
THE COUNCIL OF WAR gathered in the courtyard of the Masjid. I walked among the worried men, carrying a bucket of water to help them quench their thirst or wet their brows as the cruel sun beat down upon them. The Messenger sat by the mihrab, the southern alcove facing Mecca that delineated the direction of prayer. His brow was furrowed and his shoulders bent. His black eyes were upon the dark earth at his feet, where his followers had drawn a rough map of Medina and its surrounding hills.
Umar had just explained that the best strategy would be to evacuate the women and the children into a network of caves in the volcanic fields while the men barricaded themselves inside the houses and prepared for hand-to-hand combat in the streets. There was no talk of moving out to confront the enemy as we had done at Uhud. The scout, before he had died of exhaustion and sunstroke, had given us a troubling estimate of the size of the invading army. Even with our Bedouin allies to the north, we would be outmatched two to one. Though Ali had been adamant that we could beat such odds-we had done so at Badr, and even at Uhud we had been winning until the archers betrayed us-there was another problem.
The Bani Qurayza, the last of the Jewish tribes in Medina, would be directly behind us if we chose to go out into the hills and battle against the invaders. Though the Jews had refused to participate in the past conflicts, even though our treaty required them to join us in the defense of the oasis, there could be no guarantee that they would remain neutral this time. According to the courageous scout, the Jews of Bani Nadir had joined in arms with Abu Sufyan, and it was unlikely that the Qurayza would sit back while their kinsmen fought the Muslims. If we risked going out into the fields, we risked opening ourselves to attack from the rear.
The only plan that made sense was Umar’s. But I could tell that my husband was not enamored of the idea of turning the city streets of Medina into a battleground. He had worked for five years to bring order and peace to the chaotic settlement and the thought of blood flowing through its cobbled streets was too painful to bear. But without other options, he had announced to the gathered believers his intention to lure the Meccans into the winding alleys of the oasis, force their troops to divide and scatter, and turn the houses themselves into death traps. It was a butcher’s job, but war was ugly no matter how it was executed.
There had been a long silence as the men looked at one another grimly. This would be the last battle. Either the Meccan army would be annihilated in the streets, or the Muslims would be massacred. And if the Muslim men were defeated, the women and children would be hunted down in the neighboring hills and captured or killed. There would be no quarter from the Meccans, not after so many years of bitter conflict. After watching Hind’s cannibalistic barbarism, they shuddered to think what would become of any survivors left in the hands of the enemy.
I heard a nervous cough as a man sitting outside the central circle of the Prophet’s advisers cleared his throat. It was Salman, a Persian who had been a slave to one of the Jews of Bani Qurayza. After he had adopted Islam, the Messenger had purchased his freedom and the foreigner had lived among the Arabs as one of them. Salman was short and thin, with blue eyes and the handsome chiseled features of his race. When he spoke, it was with a lyrical voice that made every word sound as if it had been sung, and his Persian accent was hauntingly beautiful.
“O Messenger of God, is your strategy revealed by God, or is it a matter of personal opinion?”
Umar scowled and turned red.
“How dare you question the Messenger?”
The Prophet placed a hand on his father-in-law’s massive shoulder.
“Gently, Umar,” he said with a patient smile, and then turned his attention to the freedman. “It is a matter of opinion. Do you have another suggestion, Salman?”
Salman hesitated and then moved into the circle of the Messenger’s closest aides. Umar gave him a furious flash of his eyes, but the Persian ignored it. He leaned down to look at the map of the oasis drawn in the upturned earth and ran a delicate finger through his perfectly groomed beard.
Salman took his fingers and clawed out several deep lines on the ground representing the northern face of the city. The lines connected and formed an arc that encircled the vulnerable northern passes where the Meccan army would be best positioned to invade. Salman finished his work and looked up at my husband with a nervous glance.
“In my native land, we would dig a trench around our cities to protect them from siege,” Salman said. “If it pleases God and His Messenger, perhaps a similar strategy would serve in the defense of Medina.”
I looked down over the shoulder of my brother-in-law Zubayr and suddenly understood what the Persian was saying. I was not yet a military strategist-my days as a commander of armies were still many years away-but I could see how a ditch dug at the intervals Salman suggested might work.
The Companions looked at one another in surprise but said nothing, each perhaps afraid to be the first to voice support for this unusual stratagem. And then, finally, Umar spoke, his gruff voice rumbling through the courtyard.
“A trench large enough to hold back an army? I have never heard of such a thing,” he said, with a hint of grudging respect.
My husband looked into Salman’s nervous eyes and smiled warmly, taking the Persian’s hand in his.
“Neither have the Meccans.”
The Confederates, as the unified Meccan and Jewish contingents called themselves, crossed waves of blackened sand dunes as they made their final approach to Medina. The size of the army had swelled to ten thousand as disgruntled Bedouins were recruited to join the behemoth as it marched toward the upstart oasis that had thrown the world into disarray
It had been twenty days since the Arab and Jewish forces had joined together in the wilderness and the steady march through the desert for the army had been exhausting. Water skins were running low, and the first sight of the palm trees that lined the southern boundaries of Medina had been welcome. The men had raided the wells on the outskirts of the town and had been surprised to find them utterly undefended. They had rejoiced, seeing their easy capture of the southern passes as a sign from the gods of imminent victory.
But their commander, Khalid ibn al-Waleed, was troubled. He sat upon his mighty black stallion and gazed out across the horizon, past the lava tracts that served as Medina’s natural defensive border to the south. He did not stir, even as Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the leader of the Jewish forces, rode up beside him, beaming.
“Smile, my friend! Victory is upon us.” Huyayy gazed across the dark stones that led to his lost homeland and breathed in the salty oasis air deeply. “Soon my people will reclaim their homes. And your people will regain their honor.”
Khalid turned to face him at last, his eyes burning darkly.
“Where are Muhammad’s advance guards? We are almost to Medina and there has been no sign of even a single horseman.”
The chief of the Bani Nadir shrugged, unwilling to let the dour Arab spoil his jubilant mood.
“He has likely taken refuge inside the city, like my forefathers did at Masada,” Huyayy said, although he disliked comparing the noble warriors of his ancestors with this self-serving impostor and his illiterate fanatics.
But the reference was lost on Khalid, who gave him a blank look.
“They held off the entire Roman army for years,” Huyayy explained proudly. “When the centurions finally breached the walls, they found that all the Jews had killed themselves rather than surrender.”
The chieftain’s eyes gleamed with pride at the memory of the noble sacrifice, the courage of his people in the face of unconquerable odds.
But if the Jew saw honor in this tale, the Arab found it less appealing. Khalid spit on the ground in contempt.
“The Arabs are not suicidal like your ancestors,” he said sharply. “They are nothing if not brave. They will meet us and fight.”
Huyayy bit his tongue before he said something that would wreck their hard-won alliance.
“If these Arabs are so courageous, then where are they?” Huyayy tried to keep the poison out of his voice, but he was not entirely successful.
Khalid shook his head
“That is what concerns me.”
Before Huyayy could respond, shouts echoed from ahead. Khalid roughly spurred his horse and rode past the front lines of the advancing army. Huyayy quickly followed and saw a group of Confederate scouts standing on top of a large lava tract that would give them a view down into the heart of the oasis.
When Huyayy reached the ledge, he felt his heart miss a beat.
A massive trench had been dug across the northern passes into Medina. From where he stood, Huyayy estimated that it was thirty feet wide and perhaps a hundred feet deep. The cavernous ditch wound across the borders of the city to the west until it vanished into the thick jumble of palm trees and rocky hills to the south.
He had never seen anything like it, and he could see no way to traverse this barrier.
As Huyayy’s heart sank, he heard the racing of hooves and saw the Meccan leader Abu Sufyan ride up to join them. The old man breathed in sharply at the sight of this surprising defensive tactic.
“What is this?” Abu Sufyan asked, his voice mixing fury and despair all at once.
And then Huyayy was stunned to hear the sound of deep laughter. He turned to see Khalid’s head thrown back in genuine delight.
“A work of genius,” the general said, without any hint of bitterness.
And then, like a child racing to collect a new toy, Khalid rode down the ash-covered dunes toward the edge of the pit. The Confederate army followed, although the soldiers’ faces were twisted in confusion at the sight of the barrier.
When Huyayy pushed his horse to follow, he saw that the trench was not the only obstacle facing them. The entire Muslim army, numbering perhaps three thousand men, stood on the far side of the ditch, bows pointed at the invading forces, spears held ready to fly across the divide at their adversaries.
And then he saw Muhammad standing there, bare-chested and covered in sweat and dust, and realized that the heretic leader had been among the workers who had torn open the earth in what must have been a backbreaking exercise over many days. Despite his hatred of the man, Huyayy had to admire his willingness to get his hands dirty along with his men. Such leaders always inspired the loyalty of their troops, and Huyayy knew that they would fight to the death for this man should the Meccans somehow break through their defenses.
Muhammad greeted the invaders with a broad smile and threw open his arms in a defiant welcome. Khalid stared across the divide and smiled, saluting his enemy an acknowledgment of a well-conceived plan. Whatever differences of faith divided them, the code of honor between warriors still held its sway.
And then Khalid turned and signaled to his best horsemen. Without a word spoken between them, the cavalry rode forward, knowing exactly what the Meccan general expected of them.
A dozen of the mightiest chargers raced through the desert plain and leaped across the trench. A swarm of arrows met them and the horses were hit in midflight. The terrified screams of the animals ended abruptly as they plunged to their deaths in the pit below. Most of the riders broke their necks in the fall, but those who somehow managed to survive and crawl away from their shattered mounts were immediately struck by a second volley of projectiles.
Khalid held up his hand to prevent more honor seekers from trying to leap across the ditch. As an experienced general, he knew that once a stratagem had failed, it was a waste of lives and resources to repeat it in the hope of securing a better outcome. The horses simply could not leap the distance and land safely on the other side, and if miraculously one or two made it across the chasm, their riders would be alone and surrounded by well-armed enemies.
He looked across the ditch at his adversaries and calculated. Khalid could send his men down into the pit with ropes, but the Muslims held the advantage of the high ground. They would easily cut down his soldiers before they ever managed to climb to the other side. It would be a waste of life with little likelihood of success.
“What do we do?” It was the despairing voice of Abu Sufyan, who looked increasingly too old and weary to lead the Meccans to triumph. Khalid had nothing but contempt for this man who had proclaimed himself king of Mecca and whose only claim to power came from his cowardly avoidance of battle at Badr, where the competing chieftains were killed. There had already been whispers that Khalid should dispatch the elderly fool and take his place in the Hall of Assembly.
But Khalid ibn al-Waleed was a warrior, not a king. He found purpose and joy in the heat of the battlefield among the brave men he loved, not in the coddled life of a ruler surrounded by bureaucrats and sycophants. Khalid had no interest in becoming a king, but he knew that one was needed at the moment. It was kings and chieftains who declared the wars that men like Khalid lived to fight. But in the past several years, he had become increasingly disgusted with the leaders of Mecca, who showed cowardice and avarice, who ruled by bribery and fear, without any sense of honor.
He gazed across the enemy lines at Muhammad again and realized that his enemy had all the qualities that his allies did not. He was noble and courageous and could inspire men to lay down their lives. As he looked at the man who had been denounced as a rebel by the lords of Mecca, Khalid began to wonder what life would be like leading armies under Muhammad’s command.
But before he could take the thought further, he heard the insistent braying of Abu Sufyan in his ear, demanding a solution to this unforeseen problem.
Khalid sighed heavily and turned his attention to the fields of grain that stood just outside the borders of the trench, the groves of olive trees that were budding with the coming of the spring. The Muslims had wisely built the trench in a circle as close to the city as possible, limiting the area that needed to be defended. But in the process, they had been forced to cut themselves off from their own farmlands.
Khalid knew what needed to be done. And a part of him regretted that it had to be this way.
He turned to face Abu Sufyan and his Jewish ally Huyayy.
“We wait. Hunger will accomplish what swords and spears cannot.”
The siege had persisted for ten days and our food supplies were running desperately low. I had spent almost every daylight hour at the front lines, taking water to the soldiers who bravely guarded the trench. The Meccans had been tireless in their efforts to find a way around the obstacle, and we could not afford to let our guard down for a minute. The first few nights, Khalid’s warriors attempted to use the cover of darkness to climb down into the ditch. But Zubayr’s alert eyes caught sight of the moving shadows and a barrage of arrows and spears quickly put an end to infiltrators. Had it not been for your father’s sleepless vigils, Abdallah, a few of the assassins would have broken the perimeter and wreaked havoc on Medina.
By the fourth day, Meccan scouts had spied a small weakness in our defenses. The trench ended at a leafy marsh to the southwest, where the natural barriers of trees and rocky hills made penetration by cavalry impossible. But a few intrepid men, led by Ikrimah, the son of Abu Jahl, and Amr Abdal Wudd, swam through the muddy bog and slipped past our sentries. The band was poised to enter the confines of the city, where they planned to spread fires and breed general chaos, when Ali confronted them at the edge of Medina. Ali and Abdal Wudd engaged in a short but brutal duel, which ended when the glowing Dhul Fiqar split the Meccan spy’s head in two. The cowardly Ikrimah and his men fled back through the swamp, dodging the barrage of missiles raining down upon them when the alarm was raised.
On the sixth day, the horizon was covered in smoke. Abu Sufyan had ordered the burning of the crop fields that circled the oasis, and I watched with tears as the verdant lands around us were consumed. We had harvested most of the date palms and the grains of wheat and barley in the weeks prior to the attack, but with the destruction of the trees that were the lifeblood of Medina, our chances of long-term survival were greatly diminished.
But by then, few of us were thinking in the long term. Survival had become a matter of getting through each day alive. With trade effectively cut off by the siege, we had no way to replace the rapidly diminishing stores of food. Even though the Messenger had instituted rationing, with women and children given twice the daily portions of the men, there was simply not enough to go around.
And so it was that on the tenth night of the battle, I walked with the other Mothers, going from house to house to check on the needs of the families that had been sequestered away from the front. It had been a difficult evening, for in every household we came upon we found the sick and the dying. The matrons pleaded with me for their children, asking me to relay the distress of their loved ones to the Messenger and begging me to perform some kind of miracle to save their lives. I wanted to run away, to hide somewhere from the desperate looks, the bony hands that reached out to touch me as if my body carried some kind of baraka, some miraculous blessing that would take away their sorrow.
I smiled gently at them and spoke words of comfort and hope, as required of a Mother of the Believers. But for all my lofty spiritual trappings, I was only fourteen years old and the weight of the world was crushing me.
As I emerged from a small stone hut that was overcrowded with a dozen women and their children, I let the cool oasis breeze strike my face, felt the tingle of the air against the wetness of my cheeks. This last house had been the worst. Several families were hunched together inside a space that had been meant for three people at most, with barely any room to breathe, much less walk. The house belonged to a carpenter whose wife had recently given birth to a daughter. The man had been injured by an arrow to the shoulder while guarding the trench, and he had been brought back here to heal. But the unsanitary conditions in the tight quarters had made his wound fester, and I could smell the lurid stench of death hovering over him. I thought bitterly that the carpenter’s martyrdom would at least somewhat alleviate the space concerns inside the cottage. Perhaps when he was buried, some of the children could move just far enough away to avoid catching the dreaded camp fever that had infected two toddlers, who had been crying nonstop for hours.
It was a heartless thought, but I was tired and hungry. I was angry at life. And perhaps, although I would not have admitted it aloud, I was angry at God for letting this happen.
As I led my fellow Mothers away from the house, my scarved head bowed in fury and despair, I heard Umm Salama, the gentle widow, speak.
“We should tell the Messenger,” she said, her voice cracking in sorrow from the tragedies we had witnessed tonight.
I turned to face her and shook my head grimly.
“He has enough to worry about.”
The Messenger had not left his post at the trench since the first Meccan horseman had appeared. He had survived on perhaps two hours of sleep every night, and the toll of the siege was clear on his face. His glossy black beard had begun to streak with gray, and new lines had appeared around his dark eyes. It was as if this perpetually young man had aged overnight.
Sawda, my plump and elderly cowife, wiped tears from her eyes.
“But the children are starving. It will not be long before Jannat al-Baqi takes them,” she said, referring to the graveyard on the outskirts of the oasis.
“There is nothing more he can do,” I snapped, suddenly feeling intensely protective of my husband. The last thing he needed right now was to be nagged by his wives about matters that he could not control.
The Messenger knew full well the suffering of his community. Providing grisly details of famine and disease would only shatter his soft heart, making it that more difficult to stand up against this relentless foe.
I saw my young rival Hafsa shrug as if she were not convinced by my words.
“Perhaps he can negotiate a truce,” she said bluntly. “Or perhaps a surrender with honor-”
I slapped her.
Hafsa recoiled as if I had cut her with a knife. But the slice of a blade would have been more bearable than the cold fire in my eyes.
“The wolf is at the door and you would deliver us into its jaws!”
Hafsa’s face turned bright red, the rage that was the legacy of her father’s blood kindled. I steeled myself for a retaliatory blow and prayed that the cover of night would prevent anyone from seeing the Mothers of the Believers fighting like cats in the streets.
But then Hafsa surprised me. The daughter of Umar ibn al-Khattab took a deep breath and calmed herself. With what must have been a monumental effort, she bit down on her lip and then spoke in a calm, steady voice.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that.”
In that moment, Hafsa went from being a dreaded rival in the harem to a woman I could respect. Indeed, as our friendship deepened over the years, we would often laugh that it began because I was the only person ever to stand up to her.
But that night there was nothing to laugh about. The vultures were waiting at the edge of Medina for us to fall prey to starvation and disease. And within ten days, they would have their wish. Unless the Messenger could find a way to dislodge the dogs of war from our doorstep, we were all doomed. And to have any hope of doing that, he needed support from his loved ones in his darkest hours.
I turned to face my cowives. When I spoke, it was with the voice of a strong woman, not that of a little girl. My body was that of a child, but my soul was already aged beyond a dozen a lifetimes.
“We are not like other women, who have the luxury of nagging their husbands with doubts and fears,” I said solemnly. “We are the Messenger’s last defense against this cruel and mad world. Do you think Khadija ever asked him to surrender when all of Mecca sought his head?”
That last was the hardest for me to say. Even though I had shared the Messenger’s bed for five years, even though I had been proclaimed the most beloved and honored of his wives, I had never been able to take the place of Khadija, the first person to believe in him and stand by his side. There were times when I felt him toss restlessly in bed beside me. And I would hear him whisper her name and see tears fall from his sleeping eyes as the pain of loss consumed his hidden mind. No matter how long I stayed with him, no matter how many sons I might bear him, he would never truly be mine.
Hafsa bowed her head and I saw the last fire of pride go out.
“I was a fool. I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
And then the radiant Zaynab bint Jahsh put her hand on Hafsa’s shoulder in comfort.
“Do not be. The thought had entered my mind as well.”
Zaynab looked at me with a raised eyebrow, her eyes challenging me to strike her perfect face as I had struck Hafsa’s. There was such power in her gaze, such innate nobility, that I suddenly felt like a child again, my pretense of authority vanishing into the night air.
The kindly Sawda moved to my side, perhaps sensing that my bravado was little more than a cover for the grief and uncertainty that veiled my heart.
“But what do we do?” she asked softly. It was strange, this woman who was well into her sixties turning to a teenage girl for advice. But the world was upside down and only those who could navigate the strange pathways of this nightmare would survive.
“We stand with the Messenger,” I said, feeling my confidence return with renewed vigor. “And if our destiny is to die at his side, whether by an arrow or by hunger, we do it with dignity and a smile on our faces.”
I took Sawda’s right hand as if to swear an oath. Hafsa placed hers atop mine. After a moment of hesitation, Zaynab did so as well.
“We are the Mothers of the Believers,” I said, pronouncing each word of our shared title with great dignity. “Nothing less can be expected of us in the eyes of God or man.”
The women smiled, their hopes renewed, and even Zaynab gave me a grateful look. I smiled back at her and hoped that her piercing eyes could not see the terrible chains of fear that bound my heart.
The black gates of the fortress shimmered in the moonlight. They had stood for a dozen generations, protecting their inhabitants from the wolves that roamed the volcanic hills, whether those beasts were canine or mortal men.
A single man stood outside the protection of those doors tonight, his dark eyes gazing over the tops of the hillocks toward a world he no longer recognized. Kab ibn Asad, the chieftain of the Bani Qurayza, saw the burning clouds of smoke that rose to the north, where an army stood on the verge of destroying the town that had once been called Yathrib. His brothers among the Bani Nadir had returned to reclaim their homes and had brought with them thousands of Arab warriors to support their cause. True, they had been temporarily blocked by the Muslims’ ingenious trench, but Kab knew that the moment would come when the barrier would fail and vengeance would be taken.
Almost a fortnight had passed with the army of liberators held back at the gates of Medina, but the delay had served a purpose. The Muslims were like trapped animals, hungry and exhausted, cut off from the necessities of survival by their own hubris. They were hanging fruit, ripe to be plucked. When his spies had confirmed the extent of the famine, the weakness of the Muslim troops, Kab had sent a specially trained falcon to the camp of his kinsman Huyayy, leader of the exiled Bani Nadir. In its deadly claws it carried a small message written in Hebrew, a language none of the enemy would understand if the bird were captured or killed. But the mighty falcon had returned unharmed, a reply written in Hebrew with the answer Kab had been hoping for.
And so it was that he stood alone tonight just past the safety of the fortress walls. He was doing what he had done for many months. Watching and waiting.
And then he saw it. A flicker of movement against the black lava flows that surrounded the southern pass. Kab focused his eyes but could see nothing more in the darkness. For a moment, he wondered if he had imagined it, his eager mind showing him what he hoped to see. And then he heard the steady crunch of footsteps against the cold pebbles and two small shadows broke free of the great black shadow of the hillside.
Kab stood perfectly still as the cloaked men approached him. He glanced up at the walls above. Archers were hidden in the turrets, ready to take action at his signal. If his message had indeed been intercepted by Muhammad’s men and these two were assassins sent to even the score, the matter would be dealt with quickly.
The cloaked men stopped ten feet before the chieftain. And then the shorter one spoke, his voice rich and wonderfully familiar.
“You can tell your men to stand down,” Huyayy ibn Akhtab said. “Unless they want to do the enemy’s work for them.”
Kab smiled and raised his left hand. Although there was no sound from the turrets above, he knew that his men had lowered their weapons. And then he turned to greet the newcomers.
Huyayy removed his cloak and embraced Kab warmly. The chief of the Bani Nadir nodded to his companion, who pulled off his hood, revealing the aging but still regal features of the Meccan lord Abu Sufyan.
The Arab greeted the Jew with a sardonic smile.
“It is a changed world where old friends must meet with such intrigue,” Abu Sufyan said.
Kab took Abu Sufyan by the hand and led him toward the mighty gates of the fortress, which sung aside with a harsh groan.
“Then it is time to change the world back,” he said.
IT WAS NEARLY FIRST light before the iron gates thundered open again. The three men emerged from a night of negotiations that had not gone as Kab had expected. His offer to work with the Confederates had been welcomed, but Abu Sufyan had sought to place the burden of risk on the Bani Qurayza’s shoulders. The Arab chieftain had asked for the Jews to take Muhammad by surprise and attack from the rear. Once the warriors of the Qurayza had spread chaos through the oasis, forcing the defenders to leave their places at the trench, the Confederates would traverse the barrier and come to Kab’s aid.
It was a tactic that put the Bani Qurayza’s head on the block, with only a hope and a prayer that the Confederates would be able to intervene before the executioner’s blade descended.
Kab had been bitterly disappointed by the stratagem. He had waited so many months, patiently praying for deliverance from the sorcerer who had hijacked his home, but now, when the answer had come, it carried too high a price.
But his views were not shared by the other elders of his tribe. Hungry to confront Muhammad and gain revenge for the humiliations the Jews had suffered over the past five years, the shining lights of the Qurayza had embraced this foolhardy plan. Kab had been shouted down in the council of war by old men who dreamed of victory but who would not themselves carry a blade into battle.
But Kab had been able to gain one concession from his allies. The Arabs would be required to send a dozen of their most noble leaders to the fortress of the Bani Qurayza as “guests” during the hostilities. The safe return of these hostages would require the Meccans to take decisive action to end the siege. If the Quraysh failed to speedily come to the aid of the Qurayza, they would risk losing their own men in the fire of Muhammad’s vengeance.
Abu Sufyan had reluctantly agreed and offered the sons of the Meccan chieftains who had been killed at Badr and Uhud, the most prominent being Ikrimah ibn Abu Jahl. Kab had made a sour face when he heard the name. Ikrimah was as brutal as his late father but lacked the charm and diplomatic skills to be a leader like Abu Jahl. Kab wondered if anyone would come to his rescue when the flames of chaos were ignited. He had politely asked Abu Sufyan the whereabouts of his own son, the charismatic Muawiya. At mention of the young man’s name, Abu Sufyan’s face had darkened and he had refused to speak further. Kab had wisely dropped the topic.
As the three men stepped outside, Abu Sufyan turned to face Kab and looked him straight in the eye.
“Do we have an understanding?” he said, in a tone that suggested he was not convinced of Kab’s support after the contentious meeting.
Kab felt a flash of fury. He leaned close to Abu Sufyan and spoke slowly, making sure that the Arab understood what was being asked of the Qurayza.
“If my people break the treaty, there will be no turning back.
Should any of Muhammad’s men survive our attack, they will seek vengeance.”
Huyayy put an arm on Kab and pulled the men apart.
“Then we will leave none alive.”
Kab turned to face his old friend. He had been so delighted to see him only a few hours before. And now he was beginning to regret ever letting the chief of the Bani Nadir inside the fortress.
“You seem very sure of yourself, Huyayy,” he said sharply. “Considering that your own web collapsed on you, I would think that you’d be cautious about spinning new ones.”
Huyayy stepped back as if struck. He looked at Kab as if he did not recognize him.
“There is a time for caution and a time to seize the initiative,” Huyayy said coldly, his eyes narrowing. “This is our last chance, Kab. And yours. If Muhammad defeats the siege, he will be emboldened. He will find a pretext to expel the Qurayza and then will wage war on Khaybar. The Jews of Arabia will vanish into the sands of history.”
Kab stepped back, let the anger seep out of him until he was calm again. They were both on the same side. Both trying to save their people from extinction. It was true that the Confederate plan placed his tribe at risk of immediate annihilation. But it was also true that should the liberators be defeated, the Qurayza would eventually be destroyed anyway as Muhammad’s movement gained supremacy.
The choice Kab faced was stark and cruel, like the wilderness of Arabia he loved with all his heart. Either way, the Bani Qurayza ran the risk of defeat. But if his people were to face death, then it was more honorable to do so fighting by the side of his fellow Jews.
“I will stand by our people,” Kab said after a moment of painful reflection. “But you must not tarry. The gates will open tomorrow night when the new moon covers the land in its veil. If you are not ready then, they will be closed to you forever.”
Abu Sufyan nodded, satisfied that Kab would uphold his end of the bargain.
“We will be ready.”
The two men then slipped on their cloaks and vanished into the darkness, seeking to reach their camp before dawn penetrated the gloom and revealed their presence.
They needn’t have hurried, for they had already been detected. As Kab returned inside the fortress and the powerful gates shut with an ominous boom, a small figure, dressed in robes of midnight black, rose up from a hidden position in the crevices of the lava flow and hastened toward the oasis.
I approached the stout housewife and handed her a dagger.
“Take this,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. The woman hesitated and I grabbed her by the wrist and placed the hilt of the blade in her hand. “It is not a request.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice quivering with fear.
I had spent the entire morning performing this ritual and was weary of the question. I was about to respond with a sharp retort, but I peeked at the woman and suddenly felt compassion for her. She could not have been more than thirty, but years of toiling under the cruel sun had left her as withered and wrinkled as a dried fig, her hair colored red with henna to hide the early streaks of white. She was not ready for what was coming. None of us were.
“The Messenger says we must be ready to fight in the streets,” I replied with a conscious effort to be gentle. “Every Muslim, man or woman, who can lift a weapon must do so when the time comes.”
The frightened woman-Nuriya was her name-looked closely at the weapon with a trembling hand. I heard the rustle of her skirt and looked down to see a toddler, a boy of perhaps two, clinging to her and staring up at me with wide eyes. The child’s cheeks were sunken and his stomach was distended, a sign that famine had struck this home with particular fury.
Nuriya lowered the weapon and looked at me with dead eyes.
“So this is the end.”
I reached out and took her bony fingers in mine, squeezing them gently.
“Only God knows.”
Fear had gripped the oasis ever since our spies had returned with word that our enemies had been secretly meeting with our putative allies, the Bani Qurayza. The Messenger did not know what their plan was, but one thing was clear. The last of the Jewish tribes had renounced its pact with us and was now poised to help the Confederates. We had to prepare for the worst.
Nuriya began to cry and pray desperately to Allah for the deliverance of her children. She tried to reach out to me, as if she wanted my comfort, but I turned away, ready to continue my rounds. My straw basket was heavy and overflowing with small weapons-knives, arrows, anything that could be spared by the defenders at the trench in order to arm their families. I had two dozen homes to visit before the sun went down and did not have time to soothe this woman any further.
And then the sound of a newborn crying from inside stopped me. From the desperate wails, I could tell that the infant could not have been more than a week old. My heart sank as I wondered whether this poor baby’s destiny was to enter this world only to leave it again in a few days in the chaos of flames and destruction. It was an unjust fate and I felt a flash of anger at the Meccans, at the arrogance and heartlessness of men, at the cruelty of life in this miserable desert wasteland.
I looked at Nuriya, saw the terror and uncertainty on her features. And the anger I felt building inside me was suddenly released on the poor, cowering woman.
“Stop it! Stop crying!”
Nuriya looked up at me, stunned and hurt.
I leaned forward to her, my heart pounding in my ears.
“Listen to me,” I said with grave intensity. “Your children will not be saved by your whimpering! They need you to be as strong and as cold as a man. If the enemy knocks at your door, do not let the softness of your heart be your undoing. They will give you no quarter. Give them none as well.”
The steel in my voice cut through her grief and her tears stopped. I saw a stony mask come upon her lined face as she slew the weak housewife she had been and gave birth to the warrior that is buried inside every woman’s heart, one who is unleashed when her children’s lives are at stake.
She wiped her tears and nodded, gripping the dagger like a lion locking its jaws on the throat of its prey.
I nodded and moved away. And then, when I could find shelter in the nook of an abandoned alley, I dropped the basket and fell to my knees. My body trembled violently as the emotions I had been suppressing all morning erupted from inside me like a volcano. I vomited and then buried my face in my hands, letting the tears I had forbidden Nuriya to shed flood my cheeks.
A dark cloud covered the sun and the world looked utterly black, without any hint or hope of light.
The shadow of death hung over Medina. War would soon cover the streets in blood. And I could see no escape from the final doom that my people had somehow avoided up until this day. The end was near and I surrendered to despair, closing my eyes and forgetting everything. My duty. My family. My life. I just wanted to go to sleep and never awaken again.
To let the darkness take me into the eternal void.
And then I heard a soft voice. Whether it was in my ears or in my heart, I will never know.
God leads from darkness to light, Humayra.
I opened my eyes in shock. It was my husband’s voice, as clear and as loud as if he were standing above me. But the alley was empty, except for a small gray cat that looked at me from atop a pile of rubbish with its mysterious yellow eyes.
The shadow that had covered the city began to lift. I looked up to see small rays of light tearing through the angry clouds. And then, as each ray broke through, opening a way for another beam of light to cut a path out of the gloom, the cloud began to shatter and disperse until the golden disk burst forth in all its glory.
I realized in that moment that the sun was a fire composed of an infinite number of tiny sparks, each playing its role in creating the light that drove away the darkness. Even the tiniest and most insignificant ray had a part in the heavenly dance.
I found myself rising to my feet and reclaiming my store of weapons. The people of Medina needed me. And even if it was all meant to end under the harsh steel of our enemies’ blades, I would play my part to the last.
Kab stood outside the southern gate as the sandstorm raged all about him. The devil’s wind had risen with no warning an hour before sunset, sending a wall of earth crashing down on the oasis like a wave in a turbulent ocean. By nightfall, the winds had worsened and the stars were blotted out by the fury of the desert squall. It had taken ten men to push open the massive doors that protected the fortress as the wind fought back with the force of a thousand battering rams. Kab had managed to step into the chaos, his body and face covered by a heavy woolen cloak, but tiny particles of sand slipped through his protective wrap and stung him like a cloud of angry wasps.
The chief of the Bani Qurayza had stayed by the threshold of the gate for nearly three hours, braving the merciless winds, his burning eyes peering through the maelstrom for any sign of the expected delegation of Meccan lords. It was a futile hope, of course, as no man could have successfully navigated the swirling sand in the darkness of night. The torches Kab had ordered lit on the battlements of the fortress as a beacon had blown out in seconds and proved impossible to ignite again in the midst of the raging storm. If any of the Quraysh had undertaken the journey through the southern passes, they had likely perished as sand clogged their lungs and a rain of tiny pebbles shredded their flesh raw. Their corpses would likely be lost forever in the dunes that would serve as their anonymous graves for eternity.
Kab bowed his head. He had failed. Tonight was their only window for attack. His spies had alerted him to the Muslims’ defensive preparations earlier that day. Somehow Muhammad had learned of the Qurayza’s intrigues with the Confederates and had begun arming the citizens of Medina in preparation for the invasion. The elders of the tribe had made emergency deliberations that afternoon and had agreed-against Kab’s better judgment-to commence the attack that night, even if the Quraysh failed to send the hostages that would secure their support during the chaos that was to follow.
And then the wind had changed from a gentle spring breeze into an angry tempest and the world had been plunged into darkness even as the sun still kissed the horizon. The offensive was now impossible, and the small window of time the Qurayza had before the Muslim defenses were erected was gone. Even if the sun rose on a clear morning, Muhammad would have shifted enough warriors from the trench to the Jewish quarter to make the initial onslaught a pitched battle rather than an easy victory. With the Meccan forces likely to be in disarray because of the sandstorm, there would be no intervention by the Confederates to shift the scales back in favor of Kab’s people.
The battle was over before it began, but the consequences would linger.
Kab finally turned back and stepped inside the protective walls of the fortress.
“Close the gate,” he said to the weary men who had braved the elements and kept the passage open for the past several hours. They quickly complied, their dust-covered faces revealing relief that Kab had finally faced reality.
As the mighty doors slammed behind him with a thunderous crash, Kab saw a small figure step toward him, bearing a robe. Even in the dark he caught sight of a lock of flaming red hair and knew immediately who had come to greet him. It was Najma, his beloved niece, who had been like a daughter to him over the years. She wrapped him in the soft linen and led him back home by the hand.
KAB SAT BY THE stone fireplace, sipping a cup of warm goat’s milk that Najma had prepared for him. He stared at the far wall of the chamber, which was lined with tiny cracks that spidered out across the sturdy mud bricks. Najma had insisted for many years that he should refinish this room, which served as his personal study, but Kab had refused.
The chamber was one of the original structures in the Jewish settlement, having been built over three hundred years before when Kab’s forefathers had found the oasis after a deadly journey through the Arabian sands. The small room had once housed entire families, before succeeding generations had added a dozen more rooms and turned the modest home of the tribal chief into a palatial estate. The remaining chambers were elegantly decorated with marble tiles and furnished in a style that befitted the prosperity of his people, but this central room, with its plain walls and harsh stone floor, remained as it had in the days when the first Jew had found refuge in Yathrib.
This room had been the seed from which the grand fortress that protected them had grown. And Kab felt that it was fitting that he spend this night, when the fate of their people had been sealed, here.
Najma saw the sadness in his eyes and put a gentle hand on his arm.
“Once the storm ends, we can begin preparations for the liberation,” she said with a hopeful smile. “And then you can reclaim the oasis for our people and there will be peace.”
Kab looked up and met her dark eyes, saw in them the absolute trust of a child, even though Najma was a grown woman pursued by many suitors. He felt a pang of grief as the thought crossed his mind that he might not get a chance to see her marry. Confronted with her innocence, her misguided belief in his great wisdom and leadership, he suddenly felt very small and alone. Part of his soul wanted to let her keep believing that things would turn out well for their people, that his grand sagacity would turn this minor setback into an easy victory.
But he couldn’t. Najma needed to be prepared for what was coming.
“There will be no liberation, my dear,” he said, and the words burned his throat more than all the fiery sand he had inhaled that night. “The siege has failed.”
Najma’s brow crinkled as it always did when she was confused.
“Then we will bide our time,” she responded, trying as always to find the flicker of light in the shadows. “God will provide us another day.”
Kab hesitated. And then he took her tiny hand in his and squeezed.
“No. There will be no more days.”
She sat down beside him, looking up at Kab with uncertainty.
“I don’t understand” was all she said. Kab felt his heart break as he gazed into her wide eyes, filled with disbelief.
“Our allies are running out of food and water. The storm will decimate their supplies further. They have no choice but to break camp. And once the Confederates evacuate, Muhammad will turn his dogs on us.”
He saw the color drain from her rosy cheeks. She took her hand out of his grasp as if she had been scalded by a flame.
“You can’t be sure of that,” she said forcefully.
“It is what I would do in his position,” he said softly.
Najma rose to her feet and turned away from him. Kab looked away, unable to bear her grief at the revelation that he had led their people to disaster.
And then, after a long moment in which the only sound was the roaring of the wind outside, Najma turned to face her uncle again. But instead of sorrow or recrimination, her eyes burned with an intensity that he had never seen before.
“Then I will stand by your side, as Esther stood by Mordecai in the face of Haman,” she said.
Kab felt his eyes water. He rose from his carved cedar chair and put his arms around this beautiful girl who was worth more to him than all the treasures of Arabia.
“I’ve failed you,” he said in a quaking voice.
But Najma wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and pressed him tight.
“You can never fail me, uncle,” she said softly. “Where there is love, there is only victory.”
The two stood together, holding each other tight as the roaring winds echoed like the beat of war drums, coming steadily closer.
The siege was over and the defeated army of the Confederates had fled the oasis. The sandstorm had devastated their base, killing men and animals and burying precious food supplies under mountainous dunes. Horses had bolted at the first sight of the black cloud racing across the horizon, decimating the ranks of the Meccan cavalry. It had been a final humiliating rout for the forces of the Quraysh and their allies. Despite desperate pleas from Huyayy, Abu Sufyan had ordered the evacuation, disgust and exhaustion written on every line of his aged face.
Muhammad had won again. But this time the victory was far-reaching. The failure of the unified armies of the Arabs and Jews to dislodge him from Medina had solidified his rule of the northern peninsula. Trade with Syria and Persia was now completely in the Muslims’ hands and the entire economic future of Arabia depended on making accommodations with the new city-state. The Muslim nation had survived onslaught upon onslaught and proved itself to be a lasting power that would reshape the course of history in the region.
Only one threat remained to Muhammad’s total domination of the northern lands, and his people swiftly moved to bring it to an end.
I watched as the Muslim army surrounded the fortress of the Bani Qurayza. The moment our scouts had confirmed that the Quraysh were in retreat, my husband had ordered the entire defensive force to abandon the trench and regroup at the enemy stronghold. Ali had ridden forward to the grand gates of the citadel and issued a challenge to the leaders of Qurayza to emerge and account for their treachery. His words had been met with an explosion of arrows from archers hidden in the walls. Ali evaded the missiles and turned to the men behind him. The mighty battering ram that had been prepared for the tribe of Qaynuqa years before was brought forth to be used against their brethren, the sole surviving Jewish residents of the oasis.
A dozen armored soldiers took hold of the mighty pole made of palm wood and reinforced with steel. And then they heaved forward, smashing it with terrifying force against the towering gates. The iron doors trembled but held.
As the men pulled back for a second blow, a shower of stones fell upon their heads, and several of the soldiers dropped, blood pouring from their shattered helmets. I looked up to see a surprising sight. My breath stopped for a second as I thought I was looking into a bizarre mirror. A young girl no older than myself, with bright red hair like my own, was lifting rocks that were impossibly large for her tiny size and throwing them down from the turret just above the gate.
Ali signaled and Muslim archers immediately targeted her. The girl dropped beneath the protection of the stone walls just as a curtain of arrows flew high upon the turrets like upside-down rain. For a long moment, there was silence. And then the girl raised her head above the ramparts just long enough to send another boulder crashing down on the head of one of the soldiers. There was a flash of gore as the man’s head burst like a squashed grape and he collapsed and did not move again.
The girl ducked as another volley of arrows tore at her position. But when the missiles were past, I could her hear childlike voice, laughing and taunting us.
I shook my head in wonder at this girl’s resilience.
Ali approached and filled a stone cup from a bucket I held. He sipped the water and then passed the cup among the men nearest us. I was surprised to see them each drink heartily from the small container and then pass it along as if it were still full.
Ali glanced at the girl high above us, who was still flinging rocks from behind the wall. Our archers had decided not waste any more arrows on her, and two dozen men carrying shields had gone out to protect the troops by the wall as her onslaught continued.
“She is brave,” I said.
And then Ali’s ethereal green eyes met mine and I felt suddenly uneasy, as I often did in his presence.
“Yes. She is brave. But she is also unwise.” He paused and looked at me as if seeing something in my eyes that even I was unaware of. “When a woman fights, she takes away from herself the cloak of honor which shields her. Remember that, young Mother.”
I felt a chill as Ali turned his attention back to his men. It was as if his words held a strange premonition, and for a moment I felt the veil of time shift and I saw a vision.
A vivid and terrifying image of me standing in the desert, surrounded by a thousand corpses washed in a river of blood.
I dropped the bucket and hurried back to the oasis. I suddenly wanted to be far away from the battlefield, from the stench of blood and the sickening fog of fear and rage that hung over the oasis. I wanted to be a little girl again, whose only occupations were playing with my dolls and brushing my mother’s soft hair.
I ran until I found refuge in my small apartment in the Masjid, far away from the ominous thunder of the battering ram, the singing of the arrows as they cut through the dry desert air. But it was not far enough to escape my destiny.
There are times when I wished that I could have kept on running and never stopped. For it is when we take a moment for breath in the struggle of life, when we let our guard down and allow ourselves a second to exult in a false sense of security, that the terrible wave of our doom is finally able to catch up with us.
The Bani Qurayza held out for twenty-five days. But as their supplies of food and water vanished and the pestilence that had struck the Muslims during the siege of the trench migrated to the Jewish quarter, Kab’s people were faced with no alternative but to surrender and hope for the Messenger’s mercy.
But my husband was not in a forgiving mood. In all the years that I had known him, I had never seen such anger in his eyes as I saw on the day he first learned of Qurayza’s betrayal. Had God not intervened with the sandstorm that blotted their plans, the Jewish tribe would have struck us from the rear while we desperately held back the Confederate invaders at the barrier. Our women and children would have been the first casualties, as the homes where they were lodged would have been the first line of attack when the gates of the fortress had swung open.
The Messenger knew that the Qurayza had planned the utter annihilation of his people, and their treachery could not be left unanswered. Muhammad had shown clemency to the other Jewish tribes, guaranteeing their lives and letting them leave the oasis in safety. And they had repaid him by joining with his enemies. If the Qurayza were allowed the same easy fate of expulsion, they would inevitably join their kinsmen at the citadel of Khaybar to the north, where even now Huyayy was plotting to regain his lost lands despite the failure of the Confederate invasion. All of Arabia would be watching how we treated the Qurayza now that they had fallen into our hands. And mercy would be seen only as a weakness to be exploited by our enemies.
As the battered gate of the fortress opened, I watched the weary residents of the Jewish quarter emerge, their necks bowed in surrender. First the men came out, their bodies shorn of armor and their hands held high to show that they carried no weapons. There were at least seven hundred males, and I could see in their eyes the fire of defiance even as Ali, Talha, and Zubayr took them to the side and tied their hands together with sturdy ropes. I shuddered at the thought that these would have been our executioners had the sands not risen in rebellion.
And then, when the final man had emerged, the women and children followed. The women’s eyes were filled with grief and rage at the sight of their men bound like slaves, but I also saw a hint of relief in many of their faces. Their children had gone without food for days, and many were too weak even to cry. But now that the end had come, at least they could find a way to feed the little ones.
I quickly led the other Mothers to their side, carrying bowls of dates and figs and buckets of water. The Jewish women hesitated when they saw us, but their children ran forward at the sight of the food, their hands outstretched in desperation. I felt tears welling in my eyes as I saw their parched lips and sunken cheeks. They were the innocent victims of war, too small to understand or care about the differences of politics and theology that had led our peoples to this terrible moment. As the children swarmed around us, I saw their mothers looking at us with gratitude as we poured water into their open mouths and placed small treats in their tiny hands.
It was a heartbreaking scene and I felt numbed. I moved toward a woman of the Qurayza who could not have been older than my mother, her dark hair streaked with gray, and embraced her. At that moment, we were neither Muslim nor Jew, neither friend nor foe. We were just women caught in a world that was bigger than us and we held each other tightly, sobbing in our shared grief at the tragedy of life in this cruel wilderness.
And then I saw a young woman step out of the fortress to join the others and I broke free of the embrace, my eyes wide with concern. It was the redheaded girl who had so stubbornly defied us during the opening days of the siege. She walked slowly, as if in a dream, the fire in her eyes now quenched by hunger and exhaustion. Had this girl, whose name I learned was Najma, been more discreet, had she hidden her face behind a veil during the attack, she might have walked unrecognized among the other refugees.
But her fiery hair, so like my own, burned like a beacon in the crowd and she was immediately surrounded by several Muslim soldiers. I ran over to her side just as Ali arrived, holding a rope.
“What are you doing?!” I cried out as Ali steadily bound the girl’s hands.
“She goes with the men,” he said simply.
“They will kill her,” I said. I did not know this for sure, but I sensed that the Muslims were in no mood to give quarter. Whatever punishment awaited the warriors of the Qurayza, I did not feel that this young and impressionable girl should suffer it.
Ali shrugged as if I were commenting about something as trivial the weather.
“If she wishes to fight like a man, then she must be willing to die like a man,” he said. And from the look he gave me, I felt that somehow his words were not meant for the Jewish girl alone.
I stood shaking with impotent rage as Ali led the girl to stand with the male prisoners. Najma did not resist, and she followed like a lamb patiently walking to slaughter. But then, just before she disappeared inside the crowd of captured men, the girl raised her eyes and met mine. I did not see in Najma’s look sorrow or anger at her fate. Just confusion, as if she were lost in a strange world that she no longer recognized.
And for a terrible moment, I understood how she felt.
That night I accompanied my husband to the granary, where the prisoners were kept. Abu Bakr and Umar joined us, along with a man of the tribe of Aws I recognized as Sa’d ibn Muadh, who walked in great pain, a thick bandage around his gut that was stained with blood. Sa’d had been injured by an arrow during the Confederate attack and the whispers were that he was dying. Why he would leave his bed to walk here tonight was a mystery. But I saw from the grim look on the Messenger’s face that my normally inquisitive nature would be unwelcome tonight.
I wasn’t sure why I had been asked to come, but some instinct in me said that Ali must have mentioned to the Prophet my compassion for the Jewish girl who was the sole woman to be held prisoner. I sensed that judgment would be rendered against the Qurayza tonight and my husband wanted me to be there to witness it. If not to approve, then, perhaps, to understand.
As we entered the granary that was now a prison, I saw the Jewish men standing in prayer, surrounded by hundreds of armed guards. Their arms were still tied, but their legs had been freed so that they could sway back and forth as the elderly rabbi of the settlement, Husayn ibn Sallam, led them in reciting the ancient Hebrew words that sounded so much like our own tongue and yet were still so foreign
The Messenger stood respectfully, watching the men pray. I caught sight of the girl Najma alone in a corner, her red hair covered by a scarf. She did not join the others in worship but stared straight ahead, unblinking.
When the rabbi finished his invocations, a blanket of silence fell upon the crowd as all turned to face the man who would decide their fate. A tall, thin man with dark eyes who had been standing beside ibn Sallam now stepped forward, his head held proudly, and faced the Messenger of God.
My husband met his eyes for a long moment. When he spoke, it was in a deep voice. His words echoed throughout the vast chamber that had stored our supplies of wheat and barley before they were consumed during the siege and the famine.
“Kab ibn Asad,” my husband said, and the tall man nodded in acknowledgment. “You have sought my judgment against your people.”
“I have,” he said with great dignity.
The Messenger stepped forward, his black eyes glistening in the torchlight.
“Your treachery nearly brought the fire of death into he streets of Medina,” Muhammad said. “Had God not intervened, you would have assuredly left none of my people alive.”
Kab looked at his adversary without blinking.
“Yes,” he said. It was a simple statement of fact, without any guilt or shame.
The Messenger frowned and I could see a hint of the outrage that he had shown when he first learned of the Qurayza’s deal with the Confederates.
“It is not for me to judge you,” my husband said, to my surprise. “My anger is so great that I fear I will not be impartial.”
Kab nodded, no emotion on his face.
“I understand.”
The Messenger now turned to the injured Sa’d, who was leaning against a wooden post, his hand covering the bandage. I noticed that the splotch of blood had spread and now the entire wrap was soaked.
“Will you submit to the judgment, Sa’d ibn Muadh?” the Prophet asked.
Kab turned to face Sa’d. I recalled now that the two had once been friends and that Sa’d had served as an intermediary between the Muslims and Jews over the past several years. But if Sa’d had retained any memory of that friendship, I could not see it in his brown eyes, which were burning with anger at betrayal.
“Sa’d has always been a friend to the Qurayza. I trust that he will do what is just.” But even as Kab spoke these words, I knew that he, too, understood that whatever courtesies had existed between them, the bitterness of war had erased that past forever.
Sa’d moved forward, grimacing from the pain of his mortal wound. He stepped so close to Kab that that their noses almost touched. Kab did not flinch as Sa’d looked straight into his eyes and spoke.
“You are not Muslims and so you are not subject to the laws that God has revealed in the holy Qur’an,” he said, his voice quivering with anger. “I can only judge you by your own laws. Do you understand?”
Kab nodded, never letting his eyes leave Sa’d.
“Yes,” was all he said.
Sa’d stepped back and faced the elderly rabbi. Ibn Sallam had been the only one of the exiled tribe of Qaynuqa who had been permitted to stay in Medina, as he had always been respectful of the Muslims’ beliefs and had never disparaged my husband’s claim to being a prophet. The old sage had lingered in the oasis, ministering to the remaining Jewish tribes, until the Bani Nadir had been expelled and only the Qurayza remained.
“Tell me, Rabbi, what does Moses say is the punishment for a tribe that breaks its treaty and makes war upon its neighbor?”
It was a simple question, asked in a respectful tone, but I saw the color drain from Ibn Sallam’s wrinkled cheeks.
“The text is ancient,” the rabbi responded slowly, as if choosing every word carefully. “The words refer to a time long past.”
Sa’d ibn Muadh turned back to the Jewish chieftain.
“Do you believe, Kab, that the Torah is God’s Word?”
Kab smiled softly, realizing Sa’d’s intent.
“I do.”
Sa’d spoke loudly now, so that his words echoed throughout the granary.
“Then God’s Word does not change from day to day,” he said. “What was revealed to Moses in days long past will serve as a witness against you tonight.”
Kab nodded
“So be it.”
Sa’d faced the rabbi and pointed a finger at him.
“Ibn Sallam, what does your Torah say about the fate of a tribe that makes war upon its neighbors?”
Ibn Sallam hesitated. He looked at Kab, who nodded. And then the old rabbi unraveled the sacred scroll of the Torah from which he had been praying and read aloud, a quiver of sadness in his raspy voice.
“In Devarim, which the Greeks call Deuteronomy, in chapter twenty, verses ten through fourteen, the Lord says: ‘When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.’”
I felt a chill as I heard these words and realized that the fate of the Qurayza had been set. They had been doomed by their own scriptures to suffer the fate that their ancestors had unleashed upon others a millennium before. The men would be all killed, and the women and children would live as slaves in the land they had once ruled.
Sa’d nodded and met Kab’s eyes.
“Your Book has spoken,” he said.
Kab did not flinch at the cruel sentence but simply nodded in resignation, as if he had expected no less.
As we turned to leave, I heard the rabbi lead the prisoners in a haunting chant that I could not understand but whose intonations, rife with weariness and sorrow, did not need to be translated. I cast a final glance at Najma, who continued to stare straight ahead as if locked in her own dream, and then stepped outside.
We walked back to the center of the city in silence. When we reached the Masjid, the Messenger embraced Sa’d and thanked him for bravely pronouncing the judgment. The dying man nodded, and my father and Umar helped carry him back to his bed. I had no doubt from his gaunt and yellowing skin that he would not live long enough to see the punishment of the Qurayza carried out.
That night, I lay by my husband’s side, facing away from him rather than nestling against his bosom as was my habit.
“You are angry at me,” he said gently.
I hesitated, unsure of what I was feeling in the hollow of my stomach.
“No,” I said at long last. “They would have killed all of us had they been able to attack. If we let them leave as we did the Qaynuqa and the Nadir, they would have come back to attack us. The judgment is cruel, but they cannot complain. The Qurayza have been punished by their own traditions.”
The Messenger took my hand in his.
“Not quite.”
I looked up at him in confusion. In his dark eyes I saw no more anger, but a profound sorrow.
“The rabbi read the wrong section of the Book, as I had asked him to.”
My eyes went wide.
“I don’t understand.”
The Messenger squeezed my fingers and I could feel the depth of emotion that he was suppressing.
“The law of Moses he read was a punishment only for distant tribes who fought the Children of Israel from other lands. It was not the punishment for a neighboring tribe.”
I looked up at my husband, unsure of what he was holding back.
“What would have been the punishment in the Torah for a neighboring tribe?”
The Prophet looked at me and I saw lines of great sadness in his eyes.
“The rabbi read to me the verses that followed,” he said. “The Book says that in the cities that are near, the judgment is to kill everything that breathes.”
I was stunned and shuddered at the horror. Could the God of Moses, the God of love and justice that we worshipped as Allah, be so cruel that He would call upon the Children of Israel even to slay women and children?
It was a barbaric code for a barbaric world, and I began to understand why God had sent a new prophet to mankind. A new Book that sought to restrain and regulate the madness of war for the first time. In a world where greed and lust for power were enough to justify bloodshed, the holy Qur’an said “Fight those who fight you, but do not commit aggression.” In a world where soldiers raped and killed innocents in battle without any guilt, the Revelation had established rules that prevented such atrocities from happening. Women and children could not be killed under the rules of Islam, and protection was extended to the elderly, as well as to the priests and monks of the People of the Book.
Allah had even forbidden the destruction of trees and the poisoning of wells, tactics that were widely employed by so-called civilized nations such as the Byzantines and the Persians. And the Messenger did not permit us to use fire as a weapon, for only God had the right to punish His Creation with the fires of Hell. Flaming arrows would have helped us burn down the houses of the Qurayza and end the siege, but the Prophet rejected the horror of burning people alive in their homes, even if it was the accepted practice of warfare throughout the world.
We had shown restraint, but in a world where death hung over the sands like a bitter cloud, bloodshed was inevitable. I looked up at my husband and realized from the sadness in his face that he did not relish the massacre that was to come. He had done what was necessary to save his community from extinction, and the death of the warriors of Qurayza would send a clear message to all the neighboring tribes that treachery would be punished. Once the Qurayza had been dispatched, more chieftains would realize that it was in their best interest to join the alliance. A state was being born out of chaos, and the price of establishing order was high.
I leaned close to the Messenger and buried my face in his breast, letting the gentle pulse of his heart lull me into a dreamworld in which there was no death, no blood, no tears. A world in which love alone could end tyranny and save the weak from the depredations and cruelty of the strong. A world where there was no war and men could lay down their swords and live without fear of attack from their neighbors.
It was a world that could exist only in dreams.
A mass grave had been dug in the marketplace, ten feet wide and nearly thirty feet deep. It looked like a miniature of the mighty trench that had protected the city from the invaders. And it was perhaps fitting, if macabre, that the men who had betrayed us would now be buried in a ditch that resembled the very defense they had sought to undermine.
The prisoners were brought forth in small groups, starting with the tribal leaders whose intrigue had brought this disaster on their people, as well as those who had been identified as having actively fought against the Muslims during the siege of the Jewish fortress.
I accompanied Najma, the sole woman among the seven hundred men who had been sentenced to death. I tried to remind myself that this girl who looked so much like me was no innocent. She had chosen to participate in the battle and had injured several good Muslim soldiers, killing one man who had left behind a wife and three children. And yet in my heart I knew that she was simply acting in defense of her own community. With my fiery spirit, I expected that I would have done the same if the situation had been reversed.
I led Najma out of the granary, holding on halfheartedly to the rope that bound her by the wrists. I was prepared for tears and shouts of rage, anything except what I found. The girl was in the best of spirits as we walked down the paved streets of the oasis toward the spot that would soon be her grave.
As we approached the marketplace and the crowd that had come to see justice against those who had committed treason in the midst of war, Najma smiled broadly and began to laugh and wave to the startled onlookers. Seeing the girl gaily walking to her death, people looked away and I saw a few women wipe tears from their eyes.
Najma turned to me and I saw in her eyes a terrifying madness. It was as if some djinn had come and possessed her, buried her mind beneath the veil of insanity so that it would sleep through the horrible moments to come.
She smiled at me broadly and glanced at my saffron-colored robe, the hem lined with brocaded flowers in red and green.
“Your dress is beautiful. Is it from Yemen?”
It was, but I could not find any words to respond. Her madness frightened and confused me, and I suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here.
Najma shrugged at my blank stare.
“I was planning on having a dress ordered from Yemen,” she said in a high voice. “For my wedding one day. Oh well. I won’t need it now.”
I felt my throat constrict and I forced myself to speak.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked.
Najma laughed as if I had told her the most wonderful joke.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. Najma paused and then looked at me closer. “You’re married to Muhammad, right?”
I nodded.
Najma smiled and then picked up our pace. As the colorful pendants and dainty tents that lined the marketplace came into view, she began to skip, pulling me forward with her little dance.
And then, just as we approached the grounds where the grave had been dug, she stopped and turned to face me.
“Is he good to you? Your husband, I mean.”
I felt tears blurring my vision.
“Very,” I managed to whisper.
Najma clapped her hands awkwardly, the bindings on her wrists stymieing her efforts to express her glee.
“Wonderful! How many children do you have?”
I shook my head.
“None.”
Najma’s mouth widened in an expression of genuine compassion.
“That’s too bad,” she said, leaning close to me in sympathy. “You’d be a good mother. But I’m sure it will happen soon. And then you can sing your baby a lullaby. Here’s one my mother used to sing to me at night.”
And then the poor girl started to sing some quiet, haunting verses about a bluebird that built its nest only in the moonlight because it loved to work beneath the canopy of the stars.
She continued to sing even as we walked into the central plaza, where the massive ditch had been cut out of the earth. I saw the first group of three men who had been set for death led toward the grave. Their faces were stoic, but I could see terror in their eyes as they faced Ali, Talha, and Zubayr, their executioners
The men did not protest as they were made to kneel before the pit and bow their heads over the dark chasm. Talha and Zubayr lifted their swords, and I saw Ali raise the glittering Dhul Fiqar.
And then the three swung their blades down and sliced off the traitors’ heads with a sickening crunch. The decapitated bodies writhed as blood exploded from the severed necks. And then the corpses fell forward and vanished into the darkness of the grave.
I watched, sickened and fascinated, as three more men were brought forward to meet judgment. Najma had continued singing unabated when the first executions were performed, but she suddenly stopped and I saw her looking at one of the men being led to the pit. I recognized him as Kab, the chieftain of Qurayza, who I understood was her uncle.
For a moment the cloud of madness in her eyes lifted and I saw the true face of the young girl whose life was coming to its end. Horror and grief shattered her pretty features as she watched her beloved uncle fall to his knees before the grave.
While the other two men loudly said prayers to the God of Moses, Kab turned to face the niece who was about to watch him die.
“Forgive me, sweet girl,” he said. And then he bowed his neck over the edge of the pit and closed his eyes.
Ali moved forward, and with one swift blow, Kab ibn Asad lost his head, his body rolling over the edge to join the corpses below.
I heard a terrible sound from Najma, something that made my blood curdle. It was not a scream or a cry of sorrow, but a wild and insane laugh.
“Look at them! They fall down like dolls thrown across the room by a naughty child! How silly!”
Her laughter became more manic as Ali approached her, his forked blade still dripping the blood of her uncle.
And then the Prophet’s cousin leaned down beside her and looked into her eyes, and I saw in them a gentleness that seemed utterly out of place.
“It will not hurt. I promise,” he said softly.
Najma threw her head back in raucous laughter, her crimson hair flying in the wind.
“Oh, silly boy. You can’t hurt me! No one can hurt me!”
And then she moved toward the pit. I suddenly stepped forward and grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
The girl turned and looked at me. We stared into each other’s eyes for a moment that seemed like an eternity. Two young women, enemies by fate, yet sharing the common bond of girls who had been swept into something that was far greater than themselves. The terrible, unstoppable flood of history, which destroyed all hopes and dreams that stood against its mighty flow.
And then she winked at me as the madness that, paradoxically, kept her sane in these final moments returned.
Najma laughed and skipped all the way to the grave’s edge. Her laughter grew louder as she knelt and looked down into the chasm where her loved ones now lay. I heard her guffaws grow mightier and more shrill and soon I could hear nothing else, not the raging wind, not the steady murmur of the crowd that had come to quench its thirst for blood. Not even my own heart, which I could feel pounding in my ears.
Her laughter accelerated, vibrating faster until it sounded like a primordial scream from the depths of Hell itself.
And then Ali raised Dhul Fiqar and Najma’s laughter abruptly ended.
A silence fell over the execution ground that was even more terrible than the madness of the young girl’s cries. I turned and ran away, unable to watch anymore. I raced through the streets of Medina, the terrible silence enveloping me like a thick blanket.
I ran to my mother’s house, as I could not bear to go home. I was afraid that my husband would read my heart and divorce me for the blasphemies that were raging in my soul. I was trembling with anger. Anger at the cruelty of life, anger at the pride of men that divided tribes and nations. Anger at a God that had given us free will and left us to destroy ourselves with our own stupidity.
In my mind’s eye I saw again and again Ali’s blade falling on that foolish, treacherous girl’s neck and I felt a flash of rage at this man who could perform his grisly duty with such quiet calm. Many have wondered about my estrangement from the Messenger’s son-in-law, a divide that would one day cost the lives of thousands of men and plunge our nation into civil war. Although the greatest wound between us was yet to be inflicted, I looked back and realized that my feelings for Ali changed that day from guarded admiration to a quiet dislike, a tiny flame in my heart that would one day be kindled into a fire that would consume the Ummah.
What I had witnessed that day in the marketplace had scarred me more than the cut of any earthly blade. Of all the horrible things I have experienced in my life, my dear Abdallah, none has stayed with me as vividly as Najma’s laugh. I sometimes think I can hear it again, echoing across time and space, full of despair and madness, begging for a chance to live and to love, to marry and bear children and sing lullabies to the little ones that would never be.
The lost cry of a girl who had made the terrible, unforgivable mistake of defying the flow of history.
The Bani Qurayza had been destroyed and the Messenger of God was now the unchallenged ruler of Medina. His victory, as expected, led to the arrival of delegations from all over Arabia. Tribal chieftains sought to forge alliances with the rising Muslim state through bonds of trade and kinship. Envoys came from both north and south. And, to my surprise, a delegation came from Mecca itself, from the house of our greatest enemy.
I felt fury building in my heart as I looked upon Ramla, the beautiful daughter of Abu Sufyan, who had arrived at long last to make my childhood nightmare come true. She had aged well in the past seven years, and even though there were lines around her eyes, her cheeks were still rosy and her skin soft and unblemished. I had thought I was rid of her when the Messenger had married her off to his cousin Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh, the brother of my rival Zaynab. Ramla had been openly disappointed in Muhammad’s failure to embrace her charms in the aftermath of Khadija’s death and had reacted with caustic bitterness to the news that I would become his wife instead. Perhaps sensing her hurt feelings, the Prophet had wisely sent Ramla and her husband away to join the refugee community in Abyssinia, where she had remained safe during the terrible years of conflict.
But now she was back, come to claim the position that she had always desired and felt entitled to. She was to become the newest Mother of the Believers. Her husband, Ubaydallah, had proven feckless and weak-minded, and had abandoned Islam for the Christian faith while he stayed at the court of the Negus. Under the law of God, Ramla could not remain married to an apostate, and her divorce left her and her infant daughter, Habiba, in a precarious situation, living in a foreign land without economic support and protection.
The Messenger had heard of her predicament through the most unlikely of sources-her brother Muawiya, who had sent his friend Amr ibn al-As on a secret mission to the oasis in the aftermath of the Battle of the Trench. The Prophet had immediately agreed to take responsibility for Ramla and her child, and Muawiya himself had brought her to Medina for the wedding.
And so it was that I sat inside the spacious manor of Uthman ibn Affan, the Prophet’s gentle son-in-law, as the Messenger greeted the son and daughter of his greatest enemy. I saw many of the Companions looking at Muawiya with open distrust as he moved forward to kiss my husband’s hand. He had been a child when I last saw him and had changed greatly since then. Gone was the perpetual gloom that had followed him in youth, replaced by an energy and eagerness that was seductive.
As the grand hall was set for the wedding festivities, Uthman’s white-clad servants rushing to and fro with baskets of dates and jars of honey, Muawiya mixed easily with men who should have been his enemies. He had a natural tact and grace of movement that was disarming, and I could feel the steady heat of his gregarious charm cause the initial cloud of suspicion that hung over the room evaporate. Even Umar seemed impressed with Muawiya’s courage in coming alone to the oasis, without the retinue of bodyguards that one would expect to protect the boy who was for all intents and purposes the heir to the throne of Mecca.
As the son of Abu Sufyan, he was, of course, well aware of his potential value as a hostage, but Muawiya moved among us with the confident ease of a trusted guest rather than an open enemy. He spoke to each man as if he were an old friend rather than an adversary and even congratulated the Muslim elders on their brilliant defensive tactics that had thrown off the Meccan invasion.
I was impressed with Muawiya’s diplomatic genius. Within minutes of arriving at the oasis, he had won over many of his detractors with honeyed words and carefully calculated compliments. Watching Muawiya charm his opponents was like watching a master swordsman in action-each stroke was both beautifully executed and perfectly timed.
Ramla, for her part, had nothing to fear, for she had long earned the trust of the community, if not my own. Many had once believed that her conversion had been some kind of tactic conceived by Abu Sufyan to infiltrate the Muslim ranks. But word from Abyssinia was that she had shown commitment to the faith over the years and had proven a tactful advocate in the court of the Negus, protecting Muslim interests in the foreign land. Even I did not really doubt the sincerity of her spiritual convictions, but I hated the hungry way she looked at my husband, as if he were a prize that she had been long denied. Her bright eyes met mine and she raised an eyebrow in defiance, and I frowned. Ramla would be a true rival in the harem, one who combined beauty with a deadly sharp mind, and I knew that I would have to keep a close eye on her. And then I saw the Messenger looking at me with an amused glance as if he could read my thoughts.
My husband smiled knowingly and then turned to his young guest, who had just finished making the rounds of the Companions, healing old wounds and cementing new alliances. Muawiya turned to the Messenger and bowed his head low.
“I am honored that my sister has found such a noble match,” he said in a rich voice that was deep and masculine.
The Messenger took the youth’s hand in his and squeezed it tight.
“May this wedding be the first step in ending the long enmity between your clan and mine,” he said.
As the Prophet went to stand by his new bride, wrapped in a wedding dress of dark blue, a red-striped veil covering her dark hair, Muawiya lifted a bowl of goat’s milk in honor of the nuptials and then drank with a slow flourish.
A shadow fell over him and he looked up to see the towering form of Umar ibn al-Khattab, the man who, before his defection, had been Mecca’s greatest hope of destroying Muhammad.
“Your father must be angry that you came,” Umar said, looking closely into the eyes of the guest as if searching for any hint of deception or intrigue.
“He was livid,” Muawiya said with a broad smile filled with devilish amusement. “But I am my own man. I realize that the old ways are dying. The Quraysh must accommodate the new reality or vanish into irrelevance.”
Uthman, our kindhearted host, came up to the young man’s side and put an affectionate arm around him. Muawiya was a distant cousin of his and Uthman had always been close to the boy in his youth, before the divisions of faith had torn apart the clan of Umayya.
“You always had great foresight,” Uthman said warmly. “The river of the world is changing its course, and only the wise anticipate its new direction.”
And then I saw Ali approach. He alone among all the Companions had remained aloof, despite Muawiya’s persistent efforts to charm him.
“It is one thing to foresee the course of a river,” Ali said softly. “It is another to foresee the fate of one’s own soul.”
Silence fell over the room and I could suddenly feel the tension that had abated over the past hour reassert itself like a cold wind. Ali and Muawiya stood in the center of the room, looking at each other without speaking. Even though they were only a few feet apart, there seemed to be a divide between them that was greater than the distance between the east and the west. Between heaven and earth. Ali was from another realm, a strange bird soaring above mankind, observing but never quite participating in the world. And Muawiya was his direct opposite, a man who had mastered that world and had little interest in the ethereal dreamland that Ali called his home.
And then I saw the Messenger step between them, as if to place himself diplomatically in the path of any confrontation between these young and passionate men that would mar the wedding.
But as I saw my husband come between them, smiling graciously as he placed a hand on each man’s shoulder, I suddenly realized that there was another meaning to the scene before me. Muhammad stood between these two poles as no other man could. He was both a resident of the ethereal realms of the spirit and a master of the worldly plane, and he alone understood how to bridge the gap between these opposing realities. In the years that would come, after the Messenger had returned to his Lord, the precarious bond that he had forged between these planes would shatter, and the history of Islam would forever be a war between the soul and the flesh.
And then Muawiya turned away from Ali and the spell was broken. The Meccan prince smiled brightly at the Messenger and spoke loudly, as if intending everyone in the hall to hear his words. It was unnecessary, as there was absolute silence at that moment and his words would have carried to each corner even if they had been whispered.
“The fate of my soul I leave to the judgment of my Creator,” Muawiya said with dignity. “But this I know. Before you came, O Muhammad, none of our people ever thought about a world different from what they had experienced for centuries. A world of barbarism, cruelty, and death. But you have given them a vision that has brought them together. Forged them from warring tribes into a nation. I know of no man who could have done this without the aid of God.”
And then to everyone’s shock, Muawiya stretched out his right hand in the formal sign of allegiance, and the Prophet clasped it in his own. Muawiya knelt down and kissed the Messenger’s hand. And then he spoke the words that would change everything.
“I testify that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”
The room exploded in a commotion of cries. Surprise, disbelief, and jubilation mixed together in an air of heady celebration. Abu Sufyan’s son, the heir of our greatest enemy, had embraced Islam, and in that one instant, the two forces that had torn the peninsula apart were reconciled. I felt my heart racing in excitement. Once the other tribes learned of Muawiya’s conversion, the final vestiges of support for Mecca would collapse and the war would end.
It was the thought on everyone’s mind, except perhaps for Ali, who continued to gaze down at the young man with those unreadable eyes. But Muawiya ignored his stare and kept his attention focused on the Prophet.
“If it please you, O Messenger of God, I wish to stay here and support your cause,” he said. Which was, of course, what was needed. If Muawiya settled in Medina, his superb political skills and vast network of allies would help bring order to the nascent state. With Muawiya’s crafty guidance, we would bring together the recalcitrant tribes and then wage a final battle against Mecca. We had hidden in our homes in terror so many times as the armies of Arabia came down upon us that it seemed like justice that Hind and her followers should do the same now.
And then the Messenger of God said something utterly unexpected.
“No. Return to your father and tell no one of your faith,” he said, and the rejoicing in the room stopped cold.
Muawiya’s brow wrinkled.
“I don’t understand,” he said, sharing our surprise. “I am prepared to shed the blood of my father’s men so that you may be triumphant.”
“You will prepare the way,” the Messenger said gently. “The day is coming, insha-Allah, when we will meet in Mecca. But there will be no bloodshed.”
Muawiya appeared confused, but he lowered his head in acceptance. I saw his cousin Uthman give the Prophet a grateful look. The destruction of Mecca’s forces would mean the annihilation of Uthman’s own clan, and the softhearted nobleman was clearly delighted that the Prophet intended to find another way to retake the city.
The room now buzzed with a flood of conversation, as Companions and their wives talked animatedly, trying to understand what the Prophet’s words meant. And then Uthman rose and clapped his hands to end the sudden tumult of conversation.
“Come, my friends, let us feast, for there is much to celebrate tonight.”
We all gathered in Uthman’s spacious dining hall. The walls were covered in delicate floral tiles made of ceramic, said to have been imported directly from Constantinople, and the arched ceiling was held aloft by sturdy marble pillars. It was a palatial room set for banquets that would have made the kings of Persia feel welcome. I wondered at Uthman’s good fortune.
Even though much of the oasis remained mired in poverty, wealth seemed to flood him wherever he went. The Prophet had given Uthman the title Al-Ghani, which meant “the generous,” and he was always ready to share his vast stores with anyone who needed help. But no matter how much he gave away, more money seemed to rush toward him and his coffers were always overflowing. There was a legend I had heard of a Greek king whose touch could turn anything to gold, and I would joke that Uthman was the Midas of our people.
And for the Prophet’s wedding to a woman of Uthman’s own clan, he had thrown together one of the most extravagant banquets I had ever seen. The Messenger himself appeared uncomfortable with the vast wealth on display-the silver bowls filled with succulent red grapes, trays stacked with fresh breads steaming from the ovens, delicate raisins on plates decorated with fresh desert roses, their tiny leaves spiraling toward the soft petals. Goat stew, spiced with saffron and rich salts. Cakes dripping with honey and powdered with a sugary substance said to have been brought from Persia. And a seemingly endless supply of roast mutton, cut thin, the meat mouthwatering and tenderized to perfection.
The Companions, many of whom had never eaten anything beyond coarse bread and grizzled meat, stared at the feast in awe, and a few threw jealous glances at Uthman, who sat beside the lovely Umm Kulthum, the Prophet’s daughter whom he had married upon the death of Ruqayya. It was as if this gentle pacifist of a man had everything any of them could ever want, and yet he seemed blissfully unaware of how lucky he truly was. In the years to come, the feelings of resentment that I sensed from some of the younger men would worsen, and Uthman’s opulence would come with a price that would be paid by an entire civilization.
I walked among the believers, carrying trays of spiced chicken, a highly prized delicacy as the fowls were rarely found in the desert wastes and were mainly shipped from Syria. And then I saw Ramla looking at the Messenger with her delicate eyes and I could tell that my husband was smitten.
The thought of him spending the night with her, exploring the arts of love with this cosmopolitan and sophisticated woman, made me sick. A flash of jealousy raged inside me and I found myself turning to the man closest to me, the giant Umar, who was hungrily tearing off pieces of a chicken bone with his fingers.
“Why bother, Umar? Just swallow it whole already!” I said in my best teasing voice. He looked at me with surprise and then burst out laughing. I made the rounds of the men at the long cedar table, cheerily mocking them for their uncouth manners and desert coarseness. But I would follow my harsh words with a coquettish smile, a wink of my golden eyes, and they would respond as all men do to the flirtation of a beautiful woman. With zest, amusement, and subtle desire.
I soon found myself the center of attention at the banquet as I traded jokes with Talha or mocked Zubayr’s tales of his adventurous exploits as a youth before my sister, Asma, had turned him into a trained kitten. I caught Ramla looking at me with irritation for having stolen all her thunder on her wedding day, and I smiled at my little victory against my rival.
As I made the rounds of the men playing my childish games, I saw from the corner of my eye my husband watching me with a stern look. I knew that I was making him jealous, something that I had never tried to do before, and I thrilled secretly at the thought that I could still sway his heart. Even as he took Ramla in his arms tonight, part of his mind would be consumed with the memory of my little performance, my demonstration that I was still the youngest and most desirable of his consorts in the eyes of the world.
I was a silly girl of fifteen and thought nothing more of my behavior than I did of the daily gossip sessions I held with the other Mothers. I had no idea that my little game would have such dire consequences, that my foolish flirtations would change my life so drastically. And I could not have foreseen that the freedom I had treasured from birth would soon end behind the walls of a prison forged from my own folly.
Talha let the loud commotion of the marketplace, the crowing of merchants, and the laughter of children run through him. He was feeling dejected, and a walk through the bazaar did him good. Though there was much jubilation among the believers these days, Talha was farsighted enough to see that the Messenger’s efforts to forge the Arabs into a nation would not end the war but were likely expand it. But their new enemies would not be a few thousand poorly armed desert dwellers. They would be the legions of Persia and Byzantium, empires that had mastered the art of warfare over centuries of bloodshed.
That terrible day of imperial conflict was coming upon them fast, and the Muslims would need the best and the brightest of the Arab nation to hold their ground. Men like the fearsome general Umar ibn al-Khattab and now the brilliant politician Muawiya. The role that these great leaders would play in the war to come was clear.
But the role that he would play was not.
Talha, his hand forever shattered by the sword that had been meant for the Messenger, was no longer an able warrior, like his friend Zubayr. He was not a revered statesman like his cousin Abu Bakr or a wealthy merchant like Uthman, who could single-handedly fund an entire military campaign.
He was a poor cripple who could barely afford to keep food on the table for his wife, Hammanah, and his infant son, Muhammad. His wife was a sweet and gentle woman and had never complained. But he felt like a failure. One of the first Meccans to embrace Islam as a young man, he remained the only one of that inner circle who had failed to turn the poverty of the early years into prosperity in Medina. It was that perpetual struggle that prevented him from being of greater service to the cause. And it had prevented him from proposing to a young girl before she had been chosen for a greater destiny.
Although he never said it aloud, everyone among the Muslims knew of his feelings for me. He had tentatively approached Abu Bakr to ask for my hand when I came of age. But my father had been reluctant to engage his precious daughter to a boy whose hard work had never quite lifted him from the ranks of the poor. Instead, he had promised me to Jubayr ibn Mutim in the hopes of enticing the influential young Meccan aristocrat into Islam.
Talha had been bitterly disappointed, but he had held hope that Jubayr’s loyalty to the old ways would prevent the wedding from ever happening. And he was proven right. But when my betrothal to Jubayr had indeed been abrogated, Talha had been stunned to learn it was because I had been promised to a husband with whom he could never compete, even if he had all the wealth of Arabia. And so he had forever closed that door in his heart. For Talha revered the Messenger, and he accepted God’s will, sacrificing one love for another.
Talha tried to turn his thoughts away from the past. But the world would not let him.
“The daughter of Abu Bakr was in fine form last night,” a deep voice said.
Talha looked up to see two merchants standing beside him. They examined a parcel of leather goods that had recently been smuggled from Taif in defiance of the Meccan ban on trading with Muhammad.
Talha stared at the two figures, who were conversing nonchalantly, a richly dressed tribesmen from the Khazraj named Sameer and his friend Murtaza, a Bedouin clansmen from the tribe of Tayy to the east. They were men who had some business dealings with Uthman ibn Affan and had been invited to the Prophet’s wedding to Ramla the night before.
“The Messenger is truly lucky,” Sameer said with a wink to his colleague.
“She is the most beautiful girl I have ever set eyes upon,” Murtaza responded with a lascivious smirk. “Is it true that she was still a virgin on her wedding night?”
Talha felt his heart thunder with rage. He stormed up to the men and pushed himself between them, his eyes burning.
“What shameful talk is this? She is your Mother!”
Sameer looked at Talha, in his faded wool tunic and dusty pantaloons, and his eyes mocked him with the casual cruelty of a rich man.
“Only as long as she is married to the Messenger,” Sameer said.
Murtaza stepped closer to Talha, his sunburned face smelling of oil and qat, the Yemeni leaf that was said to make men dream while awake.
“What if the Prophet dies or divorces her?” Murtaza sneered. “What will become of this delicate flower then?”
Talha’s heart was pounding. And then he spoke before he could stop himself.
“Then I will marry her, if only to protect her honor from scum like you!”
Talha froze, horrified that he had spoken aloud his darkest, most private desire, one that never should have been voiced in this world or the hereafter.
“It sounds like you have feelings for the pretty lady you call your mother,” Murtaza said.
The Najdi Bedouin put an arm around Talha in false comradeship.
“Don’t be ashamed, boy,” Murtaza added, amusement dripping from his lips. “If a son had a mother who looked like that, he’d be forgiven if he entertained a dirty thought now and again.”
And then, as if he were being moved by a force greater than himself, Talha swung forth with his scarred fist and smashed Murtaza’s teeth with one brutal blow. The stunned Bedouin fell back, blood exploding from his mouth.
Talha stood perfectly still, unable to move, despite the pounding agony in his ruined hand. And then Sameer was on top of him and he was being punched and kicked into the ground. Talha stopped fighting and absorbed the enraged merchant’s blows without crying out, even as he had done years before when Umar had beaten him in the Sanctuary. He could hear his ribs crack under the onslaught, the pain almost as intense as the agony that emanated from his deformed and brutalized hand.
Talha did not move, did not breathe. He let Sameer crush him into the earth. His eyes blurred and darkness flew toward him like a gentle blanket, come to cover him in the sleep of unconsciousness. If this was death, he could think of no happier end than to die protecting the honor of the Mother of the Believers.
I sat nervously inside my tiny apartment, which felt even smaller than usual, as all the other wives had gathered here tonight at the command of the Messenger. The harem had grown prodigiously over the past several years and now included six women-Sawda, myself, Hafsa, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Umm Salama, and Ramla, the most recent addition. The other Zaynab, the daughter of Khuzayma whom the Prophet had married to bring the Bani Amir into alliance, had passed away a few months before. Her loss had been hard on the lower classes of Medina, as Zaynab’s tireless efforts on behalf of the weak and the indigent had earned her the sobriquet “Mother of the Poor.”
I look back and realize that in some ways Zaynab bint Khuzayma was the luckiest of us all, as she left the world long before the terrible trials and sorrows that were to besiege the Muslim Ummah. And, perhaps most poignantly, she had passed on to the next world after having lived a life that was full and free of undue restriction or limitation. The simple normalcy of her daily existence, the pleasure of walking in public under the full light of the sun, would soon become a luxury for the rest of us-another disaster that was forged by my passionate and willful soul.
The tension in the room was thick, like smoke from an oven that has been left unattended for too long. The fires that were being contained behind the cool glances of my cowives was about to burst.
None of them was looking at me, except for Hafsa, whose furious gaze summed up their feelings succinctly. My flirtatious spectacle at Ramla’s wedding had brought shame upon the entire household, as well as violence to the streets of Medina. Poor unlucky Talha had been beaten senseless defending my honor from crass talk among the merchants, and the ensuing struggle had erupted into a vicious melee as outraged Companions had rushed forward to avenge him. Though no one had been killed, the ruckus had been a terrible reminder of the fragility of peace in the oasis.
What would happen next was unclear. But there would definitely be consequences, and the Prophet’s terse summons to all the Mothers suggested that they would all pay collectively in some fashion for my foolishness.
I looked away from Hafsa’s accusing eyes and stared up at the roof of palm leaves, where a gray moth was sleeping amid the crevices of a frond. I suddenly wanted to be that moth, hidden in shadows and ignored by the world, but free to fly away at the slightest impulse.
And then the door swung inward and the Messenger of God entered the room. He looked at the Mothers and nodded to each of them in turn without smiling. But when his eyes fell on me, he simply blinked and looked away without acknowledgment. My heart shattered like a mirror dropped from a treetop.
The Prophet closed the door behind him and then sat cross-legged on the floor. He breathed in deeply and then sighed wearily. But still he said nothing.
Moments passed, but the Messenger did nothing to assuage our growing anxiety. He simply sat, looking at us with a terrible patience that was somehow more frightening than any anger he could have expressed.
My mouth was painfully dry, as if I had eaten a brick of salt. And still my husband said nothing.
I could take it no longer. Even at the risk of igniting the rare fire of his wrath, I forced myself to speak
“Is Talha all right?” I croaked as if I had not spoken in years and my tongue had forgotten its cunning.
I could feel every eye on me now. The other Mothers glared at me in anger, but I did not return their cruel glances and focused my attention solely on the man who held my destiny in his hands.
The Messenger stared at the opposite wall for a long moment before he finally turned to face me. I braced myself for an outburst. Perhaps I even hoped for an explosion of outrage, a flash of passion that showed he still cared for me.
But when he finally met my eyes, there was no punishment in his gaze, no flames of wrath.
“Talha will heal in due time,” Muhammad said softly. “But the wounds to the Ummah will take longer.”
He sighed again, a sound that was laced with exhaustion. I suddenly saw the tiny new lines around his dark eyes and realized that he had not been sleeping well. Just as suddenly I felt regret that among all the responsibilities of leadership he carried, worry over the trouble I had foolishly caused should add to his burden.
“I have worked for so many years to bind these quarrelsome people together as a family,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. “Yet it takes only one small incident to tear them apart.”
The room blurred as tears flooded my eyes.
“I’m sorry, I never intended-”
“It was not your intention, but the damage is still done,” he said abruptly, and I felt as if I had been slapped. The Messenger was always exceedingly courteous and considered interrupting others to be the height of ill manners. The fact that he would cut me off so forcefully, especially in the presence of my rival wives, revealed how far I had fallen in his estimation. I felt my throat constrict painfully as the thought that he would divorce me stabbed into my heart.
And then another voice sounded through the small apartment, the gentle motherly tone of Umm Salama.
“We are your wives and your partners in this world and the next,” she said steadily. “What is it that you wish us to do, O Messenger of God?”
She had chosen her words carefully and in doing so had taken the brunt of responsibility for the day’s events off my lonely shoulders and placed them squarely upon the Mothers as a group. I looked across the room at her, my eyes brimming with unspoken gratitude for her decision to end my solitude.
The Prophet hesitated, and when he spoke, it was with the unyielding authority of the leader of a nation, not with the gentle tones of a family patriarch.
“God has revealed these words to me,” he said, and my blood began to race. A Revelation had come to address the chaos I had created, and the thought that God Himself would intervene in this earthly affair terrified me.
And then the Messenger of God began to recite the lyrical words sent down from heaven, and I forgot everything except the haunting beauty of his voice:
O wives of the Prophet, you are not like any other women.
If you fear God, do not speak softly
In case the sick at heart should lust after you
But speak in a firm manner.
Stay at home and do not flaunt your finery
As they did in the Days of Ignorance.
The Messenger stopped and let the holy words sink in. I blinked and suddenly felt a flash of relief. The commandment was not onerous, and surely God could not mean this literally. The Messenger had often said there was much in the holy Qur’an that was symbolic and a dogmatically literal adherance to the law would undermine God’s purpose. The commandment to stay at home, locked away in this tiny room with clay walls, while the world buzzed around about me, could not possibly be a strict rule that was meant to be applied with fervor. It had to be a general admonition, to curtail the kind of social impropriety that could lead to scandal and violence, as my stupid behavior at the wedding had done.
But when I looked at the Prophet, the intensity in his eyes froze the smile that was forming on my lips. Something dark still hung between us, and I suddenly felt frightened again.
“You should not leave your houses unless necessary. It is for your good and for the good of the Ummah,” he said, and I felt my breath stop. The Messenger was serious about applying the commandment. We were now expected to stay inside our homes like prisoners.
“There is more,” he said grimly. “God has issued a command to the believers as well.”
He took a deep breath and then recited the flowing verses:
When you ask his wives something, do so from behind a curtain.
This is purer for your hearts and theirs.
It is not right for you to offend God’s Messenger
Just as you should never marry his wives after him.
That would be an enormous sin in the sight of God.
The Messenger stopped and we looked at one another in confusion, unable to comprehend what was being asked of us. I understood the prohibition against marrying another man after the Prophet-the rivalries and divisions that would erupt over the honor of securing the hand of a queen of the realm would tear the nation apart. But the notion that we could only speak to men from behind a curtain was startling to Arab women, who were accustomed to living in the open air. We all wanted to believe that we had misunderstood the verses. It was one thing to stay inside our homes under the compulsion of necessity, but to cut ourselves off from our fellow believers in this manner was incomprehensible. Surely this rule would be liberally interpreted.
But the Messenger quickly put an end to our hopes.
“From this point on, you may not speak to any man who is not mahrem except through a veil or a curtain,” he said forcefully, his eyes locked on mine, and I felt my heart sink.
The mahrem referred to any man whom we were forbidden from marrying because of the laws of incest. Our brothers, our sons, our fathers, our uncles, and our nephews were our flesh and blood and outside the possibility of sexual relations. But all other men, including close friends like Talha, fell outside the taboo-and now we could no longer talk to any of them except from behind a barrier. It was a stunning and extreme change, one that I had not been prepared for, and I could not imagine how I could possibly comply with God’s commandment.
The Messenger stood up to leave and we all watched him go as if we were in a dream. But as he opened the door, I saw a flash of the outside world, of the hustle and bustle of the Masjid and the streets of Medina, and suddenly felt tears in my eyes as the realization struck me that I would never be able to venture out into that world as I had done all my life, free and proud.
From now on, my life was to become a prison, even when I was not confined to the tiny apartment whose mud walls seemed to be closing in on me. For whenever I ventured out into the sun, my face would be hidden away behind a veil. The bars of my jail would follow me everywhere and were unbreakable, forged from a tiny strip of cotton that was stronger than the mightiest Byzantine steel.
The next several months were among the most difficult of my young life. Accustomed to freedom of movement in the oasis, given deference and right-of-way anywhere I went as a Mother of the Believers, I was suddenly trapped inside the confines of my tiny chamber. The small window that looked on the Masjid courtyard was covered with a thick black curtain made of coarse wool, and a similar sheet blocked the threshold of my door. Not that it mattered. Once the commandment of the veil had been revealed, the men of Medina had assiduously avoided my company, fearful of bringing the wrath of God down upon their heads. Even if the walls of my apartment had been torn down and I sat open and exposed to the sun, not even a blind man would have dared approach me.
Even the women of Medina were now nervous about keeping my company, and I had few visitors aside from my sister, Asma, and my mother. The other wives, similarly trapped behind the veil, blamed me for their predicament. Even Hafsa, with whom I had developed a friendly alliance against our beautiful rival Zaynab bint Jahsh, was bitter and rarely spoke to me anymore.
My lonely days were spent reading the holy Qur’an, which was no longer being secretly inscribed on palm leaves or the shoulder bones of goats but was being preserved on pieces of sturdy parchment bought from Egyptian traders. I found comfort in the stories of the prophets who had endured great tribulations during their sacred missions, men like Moses, who had been forced to leave behind the riches of his princely life and flee into the desert, where he would hear the Voice of God. Or of my forefather Ishmael, who had been expelled from a life of comfort in Abraham’s home and sent into the arid wastes of Arabia to found a new nation that would renew God’s covenant with man. These stories of exile and redemption had always held great meaning for the Muslims, who saw in the painful journeys of the past an echo of their own lives. But they began to take a greater personal meaning for me, as I found some comfort in the hope that even as these holy ones of God had endured deprivation and loss in the service of a higher cause, perhaps my own confinement would serve some purpose beyond a punishment for my sinful flirtations.
In those difficult weeks, the Messenger continued to follow his policy of spending alternating nights with each of his wives. Even though he had been clearly angered by my behavior, once the commandment of God had come, the Prophet had been conciliatory, recognizing that any further harshness would only add salt to our wounds. I would look forward to our time together once a week and would inundate him with questions about life outside my prison walls, the state of affairs in Medina, and the ongoing war with the Meccans. The Prophet seemed surprised and even delighted by my interest in political matters, something he rarely discussed with his other wives, and he was able to release the weight of his daily life as a statesman in my presence. So, despite my resentment at the new limitations placed on my life, I found that my relationship with my husband actually improved in the aftermath of the veil.
Our hours of conversation were my only relief from the monotony of my life, and I found our bond growing deeper, more intimate, even as the demands of the world grew heavier on his shoulders. For the past several years, I had been afraid that I was becoming less important to the Prophet, as his harem steadily expanded and every beautiful woman in Medina vied to become one of the Mothers. Yet the irony of my caged existence was that the love between us was reignited, and the rumors that I had been displaced as the Prophet’s primary consort were replaced by whispers of envy at my unbreakable hold on his heart.
One day, the Messenger came and asked if I would join him on an excursion into the desert west of the oasis. His spies had learned that one of the Bedouin tribe of Bani Mustaliq had reached a pact with Mecca and was planning a raid on Muslim caravans returning from Syria along the seacoast. The Prophet had decided that the best course of action was a preemptive strike against the tribe. The Muslims could no longer afford to cower behind a defensive posture. In the aftermath of our near extermination during the Meccan invasion, we needed to take the offensive at the first sign that our enemies were regrouping. And so the Muslim army would go out and defeat the Bani Mustaliq before they could prepare their attack. And the Messenger wanted me to accompany him on the expedition.
I felt a flush of joy that brought tears to my eyes. This would be the first day in weeks that I would leave the confines of my home and see the world again. Even though I would be required to wear a full veil, hiding my face from mankind, I would at least be able to walk again in the sun and breathe the rich musky air of the desert. And most important, I would have several nights alone with the Messenger.
I jumped up and down like a little girl, clapping my hands, and my husband smiled at my enthusiasm. And I could see the flame of desire lighting in his eyes and my heart pounded faster. I ran to the small acacia chest in the corner that held all of my meager personal belongings and removed the long dark cloak and veil that had become my prison outside my prison. The cloak was made of thick cotton that covered my body like the black shadow of an eclipse, the flowing robes specifically designed to hide any hint of my delicate curves. It was like a shroud for a living corpse, which is what I had come to feel like in the lonely days of the past month. But I donned it now with pride and excitement, as if it were a glorious wedding dress made of silk and gold. And in a way, it was. For tonight I would have a chance to bind myself to the Messenger all over again, to convince him with my persistent kisses that he was the only man I would ever love.
I slipped on the heavy curtain that was my shield against the world and was about to close the chest when I saw something glittering to the side, beneath a pair of pretty bronze bangles and a coral comb that my father had given me upon my arrival in the oasis. It was the onyx necklace, the Messenger’s wedding gift.
I reached down and took the necklace in my hand and tied it above my slender collar. A smile of memory played on my lips as I wrapped my face behind the black veil, the niqab, such that only my golden eyes peeked out from behind the soft cotton. The Prophet reached out and took my hand before opening the door. I blinked for a second, blinded by the ferocity of the now-unfamiliar daylight.
And then I took a deep breath and strode back out into the world from which I had been banished. The Masjid courtyard was full of worshipers who turned with surprise to see me emerge. Some quickly looked away, while others gazed in fascination at the bulky black mass that had once been a beautiful girl. A girl whose familiar face none of them would ever see again as long as they lived.
The Messenger led me through the throng of believers who always crowded about him, hoping to touch his hand or the hem of his robe and absorb the baraka, the divine blessing, that emanated from his body.
As my husband led me through the streets of Medina that seemed so alien to me now, I had a strange thought that the disorientation I was feeling was akin to the confusion of a soul resurrected from the grave and wandering toward the terrible Throne of God’s Judgment.
It was an impression that would prove far more apt than I could have ever known.
The attack on the Bani Mustaliq was a resounding success. The Bedouin tribesmen had been caught wholly unprepared for the assault, and their raiding party was no match for the thousand well-armed Muslim warriors who descended on their camp at the break of dawn.
I witnessed the battle, such as it was, from the back of my she-camel, a sturdy beast I had nicknamed Asiya, after the wife of the Pharaoh who had secretly embraced the religion of Moses. I was inside a heavily armored howdah that had been specifically built for the protection of any of the Prophet’s wives who accompanied him on a military expedition. I peered through the curtain of steel rings into the heart of the blazing desert, where the Messenger’s troops struck down the treacherous Bedouins. The fighting lasted barely an hour, and the Bani Mustaliq capitulated after their chieftain, al-Harith, was decapitated by the sword of a Companion named Thabit ibn Qays.
I watched with grim satisfaction as the Bedouin fighters dropped their weapons in despair and fell to their knees, prostrate in surrender. The Messenger strode out on the battlefield and walked up to the nearest man, a dark-skinned warrior with broken teeth, and lifted him to his feet.
“Do not prostrate yourself before men,” he said to his defeated adversary. “Bow only before God.”
The enemy soldier looked at him in gratitude and I knew that the Bani Mustaliq would soon be won over to our cause. They were a clan of mercenaries who blew with the wind, and the surprise attack by Medina had shown them that the climate in Arabia had changed permanently. The Prophet had wisely shown them that their future lay with us rather than Mecca. The loss of nearly two dozen of their warriors was a heavy blow, but had they made the mistake of serving as Abu Sufyan’s proxies, they would have lost many more.
As Umar and Ali began the process of herding the defeated tribesmen into rows and binding them with solid ropes, I heard a cry of anguish and saw an old woman emerge from the dusty tent city that served as the shelter of her people. She was elderly and her face was lined with years of struggle against the cruel life of the desert. But she moved with startling speed for her age and raced across the bloodstained sand toward the headless corpse of al-Harith. I realized from her piercing wails that she was the chieftain’s wife, and I felt sorry for her.
And then another woman, a girl of about twenty years, emerged from the brightly colored pavilion that must have been al-Harith’s dwelling and ran over to the old woman. The girl looked away from the sight of the dead chieftain, but she did not cry out. Instead she put her arms around the old woman and comforted her, whispering softly into her ear until the elderly lady stopped shaking and collapsed into her arms, resigned to the loss that had struck their tribe that morning.
I saw the men staring at the girl, who had flowing brown hair, flecked with gold, and olive skin that matched the color of her eyes. She was quite attractive, and I realized that the Muslim warriors would soon be competing to lay claim to her as a captive of war.
The girl sensed their eyes on her and stood tall, throwing her head back in defiance.
“I am Juwayriya, daughter of al-Harith, whom you have slain,” she said without any hint of fear. “This is my mother and the mother of my entire clan. Treat her and her kin with dignity if you fear Allah.”
Her words were brilliantly chosen and had the desired effect. The lustful men turned their heads away, embarrassed at their own crassness, and I grinned inside my armored howdah. The girl had spirit.
And then I saw my husband watching her intently with a smile, and my own quickly vanished.
WE CAMPED NEAR THE tents of the Bani Mustaliq for two days, during which the booty was divided among the troops. The tribe had been successfully raiding caravans for years, and their robbery had brought them considerable wealth that would soon be apportioned among their conquerors. A fifth of the spoils would go to the Messenger, including the tribe’s store of rare gems-opals, emeralds, and sapphires that made my heart stop with their glittering beauty. I touched the jewels with a wistful sigh, knowing that they would soon be redistributed to the needy and the Prophet’s own household would remain as impoverished as ever.
The thorniest issue remained the fate of the captives from the tribe, especially the proud Juwayriya. Arguments erupted over who had the best claim to the daughter of the chieftain, who had shown the greatest bravery and prowess on the battlefield to merit a slave girl of such rare beauty. The rivals turned to Umar, who had been designated by the Messenger as the judge over all disputes regarding division of spoils. The grim-faced giant listened impatiently to each man, cutting him off when he had heard enough of his case, and then made his decision without hesitation. The girl belonged to Thabit, the man who had personally killed the chieftain of the Bani Mustaliq, her father.
While the other claimants were disappointed, none had the courage to grumble about the judgment before the mighty Umar, and the matter was resolved in everyone’s eyes.
Everyone except Juwayriya herself. When informed of her fate, she loudly demanded to speak with the Messenger of God himself. Her furious and stubborn insistence made even her captors cower, and shortly thereafter I accompanied the Prophet to the slave tent where she and the other women were being housed.
The moment we entered, Juwayriya was transformed from a haughty and demanding princess into a humble slave girl, her head lowered, tears instantly flooding her cheeks as if by command. She begged the Messenger to save her from her ignominious fate. She was the daughter of one of Arabia’s chieftains, a princess of her people. It was the height of degradation and shame for her family that she should now become the property and sexual plaything of a lowly soldier in the Muslim army.
I watched her through the heavy cloth of my veil, grudgingly impressed with her performance. Juwayriya alternated between sorrowful dignity and emotional hysteria as she made her case, and I could see my husband was moved by her pleas. I could feel the familiar sting of jealousy as the Messenger agreed to free her from her bondage-on the condition that she marry him and serve as a voice of conciliation that would bring the remainder of her tribe into a treaty with Medina.
Juwayriya readily assented to the proposal, and I shook my head in wonder at what a strange day this girl had experienced. She had risen with the dawn as a Bedouin princess. By midday, she was a captive and a slave. And by sundown, she had become a Mother of the Believers, one of the queens of Arabia.
That night, as I slept alone in my tent and the Prophet enjoyed the charms of his beguiling new wife, I fingered the onyx necklace, letting all the fury and envy in my heart flow into the dark beads. No matter how hard I tried, I could never be the center of Muhammad’s life. He was too vast for any one woman, and his life’s mission was greater than the call of any marital union.
I wanted desperately to be the most important of his wives, the one who would even replace Khadija in his memories, but I knew this would never happen. I would have to settle for being the first of an ever-expanding circle of consorts, one name lost among many in the annals of history.
I felt my angry heart scream at the injustice of my life. The most shining star in the firmament of Arabian women, I was nonetheless being buried like a diamond in a sand dune, my delicate beauty hidden from the world, my sharp mind unable to sparkle in the open light of the sun. I was more than this fifteen-year-old girl wrapped in a black veil and sleeping on a rough mat in the desert. But the world would never see me as such. I was a queen who could never claim her crown.
I made a silent oath that of all the Messenger’s wives, I would be the one whom the world would still talk about a thousand years from now. The one whose name would play on the lips of men and women when all the others had been forgotten.
It was a terrible vow, and one that should never have been made. For the Lord heard my dark prayer that night and granted it, but not in any way that I could have hoped or desired.
The morning that changed my life, as well as the history of the world, was unremarkable. I woke at first light to the haunting sound of Bilal’s voice calling the believers to prayer. I had slept fitfully and had been troubled by dreams that immediately fled as I rose from the straw mat. I performed my ablutions from a pail of water that had been left discreetly outside the entrance to my tent by a soldier.
I let the soothingly cold water flow through my hands and then washed the sleep out of my eyes and dabbed my hair and feet according to the proper ritual of wudhu-the lesser ablution that one normally performed before any prayer. Only after sexual intercourse was one required to take a ghusl, a full bath in which every part of the body had to be cleansed before one could stand in worship of the Lord of the Worlds. The thought flashed through my mind that the Messenger would, of course, have to perform the ghusl after spending the night with his new bride, and I felt the pangs of jealousy tighten my chest.
When I emerged, fully veiled and covered head to toe, as was now required of me, I saw the Prophet was gathering the men in single lines facing south toward the Holy Kaaba. He smiled when he saw the black bundle that was me, but I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. I saw from the corner of my vision that his smile widened just slightly, as if he were amused by my clear annoyance at his marriage to Juwayriya, and I had to bite my tongue before I said something out loud that would be unworthy of a Mother of the Believers.
After we had performed the Fajr ritual, before the disk of the sun had yet emerged on the horizon, the men began to break down our camp for the journey home. I went off to brood by myself, staying aloof from Juwayriya despite her glances in my direction. She was now wearing a purple veil that matched her flowing robes, and even in her modest dress she seemed to exude great sensuality. She was taller than me and her bosom was round and firm, her thighs shapely-a girl who was clearly capable of bearing the Prophet children.
I seethed as I realized that Juwayriya would now become the new hope of the community, since I had failed to give the Prophet a son despite the six years we had shared a bed. The tongues of cruel gossips wagged that I was infertile, and yet my courses came every month without fail. It was true that the Prophet now spent only one night a week with me, so the chances of conception were accordingly lowered. There was, of course, still hope that my womb would bear fruit in the years to come. Yet some part of me had begun to believe that it was not the will of Allah that I should carry my husband’s son. The only thought that caused me more grief was that God might choose one of my rivals for that honor.
As I sat by myself in a corner of the camp, brooding over my lot in life, I felt the arid desert air suddenly cool around me, even though no wind rustled my robes. I looked up to see the Messenger of God standing above me, the infuriating smile still on his lips.
“Come, let us have a race,” he said, reaching out his hand to me.
I stared up at him in complete surprise, and then I felt my anger evaporating under the warmth of his gaze. In the early days of our marriage, when I was still a girl in body and heart, the Prophet would often play such games with me. He particularly loved to race, as I, with my lightning speed, was the only person who had any chance of beating him.
It was a tender offer, a reminder of days long past when it was just the two of us, before his harem was filled with beautiful women whose charms were an easy match for my own. I took his hand and rose, following the Messenger past the bustling crowds who were taking down tents and untethering the camels for the voyage. I saw Juwayriya standing by her widowed mother, watching us like a hawk, and I smiled beneath my black veil.
My husband led me to a hillock where a lone oleander bush stood in defiance of the wilderness, its pink-and-yellow buds shimmering in the early morning light. I saw him gaze across the landscape until he found a suitable landmark, a cactus tree near a ledge, beyond which was a sharp drop into rocky gorge.
“There,” he said, pointing to our finish line. “Don’t fall over the edge. The angels might not catch you in time!”
I narrowed my eyes at him and he laughed heartily. The Prophet waited with an amused grin as I girded my robes above my ankles to make sure I didn’t trip-there were no men in the immediate vicinity, and he did not object. I then kicked off my sandals and let the coarse sand caress my feet as I used to do when I was a child.
I saw the Messenger’s face change and the teasing look left his eyes, replaced by genuine fondness. I suddenly realized that he, too, missed the days when the world was simple, when it was just a handful of us speaking truth to power. Now we had become the power in the land and nothing was simple anymore.
The Messenger faced straight ahead, bending down in preparation. And then without the customary countdown from three, he simply cried, “Go!”
And the race was on.
I tore past him with the vibrancy of youth, my bare feet flashing beneath me. The hot air smashed against my face, pressing the heavy cloth of my veil against my mouth. I could feel my heart pounding as I pushed every sinew in my legs to the utmost. I could see the cactus growing closer, even as the empty desert appeared to stand still, and for a moment I had the strange thought that I was stationary and the plant was running toward me.
I could see no sign of my husband from the corner of my eye and wondered whether he had even left his position. And then I felt a rush of cold wind to my right, and the Messenger of God thundered past me, his black hair flowing wildly in the wind, the thick curls of his beard shaking from his hearty laughter.
And then he was at the cactus and he turned to face me triumphantly as I arrived a second later. We both dropped to the ground, gasping for breath and laughing with a joy that neither of us had expressed in so many months. The joy of being together, bound by destiny, this great man and this little girl, the most improbable of couples.
He held me close to him and I could feel the steady, comforting beat of his heart. I realized in that moment that no matter how many women entered his bed, I would remain special. I would never replace Khadija, his first love. But I would assuredly be his last. And in the end, what more could any woman ask of a man?
After we had caught our breath, I lowered my skirt and we walked back, hand in hand, to the camp, which was by now almost completely dismantled. My tent had been taken down and I went obligingly to Asiya, my she-camel, while my husband rejoined his men and helped them complete the preparations for the journey.
I sat inside the armored howdah and placed my hand across my heart, feeling the wonderful pangs of love renewed. And then I realized that something was wrong. My onyx necklace, which should have been lying on my bosom, was missing. I quickly searched through the howdah, but the tiny compartment was empty. I gingerly climbed out and looked around the camel, but all I could see was yellow sand and orange pebbles. The distinct black stones would have stood out like a blot on the sun, and yet there was no sign of them.
And then I remembered. I had last felt the necklace on my bosom during the race, the sharp beads pressing against my delicate flesh as I ran toward the cactus. It must have fallen off near the ledge where we reclined after the Messenger had beaten me to the finish.
I cursed the faulty clasp that had always given me trouble and began walking away from the camp in search of my wedding present. The onyx necklace was the first gift the Messenger had given me, and every time I felt it around my neck, I would remember that special night when I became a woman. I treasured it above all of my meager possessions and was not about to let it vanish into the sands for all time because of carelessness.
I climbed over the hillock and soon lost sight of the base camp. My eyes scanned the ground as I carefully retraced my steps, but there was no sign of the necklace. Frustrated, I looked around the base of the cactus, and still the necklace eluded my search. I stubbornly crossed the path again and again, kicking aside stones and overturning an anthill in my quest to find my wedding present. I became increasingly agitated and wondered how I would tell my love that his special gift to me was lost forever.
And then I saw it. Partially buried under a small mound of sand, a black stone winked out at me, its white flecks glittering in the harsh sunlight. I smiled in delight and thanked Allah for helping me find the necklace. I quickly pulled it out of the ground and wiped it clean. I held it close in my palm rather than tie it to my neck and risk having it fall off again. And then I looked up at the sky and realized that the sun was now far above me. I blanched-how long had I spent out here, alone in the wilderness? Had it been hours? I cursed my own foolishness. The Muslims should have been on the road to Medina by now, but my little excursion had delayed the entire army. Scouts were probably searching frantically for me, and the whole camp would be in disarray at my disappearance. My heart racing, I ran back to the hillock and climbed down, practicing a thousand apologies in my head for having held up the entire expedition.
And then I froze as the campground came into sight.
The area was deserted. There was not a single human being or animal left of the entire armed contingent. I stood there in utter shock, my breath caught in my throat. They were gone. The Muslims had broken camp and left without me.
I looked around desperately and called out for help. But there was no sign of any stragglers, and the only answer was the mocking call of my own echo.
My vision blurred as I stood forsaken in the empty wasteland where no man or woman could survive alone for more than a few hours. Tears fell readily from my eyes and I could feel their bitter salt on my tongue. The mad thought crossed my mind that the only water I would ever taste again would be that which flowed from inside me.
I sat down in despair, the necklace falling from my hand and landing on the dry earth that would soon become my grave. I looked in fury at the simple onyx beads whose pursuit would now cost me my life. And then I felt all the color drain from my face.
The necklace had fallen in such a fashion that the beads curled up to form a smile, a cruel, mocking jeer. And then the wind rose and I thought I could hear a terrible, inhuman laughter echoing all about me.
I wandered alone in the desert for hours, following the tracks of the camels eastward toward Medina. The dromedary beasts moved like falcons through the shifting sands and the army was in all likelihood already most of the way back to the oasis. If I continued on my present course, I would be able to reach home on foot within six days. Which was, of course, six days longer than I could survive without any food or water. And yet something kept pulling me forward, some desperate hope that my absence from the caravan would be noticed and a search party sent back. But as the sun fell toward the horizon, my hopes began to dwindle. And when the last light disappeared from the sky, they died with the sunset.
A blackness fell over the wilderness that was so thick that even the sea of stars above me could not shed any light on my path. The air that had sizzled with merciless wrath during the day now became still and deathly cold. I lay down on the coarse sand and hugged myself tight, hoping to keep my body warm enough to survive until the sunrise. But my teeth chattered viciously and tremors of ice ran through my veins.
The world began to darken further, and even the stars faded from my view. My head began to spin and my breathing slowed to a soft whisper. I could feel my heartbeat wane and I no longer had the strength to fight.
I was falling into a chasm that had no bottom and I finally surrendered and gave myself to the void.
I AWOKE WITH A start at the sound of drums pulsing in the distance. The world remained black all around me, and when I looked up into the sky, I could see no stars. For a moment, I was confused. Had I died? Was this the barzakh, the barrier between worlds where souls were stored until the Day of Resurrection? I looked around in trepidation, expecting the terrifying forms of Munkar and Nakir, the angels of death with black faces and piercing blue eyes, to appear at any moment and begin the solemn questioning of the soul in the grave. The angels were said to ask three questions: “Who is your Lord? Who is your prophet? What is your religion?” Those who answered correctly-“Allah,Muhammad, and Islam”-would be granted peace in their graves until the Final Judgment. And those who answered with falsehood would suffer torment that would prefigure the horrors of hell.
I gripped my hands to my chest, waiting and watching, the sacred words of the Fatiha repeating on my parched lips. And yet no angels appeared. But I heard the thunder of drums grow louder and a red glow appeared on the horizon. But it was not the welcoming glare of sunrise, but something else, for the sky remained black save for the throbbing, pulsating halo beyond the hills.
There was something that was both enticing and terrifying about that light. It beckoned to me and I felt drawn toward it. And yet a voice inside my heart said to stay where I was, to avoid the mysterious light and all the secrets that it offered. I struggled with myself, but my curiosity finally took hold of my heart and I walked toward the unearthly glow.
I climbed up a tall dune, struggling with the shifting sand beneath my feet that kept threatening to pull me back. But I finally managed to make it to the top of the hill and was able to look down at the source of the light. My eyes grew wide as I saw a campfire burning in the distance, the flickering flames dancing and calling out to me with the hope of rescue.
I began to run, joy in my heart. God had heard my prayers and the danger was over. Where there was fire, there were people. I should have hesitated, wondering who would be out here in the middle of the night, whether they were friend or foe. A pretty girl alone in the wilderness would be easy prey for the Bedouins, who followed no law save the call of their lust. And yet some part of my heart reasoned that I would be safe once they knew who I was. Even a bandit would find more value in ransoming the wife of Arabia’s most powerful man than in taking her virtue.
As I ran closer to the fire, the drums grew louder. I saw figures milling about the light and I slowed, my prudence finally reasserting itself. I crept closer to the burning pyre until I could get a clear look at these people and decide whether it was indeed wise to reveal myself.
And then I froze when I saw who they were. It was a group of women who looked disturbingly familiar, dressed in robes of scarlet and gold, their anklets jingling as they danced around the fire. They were led by a tall woman whose face was covered by a veil and who was beating a timbrel with intensity. The strange women swayed and swirled by the fire, their bodies shaking in an ecstasy that would have made me blush had I not been so disoriented. What were these women doing out here in the middle of the night, dancing and throwing themselves about as if they were making love to unseen spirits? My blood began to chill and I suddenly regretted having followed the light.
I was ready to crawl back over the hills and take refuge from these strange and alluring figures when I saw the veiled woman who led the dance raise her arm. A golden armlet reflected the raging fire and I could make out a distinct shape-two snakes winding about each other, and where their jaws met, a glistening ruby sparkled in defiance.
I stopped breathing as I realized who this woman was.
Hind. The mad wife of Abu Sufyan, who had eaten the flesh of the martyrs.
I wanted to run but my legs were rooted to the spot. And then I saw a flash of light above me and heard the terrible crash of thunder. And I realized that the reason I could see no stars was that the heavens were covered by thick, rolling storm clouds. The lightning flashed again, and a sudden torrent began, rain plunging down from the angry sky and flooding the earth around me.
I felt the hard drops hitting my face like tiny pebbles and I opened my mouth, desperate for water after hours of wandering in the desert. But the rainwater tasted different, salty and vile, and I retched violently. And then the sky was lit by a dozen terrible jagged bolts and for a moment I could see the world clearly about me.
The raindrops were not clear, but crimson.
The sky was raining blood.
As my heart pounded in horror, the unholy torrent struck the campfire. But instead of extinguishing the flames, it was as if oil had been poured upon them, and the fire burned higher and brighter, illuminating the desolate valley as bright as day.
And then I saw a sight I will never forget. All about me the ground was littered with corpses from a battle. Men in armor, their breastplates pierced by dozens of arrows, arms and legs dismembered and thrown to the side like refuse. The terrible stench of rotting flesh engulfed me and I wanted to scream, and yet no sound emerged.
And then I watched with horror beyond horror as the veiled Hind stopped her dance and turned to look in my direction. In the light of the raging fire she could now see me, and she suddenly laughed with bloodcurdling viciousness. Her maidens, whom I now recognized as the same madwomen who had danced over the body of Hamza, pointed at me and sneered.
And then Hind was walking toward me and I saw that the timbrel in her hand had become a mighty sword, the blade curved and cruelly jagged. At that instant, my terror overcame my shock and I began to run. Yet everywhere I turned, I was blocked by a sea of corpses, and I had no choice but to step on their bodies, feeling the sickening sensation of my feet sinking into their rotting flesh.
I could hear Hind’s laughter growing closer but I dared not look behind me. I needed to get away, far away from this madness. Every prayer I knew was on my lips, and yet the nightmare continued, my supplications met only with the terrible roll of thunder from above.
And then my sandals jammed inside the open mouth of a dead soldier whose skull I tried to run over, and I tripped, falling hard on my face. I desperately tried to move, to pull my foot free from the teeth of the poor man whose corpse I had no choice but to desecrate. I managed to pry my foot loose from the jaws of the unlucky soldier and crawled away, shuddering in disgust. I was ready to get back to my feet when lightning flashed and I saw the face of the poor man clearly.
It was the face of your father, my sister’s husband, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam.
My eyes went wide in horror and I could not move. Zubayr lay on the ground and I saw that his head had been severed from his body. In each of his hands he held a sword, even as he had that fateful day he had protected our lives at Uhud.
I wanted to scream, but it was as if my tongue had been ripped from my throat.
And then I saw a figure lying beside him, pierced with a dozen arrows shot through his breast, his eyes looking up at me accusingly.
It was my sweet cousin Talha, the one man who loved me more than himself and had nearly died fighting those who sought to sully my honor.
Tears exploded from my eyes and I felt myself swooning. And then, in that terrible moment, Hind appeared, standing above the bodies of two of my dearest and closest friends, laughing in contempt. I threw myself at her, clawing at her veiled face with my fingers. She appeared startled by my onslaught and raised her sword to strike me. Somehow I found the strength to kick her in the womb, and she doubled over in pain, letting the blade fall from her grasp. I immediately took up the weapon, which felt surprisingly light and natural in my hand, and in an instant I was standing atop the fallen Meccan queen, the blade at her neck.
The terrible image of Talha and Zubayr dead before me consumed my eyes and I raised the weapon, ready to strike.
“You did this to them!” I screamed.
And then Hind spoke words that have never left me and haunt me to this day.
“No. You did.”
I did not understand what she meant and I did not care to. Screaming with animal rage, my heart crying out for vengeance, I sliced the blade down and cut Hind’s head from her sensuous body.
As her decapitated skull rolled away, the veil fell off.
And I dropped my sword in horror.
For I was looking at my own face.
I screamed with such intensity that I woke myself from the nightmare, the cry still echoing from my lips even as my eyes blinked in confusion. There was no battlefield, no sea of corpses. My beloved Talha and your father, Zubayr, were nowhere to be seen, nor was the ghastly demon image of Hind-or was it myself?
I was alone where I had collapsed hours before, in the middle of the empty desert, with only scorpions and lizards to keep me company. For a moment, a wave of relief ran through my veins and I said a silent prayer thanking Allah that what I had seen was just a dream, a delusion arising from the terror of my predicament.
And then my relief faded and the stark realization of my situation came back to me like a kick to the stomach. I was alone and lost in the wilderness, and had not had a sip of water since noon the day before. My head was pounding and the world swam before me as I tried to rise to my feet. I would not able to survive another day out here like this, and by the time the search parties reached me from Medina, I would be a desiccated corpse, partially consumed by the sands and the ferocious insects that hid in the shadows of the wastes.
And then I turned my head and saw the red glow on the eastern horizon. At least the sun would be up shortly and the icy air would give way to its unrelenting fury. I held myself tight, trying to warm my bones as the winds slapped at me from all sides, like an angry mother chiding a troublesome child. I had no choice but to keep moving toward the sun, hoping against hope that the caravan had returned for me during the darkness, that soon I would be home again in my small but comfortable little chamber in the courtyard of the Masjid. How I had longed to escape that tiny room as if it were a prison! And now I would have traded my soul for a chance to sleep inside its sturdy walls, free of wind and rain and the raging furnace of the sun. During the worst moments of my confinement, I had dreamed of running off into the open desert, letting the sands caress my bare feet and the air wash freely over my uncovered tresses. But now I hated this vast openness, this stark emptiness that was a dungeon far worse than any designed by man.
As I stumbled forward, memories of my family came back to me. My beautiful mother, softly whispering a lullaby to me as I fell into safe slumber in her arms. My father, hunched and careworn, yet always smiling at me with sparkling eyes that knew only kindness. My sister, Asma, whose plainness and strength and quiet dignity gave her more beauty than all the flighty girls whose glitter faded with time. As I coughed up dust from my battered lungs, I said a silent prayer that they would not grieve for me for long. Their lives were difficult enough without the weight of heartache and the bitter poison of loss.
And then the crimson disk of the sun broke over the horizon and I blinked in surprise. A figure was silhouetted against the heavenly fire, a man on a camel, riding steadily in my direction. No caravan, no contingent of soldiers that would have normally made up a search party for so august a person as a Mother of the Believers. Just one man, moving inexorably toward me.
I looked around, but there was nowhere to hide in the vast nothingness. And then I moved out of pure instinct. I grabbed a sharp rock whose cruel edges looked as if they could tear open flesh down to the bone. And then I pulled up the veil that I had tied around my waist and hastily covered my face.
And then the sun rose higher and I saw the man’s face and recognized him. He was a youth of twenty years named Safwan who had often come by the Masjid to help the Prophet’s daughter Fatima feed the People of the Bench. He had no wealth or social position, but his darkly handsome features always set my girlfriends giggling in his presence. Safwan was the source of many unspoken fantasies among the women of Medina, although he was remarkably pious and seemed utterly unaware of the heated thoughts he inspired in others.
And now he was here in the desert, and we were alone.
As the climbing sun illuminated the world about us, Safwan stopped his camel and stared down at the tiny figure standing inexplicably on the desert plain. I saw him blink several times as if he was trying to convince himself that I was not some sort of mirage or twisted vision of his mind.
And then I saw his dark eyes fall upon my onyx necklace, the accursed object that had brought me to this wretched place between life and death. And then I saw the color drain from his face.
“Inna lillahi wan inna ilayhi rajioon,” he said, reciting the prayer in the Qur’an that is said when man faces adversity or a situation beyond his ability to handle. “Truly we belong to God and truly we are returning to Him.”
I stared up at him, unblinking, utterly unable to speak. And then Safwan climbed off his camel and approached me slowly, one hand on the hilt of his dagger.
“Are you…are you the Messenger’s wife? Or a djinn sent to lead me astray?” There was fear and wonder in his voice, and I realized that he had not been sent to look for me. Somehow, by the strange hand of fate, this lone warrior had been wandering through the desert wastes and had come upon me at my moment of dire need. If ever there had been any small part of my heart that had questioned or doubted the existence of God, it vanished forever in that remarkable moment in the desolate wilderness.
My vision blurred as tears of joy and disbelief flooded my eyes.
“I am no djinn,” I managed to croak out. “Please…help me.”
I had awakened from one nightmare and found myself in another. Within hours of my miraculous return to Medina, the daggers of envy were bared against me. The Messenger had dispatched search parties when he learned that I was missing from my howdah. But when the people of Medina saw me returning in the company of Safwan, salacious talk of my time alone with the attractive soldier began to spread like a brushfire. Nervous whispers fanned into open word in the marketplace that I had arranged to fall behind the caravan so that I could tryst with my young lover. Even though I was secluded again inside my tiny apartment, the rumors were so prevalent that they quickly reached my shocked ears.
The Messenger of God reacted swiftly, calling the believers to a jamaat at the Masjid where he openly declared his rejection of such gossip, which was apparently being fomented by Abdallah ibn Ubayy and his disgruntled cohorts among the Khazraj. The gathering had become heated as members of the rival tribe Aws openly accused Ibn Ubayy of slandering the Mother of the Believers, and there had been a tense moment when it appeared that the ancient hatred between the clans had been rekindled and could lead to open warfare. Sensing the dangerous mood of the crowd, the Messenger had called for calm and forgiveness and then quickly dispersed the gathering. And yet the reopened wounds between the tribes did not heal so easily, nor did the accusation against me die with the Prophet’s defense.
And as the evil tongues continued to spill their poison, even my husband’s trusting heart was no longer immune to the lies. He stopped visiting me on our appointed days and I realized with horror that the seeds of nagging doubt were beginning to germinate in his mind.
And so it was that I sat weeping in my tiny home, the mud walls that I had despised as a prison now my only protection from the crowds that gathered daily in the courtyard to mock my honor. My mother sat beside me, holding my hand and brushing my hair as she had when I was a little girl a lifetime before. I was grateful for her soothing presence and yet troubled by her inability to look into my eyes. The thought that she, too, might quietly doubt my integrity was more painful than I could bear.
The door opened and I looked up to see my father enter. He appeared to have aged a dozen years in the past few days, and his graying hair was now almost completely white.
I wanted to get up, to run into his arms, but there was a terrible cloud over his face. And then I realized with dread that he was looking at me less in sympathy than in anger, as if I were somehow to blame for this calumny, and I felt the sting of new tears in my eyes.
“What has happened?” he said softly, looking at my mother rather than me. But I spoke up quickly, refusing to let others talk of my situation as if I were not present.
“The Messenger bade me stay with you until he decides what to do,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking under grief.
My mother patted my hand and stared up at the ceiling.
“Do not fear. This will all pass soon,” she said, her voice sounding distant, as if she were talking aloud to herself rather than to me. And then she looked over at my father, who was still avoiding my eyes. “You are a beautiful woman and the wife of a powerful man. Those who speak against you are filled with envy.”
Her words were meant to comfort, but I could hear the hint of doubt in her voice and could see her looking at Abu Bakr as if for reassurance. But he simply stared at his feet without responding.
“But what am I to do?” I cried out in agony, begging for them to set aside their hesitation, to save their daughter from this cauldron of sorrow. “What if the Messenger divorces me? Or I am put on trial for adultery? The punishment is death!”
The horror of my words seemed to break through the ice between us and I saw the first hint of compassion on my father’s tired face.
“Do not fear, my daughter,” he said, finally moving from the doorway to sit by my side. “He is the Prophet of God. If you are innocent-”
All the color drained from my face and then came flooding back in a rush of anger that made my skin burn.
“If I am innocent?”
“I only meant…”
I rose to my feet and moved away from him.
“I know what you meant! You don’t believe me!”
My father tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away as if he were a leper.
“I didn’t say that,” he said meekly, trying to undo the damage of his careless words. But it was too late.
“You don’t have to!” I raged at him. “I see it in your eyes!”
My mother tried to intervene. She took a deep breath and then finally looked at me directly.
“Aisha, you are a young girl who has been through so much,” she said softly, and I could see that she was struggling with the words. “You are such a vivacious child with a love for life, and you have been burdened with more responsibility than any girl should bear at your age.” She hesitated and then said the words that would tear my heart in two. “I know the veil has left you feeling lonely and trapped. It’s perfectly understandable to seek an escape, even for one night…”
I felt my heart miss a beat, and for a second the world spun around me. I was drowning and there was no one to save me. Not even my mother, who was intent on pushing my head farther into the rancid waters of shame and scandal.
And then I heard myself speaking, but it was not me. A voice unlike any that had emerged from my throat echoed in that room. It was deep and harsh, like a man’s, resounding with power and terror.
“Get out!”
Umm Ruman’s mouth dropped open in disbelief, and her eyes bulged from her lined but still elegant face.
“Don’t talk to me that way! I am your mother!” There was more fear than anger in her voice, as if she did not recognize this strange djinn that had taken possession of her precious daughter.
And yet the voice I could not control would not be silenced.
“No! I am yours!” I could hear it say. “I am the Mother of the Believers! I am the Chosen One, brought by Gabriel himself to the Messenger of God! You must obey me as you would obey my husband! Now get out!”
Tears welled in my mother’s luminous eyes and yet I felt no sorrow for her. I felt nothing but outrage and righteous indignation.
My mother looked as if she were about to retort. I saw her hand trembling as if it took every last thread of willpower to refrain from slapping me across the face.
And then my father rose and touched her on the shoulder, shaking his head. My mother’s fury collapsed like a dam and the flood of grief that was inside her was released. She wept violently, her face buried in her hands, her body shaking with such violence that I thought her delicate bones would shatter.
I gazed down on her grief and turned my back, preferring the sight of the dull brick wall to that of my own flesh and blood who had betrayed me. I heard the rustle of cotton robes as Abu Bakr rose and helped my crying mother to her feet. Their footsteps echoed coldly on the stone floor and then I heard the door slam behind them.
I was alone now. More alone than I had ever been. Even though sunlight streamed in through the tiny cracks in the sheepskin covers over my window, I could feel a curtain of darkness falling over my life. A blackness so thick that even the shadows of the grave seemed to burn like torches of hope.
And then, with nothing else left to do, I fell to my knees and prayed.
And then, in that lonely silence where the only sound was the sullen tremor of my heart, I heard a voice inside my mind. It was gentle and soft, like the whisper of a spring breeze, and it recited the words of the holy Qur’an.
God is the Protector of those who have faith. From the depths of darkness, He will lead them forth into light…
I sat close as my maid Burayra whispered to me what she had heard outside the door of Zaynab’s apartment. She was one of the few members of the household who had stood by my side as the scandal had spread and I counted her as my one true friend in what was becoming the darkest hour of my life. Her plump arms were soft as cushions and I would lean into them and weep every night as I awaited news of my fate. I had come to rely on Burayra’s persistent cheer to keep me from surrendering to despair. But tonight her chubby face was downturned with the weight of the words she carried.
“Zaynab bint Jahsh spoke in your favor with the Messenger,” she said, to my sincere surprise.
“Zaynab?” It was hard to believe that my greatest rival had spoke in my defense. And I suddenly felt exceedingly cheap and small for all the dark thoughts and bitterness I had harbored about her over the years. “Then I have been wrong about her. May Allah bless her.”
I would later learn that as the whispers of infidelity had grown louder, as the whiff of scandal had become a cloud of stench over the sacred household, some of Zaynab’s friends had told her to rejoice. The daughter of Abu Bakr, her chief rival in the harem, would soon be undone by the sword of shame, and Zaynab would become the principal wife, the most revered of the Mothers in the eyes of the community. My downfall would be the catalyst that would raise Zaynab’s sun in the eyes of God and man, and she would quickly fill the void in her husband’s betrayed and broken heart.
Such was the excited chattering of the other women of standing in Medina, women from powerful and noble families who had welcomed the wealthy Zaynab as one of their own even as they scorned me as an ambitious upstart. To these ladies, I had finally received my long- overdue comeuppance, and they were eagerly awaiting the final act in this sordid drama, a denouement that would end in my disgrace and divorce from the House of the Messenger. The fact that my end could be met under a pile of stones in the desert, the ancient punishment for adulterers, did not seem to concern these catty gossips. They were too busy savoring the spice of scandal to consider that a young girl’s life was at stake.
Perhaps not too long ago, Zaynab would have happily done the same, delighting in my fall. The humiliation of a woman whose childish games had brought the curtain of the veil down on all of them, cutting Zaynab and her sister-wives off from the world forever. She should have taken justified pleasure in my predicament as the proper retribution for a life of entitlement and unearned distinction as the Messenger’s only virgin wife.
And yet now that her rival was in the center of a maelstrom that would in all likelihood consume me, Zaynab felt no joy. She had never liked me, that was true, and my hold on Muhammad’s heart would always be a source of jealousy for her. But in her heart, she knew that I was innocent of the slander. For all my faults, my arrogance and quick temper, Zaynab knew that I was utterly besotted with the Messenger of God and would not willingly submit to the charms of any man, even one as dashing and virile as Safwan. No, in Zaynab’s eyes, I was not guilty of adultery. Idiocy, yes. Immaturity, yes. But she knew that I would not, could not, be unfaithful to Muhammad, any more than the moon could refuse to follow the sun.
And so it was that Zaynab bint Jahsh, my chief competitor for the heart of God’s Messenger, made a decision, one that would perplex her friends but one that was made because it was the right thing to do.
I listened intently as Burayra shared with me what she had heard.
“O MESSENGER OF GOD, may I speak?” Zaynab had been sitting by the Prophet’s side for some time before summoning up the courage to raise her voice.
The Prophet looked up at her, his eyes weary. He had sat by Ali for nearly half an hour without either man speaking. Zaynab had watched the two, more like father and son than cousins, as they gazed at each other as if communicating without words. To anyone outside the confines of the sacred household, the persistent silence would have seemed awkward. Yet those in the inner circle of the family had come to understand that the relationship between Muhammad and Ali was special. The normal rules of social propriety did not seem to exist between them, as if they were one person rather than two, part of each other in some mysterious way that was beyond the understanding of mere mortals.
“Speak, daughter of Jahsh, for I would hear your counsel,” the Prophet said softly.
Zaynab hesitated, afraid that she was inserting herself into matters that were dangerously outside her purview. But as she looked at the pain in her husband’s eyes, she knew what she had to do.
“Aisha and I have never been close, for many reasons that do not matter anymore,” she said, cautiously at first, as if every word were a step onto a deadly battlefield. And then the words came rushing from her lips, as if something greater than herself had taken control of Zaynab’s soul and was speaking through her. “But I can say this. She loves you and you alone. It is a passion that is so fiery that it consumes her with jealousy at times, to the grief of your other wives. But it is that very same passion that makes it impossible for her to have done the things she has been accused of.”
She stopped, almost afraid to breathe. The Prophet looked at her and she saw the flicker of gratitude in his eyes.
“Thank you, Zaynab.”
He spoke like a patient thanking a doctor for a desperately needed salve. Her words had lessened his pain, his isolation. But she could see that the torment of doubt still raged in his heart.
“Even if I believe Aisha, the scandal threatens to consume the Ummah like a wildfire,” the Messenger of God said with a sigh, “I don’t know what to do.”
Zaynab’s eyes fell on Ali, who looked down at his hands for a long moment before finally raising his head to speak.
“There are many women besides her,” Ali said gently.
Zaynab saw the Prophet stiffen as if he had been stung, and then tears welled in his black eyes. The Messenger looked at his younger cousin, who shrank back slightly from his gaze, as if in apology. And yet Ali did not retract his words.
In the years to come, Zaynab would remember this simple exchange between two men. A few words between family members dealing with an embarrassing scandal, words that would have had little impact beyond the moment had they been said by other men with more modest destinies.
Ali’s advice was well intentioned, she knew. His suggestion that Muhammad should divorce Aisha was likely being whispered by many other Companions. They were words that were said out of love for Muhammad and a desire to protect the honor of his household. But words are like sparks, and these would kindle a flame that would forever change the course of history.
I WAS STUNNED WHEN Burayra told me of Ali’s advice to divorce me. The Prophet’s cousin had betrayed me. The man who was closest to my husband’s heart had tried to use his powerful influence to have me expelled from the People of the House, have me cast out like a leper into the wilderness. He had judged me guilty without evidence and had cast his lot with the evil men and women who were spreading lies to destroy me.
I felt my heart begin to pound, and the blood rushed so quickly to my head that I reeled as if I had been slapped. In that one moment, every complex feeling I ever had toward this strange and unearthly young man coalesced into one emotion.
Hatred.
“Ali…” I said his name out loud with difficulty, my voice shaking with anger so hot that it burned my tongue white. And then I made an oath that would change everything. The course of my life and the destiny of Islam itself turned on the words that exploded from my lips like a raging flood, destroying everything in their path.
“By God, I will humble his face to the ground…I will tear him from his seat of honor if it’s the last thing I do…”
I saw the terrified look on Burayra’s face and I did not care. She stared at me as if she did not recognize me, and she was right. For in that moment, Aisha bint Abu Bakr, the frivolous, warmhearted girl who loved life, was dead. I had been reborn as a woman of ice, whose cold heart beat for only one purpose.
After I had heard that the Prophet was being advised to divorce me by his closest allies, I left the confines of my apartment and returned to my mother’s home. It was not that I felt safer or more accepted there. On the contrary, my parents’ doubts were like claws scratching at my heart, and it was difficult for me to look either of them in the face. But I could not continue to dwell in the household of the Messenger, sleep in the bed we had once shared, as long as there was a cloud of suspicion hanging over me. And if I were to be cut off from the marriage bond-or worse, placed on trial for adultery-then I did not want to face the indignity of being taken forcefully from my own house. And so I donned my veil and left of my own accord one morning, with Burayra my only protection against the accusing stares of the crowds as I walked down the cobbled streets of Medina.
My mother gave me a small room in the back of her stone hut, little larger than the cell that had been my apartment in the Masjid. She tried to comfort me, but I brushed aside her clumsy efforts at reconciliation and kept to myself. I spent the days in prayer, kneeling before God and asking Him to remove this lie that had been branded on my name. And every night I slept alone on the rough cot, the mattress made of knotted palm fiber that cut my skin raw as I tossed and turned with a thousand nightmares. But no matter how horrible the dreams were, the faces of djinn and demons that haunted my nights, I preferred the troubled madness of sleep to the greater nightmare that awaited me when I awoke.
I remained in that room for six days, emerging only to visit the rickety toilet shed behind the back wall of the house. My mother tried to coax me to join the family for meals, but I would simply take rough pieces of meat and bowls of wheat porridge back into my room and eat alone. After two days, she stopped asking me to come out and simply left the food on a tray by my door.
And then, on the seventh day, I heard a knock and my father’s voice asking me to let them in, for he had brought a visitor. The Messenger of God had finally arrived to speak with me. And I could tell from my father’s grave tone that he feared the worst.
I was numb from the unrelenting pain of the past few weeks and I felt nothing in my heart as I went to greet my husband. No anger, no fear. No despair. And even the love that had always bonded us was hidden so deep in the void of my heart that I could not find it. I was a corpse, without life or sensation, a dead tree whose branches rustled under a cold wind.
I opened the door to see the Messenger of God, his face drawn and solemn, looking down at me. I offered a perfunctory greeting of peace and then sat down on the hard cot and stared straight ahead, ready for whatever judgment he had brought.
The Prophet entered, followed by my mother and father, who looked more frightened than I had ever seen them. Even during the tense flight from Medina, their faces had been calm, their demeanor untroubled and steady. And yet now they looked as if everything they had was about to be taken away from them. I would have appreciated their fear for my future, a sign of their love for me despite their doubts and misgivings about my character. But my heart was like winter frost on the palm leaves, sharp and unyielding.
My husband sat beside me and looked at my face for a long moment. His dark eyes were impenetrable, and the hint of rose normally found on his cheeks was gone, leaving him as pallid as a ghost.
When he finally spoke, I barely recognized his voice, for its fluid melody had been replaced by a hoarseness, as if he had not spoken in years.
“O Aisha. I have heard these things about you, and if you are innocent, surely God will declare your innocence,” he said, measuring every word carefully. “And if you have done wrong, then ask forgiveness of God and repent unto Him. Truly if a servant confesses to God and repents, God relents toward him.”
So here it was. The Messenger of God was sitting beside me, asking me if indeed I had betrayed him with Safwan in the desert. After all our years together, after everything we had endured, he still did not trust me. His words cut through me and suddenly a hidden well of emotion was unleashed. Tears welled in my eyes and fell down my cheeks, but I made no effort to wipe them away. My eyes were blurring wildly, as if I had been thrust face-first into a river, and for an instant I thought I might go blind, like the prophet Jacob, whose grief at the loss of his son Joseph tore away his sight.
I turned my face to my father, who stood by the doorway.
“Answer the Messenger of God for me,” I said, pleading with Abu Bakr to intervene and save me from this final disgrace.
But my father bowed his head.
“I don’t know what to say.”
Through my tear-filled eyes, I could make out the figure of my mother standing behind him, her hands held to her breast in a sign of terrible grief.
“Mother…please…tell him…”
But Umm Ruman turned away from me, sobbing.
I looked at my parents and realized that I was truly alone in this world. And then something strange happened. I could feel a warmth spreading in my breast, a fire that had been kindled in my heart. The flame of dignity and honor that was my birthright.
I wiped my tears and stood up, my head held high.
“I know you have heard what men are saying, and it has settled on your souls and you believe it,” I said with pride, my eyes passing from my parents to my husband. “If I say to you that I am innocent-and God knows that I am innocent-then you will not believe me. But if I confess to something of which God knows I am not guilty, then you will believe me.”
And then I remembered again the prophet Jacob and his response when confronted with the lie that a wolf had eaten his son.
“So I will say as the father of Joseph said. It is best to be patient, and God is He to whom I ask help against what they say.”
And with that I climbed back onto my hard bed and turned my back to them, lying crumpled in a ball like a baby in its womb, my arms wrapped around my shoulders in an embrace that no one else would give me.
I heard the Messenger of God stir, and then I felt the bed shaking violently. It was a sensation that I immediately recognized, having experienced it so many times when he was lying beside me.
It was the convulsion of the Revelation.
I felt him slip off the bed and heard a thud as he fell to the ground. Despite my anger, despite my feelings of loss and betrayal, I turned to see if he was all right. The Prophet had fallen on his side and I saw him bent and shivering, his knees pulled up to the chest. Sweat poured down his face, even though the air was so cold that I could see the mist of his breath.
Abu Bakr and Umm Ruman were immediately at his side, but there was nothing they could do but gaze in awe as the divine communion played out before their eyes. The Messenger’s shaking slowed and finally stopped, and his eyes blinked open. He looked around, disoriented as he often was after a Revelation. And then he saw me on the bed and his face broke into a wide smile.
The Messenger struggled to rise to his feet, and my parents helped him as he steadied himself. And then he laughed, the first sound of joy that I had heard from his lips in weeks.
“O Aisha, praise God, for he has declared you innocent!”
The words hit me in the pit of my stomach. The world spun around me and I suddenly felt as if I were about to faint.
My parents stared at the Prophet with wide eyes and then embraced each other with joy. I saw the relief on their faces, but I did not move. My legs felt dead beneath me, and my heart pounded so loudly that I could feel my bones shake.
My mother looked at me with a broad smile and then bent down to kiss my forehead. And yet even then I sat still, staring at the three of them without a single word.
“Rise and thank the Messenger of God!” my mother said, with both joy and a hint of reproach in her voice.
And then I felt my face turn hot red, and all the poison of the weeks before came rushing into my veins. I rose to my feet and threw my hair back in defiance.
“No!” I shouted in a deadly voice that even I did not recognize. “I will not rise and go to him, and I will not praise anyone except God!”
God had believed me even though the whole world had turned against me, including my own flesh and blood. Including the man I loved. Had it not been for the Creator of the heavens and the earth intervening in this sorry state of affairs, I would have lived my life and possibly met my death under the cloud of a lie.
I turned and stormed out of the room, wishing to escape all those who had not believed me and bow my head to the One who had. To the only one whom I could trust unconditionally, the only one who mattered. A Being whose Face was everywhere I looked and nowhere at the same time. A God whose words I read every day and yet whose voice I had never heard.
I realized that day that Muhammad was exactly what he claimed to be-a man and nothing more. I had loved him with such youthful ferocity that I had turned him into an idol, a pristine icon of perfection, when in truth he was of the same flesh and blood as the rest of us, with the same doubts and fears that plagued the hearts of other mortals. I knew that when the fire of my anger had faded, my love for my husband would return, as it always does between those whose souls are bonded. But it would be a healthy love, of two people learning to live together in an imperfect world, not of a trembling supplicant bowing before an angel.
It would be a human love from that day forward, without the taint of idolatry, a sin that had been cleansed from my heart through the fire of scandal and injustice. And though the mystique of girlish romance, of a union that was a rose free of thorns, was lost forever to me, it had been replaced with a steady and honest view of life and the difficulty of living and loving in a broken world.
As I look back upon my life in these final hours, I realize that at that moment, I truly changed from a girl into a woman.
I RETURNED TO MY apartment that afternoon, and word spread throughout Medina of my divine vindication. Not only had God cleared me of the false charge, He had commanded a new law in the holy Qur’an, which required that anyone accusing a woman of adultery must produce four eyewitnesses to the act itself. And if four witnesses do not step forward, then the accuser himself must be lashed eighty times for besmirching the honor of an innocent woman.
But in the immediate aftermath of my own rehabilitation, the Prophet urged me to forgive the gossipmongers and end the rift that had threatened to tear the nation apart. I agreed, and a parade of apologetic men and women came to my door, weeping and begging my forgiveness, which I readily gave. The matter was closed, and I had no desire to pour further poison onto the wounds of the community.
But when the final supplicant came, I found that my heart had run out of generosity. Ali arrived at the threshold of my apartment and gently sought my pardon.
I stared at my nemesis through the curtain of my thick veil. His humble gestures of regret were sincere. And yet his apology did nothing to lessen the rage burning inside me. Ali, alone of all people, had the power to sway my husband’s heart for good or ill, and he had chosen to use that power against me.
Staring at Ali, his head bowed before me in apology, I felt as if talons were closing around my neck, and the ugly taste of bile rose in my throat. And then, without responding to his repeated requests for forgiveness, I rose and closed the door in his face.
Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the general of Mecca’s forces, stared out at the approaching throngs of his enemies. But they were not garbed in steel armor or carrying mighty weapons of war. Instead they were clothed in the ihram, the simple white linen of pilgrims coming to visit the Sanctuary at the heart of Arabia. The men of Medina wore a two-piece costume, a sheet wrapped around their loins with a second draped across their shoulders, while the Muslim women wore flowing robes and head scarves.
Khalid sat on his mighty stallion, his eyes fixed on the sea of fourteen hundred Muslims marching unarmed and defenseless on the sacred city from which their leaders had been expelled almost a decade before. He heard their emotional cries of the ancient Pilgrimage evocation: Labayk, Allahumma, labayk! “I answer your call, O God, I answer!” And even his heart, which had little room for sentiment, was moved.
But though his emotions may have been softened by this remarkable sight, his duty as a warrior remained unchanged. Khalid clicked his tongue and spurred his horse forward and raced to the approaching throng of worshipers.
The leaders of Mecca had just received word of this incoming wave of Muslims and the city was in a frenzy. It was a sad testament to the fall of Mecca’s prestige since the failed Siege of the Trench that none of the allied Bedouin tribes had bothered to give Abu Sufyan and his cronies sufficient warning of the approaching pilgrim caravan from Medina. Perhaps their spies in the neighboring hills did not think the arrival of unarmed worshipers to Mecca posed any threat, but Khalid wondered whether the same silence would have greeted Muhammad’s arrival on a mission of war.
Muhammad. Khalid shook his head in admiration. The man had proven to be not only an inspiring teacher and political leader but also an apt general and a truly brilliant military strategist. This most recent surprise tactic, of sending his people out to join the Pilgrimage like the other Arab tribes, was a brilliant stroke, the play of a master at the top of his game. For even as Khalid rode out to meet his foes, he knew there was little he could do to stop them. Pilgrims were protected by the ancient taboos of his people, and he could not lay hands on them without inciting the wrath of Mecca’s few remaining allies.
Which, of course, Muhammad understood. He was sending to Mecca a force large enough to invade and occupy the city, but one that carried no weapons that could invite retaliation. Muhammad would in essence bind Mecca with a chain of peace and there was nothing that Abu Sufyan or the elders could do about it.
As Khalid rode over a hill, he heard the thunder of hooves behind him and could smell the sweat of his men who were riding out to support their commander. Two hundred of the finest cavalry of Mecca would be behind him in moments, and the dust of their approach was likely already visible on the horizon to the approaching pilgrims. And yet the crowd did not slow its advance, and the Muslims continued walking toward the sacred city from which they were banned.
As his legion of horsemen raced toward the peaceful invaders, Khalid rode forward until he was within shouting distance from the men at the front lines. He recognized Umar ibn al-Khattab, the fierce warrior who had abandoned his people for this new faith, and he spurred his horse toward the towering figure.
Umar must have seen him ride up from over the dunes, even as he must now see the oncoming wave of Meccan horses. But the grim man simply stared straight ahead, chanting the pilgrim’s call even louder as the rumble of hooves echoed closer.
Khalid rode up straight to him and called out.
“I have been sent by the lords of Mecca to say that you are not welcome here. Go back to your land and disturb not the Pilgrimage.”
Umar finally looked at him, but there was no fear in his eyes, only mild contempt, as if he were being barked at by a rabid dog. And then Umar strode forward and continued to walk past Khalid as if he did not recognize the most acclaimed soldier of their nation.
Khalid reared his horse, which struck out its hooves defiantly at Umar. A single blow from his stallion’s powerful legs could easily kill a man. And yet Umar continued to ignore him and raised his voice louder in prayer.
Khalid watched as the throng of Muslims passed around him as if they were a raging river and he a mere stone that could in no way inhibit their flow. And then he felt a welling of deep respect for the heretics who had turned his world upside down.
The warrior pulled on his reins and his horse began to move through the crowd. As he rode back up toward the hill, he saw that his men were waiting at its top. They were gazing down in awe at the confident progress of the crowd, and even though each man was armed with a bow and arrows that could easily decimate their enemies, his soldiers did not move to challenge the Muslims.
As Khalid reached the front lies of the now-impotent Meccan defense force, he saw his old friend Amr ibn al-As at its forefront. Khalid saw in Amr’s eyes the same respect that he had felt, and he knew that he could share his innermost thoughts with his comrade.
“These men are braver in their rags than a thousand soldiers hiding behind armor and blades,” Khalid said.
Amr kept his eyes on the mass of thousands, moving in perfect unison, their march steady and timed with almost military precision. And then he turned to face Khalid, a glint in his eye.
“Imagine what such bravery could accomplish if they had the power of armor and blades as well,” Amr said.
Khalid smiled as he suddenly understood what Amr was thinking. And for a second, he no longer felt the weariness of his years of leading Mecca in a losing war against a smarter foe. His heart swelled with unexpected pride that his kinsman Muhammad had somehow united a raggedy band of disorganized Arabs with such bonds of power. It was an ambition that Khalid himself had always nurtured, of forging the barbarian desert tribes into a nation worthy to stand against the mighty armies of the surrounding empires. Of harnessing the ferocious, warlike blood of his people with the military discipline that they had lacked for centuries. But he had dismissed the notion as an empty dream of his youth, a monumental task that was beyond the skills of any man.
Any man except Muhammad.
And as he gazed down at the steadily approaching, utterly fearless legion of men, the warrior of Mecca had a vision of the future that made his heart race faster in excitement.
“They would conquer the world,” he said, his eyes growing wide in wonder, as if a lifelong riddle had been answered in the most unexpected of ways.
Amr smiled at him knowingly, and then the two men led the Meccan cavalry back to the stables, allowing the Muslims to approach the holy city unmolested for the first time in a decade.
I gazed across the pilgrim camp at the outpost of Hudaybiyya to the distant hills that delineated the formal border of Mecca. The Messenger had ordered us to stop here and wait for the Meccans’ next move. Khalid’s horsemen had turned back, but there was no guarantee that Abu Sufyan would not send a new force that had less respect for the ancient taboos of the Pilgrimage.
As the hours passed and there was no sign of any attack from the Meccan forces, the excitement that we had felt over the long journey back to our homeland gave way to boredom and growing frustration. Many of the pilgrims began to beseech the Prophet to continue on toward the city, but he remained steadfast in his belief that it would be unwise to cross the boundary without a clear understanding of how Mecca would react. But he agreed to send his son-in-law Uthman, a highly respected nobleman of Quraysh, to speak with Abu Sufyan and secure assurances of our safety.
Uthman had left the night before and had been expected to return before sunrise. But it was already late in the afternoon and there was a growing sense of alarm that he might have fallen victim to Abu Sufyan’s wrath. As rumors began to spread that the gentle-hearted ambassador had been killed by the lords of Mecca, my husband’s patient stoicism was shaken, and he gathered his closest Companions underneath the shade of a ghaf tree, its bluish green leaves sparkling in the harsh sunlight. He appeared deeply agitated at the possibility of Uthman’s execution, and I suddenly remembered his warning to the youths of Medina that Uthman’s death would unleash the mighty sword of God’s vengeance upon the world.
The men approached him one by one, grasping Muhammad’s right hand and pledging to fight to the death to avenge Uthman if indeed he had been martyred. I could see the grim determination in their eyes and my pulse quickened at the thought that this peaceful journey was about to erupt into terrible bloodshed. Since the Muslims were unarmed, they would have to face down the Meccan army with only their hands and their feet as weapons. In such a scenario, it was likely that these brave men who swore themselves to the Prophet would die before they ever laid eyes upon the Holy Kaaba that they all longed to see after so many years.
And then, when the last of the Companions had sworn the oath, I felt a strange sensation. It was as if a gentle rain were falling all around us, even though the sky was clear. The punishing heat of the desert vanished, replaced by a delightful coolness, and yet the sun blazed high above us and there was no wind. It was as if a blanket of mysterious tranquillity had descended upon us, and I could see on the surprised faces of the others that they sensed it as well. Whatever it was that was happening, the tension in the camp vanished, replaced by a powerful sense of peace that was unlike any I have ever experienced in my life.
I looked at my husband in confusion, and he smiled softly.
“God is well pleased with those who have taken this oath,” he said, and his voice was as soothing as the invisible cloud that had fallen among us. “He has sent down His Sakina to bless us.”
Sakina. The Spirit of Peace and Tranquillity. I would later learn that the Jews had a similar word. Shekhina they called it in the language of the Hebrews, and it was the feminine face of God, the indwelling Presence that had once been found in the Temple of Solomon and was now hidden from mankind. Whether what I experienced was the same as what the Jews believe, I cannot say. But something magical happened in that moment, and all anger and fear left us.
And so it was that I gazed now across the plain toward Mecca without any worry as to what would come next, for I knew that God was with us. The sun began to dip toward the horizon, the disk turning from blinding gold to dull ocher, and then I saw it.
A figure riding on a horse over the hills of Mecca, the billowing purple standard of an emissary held aloft in his hand.
WE GATHERED TO MEET with the ambassador of the Quraysh, a honey-tongued nobleman named Suhayl ibn Amr. The Messenger had greeted Suhayl graciously, and after ascertaining that Uthman was still alive and securing an agreement for his safe return, he invited the emissary to negotiate an end to the impasse.
I watched from a corner of the tent as Suhayl raised his manicured hand, each finger wearing a ring of precious stones, and laid out the Meccan proposal.
“We will not begrudge you the rites of Pilgrimage,” he said calmly. “But your arrival is unexpected and we need time to calm the passions of the people. So we are willing to let you perform the Hajj-next year.”
There was an immediate grumble of outrage from the Companions. Never before in the history of Arabia had a group of pilgrims been turned back from the Kaaba and told to return at another time.
The Prophet appeared ready to answer Suhayl’s proposal, when hotheaded Umar stepped into the negotiation with his usual bluntness.
“You have no right to turn back peaceful pilgrims!” he shouted, the soothing effects of the Sakina having apparently worn off. “We will enter Mecca, and I dare you to stop us!”
My husband raised his hand and turned to Umar, who was seated on his left.
“Gently, Umar,” Muhammad said pleasantly, but I knew my husband well enough to note the edge of warning in his voice. The Messenger turned his attention back to Suhayl and smiled.
“The son of al-Khattab is correct. We are within our rights before all Arabia. But we are reasonable men. What could you offer us to forgo our rights and turn back?”
I saw Umar and several other men look at the Prophet in shock. They had expected him to negotiate their entry into the holy city, not their retreat.
Suhayl hesitated, as if he was having difficulty saying the words out loud.
“A treaty,” he said, and I saw his cheeks pinch inward as if the very word were as sour as lemon on his tongue.
I heard several gasps of surprise from the men seated around the Prophet, but he himself betrayed no emotion. The Muslims had been at war with the Meccans for so long that no one had ever expected a treaty between us. We had always assumed that victory would be absolute, with one side destroying the other, even as the Bani Qurayza had been annihilated for their treachery.
My husband leaned closer, his handsome face passive and impossible to read.
“What are your terms?”
“We will secure a truce between us of ten years, during which neither of our people nor our allies will attack each other,” Suhayl said swiftly, as if each word were a hot coal that he needed to expel from inside his mouth. “Starting next year, you will be allowed to perform the Pilgrimage. We will evacuate the city for three days so that there are no…misunderstandings…between us.”
The Companions spoke loudly their opinions of Mecca’s proffered terms, but Suhayl raised his hand and again silence fell.
“And one more thing,” Suhayl said almost apologetically. “If, during this period, any man among your people wishes to return and subject himself to the authority of Mecca, we will not be obliged to return him. But if any man leaves Mecca against our wishes and seeks refuge with you-you must return him to us, even if he is of your faith.”
There was dead silence for a long moment. And then I heard Umar laugh, but there was no humor in the sound. The towering man pulled at his gray beard in fury and appeared ready to speak, when he saw the stern glance from my husband that conveyed a command to be silent.
The Messenger sat looking at Suhayl for a long moment. And then, to everyone’s surprise, he leaned forward and took the pagan emissary’s hand in his.
“I accept your terms.”
There was an immediate explosion of voices as the Companions registered their shock and dismay. How could the Prophet accept such a blatantly one-sided agreement? The Meccan offer was a clear insult, one that even a poorly skilled negotiator would have seen as an opening ploy in what was meant to be a long and complex discussion. And yet the Prophet had accepted the initial terms without protest.
The Messenger seemed utterly oblivious to the cries of his followers, and I saw a strangely triumphant smile play on his lips as he looked at Suhayl, who appeared as shocked by his acquiescence as we were.
Umar stood up and towered over the Messenger. He ignored Suhayl and vented all his fury at the man whom he had only hours before sworn to stand beside, even if it meant death.
“This is outrageous!” Umar shouted at the Prophet, his voice booming so loudly that all other conversation stopped. “We will not make peace with these murdering idolaters!”
I felt a sudden tightening in my throat. Umar, the most fanatically loyal of the Muslims, was now openly disparaging the Prophet’s judgment. The Prophet frowned at him and said nothing, but I saw the vein in his forehead throb as it did whenever he was angry. And then my father, who sat to the right of the Messenger, rose and stared up into Umar’s eyes. When he spoke, his words were simple and yet carried the weight of terrifying authority.
“Be quiet, Umar,” Abu Bakr said, and I saw Umar step back as if he had been slapped. The son of al-Khattab moved away from the Messenger and Abu Bakr and stood alone in a corner, like a child who has been punished for naughty behavior.
Suhayl watched this entire exchange with clear fascination. Once my father had silenced Umar, Suhayl cleared his throat and lifted a sheet of parchment from inside his fine silk robes.
The Meccan emissary unrolled the sheet, which was blank, and placed it at the Messenger’s feet.
“I have been authorized to draw up a document of truce,” Suhayl said, and I could hear the eagerness in his voice. He clearly wanted to get the terms down in writing before the Messenger changed his mind.
My husband looked across the room to Ali, who stood alone by the entrance to the grand tent, his hand on the hilt of Dhul Fiqar.
“Ali will serve as my scribe,” the Prophet said.
I had been ignoring Ali’s presence until then, and I felt a flash of dislike as he went to sit beside my husband. Suhayl produced a quill pen made from the feather of a gray heron and offered it to Ali, along with a small clay vial containing ink.
Ali took the writing implements and began to make marks on the parchment as the Prophet dictated.
“Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem. ‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate-’”
Suhayl interrupted with a cough.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know who this Ar-Rahman is,” he said in a tone dripping with mockery. It was an old joke, as the Meccans had claimed in the early days of the Prophet’s mission that Ar-Rahman, a name for God in the holy Qur’an meaning “the Merciful,” was actually the name of some secret teacher, Jewish or Christian, who had been allegedly supplying the Prophet with his knowledge of their Book.
I could feel the heat in the room rising, but Suhayl continued, apparently enjoying playing with the Prophet’s patience.
“We would prefer the traditional honorific-Bismik, Allahumma, ‘In Thy Name, O God.’”
At this instant I saw Talha rise and shake his scarred fist at the emissary.
“You swine! You mock the holy words of God Himself!”
The Prophet smiled at Talha, but there was steel in his eyes, and my sweet cousin blushed bright red and sat back down. The Messenger then turned to Ali.
“Write ‘In Thy Name, O God,’” he said softly.
Ali hesitated and then complied, his fingers moving swiftly across the sheet as the Prophet continued.
“These are the terms of the truce between Muhammad, Messenger of God, and Suhayl, son of Amr…”
Suhayl giggled, an obnoxious sound that made me want to slap him.
“Pardon me, but if we believed you to be the Messenger of God, we really wouldn’t be in this position, would we?”
The Messenger looked at him, and I expected his patience to finally break. But I was surprised to see my husband’s eyes twinkle, as if he were a child playing a game with a mischievous friend.
“Strike out ‘Messenger of God’ and replace it with ‘Muhammad, son of Abdallah,’” the Prophet said to Ali.
Ali looked up at him and I saw the young man’s mysterious green eyes filling with surprise. He lifted the pen and brought it to the parchment, and then lowered it again without making a mark.
“I…I cannot.”
There was a murmur through the crowd, as some whispered their shock at Ali’s uncharacteristic defiance of his elder cousin, while others expressed their pride in his refusal to give in to Suhayl’s offensive niggling.
The Prophet sighed in exasperation and looked around at the men as if peering into their souls to see who would assist him. And then his eyes fell on me.
“Aisha, show me where the words are,” he said.
I felt every eye in the tent on me and for once I was glad that my face was hidden behind a black veil. I did not want the Companions to see the wicked smile on my face as I walked past Ali and leaned over the Prophet’s shoulder. I stared down at the page and saw where Ali had written my husband’s name and his title as Messenger of God. And then I pointed my forefinger at the simple swirls of the Arabic alphabet, indicating to the Prophet where the troublesome language lay.
The Messenger took the pen from Ali’s hands and without any hesitation crossed out his sacred designation. My task fulfilled, I stepped back, but my eyes locked with Ali’s, and I savored my tiny victory over the man who had sought my downfall.
Muhammad handed the pen back to Ali, who bit his lip and wrote over the deleted honorific “the son of Abdallah”…
A SHORT WHILE LATER, the treaty was signed and Suhayl departed to take the news of the Prophet’s capitulation to his masters in Mecca. I saw the sullen and disappointed faces of the Companions, but none had the courage to press the matter further with my husband.
None except Umar.
The Prophet sensed Umar’s eyes on him and he turned to face the father of Hafsa, the man who had once been considered the most stalwart of his followers. My husband raised his eyebrows and stood patiently, waiting for Umar to explode.
But when the giant of a man spoke, it was not with outrage but with deep confusion and mistrust.
“Are you truly the Messenger of God?” he said softly, a question that was shocking in its implications. I heard several Companions gasp loudly. Had Umar lost his faith? Had the great defender of Islam become an apostate?
Whatever thoughts may have run through his mind, the Prophet merely raised his head with dignity.
“I am” was all he said. All he needed to say.
“Your promised us victory!” The fight had seeped out of Umar and his usually deep and raging voice was now more like the whine of a disappointed child.
The Prophet stepped forward and put a gentle hand on Umar’s forearm.
“And I have delivered it you,” he said confidently. “This treaty will be the greatest victory of Islam.”
Umar’s shoulders fell, as did his voice, which was now almost a whisper.
“But you said that God promised us we would conduct the rites of Pilgrimage…” he croaked out.
The Prophet turned to my father, and Abu Bakr spoke loudly, as if he intended his words to be heard by all the secret doubters in the tent, not just by Umar.
“God did not promise us that it would be this year,” Abu Bakr said, and I saw people lower their heads in shame as his soothing voice put out the last fires of rebellion in their hearts.
As my father’s words sank into his heart, Umar knelt down at the feet of the Messenger and kissed his right hand, tears streaming from his face.
“Forgive me, O Messenger of God,” he said, his voice trembling with grief.
My husband took Umar’s hand and helped him rise to his feet.
“You are forgiven, my friend,” he said warmly. “Come, let us spread the good news to the pilgrims. The war is over. Peace has come to Arabia at last.”
At these words, I saw the sad looks evaporate, replaced by beaming faces and mouths opened wide in laughter. I suddenly felt a rush of joy as the truth of it came home to me at long last. We had made a treaty with the Meccans. A peace treaty that would end a war that now spanned almost two decades. There would be no more horrific battles, no more agonizing cries of mothers as they looked down upon the corpses of their sons. There would be no more Hamzas struck down in the prime of their lives, their bodies mutilated and dishonored. No more Talhas to lose the use of their hands and be forced to live like cripples, the cruel repayment for heroism in this world. My heart soared at the thought that the ten-year truce could become permanent and that Arabia would never be cursed with the misery of bloodshed again.
But I was wrong, and I would soon learn that the peace we embraced that night, like the gentle caress of the Divine Sakina, was a fleeting moment to be savored but could no more be held in one’s grasp than the fickle kiss of the wind.
Word had reached the Jewish fortress at Khayber of Muhammad’s peace treaty with the Meccans, and Huyayy had raged and cursed for days about the betrayal of the Quraysh. The Arabs were two-faced dogs, he had ranted, and they had abandoned their promises to their allies in the hopes of securing some temporary security against the expanding influence of Medina.
Safiya had tried to calm him, but her father had refused to listen. The Treaty of Hudaybiyya was the proof that Huyayy had been seeking of the treachery of his erstwhile Meccan allies. Ever since the failure of the Siege of the Trench, Huyayy had become obsessed with speculation that Abu Sufyan had betrayed him and made a secret agreement with the Muslims to withdraw, leaving his Jewish compatriots of the Bani Qurayza to face annihilation. She knew that the guilt he felt about the destruction of the last remaining Jewish tribe of Medina weighed heavily on her father’s heart, and the only way that he could bear the pain was to find someone besides himself to blame for the tragedy.
Though few among her people shared in Huyayy’s increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, there was no denying that the treaty between Muhammad and his pagan enemies had forever altered the balance of power in the peninsula. And the new reality did not favor the people of Khaybar, the last remaining Jewish settlement in Arabia. Without the support of the Meccans, the tiny enclave was isolated and exceedingly vulnerable to conquest by the ambitious Arab prophet.
And so it was that the elders of Khaybar opened their ears to the words of the Byzantine envoy. Donatus had arrived earlier that morning at Khaybar with a small contingent of Syrian guards bearing the seal of Heraclius, Emperor of Constantinople. Even though Heraclius was no friend of the Jews, Safiya’s father had convinced the elders of the settlement to offer him a dignified welcome, for they shared a common enemy.
Safiya eyed the Byzantine emissary with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. He was dressed in the flowing dalmatic of the Romans, the long-sleeved robe partially covering his brightly striped tunic and tight breeches. A blue Phrygian cap covered his flowing brown hair and bracelets of gold glittered on his wrists. All in all, Donatus looked more like a primped and pretty girl than a man of power, and his authority was based on aristocratic blood rather than achievement. She had no patience for such weak men, especially after her father had compelled her to marry Kinana, a prissy nobleman of Khaybar whose touch she found repellent.
Safiya listened intently as Donatus explained how the Byzantine emperor had become aware of the new power rising on his southern borders. Apparently Muhammad had himself reached out to the imperial court with a letter inviting the Romans to surrender to his God. News of this startling development set the council room ablaze with excited talk until Huyayy called for silence so that Donatus could give more details.
According to Byzantine intelligence agents, the Arab prophet had similarly written to the Persian emperor Khusro at Ctesiphon, who had been so stunned at the audacity of this illiterate Arab chieftain that he had the letter torn up.
Though the Persians had laughingly dismissed the idea that the newly rising power in Arabia was of any concern to them, the Byzantines had been sufficiently alarmed by the speed of Muhammad’s consolidation of the tribes to decide that it merited a response. Heraclius had instructed his generals to begin preparations for a preemptive invasion of the peninsula before its ambitious prophet-king became a problem for the empire’s lucrative trade routes. And the Byzantines wanted the help of the people of Khaybar in mounting their attack.
“Your fortress would be an important staging ground for the imperial army,” Donatus said in his awkwardly accented Arabic, clearly taught to him by those who spoke the dialects of the Syrian desert.
There was a moment of tense silence as the elders considered the ramifications of the proposed alliance. Safiya saw that all eyes were on Huyayy, whom the Jewish chieftains deferred to as the most experienced man in dealing with Muhammad and his troublesome religious movement. As the rapid spread of Islam was now the primary topic of conversation among the political elites, her father had become the de facto leader of the Khaybar community, even though he was a refugee who had survived only because of the generosity of local citizens.
Huyayy eyed the Byzantine ambassador coolly, his brows knitted in deep thought. Safiya knew that her father was glad to have found a potential new ally against Muhammad, but his inherent distrust of Gentiles was holding him back from embracing the envoy’s offer.
“Forgive me if I hesitate, but your people have shown little respect for mine before this day,” Huyayy said. “You have butchered us under the lie that we killed your Christ.”
There was a murmur of surprise at Huyayy’s bluntness, but Safiya knew that her father was saying aloud what everyone was thinking in their hearts. The Jewish experience under Roman rule had been exceedingly painful, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Diaspora, which had sent her people out of Palestine and forced them to settle all over the world. Centuries of history could not be erased overnight, whatever the immediate political needs of the moment.
If the Byzantine emissary was offended by Huyayy’s lack of diplomacy, he was too experienced in his profession to show it. Donatus made a face of practiced grief and bowed his head before the Jewish elders.
“What you say is regrettably true,” he said, to the surprise of his audience. “There have been many injustices under the reign of our forefathers. Men blinded by faith or seeking an easy scapegoat to cast the troubles of the empire upon. But the great Heraclius is not like those men. He reveres the Jewish people, for is it not true that Christ himself shared your blood?”
It was a perfectly worded response, and Safiya could see that the men of Khaybar had been put at ease by his feigned contrition. Of course no one believed for a moment that the Roman envoy felt any guilt for the crimes of his people, but he obviously needed their help enough to wear a mask of calculated humility.
“What guarantees would we have if allied with your emperor?” Huyayy asked.
“Once you have helped us clear Arabia of this madman, you will be appointed His Majesty’s viceroys to rule the new province in the emperor’s name.”
Safiya saw her husband, Kinana’s, watery eyes light up at the offer of dominion over the Arabs, and her dislike for him only increased.
There was a clear buzz of excitement at the envoy’s words, but if Huyayy shared the sentiment of his people, he was too masterly a statesman to show it. Safiya’s father stepped forward, his face stern, until he was uncomfortably close to the envoy. Donatus, to his credit, did not flinch under the old man’s withering stare but met it head-on.
“Your emperor can find someone else to rule this desolate waste,” Huyayy said after a dramatic pause. “My people’s heart belongs elsewhere. In a land where we are not permitted to go.”
Safiya knew that Huyayy was playing a dangerous game here, but it was a gamble that could change the history of her people if he won. For there was, in truth, only one thing that any Jew desired, and it was the one thing that had been denied her people for over five hundred years. The chance to return to their homeland from which they had been barred since the days of the Jewish revolt against the Romans under Simon Bar Kokhba, the false Messiah who had led their people to tragedy.
The Byzantine envoy stood motionless, his face a controlled mask, impossible to read. Finally he spoke. “I have been authorized by the emperor himself to guarantee that if your people join forces with Byzantium, he will rescind the ban. Once this Arab king is defeated, your people will be free to emigrate to Palestine.”
There were cries of disbelief and shouted prayers to God, who had shown their people a way at last to end the tragedy of exile. Safiya was torn by a confused upwelling of emotion. A deep longing to see her people return to the Holy Land, mixed with grief that the price would be to destroy a man whose only apparent desire was to bring the Gentiles to God and a better way of life.
Though the excitement in the many-pillared hall was almost palpable, Huyayy remained calm and seemingly unimpressed.
“And what of Jerusalem?” he said loudly, his simple question immediately silencing the agitated crowd.
And for the first time, Donatus appeared taken aback, as if he had not expected the Jews to press their demands further. He hesitated and then shook his head.
“I regret that I cannot offer you full access to the holy city,” he said, to the dismay of the crowd. “It is still a very sensitive matter for the Holy Church.”
Huyayy shrugged and turned his back on the ambassador.
“Then we have no arrangement,” he said, and began moving toward the carved bronze door of the chamber, as if the matter had been concluded. And then, to Safiya’s amazement, the other elders of Khaybar rose and moved to follow him. A mass exodus signaling the failure of Byzantine diplomacy.
Donatus blanched, his eyes wide with surprise and a hint of fear. Safiya suddenly felt sorry for the feminine little man, who would likely face terrifying consequences if he returned to Heraclius empty-handed. But she knew her father was doing what he had to as a politician, using whatever leverage he felt he needed to achieve his objectives.
As the leadership of Khaybar approached the exits, Donatus shouted for them to wait.
“I believe that I can convince the emperor to make certain exceptions,” he said, his silky tone gone, replaced with agitation. “An annual pilgrimage to your holy sites. But that is the furthest I can go.”
Huyayy stopped and turned to face the envoy, his eyes bright with renewed interest. Donatus took a deep breath and regained his composure.
“If that is unacceptable to you, then I will return to His Majesty with your regrets,” he said coldly. “But please keep in mind-when the soldiers of Byzantium enter these lands, you will not be afforded the protection of an ally.”
It was an open threat, and one that weighed heavily on everyone in the room. The legions of Constantinople were coming, whether the Jews eased their way or not. They could either help Heraclius eliminate the Muslim threat or face elimination in turn.
Safiya watched her father, who moved back to stand before Donatus. He did not seem afraid of this man who regularly stood in the presence of kings, whose words could mean life or death for his people. Whatever she may have thought of her father’s politics, he could never be branded a coward.
And then Huyayy held out his hand and grasped the palm of the Byzantine ambassador.
“Tell your emperor-we have an arrangement.”
THAT NIGHT SAFIYA HAD a troubling dream. As she tossed and turned beside Kinana on their wide bed made of carved pine, she dreamed that she was walking down the paved roads of Khaybar, the city that had become her home since her tribe’s expulsion from Medina. But instead of the brightly painted stone houses, she saw only smoking ruins, the mighty walls of the citadel shattered and crumbling. And instead of children running and laughing through the streets, she saw only corpses rotting in the alleyways.
Safiya tried to run away, but wherever she turned, she saw only death and devastation. The stench of decay was overpowering and her stomach trembled with nausea. She finally fell to her knees in grief and raised her eyes to the heavens, pleading for help from a God who had chosen her people and then cruelly forgotten them.
The full moon sparkled above her, and for a second Safiya stared at it in confusion. For the face she had always made out in its shadows had changed. It was no longer an indistinct outline, and the features were clear and recognizable.
It was the face of Muhammad.
As Safiya stared in shock, the moon fell from the sky, a sparkling ball of pure light that lowered itself into her lap. And as the ethereal light from the heavenly orb flooded her, the pain vanished and her grief became a distant memory.
And then Safiya heard it. The sound of children’s laughter.
She gazed up through the circle of ethereal light and saw that the city had come back to life. The walls stood strong and firm, and there were no corpses. Everywhere she looked, there was rebirth. The flowers bloomed and the gentle trickle of water from a nearby fountain gave her hope. And then she saw the hustle and bustle of crowds as her people walked through the marketplace, apparently unaware of the devastation that had been there only moments before.
As the mysterious light around her grew brighter, her eyes fell on a group of children chasing one another gleefully. They stopped their games to stare at Safiya and then waved to her with a smile.
And then the magical moonlight became as bright as a thousand suns and the world dissolved into its warm bliss.
I watched from the Messenger’s battle tent set high in the hills of Khaybar as the Muslim army launched its surprise attack on the Jewish fortress. We had been warned by spies among the neighboring Bedouin tribes of the Byzantine army’s intention to use the oasis as a launching ground for an invasion of the peninsula and the Prophet had made immediate plans to take the city before the Romans could dispatch soldiers.
I was accompanied by my sister-wife Umm Salama. Together we were charged with the duty of caring for the wounded, and we had already spent much of the morning bandaging wounds and applying ointments made from crushed belladonna leaves to ease the pain of the dying.
The Muslim army was a small force of just over fifteen hundred soldiers and one hundred horses, but men and animals had been chosen specifically for their speed and agility. We knew that the fighting men of Khaybar numbered nearly ten thousand, so victory would come not by brute force but by craftiness and unpredictability. The Messenger intended to mount a series of raids on the oasis, which was guarded by three separate walled encampments, forcing the enemy to engage us on our terms. The hope was that our seemingly puny force would make the Jews overconfident and that our hit-and-run tactics would keep them confused as to our real plan of attack. My husband reasoned that the defenders of Khaybar would expend their energy fighting on several small fronts rather than concentrating on a single battlefield, disorienting them long enough for us to make a break in their defenses. It was the strategy of the bee, buzzing around its victim just long enough to confuse him before delivering the sting.
And so far, it was working. Ali had been placed in charge of the army that laid siege to Khaybar, a controversial decision that had caused some discontent among the Muslims. Though no one could argue with his military prowess, many felt that placing a man who was not yet thirty in charge of older and more experienced fighters would damage morale. There were many rumblings that an elder statesman such as Abu Bakr should lead the battle, but my father had quickly silenced the talk as he had silenced Umar at Hudaybiyya. Abu Bakr unquestioningly accepted Ali’s leadership on the battlefield, and my husband, natural diplomat that he was, gave his house a special honor. The Messenger had taken one of my black cloaks and had it fashioned into the war standard for the army, giving both my father and myself a special distinction in the eyes of the soldiers. And yet the rumblings against Ali did not fully subside, a fact that gave me secret pleasure.
But once the swords were unsheathed, all such idle talk ended and the blood rush of war replaced political posturing. Ali led the first wave on the surprised stronghold, and the Muslims advanced as far as the city walls before we were met with a shower of arrows. The archers of Khaybar were the finest in all of Arabia, and nearly fifty of our men were hit, forcing Ali to withdraw as thousands of defenders spilled out of the fortress of Natat on the outskirts of the settlement.
After our initial advances on the field, we were pushed back into the hills. But the Prophet’s strategy was working. The Muslims would emerge from different locations every hour, first from the east, then north, then southwest, and hit the enemy’s forces with lightning speed before vanishing like ghosts into the wilderness. The Jewish fighters became increasingly frustrated at our unpredictability and they were forced to divide their forces to patrol the countryside, which was exactly what the Prophet had expected.
The on-again, off-again battle had now been raging for six days, and we could tell that our adversaries were becoming exhausted by the intermittent raids followed by hours of wasted efforts chasing us into the shadows. We had enough food and water to keep up our pinprick attacks for at least another week, but I knew that we would not need that long. For last night, Umar ibn al-Khattab had captured one of the Jewish commanders in a surprise raid, and the man had saved his own life by betraying his people’s one military weakness. The castle of Naim was a small outpost at the western edge of the settlement that was not as well guarded as the other links in the defense chain. And it apparently contained stores of hidden weapons that would help us break through the walls into the heart of the oasis.
And so Ali had led a surprise attack on Naim this morning while the rest of the Muslim army engaged the sons of Khaybar at the eastern wall as a diversion. The fighting had been brief but vicious. Ali had dueled the famed Jewish champion Marhab at the gates, and as was the usual outcome of any encounter with the glowing Dhul Fiqar, Ali had sliced his enemy’s head off in seconds. Zubayr had joined Ali on the field and dispatched Marhab’s equally well regarded brother Yasir, swinging a blade in each of his hands as only Zubayr could. The death of the Jewish heroes had led to disarray among the small band of protectors at the castle and the Muslims had managed to break through its fortified gates and storm the outpost.
And then Ali emerged with a triumphant smile and returned to the Messenger’s base camp, where he advised my husband that the breach of Naim had provided the Muslims a back door into the oasis. But more important, the intelligence Umar’s captive had provided was accurate. Hidden inside storage rooms underground was an array of weapons that would facilitate our efforts to take the city, the most important being a ballista, a small Roman catapult that the Byzantines had apparently given as a gift to their new allies. And there were two testudos, covers of overlapping shields that the Romans wheeled up to walls to defend themselves from attackers. In a delicious twist of irony, these foreign contraptions that had been stockpiled for use against the Muslims would now be used against our enemies to break through the walls.
My father rose to congratulate Ali on the victory that had changed the course of the battle, as did the other Companions. As the men embraced and clasped hands with the young hero, the Prophet beamed like a father who had finally seen a misunderstood son receive honor in the world.
Ali’s sparkling eyes fell on me and in them I saw the desire for reconciliation, for an end to the rancor between the two of us who were beloved by the Messenger of God. But whatever grudging respect I could give him for his prowess as a warrior, I could not forgive him for his betrayal, which had nearly cost me my marriage and my life.
I turned my back on Ali and went to help Umm Salama comfort a youth who had lost his hand in the siege.
Safiya gazed out in grief across the ranging maelstrom of death that had once been a city. The Muslims had breached the outer walls and had brought the battle to the heart of the oasis. Her people had been taken by surprise for a second time in the past week, and most of the Jewish army was scattered outside the fortified battlements in a fruitless hunt for an attacker that was hiding in plain sight.
With the fall of the defensive outpost at Naim, the dam had been broken and the flood of Arab soldiers had reached the streets near the grand council chamber where, only days before, the elders had been celebrating the new alliance with Byzantium. Even as the elite soldiers led by Ali decimated the few Jewish defenders inside the beleaguered city, other Muslim troops were busy securing the wells and taking positions on the mighty walls, where their archers were busy raining death on the surprised warriors of Khaybar, who were now trapped outside their own walls. It was a humiliating turnaround, as Jews desperately attempted to get back inside the homes that were now occupied by the Arabs they had been pursuing.
Safiya stood on the roof of the council chamber, staring down over the stone ramparts as her people emerged from their homes in surrender, begging Muhammad’s men for clemency. On the horizon she could see clouds of black smoke hovering over the mighty castles of Natat and Shiqq, and she knew the battle was over. The fortresses were the pride of the people of Khaybar, capable of resisting any attack from without. But no one had thought to protect them from within, and the Jewish defense was now overrun.
She looked over to her father, who was staring in utter shock at the ruins of the city that was to have been the capital of the new Byzantine province of Arabia. Huyayy’s gray eyes were brimming with tears, as the complete defeat of his people could no longer be denied. And she knew that he realized, at long last, that there was no one to blame for this tragic outcome but himself.
Safiya should have felt sorry for him. She should have reached out and embraced him like a dutiful daughter, succored him as he faced the failure of his life’s work. But there was no sympathy left in her heart for Huyayy, a man who had stubbornly marched his nation over a precipice. Her father had deluded himself into imagining that he was capable of orchestrating the defeat of all their enemies, not only conquering Arabia but restoring the Jewish birthright to the Holy Land.
Huyayy knelt down and began to pray fervently to God, asking for mercy on the Jewish people. And then her miserable husband, Kinana, knelt beside him and patted Huyayy’s hair like a woman comforting a child.
“Do not despair,” Kinana said in his lisp that she found so repulsive. “There is still hope for victory.”
Safiya finally exploded. “No!” she screamed, with such ferocity that Kinana recoiled in surprise. “There will be no victory! Have you men learned nothing? We were the last Jews of Arabia and you have brought doom upon us with your intrigues!”
“None could have foreseen this,” Huyayy said, desperately trying to shirk responsibility for the disaster that he had wrought.
Safiya had had enough. She grabbed her father by his robes and lifted to him to face her.
“Only a fool could not have foreseen this!” she said, no patience for self-deception left in her heart.
Kinana placed a cold hand on her wrist and pushed her away from the old man.
“How dare you speak to your father this way!” he said, his lips curled into an ugly snarl.
But Safiya no longer cared what he or anyone else thought. If she was to die today as Khaybar fell to the invading forces, she would die with truth on her lips. Consequences be damned.
“I wish I had spoken this way years ago!” she said, spitting at Kinana’s feet. “Then perhaps my father would have listened to reason and we would not be facing extinction!”
Her husband moved forward, his hand raised to strike her, but Huyayy stopped him.
“She is right,” the Jewish chieftain said, his voice trembling with shame. “My pride has brought us to this place.”
Kinana looked at him in shock. “It is not over!” he shouted, stamping his foot like a spoiled child. “The soldiers of Byzantium will soon come to our aid!”
Huyayy shook his head.
“No. It will take weeks for Heraclius to mobilize his army. Even if we push the Arabs back outside the walls, we will run out of food and water long before then.”
Safiya saw that her father had finally accepted the truth. The fire of her rage flickered and went out, and she was left with a dull emptiness in her heart. Anger and grief were pointless now. All that was left was to do her duty, to save as many of her people as she could in what little time they had left. Safiya stepped forward, taking her father’s hand and looking into his eyes, to help him do what needed to be done.
“We must negotiate a surrender,” she said, and her voice sounded very tired and old.
Huyayy blinked as the truth of her words began to sink in. But even as her father faced reality, her accursed husband fled into delusion.
“Surrender? And suffer the fate of Bani Qurayza? Never! We will defend our homes to the last man!”
“And I’m sure you will live long enough to be that last man, considering what a coward you are!”
Kinana’s face turned an ugly purple, but she ignored him, her eyes focused on her father.
“Let me go to the Muslims. I can speak with Muhammad. He will listen to me,” she said.
Huyayy stared at her in confusion. And then she described the dream she’d had, of the moon resting in her lap and bringing life again to the oasis.
“It is a sign from God. A portent.” She hesitated and then said the words that had been imprinted on her heart since the night of the strange vision. “It is my destiny.”
Huyayy looked at her with wide eyes. But before he could respond, Kinana grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face against the brutal stones of the parapet. Safiya cried out in agony and for a second the world spun around her as blood poured into her eyes.
“You treacherous whore!” he screeched like a vulture. “All of this time you lay in my bed, you have been dreaming of that desert snake! Go to him, then! You are no longer one of our people!”
As pain flooded her senses, Safiya felt Kinana grab her hand and push her down the stairs from the roof.
“Father!” she managed to cry out. “Please! Help me!”
But Huyayy simply stood there, looking alone and confused as the world he had fought so hard to create came crashing down all around him.
THE HEAVILY GUARDED DOORS of the council chamber were flung open for a brief instant and Safiya was thrown unceremoniously into the middle of the street, where the battle raged with fierce intensity. Swords clashed with terrifying brutality as Muslim men and their Jewish adversaries fought house to house, hand to hand, for control of the governing seat of the oasis.
Safiya screamed in horror as a turbaned horseman rode toward her, his sword glinting unnaturally bright as if it reflected a thousand suns. And then she recognized the legendary dual blade of Dhul Fiqar and knew that she was in the presence of the famed Ali, the legendary warrior who had single-handedly slain many of the Muslims’ most hated enemies. Her heart leaped into her throat as she wondered if her name was about to be added to that long and illustrious list of kills.
But the sword did not come down on her head. Instead, Ali lowered the blade and climbed down from his black stallion. He looked at her with no surprise, as if he had somehow expected her to be there, lying in the middle of a blood-soaked avenue as the Angel of Death claimed its victims all around her.
And then he offered a gloved hand to her and helped her to her feet.
“Do not fear, daughter of ibn Akhtab,” he said, and she wondered in shock how he knew her name. “I have been sent to offer you sanctuary.”
Safiya was too stunned to ask who had sent him, who could have known that she would be out here in the midst of this deadly fight at this exact moment. But as men from both sides fell about her in a maelstrom of carnage, she decided it was not the time to ask such questions.
As she climbed onto Ali’s horse, she turned a pleading face to the noble warrior, whose green eyes seemed to shine with a light of their own.
“My people…please have mercy on my people.”
Ali leaped onto the saddle in front of her and kicked his horse forward just as a spear struck the spot where he had been standing only seconds before.
“Only God and His Messenger can decide their fate,” Ali said, seemingly unperturbed by the madness of death all around them. He paused and then glanced back at her. “But you can plead their case before him.”
And with those words, Ali took Safiya away from the eye of the storm and rode through the chaos back to the Muslim camp. As Safiya passed through the devastated streets, riding with the man who had defeated her people, she should have felt a rage of emotions-confusion, guilt, shame. But instead there was a quiet serenity even as the cries of the dying echoed all around her.
It was as if some part of her had known that this day would come. That she would leave her father and go to the man he hated the most. It was a destiny that had been written that first day when Muhammad had arrived in Yathrib, when Safiya had refused to condemn him because he sought to remind the sons of Ishmael of the God of their father Abraham. Her empathy for the Arab prophet who had turned the world upside down had created a rift between her and her family, between her and her people, a divide that had grown so large that she no longer felt that she belonged with them. But if she was no longer a Jew, then who was she?
It was a question that she had found troubling and painful, and one that she could never voice aloud with anyone. For the answer was one that she could not face without cutting the final bond between herself and the only world she had ever known. But that world was dead now, consumed by the fires of its own hubris. Her family, her home, her nation were all gone forever. She had lost everything that had mattered to her, everything except the truth of who she really was.
And so it was that when she finally stood before Muhammad, his black eyes looking at her with deep compassion, she understood the role she had been destined to play in the history of nations. She knelt before the man who should have been her enemy and softly said the words that she realized had long been branded into her heart.
“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger.”
The battle was over and Khaybar had surrendered. The Jewess named Safiya had served as a mediator between the Prophet and the people of the besieged city, convincing them to lay down their arms on the promise of clemency for the local populace.
With the clash of swords silenced, I helped an elderly Jewish woman step over the grisly carnage in the streets of Khaybar and guided her to the pavilions that had been hoisted for the sick and the injured on both sides. She held me tight, her skeletal fingers cutting into the flesh of my wrist, and whispered her gratitude repeatedly. And then she asked me if I knew what had happened to her son, a young soldier named Nusayb, who had raced from her house to fight the first wave of Muslim infiltrators pouring in through the breached walls. I gently told her that I would find out and reassured her that he was probably with the other prisoners of war. I did not have the heart to tell her that none of the warriors who had thrown themselves at Ali and his men had survived the initial foray.
I left the elderly woman in the care of Umm Salama, who gave her a bowl of water and a small plate of figs. The pavilion smelled of the sickly musk of the dying, a stench that I had come to despise over the past several days, and I quickly turned to exit. Wrapping my cloak against the bitter chill of the morning, I wandered through the devastated alleys as Muslims and Jews worked together to pick up the bodies that littered the streets and haul them away for burial in a cemetery on the outskirts of the oasis.
I stopped before an open field where the prisoners were being held, tied and surrounded by hundreds of Muslim soldiers. A quick round of questions confirmed what I had suspected-the old woman’s son was not among them and had probably already been buried in the mass graves, which were overflowing.
I looked at the center of the field and saw that new graves had been dug here, ditches like the ones in the marketplace of Medina where the Bani Qurayza had been buried. The Prophet’s truce with Khaybar promised amnesty only to the citizens of the town. But the men of Bani Nadir who had taken refuge with them and then incited them to war with the Muslims received no such guarantees. And I could tell from the grim look on the faces of the captives that they knew their fate had been sealed.
As I turned away, I saw my husband approaching with Ali, followed by the Jewish woman Safiya who had helped bring the fighting to an end. She was as I remembered her, tall and statuesque, her bones delicate and perfectly crafted. But her gray eyes were reddened with tears. I saw her look upon her father, Huyayy, who stood proud, exuding dignity even in captivity, and I could not imagine the pain that she must have felt, seeing bound him like an animal for sale in the marketplace.
Ali stepped forward, his black hair glistening like a lion’s mane in the morning sunlight.
“O men of Khaybar, the Messenger has spared your lives because of the pleadings of one whom you cast out,” he said, looking pointedly at Safiya. “The good people of Khaybar are not responsible for the treachery of your guests, and so your prisoners will be set free. And you may retain your lands unmolested upon payment of a tribute of half your annual produce.”
As Ali spoke, I saw the Muslim soldiers move forward and cut the bindings of the prisoners who had been identified as native to the city. The men of Khaybar were stunned to be set free, and many wept and kissed the hands of their captors.
And then Ali turned to face the remaining prisoners, the exiled men of the Nadir whose machinations had led them to this awful place from which there would be no further escape.
“But your brethren among the Bani Nadir have broken every covenant and spread discord through the land,” he said forcefully. “They will be held to account. Such is the command of God and His Messenger.”
I glanced at Safiya and saw tears streaming down her pallid face. And then she ran forward and embraced Huyayy and wept. The guards moved to push her off, but one stern glance from the Messenger caused them to relent. She stood there, holding her condemned father and weeping in his arms, until Huyayy kissed her on the forehead and gently pushed her back.
“I tried to save you…” I heard her say through the chokehold of grief.
Huyayy smiled at her softly, no blame or recrimination in his eyes.
“I know…”
Ali’s men stepped forward, prepared to lead the chief of the Bani Nadir to the grave that would soon be his eternal home.
As the guards gently pulled Safiya away, Huyayy gazed at his daughter. I could see deep regret on his lined face, the look of a man who had realized too late that he had been wrong about everything that truly mattered in life. And then he looked at the Messenger of God, his rival and nemesis who had finally bested him after a decade of bitter conflict.
“I was reading last night a story from the Torah,” Huyayy said, his voice thoughtful, bearing no hint of malice. “About the death of Abraham. His sons Isaac and Ishmael, estranged for many years, came together and buried him in the cave of Hebron.”
The Messenger smiled gently at the reference and nodded.
“I’d like to think that story is a prophecy,” Huyayy said, a warm grin playing on his lips at the end. “Perhaps one day our nations will find a way to bury the past together.”
And with that, Huyayy ibn Akhtab turned and knelt before the ditch as Ali raised Dhul Fiqar and Safiya’s cry of sorrow echoed around the ancient stones of Khaybar.
Safiya and the Messenger were married in the days following the defeat of Khaybar. The Prophet told me that it was an act of mercy for a girl who had lost her entire family to the vengeful swords of the Muslims. And it was a political marriage as well, he explained, since Safiya would continue to be a helpful diplomatic link to the remaining Jews of Arabia as the Muslim state consolidated its power. All of what he said was true, but I saw the way his dark eyes looked appreciatively at her flawless skin and the ugly demon of envy was ignited yet again in my soul.
Even though Safiya had embraced Islam, I always called her “the Jewess” and was not above making snide comments in her presence about her ancestry and the duplicity of her people. When she complained to the Prophet about my denigration of her kinsmen, he told her to respond that she was the daughter of Aaron and the niece of Moses, which she invariably did with great pride, increasing my jealousy toward her.
The addition of Safiya to the harem increased our number to eight Mothers, along with Sawda, myself, Hafsa, Umm Salama, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Juwayriya, and Ramla. As mentioned before, the kindly Zaynab bint Khuzayma, the Mother of the Poor, had died of fever, and her calming influence over the household was missed. Despite our years living together, and despite the Messenger’s best efforts to treat us as equally as he could, petty rivalries still existed. The hot-tempered Hafsa and the Bedouin princess Juwayriya often locked horns, as did the haughty Ramla and the down-to-earth Umm Salama. But not everyone in the harem was at war. I had made my peace with Zaynab after her kind support in the days of the false accusation against me, and the grandmotherly Sawda was loved by all.
Our arguments were over the petty things-who had said what about whom, who was trying to take too much of the Prophet’s time and attention. Who had the prettiest clothes and jewelry, although the reality was that we all lived spartan lives and had few adornments. And in truth, our rivalry was no longer over who would be the first to become pregnant, as we had all quietly given up the hope of carrying the Prophet’s heir. He had had six children with Khadija, and both sons had died. Since then, God had not blessed him with any more issue, despite the fact that he was married to several young and fertile women.
There were whispers among the believers that God did not wish the Prophet to have a male heir. Many said it was because the Muslim Ummah was not meant to be ruled by a monarchy, as would inevitably happen if the Prophet had a son, who would be expected to succeed him as leader of the community. And a few speculated that it was because God had already chosen the male lineage of the Prophet by favoring his cousin Ali, who had fathered Muhammad’s two grandsons, Hasan and Husayn. Those who held this viewpoint were a tiny minority of the believers, but in the years to come, they would become a powerful voice whose message would tear apart our nation.
But those years of strife and division over the Messenger’s legacy were still far off. With the pacification of Khaybar and the treaty with the Meccans, peace had come to the peninsula. And as the Messenger had predicted at Hudaybiyya, the truce proved to be a greater victory for Islam than any of the battles we had fought over the past decade. With hostilities ended, trade flourished between the northern and southern tribes, and Muslims now regularly made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, where they were finally able to preach the oneness of God without fear of reprisals.
It was in that atmosphere of peaceful commerce and dialogue that the message of Islam began to spread rapidly through the desert, and it was said that in the two years that followed the agreement at Hudaybiyya, more people embraced Islam than in the two decades prior to the treaty.
As the power of Islam spread through the peninsula, the wise among the Quraysh began to realize that the old days were gone forever. Though some of the elders like Abu Sufyan stubbornly refused to join the Prophet’s movement, the next generation of leaders realized that the future of Arabia was in Medina, not Mecca. The cracks in the dam of Meccan unity became a flood after two of the most prominent nobles of the holy city defected. Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the commander of Mecca’s armies, and Amr ibn al-As, the city’s most respected diplomat, rode to Medina and gave their allegiance to God and His Prophet, and there was much feasting in celebration of their conversion.
Medina became a bustling metropolis where goods from all over the region were traded, and the tiny oasis began to expand and look more and more like the capital of a prosperous nation. And we, the Mothers of the Believers, found our hands overflowing with work on behalf of the growing Islamic state. Whether it was organizing delivery of food and medicine to the needy or teaching other women and their children about the moral principles of our faith, our hours were increasingly filled with the demands of our role as Mothers. We did not have time to indulge in our habitual cattiness, and peace began to reign in the Prophet’s household even as it did throughout Arabia.
All that changed with the arrival of a slave girl from Egypt.
Mariya was a Coptic Christian, a gift to the Messenger of God from an Egyptian governor who had the political foresight to realize that Muhammad’s vision was on the way to triumph in neighboring Arabia. She was a girl of shocking beauty, her hair a flowing sea of soft brown curls, her eyes shaped like perfect almonds, and her breasts generous. She was soft-spoken and majestically feminine, more womanly than any other girl I have ever known.
The moment the Messenger of God saw Mariya, he was besotted, and the rest of us were filled with despair. Sensing that she would be the unwelcome target of much jealousy if she were housed near his other wives, the Prophet had a special home built for her on the outskirts of Medina, where he would spend increasingly large amounts of time, to the growing alarm of the Mothers.
And so it was that the wives of the Messenger came together and asked me for help. They feared that the Prophet’s love for Mariya would displace all of us, and they asked me to intervene as the one who still, in theory, remained the most beloved of the consorts.
One night, when the Prophet was relaxing with his head in my lap after a long day of dealing with the affairs of state, I sprang my trap. Muhammad looked up at me with his soft smile and stroked my hair. But when he leaned up to kiss me, I turned my head away.
“Don’t. Please,” I said, with intentional sharpness.
The Messenger sat up and looked at me with his obsidian eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
I turned my back to him and began to sob. Though I was definitely acting in accordance with my plan, the tears and the pain in my heart were real.
“You don’t love me anymore!”
The Messenger placed a hand on my shoulder and I could feel that strange cooling sensation that always seemed to emanate from his presence.
“How can you say that? I love you first among all my wives.”
I turned to face him, the tears still flowing down my cheeks.
“Your wives, perhaps. But not among the women your right hand possesses.”
My husband stiffened and I saw his kindly smile fade.
“Mariya gives me comfort,” he said slowly, as if measuring every word with due care. “But she does not take your place in my heart. No one can.”
I took his hand in mine and squeezed it.
“Then prove it.”
The Prophet sighed and he suddenly looked very tired.
“What do you want of me?”
I leaned closer, my eyes fixed on his.
“Leave this slave girl! Promise never to see her again!”
The Prophet blinked in surprise at the audacity of my request.
“Humayra-” he began, but I cut him off by removing my hand from his and shifting away from him.
“Promise, or you will never have my assent to touch me again! If you take me, it will be by force and not love.”
The Messenger looked as shocked as if I had slapped him. In all the years of our marriage, I had never threatened to withhold the intimacies of our bed from him, no matter how fiercely we had argued or fought. Even after the Messenger harbored doubts of my fidelity, I did not punish him by denying my embrace, and through the gentle warmth of our union, we had begun to repair what the gossips had shattered.
The Prophet stared at me with those powerful, unreadable eyes, but I met his gaze defiantly. For a long moment, the only sound that I could hear was the rhythmic call of the crickets and the gentle rustle of palm leaves in the wind.
And then the Prophet spoke and I could hear the frustration he was trying to suppress.
“I promise,” he said, although I could tell he was bitter at having to take this oath. “I will not go to Mariya again. Are you happy now?”
I felt a rush of excitement at my little victory and I smiled like a little girl who had finally been given a much-sought-after toy. But when I moved forward to kiss my husband, it was his turn to back away.
“Did the other women of the household put you up to this?” he asked, and I realized that he knew us too well to be deceived. I did not respond, but he seemed to find the answer he was seeking in my guilty face.
The Messenger of God stood up and shook his head, and I suddenly had a strange sinking feeling in my stomach, a sense that my victory was a mirage and that I had actually brought defeat down upon myself and my fellow wives.
“You are like the women who threatened Joseph with prison if he did not give in to their demands,” the Prophet said with a weary sigh, and I felt a sting of humiliation at being compared to the sinful ladies who had tried to seduce the son of Jacob.
And then without another word, the Messenger of God turned and walked out, leaving me feeling suddenly very alone and helpless. There was something in the way he closed the door behind him, a finality in his stride, that made me feel as if he were gone for good and would never return.
New tears welled in my eyes, tears of shock and loss, as I suddenly realized that I had made a terrible mistake.
The Messenger sent the Mothers a message through the fiery Umar. He would not speak to any of us for a month. He retired alone to a small tent at the edge of the Masjid courtyard and refused our desperate entreaties for reconciliation.
The next month was one of the most miserable in my life. The Prophet was true to his word and did not speak a single word to any of us for the entire time. And to make our punishment sting deeper, we received word that God had absolved his Messenger of his hasty oath and my husband was spending his nights solely in the company of the slave girl Mariya. As usual, the other wives blamed me for our collective predicament, although in this instance we all shared responsibility for pushing Muhammad too far. They avoided me as if I carried a disease, and I was more isolated than ever.
The only company I found during those miserable days was that of my sister, Asma, who would often bring you, Abdallah, to play in the corner while she comforted me. You were still a small boy, not yet five years old, but you had a seriousness and wisdom about you even at such a tender age. When I cried, as I often did during your mother’s visits, you would invariably put down your toys and come over to me, placing your head in my lap until the gentleness of your presence calmed me. I knew in my heart that I would likely never have a child of my own, and you became a son to me in those moments, a bond that I still feel as readily today, nearly fifty years later, as I did then. And it is perhaps for this reason that I open my heart to you now, for you have always been a salve to the pain of your aunt, whom destiny has chosen to be both blessed and cursed.
Time lost all meaning during those weeks, and yet I did not stop counting the hours before the ban would be lifted and-I hoped-my husband would return to us. Still, I was terrified at the thought of where we would go from there. Would he still love me, or had Mariya forever taken my place in his heart? Would the glorious fire that had once linked our souls be reduced to a smoldering ember, a pale echo of days long past?
And then one night, as I sat alone in my room, looking down at my husband’s threadbare mantle, the musky scent of his flesh still emanating from its fibers, I heard the sound of footsteps. And then the door opened, revealing the silhouette of a man standing on the threshold. Startled, I reached for my veil, and then the figure stepped inside and I saw that it was the Messenger of God.
For a moment, I sat utterly still, convinced he was just a waking dream, a shadow of my imagination. He looked down at me for a quiet moment, and then his pale face broke into a small smile.
I rose to my feet, my heart caught in my throat.
“But…it’s been only twenty-nine days…” was all I could croak The Prophet raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“How do you know that?”
I moved toward him, pulled like a drop of water toward the ocean.
“I have been counting the days. And the hours.”
And then I realized that this month, Rajab, had only twenty-nine days instead of thirty because of the early sighting of the new moon. The Prophet had waited exactly as long as he had promised and not a moment less. And he had chosen to come to me first of all of his wives.
The Messenger of God took my hand in his and squeezed tightly until I could feel the steady pulse of the blood in his veins, matching the rhythm of my own heartbeat.
“Aisha, God has revealed these words to me,” he said gently, but I sensed a hint of sternness still lingering in his glance as he recited the newest verses of the holy Qur’an.
O Prophet, say to your wives
If your desire is for the present life and its finery,
Then come, I will make provision for you
And release you with kindness.
But if you desire God, His Messenger
And the Home of the Hereafter
Then remember that God has prepared great rewards
For those of you who do good.
I listened with my head bowed as Allah presented me with two paths, the way of the world or the way of eternity. The God who had rescued me from disgrace, who had saved my honor when even my husband had doubted me, was now warning me that my future with Muhammad and the believers lay on the path toward which I turned my heart at this instant.
“So, Humayra, what do you choose?” the Messenger asked in a voice that was a whisper.
Hot tears ran down my cheeks and I looked up into the obsidian eyes of my husband, and I knew there had never been any choice in the matter.
“I choose God and His Messenger, and the Home of the Hereafter,” I said, trembling with an ache that threatened to tear my heart in two.
And then the Prophet smiled warmly. He took me in his arms and kissed me, and the waves of passion soon took us beyond the veil of this harsh world into the timeless mystery of man and woman and the infinite joy of their union.
A WEEK LATER, I learned that the slave girl Mariya had missed her courses for the second month in a row.
She was pregnant with Muhammad’s child.
Seven months later, the wives gathered around Mariya as she went through the final, horrific pangs of childbirth. I held her hand while Hafsa wiped the flood of sweat that bathed her soft curls and Umm Salama crouched low over the birthing chair, gently coaxing the poor girl to push just a little harder.
Whatever jealousies we had felt-whatever lingering bitterness had hung over the household of the Messenger since we’d heard the news of the slave’s conception-all of it had finally been forgotten in the long hours we’d spent beside Mariya since her water broke. The girl was as fragile as a bird, and each contraction produced such wrenching screams that the coldness of our hearts melted in the flame of empathy. She was no longer our rival for the love of the Messenger, no longer the usurper who had come in and taken the honor that was meant for one of the noble women of free birth who had shared Muhammad’s bed. That night, she had become just another terrified girl, enduring the agony that was also the glory of womanhood.
I looked into Mariya’s soft eyes, as kind and lost as those of a doe in the wilderness, and tried to send into her soul the strain of indomitable strength that flowed in my own blood. She looked up at me, confused and frightened, but I could see a light deep inside her eyes that said we had made a connection and I could see a hint of gratitude in her bloodless face.
And then Mariya clutched my hand with such fury that I thought she would shatter my fingers, and gave a scream that was more horrible than any cry of a dying man I had heard on the battlefield.
And then a new sound filled the stone barn that now served as a makeshift birthing chamber. The wondrous, improbable, heart-stirring sound of a baby crying.
I turned in awe to Umm Salama, who was kneeling on the ground, holding the child who was the hope of a nation. And then the gentle woman with the motherly smile looked up at us with reverence, thick tears welling in her eyes.
“Tell the Messenger of God…he has a son…”
I HAD NEVER SEEN such rejoicing in Medina. In the days that followed, the sober oasis was transformed into a city of grand festivities as the Muslims celebrated the birth of Muhammad’s son, who had been named Ibrahim. Hundreds of camels, sheep, and oxen were sacrificed by overjoyed believers, the meat distributed to the poor. Merchants heavily slashed prices in the marketplace and sometimes simply gave away their goods as gifts. Poets raced to compose verses in honor of the new boy in whose blood lived the hope of the entire Muslim Ummah. Had alcohol not been banned by the holy Qur’an, the streets would have been flowing in beer and khamr, and I suspected a few of the less pious were secretly toasting away in the privacy of their own homes.
It was a glorious time, and the joy was shared by all in the Prophet’s household, including the Mothers. Our envy of Mariya had been replaced by a fierce protective instinct toward her and the baby, who had become the son of us all. I remember the first time I held Ibrahim, after his mother had suckled him and the Messenger had wept over his tiny fingers. The Prophet had given him to me first in a sign that, even now, I remained foremost among his consorts.
I had held the tiny bundle in my arms as if he were a precious jewel and looked down at his face. Ibrahim’s hair was a mass of brown curls like his mother’s, but his eyes were indisputably those of his father, gazing up at me like black pearls filled with ancient wisdom. His skin was softer than a dove’s, and he radiated that mysterious coolness that always surrounded Muhammad, even in the hottest days of summer. And then those mesmerizing eyes seemed to twinkle at me as he smiled, and I fell in love with Ibrahim in that instant. It was a love as ferocious and all-consuming as I had for the Messenger, and I vowed that I would lay down my life to guard him and his mother, even if all the demons of Hell were unleashed upon us.
On the seventh day of Ibrahim’s life, the Messenger held the ceremony of the aqiqa, where the baby’s hair is cut for the first time and weighed, with the weight in gold then passed along to the poor. The People of the House gathered to celebrate this first milestone in the child’s life, and a pavilion of green and yellow stripes was placed outside the Masjid, where the faithful could come see the beautiful boy and the indigent could find alms.
The women of the household were gathered in a closed section in the back, separated by a woolen curtain from the excited crowds. Along with my fellow sister-wives were the daughters of Muhammad-Zaynab, with her little daughter, Umama; the childless Umm Kulthum, who had married Uthman after Ruqayya’s death; and the Prophet’s favorite, Fatima, with her sons, Hasan and Husayn. All of us gathered reverently around Mariya as if she were the queen of the nation, jostling with one another for a chance to hold the baby, the little Chosen One who was the light of the Ummah. I heard Hasan giggle as he chased his little brother, Husayn, around the room and I glanced at Fatima, who for once did not look sad and distant but was laughing heartily as her new baby brother looked up at her with the utter trust and absorption that only infants untainted by the world possess.
In the early days of Mariya’s pregnancy, some gossipmongers had spread vicious tales suggesting that Fatima and Ali were sad about the news that the Prophet would soon have an heir, displacing their own sons as the sole custodians of Muhammad’s bloodline. But despite my own unwavering antipathy for Ali, I did not believe for one second that he or his wife held anything but happiness for the Messenger, and, seeing the sincere look of joy on the normally taciturn Fatima’s face, I knew that such talk had been malicious and misguided.
And then the curtain parted and my husband walked inside the women’s chamber, his eyes twinkling. He went over to Mariya, kissed his infant son on the forehead, and then whispered something into the Egyptian girl’s ears. She giggled mischievously and nodded as the Prophet turned his attention to us. And I saw for the first time that he held in his hands a pretty necklace-an emerald pendant on a silver chain.
“In honor of my son’s aqiqa, today I will give this necklace to the girl I love most,” the Messenger said, holding the pendant aloft for all to see.
There was an immediate rustle of excitement and I suddenly felt my heart pounding in my chest. The Messenger glanced at me for just a brief moment and then began to walk slowly past each of his wives, dangling the necklace near their eager faces.
I saw Hafsa turn to Zaynab and whisper. Her voice was too low for me to hear, but I had mastered the art of reading lips during my years of fending off-and participating in-harem gossip.
“He will give it to the daughter of Abu Bakr,” Hafsa said, and I could see the irritation on Zaynab’s beautiful features as she nodded her agreement.
I felt a flash of pride as the Messenger walked by all of his wives and approached me. For a moment, he lingered before Safiya and I felt my heart sink. And then he passed by the disappointed Jewess and strolled toward me, the last in the circle of the Mothers.
I smiled triumphantly and raised my hand to take the jewel…and the Messenger walked right past me! I flushed red, shocked and confused. He had gone by each of his wives and yet the necklace remained in his hands. And then I saw him approach little Umama, who was sitting in her mother, Zaynab’s, lap. The Messenger bent down and tied the necklace around his granddaughter’s neck, then kissed her on the lips.
We all groaned, realizing that the Prophet had played a poignant little joke on us, the women of the household, who were perennially creating drama in our rivalry to be the first in his heart.
The Prophet looked at me in amusement. I crossed my arms in mock irritation, but I could not suppress the smile on my face. I finally burst out laughing, and soon everyone joined in.
And the mirth of the afternoon was interrupted by the sound of a dog barking wildly nearby, and I saw the Prophet’s face grow dark. He began to tremble and I saw beads of sweat on his forehead, and I leaped to my feet on the assumption that the tremors of Revelation had set in. But the Messenger did not fall to the ground in convulsions as often happened during these moments of spiritual ecstasy. He stood where he was, his eyes gazing out across the pavilion as if he were looking through the cloth walls and seeing something far beyond the confines of time and space.
And then the moment passed and the Prophet blinked rapidly, looking around as if trying to remind himself where he was. He turned to face us, his eyes gazing long and deep at each one of his wives, his handsome face suddenly tense with anxiety. His gaze fell upon me and I felt a strange chill in my heart.
“O Messenger of God, what is it?”
The Prophet continued to look at me, as if his eyes were peering deep into my soul.
“The dogs of al-Haw’ab…they bark so fiercely…”
Al-Haw’ab was a valley to the northeast, on the caravan route to Iraq. I did not understand why the Prophet was mentioning this remote and desolate place, but there was something about his tone that suddenly frightened me. I looked at my sister-wives and saw that they were unnerved as well.
The Prophet now looked away from me and stared across the room. He continued to speak, but it was to himself and not to us.
“They bark at the Angel of Death…who follows her skirts…so much death in her midst…”
A terrible silence followed and the only thing I could hear was the pounding of blood in my ears. And then the Jewess stood up, her eyes filled with the terror that we all now felt.
“Who is she? Who do the dogs bark at?”
The Prophet stirred from his silent reverie and then looked again at each of us, sorrow etched on to his features.
“I…I don’t know…but I grieve for her…”
The air of festivity was gone, replaced by a terrible sense of doom hanging over us. The Messenger of God shook his head as if trying to free himself from the awful vision that had captured his heart. He turned to leave and then stopped, his eyes suddenly focused on me. He leaned close so that only I would hear.
“Please, Humayra,” he said softly. “Don’t let the dogs bark at you.”
He walked out, leaving me with an unearthly sense of foreboding. I suddenly threw on my veil and ran outside. As I fled the pavilion and raced back to the security of my little home, I felt like a terrified gazelle charging through the wilderness, escaping an unseen predator that was coming closer every moment.
In years to come, when the Messenger’s prophecy came true, I learned that we are all gazelles, and the lion that is bearing down upon us is the heartless hunter called fate. And the tragedy of life is that no matter how fast we run, no matter how far we go, the lion always wins.
In the eighth year after we had emigrated to Medina, when I was seventeen years old, the Meccans broke the truce of Hudaybiyya. Men of Quraysh helped a group of hotheads from the Bedouin clan of Bakr attack Muslims from the Bani Khuza’a. It was some foolish quarrel, a blood feud over a woman from a pagan clan who had fallen in love and run off with a Muslim boy. But it was a clear violation of the peace that had stood for two years, and the Prophet ordered the army of Islam to march out to Mecca in response.
By now, we truly could be called an army. Having been battle-tested in dozens of increasingly complex skirmishes, the barbarian tribes were now a powerfully disciplined and honed fighting force, one that had in recent months had its first confrontation with the legions of the Byzantine empire. After the failure of the Roman alliance with Khaybar, the day had been rapidly approaching when the imperial troops would engage our men. The Byzantines had precipitated the crisis by capturing the Prophet’s emissary to Syria and brutally killing him. The murder was a ruthless violation of the ancient diplomatic sanctity of envoys and was no doubt intended to show the Byzantine contempt for the rising Muslim power and to provoke a response.
The Messenger had sent a force of three thousand to avenge his ambassador’s death, led by his adopted son, Zayd. The resulting battle against Byzantine troops at the valley of Muta’h was the first in a war that would soon see the mighty Roman empire collapse at the hands of a group of desert warriors. The fighting was brutal and Zayd was killed. The death of Muhammad’s beloved kinsman had caused the Muslims to fight with such ferocity that the overconfident Byzantine legions were forced to retreat. The Meccan defector Khalid ibn al-Waleed took the standard of the army and fought the stunned Byzantine forces back to the Dead Sea before pulling his men into the safety of the desert. Though the battle could at best have been called a draw, the Byzantines were horrified. Their elite forces, which had ruled much of the earth for almost a thousand years, had been checked by lightly armed horsemen who had been outnumbered three to one.
When the survivors returned to Mecca, the Prophet had congratulated them for their courage and awarded Khalid with the title “the Sword of Allah,” by which he would forever be known. And then the Messenger had retreated to the privacy of Zaynab’s apartment to weep bitterly over the death of Zayd, who had been a son to him and a husband to her.
The Muslim army had faced down the Byzantines and was now ready to face its most important challenge-the conquest of the holy city of Mecca. The Messenger brought together ten thousand of his finest warriors and marched to Mecca in response to the treaty violation. Many of the men were filled with righteous indignation and a burning desire to avenge years of humiliation and death at the hands of the Quraysh. But the Messenger calmed their hearts, saying that he would prefer to take the city without bloodshed. Even though it had been the base of operations of our enemies, Mecca remained a sacred city and the Prophet had no desire to stain the Sanctuary of Abraham with blood.
And so, as the Muslim army camped in the hills outside the ancient city from which we had been exiled, he ordered each and every one of the men to light a small campfire, rather than a few large bonfires around which the army would gather. And so it was that the night sky of Mecca was illuminated crimson with the combined flames of ten thousand fires, creating the terrifying impression of an army of one hundred thousand camped on the edge of the city. It was an effective ruse, and the citizenry of Mecca devolved into panic at the illusion.
I stood by the Prophet’s side at the edge of a hill, my skin tingling with the waves of heat emanating from the burning camp behind us. The smoke from the fires made my eyes water and I was perennially terrified that a stray spark from one of the thousands of burning pits would consume the Prophet’s pavilion, which he had pitched just outside the perimeter of the camp. Though Umar and the other commanders had objected to the Messenger’s command center being established at the base of the hills, where it would be easy prey for the first Meccan attack force, my husband did not seem in the least bit afraid. And looking back at the flaming horizon, which seemed as terrifying as the gates of Hell, I understood his confidence. There would be no attack.
Two men approached our camp, carrying the flag of heralds. Unlike the Byzantines, Muslims respected the immunity of envoys and these men did not need any protective force. As the tall figures clambered down the hill toward the Messenger’s simple green tent, my eyes went wide with recognition. These were not simple ambassadors. They were the lords of Mecca itself.
Abu Sufyan had come, along with his son Muawiya, who had been a secret convert for several years. From the smile on Muawiya’s face and the tired and defeated look on Abu Sufyan’s, it was clear that there was no more need for pretense. Mecca had been defeated, and all that was left was to settle the terms of its surrender.
The Messenger stepped forward with a warm smile and extended his hand to the man who had been his enemy for twenty years. Abu Sufyan looked at him wearily and then shook the Prophet’s hand with dignity.
OVER THE NEXT HOUR, the Messenger and Abu Sufyan negotiated a permanent end to hostilities between our peoples. The Muslim army would enter the city in the morning with the guarantee of a general amnesty for its populace. This was a remarkably magnanimous gesture on my husband’s part. He had defeated the people who had persecuted him for two decades, the people who had killed his family members and loved ones and had nearly exterminated the entire Muslim population at the Battle of the Trench. And he would forgive them and grant them privileged membership in the Muslim Ummah. The Quraysh, the tribe that had expelled Muhammad from its bosom, would retain control of Mecca and their traditional right to administer the Sanctuary and the Holy Kaaba in the name of Islam.
All of this the Messenger offered with a smile and an open hand. Abu Sufyan sighed, shaking his head at his enemy’s generosity, which he himself had failed to show over the years.
“Perhaps I always knew this day would come,” he said after a long moment of silence. His hair was now as white as the clouds, and his once-handsome faced was lined heavily with creases, the shrewd eyes weighed down by dark circles. He looked more like an old beggar than the would-be king of the Arab nation.
The Prophet leaned closer to him, took his hand in his as if they were old friends and not mortal enemies.
“Then why did you resist for so long?”
Abu Sufyan looked at his son Muawiya, his hope and pride, who had betrayed him and joined forces with his adversary. The dignified young man met his gaze and I could seen in them a glint of triumph, as if he had finally been proven right in an old family argument.
“Pride,” Abu Sufyan admitted at last. And then he turned his eyes on the Messenger. “And perhaps jealousy. That Allah had chosen you over me.”
The Messenger smiled.
“You said Allah, and not ‘the gods.’”
Abu Sufyan shrugged and rose to his feet.
“If my gods were real, they would have helped me over the years.”
The old man turned to leave, and then, almost as an afterthought, he turned to look back at my husband, an ironic smile on his lips.
“I testify that there is no god but God, and that you, Muhammad, are the Messenger of God.”
And with that, the last of Muhammad’s old enemies became his follower. Muawiya rose to help the old man limp out, when the Prophet called after them.
“Tell your people to stay indoors and abandon their weapons,” he said slowly, making sure that every word was understood. “No man will be harmed who does not resist.”
Abu Sufyan nodded. He was about to step out into the desert air, heated to frenzy by the thousands of campfires, when he looked one last time at the Messenger of God.
“Congratulations, Muhammad. You have defeated Quraysh at last.”
And then I saw the Prophet turn his gaze to Muawiya and for a second there was that strange and chilling flash of premonition in his black eyes. And then the Messenger smiled, and I was surprised to see a hint of sadness on his face.
“No. I have given the Quraysh victory.”
The next morning, Muhammad entered as a conqueror the holy city from which he had been expelled. Khalid ibn al-Waleed had led an advance guard to secure the city, but there was little resistance. The exhausted citizens of Mecca stayed inside their homes, quietly praying to their gods that the man whom they had persecuted would show them the graciousness that had escaped them when they held the reins of power. And their prayers would be answered, but not by the idols that they had fought and died for. The days of Allat, Uzza, and Manat were over, and Allah had emerged triumphant. The many had been defeated by the One.
My husband rode his favorite camel, Qaswa, back into the city that had been his home until he had questioned its ancient taboos and challenged its powerful elite. My father, Abu Bakr, rode at his side, followed by the ranks of the Muslim army, marching forward with dignity and discipline down the paved streets toward the Sanctuary.
I was on my own camel, riding in the covered howdah that been the source of so much trouble when I had been left behind in the desert. The Muslims had a policy now that they would not break camp until the Mothers had all been safely tucked away in their honored carriages and accounted for. Normal decorum required that I sit behind the heavy curtains of the howdah until the company had come to a halt, but the excitement of the day won out and no one objected when I peered through the woolen covers at the glorious sight of the Sanctuary, which I had not seen since I was a little girl.
The Kaaba was as I remembered it, the towering cubical temple covered in rich curtains of multicolored silks. The circular plaza around this holiest site of the Arab people was still littered with the three hundred and sixty idols that represented the different gods of the tribes, but this abomination would soon be at an end.
The Messenger rode ahead of us and circled the holy house seven times while proclaiming God’s glory. He then stopped his camel and climbed down, approaching the Black Stone that was placed inside the eastern corner of the building. The Stone was said to have been lodged there by Abraham himself when our forefather had built the original temple with his son Ishmael. According to the Messenger, the Black Stone had fallen from heaven and was the only remnant of the celestial paradise from which Adam had been expelled.
The Messenger kissed the Stone of Heaven with reverence. And then he signaled to Ali, who strode forth with his mighty sword and began to slash away at the idols that had polluted the House of God from time immemorial. He tore down the ancient statues of the Daughters of Allah, followed by the grinning carved faces of the Syrian and Iraqi gods who had been imported into the Sanctuary when their images were no longer welcome in the Christian world. As the idols fell, a tremendous chorus of chants rose from the Muslim ranks, cries of Allahu akbar and La ilaha illallah. “God is great. There is no god but God.” From this day forward the Arabs were no longer a disparate group of competing tribes, each with its own customs and beliefs. They were a single nation, united under one God.
And then, when the plaza was covered in rubble and the last of the idols had been smashed to dust, the Messenger of God opened the doors of the Kaaba and gestured toward us, his family and closest followers. My father and Ali came to his side, as did Umar, Uthman, Talha, and Zubayr. Fatima joined them, holding the hands of her little sons, Hasan and Husayn. And then Prophet looked at me and nodded. I hesitated, feeling my heart pounding with anticipation, and then I led my sister-wives to the entrance of the Holy of Holies, where the Spirit of God dwelled for eternity.
The Messenger stepped inside and we climbed the stone steps, following him into the darkness. There were no torches inside the Kaaba and for a moment I was blind and lost. And then my eyes adjusted to the gloom and I could see the three marble pillars that held up the stone roof of the temple. And on the far wall towered a mighty carnelian statue of Hubal, the god of Mecca.
The Prophet stared at this icon for a long time, the symbol of everything that he had spent his entire life fighting against. And then he raised his staff and pointed it at the idol, and for a moment he looked very much like Moses confronting the hubris of Pharaoh. And then the Messenger of God recited a verse from the Holy Qur’an: Truth has come and falsehood has vanished. Verily falsehood always vanishes.
I heard a rumble and I suddenly felt the ground beneath me shaking. And then as the tremors intensified, the majestic icon of Hubal shuddered and pitched forward on its face. The idol fell to the ground and shattered like a crystal vial thrown from a great height.
The ground became still and a deep silence fell over the Kaaba.
And then I heard the voice of Bilal, the Abyssinian slave who had been tortured in the Sanctuary so many years before. He was calling out the Azan, the call to prayer, summoning men to the Truth that could no longer be denied.
There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.
The Messenger of God pitched his tent on the outskirts of the city, where each and every one of the residents of Mecca came to give him their pledge of loyalty. Abu Bakr sat at his right and Umar at his left hand, while Uthman stood to one side and gave to each of the new converts a gift of gold or jewels from the Bayt al-Mal, the Muslim treasury, a gesture of reconciliation and welcome to the new order. Ali stood behind the Prophet, Dhul Fiqar unsheathed and held aloft, a warning to any who might try to take vengeance on the man who had defeated the proud lords of Mecca.
It was not idle posturing, for the Messenger had recently survived an assassination attempt. During a visit to the conquered city of Khaybar, the Prophet had been welcomed by the Jewish chieftains who were eager to keep the peace after their humiliating defeat. But not everyone in the city shared their leaders’ sentiments, and a woman of Khaybar had poisoned a feast of lamb that had been prepared for the Prophet by his hosts. The Messenger had tasted the meat and immediately sensed that something was wrong. He had spit out the poisoned morsel, but several of his Companions had been less fortunate and had died painfully at the table. The terrified Jewish leaders, fearing that their tribe would be annihilated in punishment, had found the cook and forced her to confess that she had acted alone. Ali had been prepared to execute her on the spot, but the Prophet had restrained his outraged cousin. My husband had asked the defiant Jewess why she had tried to kill him, and she had responded with her head held proudly that she was merely avenging the deaths of her kinsmen at Muhammad’s hand. And to everyone’s surprise, the Messenger had nodded with understanding and pardoned her.
As I looked at the faces of the defeated Meccans lining up before my husband, I did not see what I had glimpsed on that Jewish woman’s angry face. I saw no fire of defiance, no hint of rebellion still in their hearts. They were humbled and weary, tired of fighting, tired of losing, tired of being on the wrong side of history. I felt a particular flash of satisfaction when I saw Suhayl, the pretentious envoy who had negotiated the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, bow his head before his new master. There was no insouciance in his voice, no flash of contempt in his dark eyes. Just eager gratitude that the Messenger had chosen to show clemency to men like him who did not deserve it.
And there were moments of sincere reconciliation and joy. The Prophet’s uncle Abbas, who had been his secret ally inside Mecca all these years, could finally embrace his nephew openly. And to my great joy, my estranged brother Abdal Kaaba, who had nearly killed his own father at the Battle of Uhud, rejoined our family. The Messenger embraced my brother and gave him a new name, Abdal Rahman. I had never seen my father so happy as on the day that his eldest son returned to his bosom, and it was as if years of pain fell off Abu Bakr’s face and he was a young man again.
My half sister, Asma, also received a blessing when her elderly mother, Qutaila, came and finally embraced the faith that she had rejected years before. It was a tearful reunion, and I wondered how Asma had endured all those years cut off from the woman who had given her birth and then rejected her when she chose her father’s religion over the ways of the ancients. I suddenly realized how lucky I really was to have had a loving family that remained intact despite all the hardships we endured, and how brave my sister had been all these years when her heart had been weighed down with such unspoken sorrow.
And then a towering black man stepped forward and I felt my breathing stop. I recognized him immediately, for his visage had been burned into my heart since the disaster at Uhud. He was Wahsi, the Abyssinian slave who had killed the Messenger’s uncle Hamza with a javelin.
I saw the Prophet stiffen as the hulking African knelt before him, his right hand held aloft. My eyes flew to Ali and I could see his green eyes burning with anger, and for a second I wondered if Dhul Fiqar would slice Wahsi’s head from his muscular shoulders.
The Messenger leaned forward.
“You are the one who killed Hamza, the son of Abdal Muttalib. Is that not so?” There was a hint of danger in my husband’s voice, and I could see a line of sweat drip down the Abyssinian’s broad face.
“Yes,” he said softly, his head bowed in evident shame.
“Why did you do this thing?” my husband asked, his black eyes unreadable.
“To secure my freedom from slavery,” the African said, his voice trembling.
The Prophet looked at him for a long time. And then he reached forward and took Wahsi’s hand in acceptance of his baya’ah, his oath of loyalty.
“We are all slaves to something,” he said. “Wealth. Power. Lust. And the only freedom from the slavery of this world is to become a slave to God.”
Tears welling in his eyes, Wahsi clasped the Messenger’s hand. He recited the testimony of faith and the Prophet nodded, accepting the conversion of this man who had murdered his beloved uncle Hamza, his childhood friend and the only older brother he had ever known.
And then I saw my husband’s eyes glisten with tears and he turned away from the African.
“Now let me not look upon you again,” Muhammad said, his voice caught in his throat. Wahsi nodded sadly and departed, and I did not see him again for all the days that the Messenger lived.
AS THE SUN SET, the last of the Meccans stood before the Prophet, ready to accept membership in the Ummah. Among them was an old woman, hunched over and covered in a black abaya. Her face was covered by a black veil, but there was something hauntingly familiar about her eyes.
Yellow green and piercing like daggers. The eyes of a snake that was poised to strike its prey.
I felt a wave of alarm rising in my heart, but before I could speak, she knelt before the Prophet and placed her long fingers in a bowl of water, and the Prophet dipped his own fingers in the bowl in formal acceptance of her allegiance.
“I testify that there is no god but God and that you, Muhammad, are the Messenger of God. And I pledge my allegiance to God and His Messenger.”
The voice was hoarse but unmistakable and I saw my husband’s eyes narrow. His smile was gone and his face now rigid as stone.
“Remove your veil,” he said in a powerful voice that sent a chill down my spine. There were murmurs of shock from some in the tent, as the Messenger was always respectful of the modesty of women and had never before asked anyone to remove her niqab.
The old women hesitated, but Muhammad continued to stare at her without blinking. Ali stepped forward, his glittering sword raised menacingly.
“Fulfill your oath. Obey the Messenger,” he said, and the tension in the air became unbearable.
And then the woman raised her hand and ripped off the veil, revealing the face of the Messenger’s greatest enemy. Hind, the daughter of Utbah, the most vicious of his opponents, the cannibal who had eaten the liver of Hamza as the ultimate sign of her contempt for the believers.
I gasped when I looked upon her, for I barely recognized her. Her dangerous eyes were unchanged, but her once-beautiful face had been cruelly ravaged by time. The perfect alabaster skin had turned a sickly yellow and was scarred with deep lines. Her high cheekbones, which had highlighted the chiseled perfection of her features, were now skeletal crags. She looked like a corpse, and the only evidence of her living spirit was the steady rise and fall of her sagging throat as she breathed with some difficulty.
The Prophet looked at her with his eyes brimming with anger.
“You are she who ate the flesh of my uncle,” he said simply, no accusation in his voice, just a harsh statement of fact.
I saw the revulsion on the faces of the Companions, and I glanced at Umar, who had been her lover in the Days of Ignorance. The horror in his eyes at the sight of the decrepit woman he had once loved was palpable.
Hind ignored the stares, the cruel whispers, and kept her eyes on my husband.
“Yes,” she said simply, acknowledging before the world the crime that easily merited her death.
My eyes fell on Ali and I saw Dhul Fiqar glowing red. I would have dismissed the vision as an illusion created by the flickering torches, but I had seen enough to know that the sword burned with its own anger.
And then I realized that Hind was looking at the weapon as well and her ugly face curved into a truly terrifying smile.
“Do it. Kill me,” she hissed defiantly, and yet I could hear what I thought sounded like a plea beneath the affectation of pride.
There was a hush of silence as the Prophet looked at his adversary, a trembling sack of bones who had once been the most beautiful and noble woman among the children of Ishmael. And I saw a sudden softening in his eyes that mirrored the change in my own heart, for in that moment I truly felt sorry for her.
“I forgive you,” he said simply. And then he turned away from her and placed his attention on a mother who was standing behind her, a young woman carrying an infant in her arms.
Hind looked at him, confused. Her eyes went to Ali, who had lowered his sword, and then to Umar, who refused to meet her gaze. She stared at the other Companions and then at the men and women of Mecca around her, but all chose to ignore her. In that moment, I realized that Hind had been both pardoned and condemned. For she had gone from the most feared and hated enemy of Islam to a nobody, a woman who was irrelevant to the new order, who had no power or say in anything that happened in Arabia from that day forward. As she turned and hobbled away, I realized that my husband had given her the one punishment she could not endure. The curse of anonymity.
The defeated old woman skulked away and left the tent, her head bowed. I should have stayed inside by my husband’s side, but something in my heart compelled me to step outside, to see for myself the final end of my greatest nightmare.
Hind was already past the guards who had been placed at the perimeter of the Messenger’s tent when she suddenly stooped and turned. Her yellow-green eyes met mine and for a second I saw a hint of the pride and dignity that she had always carried. The old crone hobbled over to me and looked at me closely. My face was hidden behind my veil, but my golden eyes shone forth unmistakably.
“You are the daughter of Abu Bakr,” she said, with an unnerving smile, the look of a cat as it plays with a mouse it has caught in its paws.
“Yes,” I said, suddenly regretting my decision to come outside.
“I always liked you, little girl,” Hind said in a raspy voice that still tinkled with seduction. “You remind me of myself.”
I felt my face flush at her words and my pulse pounded in my temples.
“I seek refuge in Allah that I should ever be like you!”
Hind smiled broadly, revealing a row of cracked and blackened teeth.
“Even so, you are,” she said with a laugh that lacked any joy. “There is a fire inside you that burns very bright. They can cover you with a hundred veils and it will still shine through. But know this, my dear. The fire of a woman’s heart is too hot for this world. Men will fly to it like moths. But when it burns their wings, they will snuff it out.”
I felt the hair on my arm standing up and chills ran through me. I turned to leave, when Hind reached forward and took my arm in her bony grasp. I tried to pull free, but her fingers were like the jaws of a lion, crushing down on my bones. And then she put something in my hand, something that sparkled under the evening stars that were slowly taking possession of the sky.
It was her golden armlet, the band of snakes intertwining until their jaws met to encase a glittering ruby.
I stared down at this strange and awful symbol of Hind’s power, a totem that she was now passing along to me as the sun of her life set into the horizon of history. It was a gift with terrifying implications, and one that I had no desire to accept.
But when I raised my head to protest, Hind was gone.
It was my husband’s distinct tragedy that soon after each victory he was given in his mission, God always exacted a terrible price from among his loved ones. Shortly after we returned to Medina and the city was alive with rejoicing at the final victory of Islam, the Messenger’s infant son, Ibrahim, fell ill and began to waste away.
Despite the desperate prayers of the community and the efforts of those who were skilled in medicine, the poor boy deteriorated rapidly, his tiny form ravaged by the camp fever that few grown men could survive.
I watched through eyes reddened by tears as Muhammad stroked his dying son’s curly hair in farewell. A steady flow of tears ran down his face, causing one of the men present, a Companion named Abdal Rahman ibn Awf, to raise his eyebrows in surprise.
“O Messenger of God, even you? Is it not forbidden?”
The Prophet spoke with some difficulty, his eyes never leaving the face of Ibrahim as the flow of life seeped out from the child.
“Tears are not forbidden,” the Messenger said softly. “They are the promptings of tenderness and mercy, and he who does not show mercy will have none shown to him.”
And then my husband leaned close to the little boy, who was looking up at him with dreamy eyes as his soul began to detach from this valley of sorrow.
“O Ibrahim, if it were not that the promise of reunion is assured, and that this is a path which all must tread, and that the last of us will overtake the first, truly we would grieve for you with even greater sorrow. But we are stricken indeed with sadness for you, Ibrahim. The eye weeps and the heart grieves, but we say nothing that would offend the Lord.”
I felt my heart quiver in grief as Ibrahim smiled up at his father, his tiny hand wrapped around the Messenger’s finger. I saw the little boy squeeze one last time and then his eyes closed, and Muhammad’s son passed away into eternity.
WHEN WE HAD WEPT all the tears we could, the Messenger covered Ibrahim’s face with a sheet and stepped outside to address the agitated crowd. I looked up in the heavens and saw that the sky was dark, and realized that the sun was in eclipse and the stars were shining in the middle of the day.
The Muslims were gazing up in wonder at the thin crescent where the sun had been only moments before, and I heard a man cry out.
“Behold! Even the heavens weep for the Prophet’s son!”
I did not doubt that this was a sign from God for the poor, innocent child who would never have a chance to experience the joys of life and love in this world.
But even at this moment, when grief had overpowered us all, the Messenger remained true to his faith.
“No,” he said loudly, his voice echoing through the streets of Medina. “The sun and the moon are signs of God. They are eclipsed for no man.”
And with that Muhammad reminded us that he was no more than a man himself and that his own son was no more special than the hundreds of children who died every day in the cruelty of the desert, whose families were forced to grieve alone, without the loving support of an entire nation.
My husband turned away, his face looking very tired and old. I reached over and took his hand, and he held mine tightly, his eyes brimming with gratitude. And then we walked back inside and began the preparations for the funeral.
The next several months were a flurry of diplomatic activity as the Messenger dispatched envoys throughout Arabia. With the fall of Mecca, the ancient pagan cult had breathed its last, and it was time to bring the remaining tribes under the governance of Medina. A nation had finally been forged, and the Prophet was busy making plans for its survival. I did not understand the urgency in his daily letters to the varying provinces of the peninsula that now swore allegiance to him, perhaps because I did not want to face the truth. My husband was over sixty years old and had lived a hundred lifetimes in one. But he was not immortal, and as the weight of his age grew upon him, he was making plans for the survival of the Ummah once he was no longer there to guide it.
With the death of Ibrahim, talk had begun among the people of Arabia about the successor to the Prophet now that he had lost his direct heir. Many names were whispered, most prominently that of my father, Abu Bakr, who was an elder statesman and held the respect of the entire community. My father always angrily dismissed such speculation and yet it persisted. A few voices suggested that young Ali, who was now just over thirty years old, would be a natural choice, as the closest living male relative to the Prophet and the father of his grandsons. But there was a natural dislike among the independent-minded Arabs for monarchy, and the idea that the leadership of the community should be based on the right of bloodlines left a sour taste in the mouths of the tribes.
It was significant that of the few Companions who spoke in favor of Ali, the most prominent was Salman, the Persian hero who had devised the strategy of the trench that had saved Medina from invasion. The Persians were an ancient people who were proud of their long lineage of philosopher-kings and looked upon the Arab custom of choosing tribal leaders by an assembly known as a shura as a crass system that could be manipulated by the powerful to oppress the weak. For the Persians, the qualities of leadership, the instincts for justice and honor, were sacred traits that were passed along by blood and upbringing and should not be bartered away for the mercurial passions of the mob. It was a passionate and proud stance, but one that was utterly alien to the freethinking Arabs, who were only now becoming accustomed to being ruled by a single man.
My husband was certainly aware of the talk, but he made no effort to end it or to clarify his own preferences in the matter of succession. In the years that followed, I have often looked back and wondered why he was so circumspect. In all other areas of life, he was a clear and commanding guide, one whose words were carefully chosen to limit the possibility of misinterpretation or confusion. Yet when it came to the matter of succession to the leadership of the Ummah, he was stubbornly silent, and much of the chaos that was to emerge would arise from our best efforts to understand his ambiguous pronouncements on this subject.
It is my belief that my husband did not announce his intentions clearly because his heart was torn, even as the Ummah itself would one day be torn apart. The death of Ibrahim had taken away his last hope for a son to carry his lineage, which would now pass through his daughter Fatima and her sons, Hasan and Husayn. Ali was indeed the closest of his living male relatives and had been in many ways both a brother and a son to him. The Messenger spent a great deal of time talking in private with him, and none except Fatima would be permitted to join them in those moments. What was said between them was always a mystery, and there were rumors that my husband was passing along divine secrets that were too weighty for the common Muslims, even for pious men like my father or Umar, to hear.
This speculation added to Ali’s reputation for otherworldliness, and many of the Muslims became increasingly uncomfortable around the strange young man. No one would deny that he was a mighty warrior and an eloquent speaker, but it was this peculiar sense that he was not like the rest of us that estranged him from the hearts of many. And it is for that reason that I have difficulty imagining that my husband expected the Muslims to follow Ali unquestioningly, as his supporters would claim with increasing vehemence in later years. Muhammad was a statesman above all, one who understood the nature and character of the people he had been destined to lead. It was his diplomatic wisdom that had caused him to agree to a truce with Mecca, even though the Muslims were in open revolt at the idea. My husband had seen further than the rest of us and had known that Islam would grow rapidly in peacetime and that Mecca would one day fall without bloodshed. And it was that same visionary thinking that had caused him to pardon his worst enemies and offer the leaders of Quraysh prominent roles in the new state. Even though many Muslims resented the lords of Mecca, the chieftains retained the broad respect of the Arab tribes and their support would bring unity to the nation
My husband, who saw so much, must have seen that his beloved Ali was a polarizing figure, one who brought about intense reactions of both love and hate. My own antipathy to him was visceral, and I knew I was not alone. Muhammad must have known that Ali would never be able to unify the Arabs, and it was the unity of the Ummah that was his primary concern in all the years that I knew him. Others, like my father and Umar, had the respect of the entire nation and could easily hold the community together when Muhammad was gone. And yet my husband did not openly proclaim in their favor either.
As I look back in my own twilight years, dear Abdallah, I believe that my husband’s heart and his mind were divided on the matter. In his heart, perhaps he would have preferred Ali and his grandsons to be the leaders of the community. And yet his intellect saw that the Muslims would probably not support his family’s claim to power, and everything that the Messenger had worked for would shatter upon his death. That truth, the vast chasm between his preferences and those of his own people, was so painful that I believe he intentionally left the matter unresolved in those final days of his life. Perhaps he was hoping that God would give him a Revelation that would clarify the issue of succession, which would absolve him of having to make a choice that could lead to discord and civil war. But when the day of the last Revelation came, the matter remained unsettled.
Those final verses came down upon him during his participation in what would later be called the Farewell Pilgrimage. My husband led tens of thousands of believers to Mecca to perform the rites of Abraham, during which he established forever the rituals according to the laws of Islam. Gone were the old superstitions of the desert, including the pagan custom of circumambulating the Holy Kaaba naked. In their place were the simple acts of piety that reminded us of our connection to our father Abraham.
Along with the ritual encircling of the temple, the Muslims retained the practice of running seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa. This rite, whose meaning had long been forgotten by the Arabs, commemorated our mother Hagar and her desperate search for water. She had sought to save her dying son Ishmael, and at her moment of despair in the arid valley, God had caused the well of Zamzam to miraculously appear at Ishmael’s foot. As my husband explained the meaning of the ritual to the masses of pilgrims, many of whom were recent converts, I remembered how I had told Abu Sufyan the same story when I was a little girl almost fifteen years before. Abu Sufyan, who had then been the proud king of the idol worshipers, the same man who now stood humbly dressed in a pilgrim’s loincloth near the Prophet, a follower instead of an enemy.
The next day, the Prophet had led his followers through another ancient rite, the stoning of three old pillars in the desert that had stood since time immemorial. The ritual was meant to commemorate the three times that Abraham was tempted by Satan and how he had driven away the devil by stoning him in the desert.
And then, finally, the Messenger led the throngs out into the vast desert plain of Arafat toward the mountain from which he would deliver what would prove to be his final sermon to mankind. I gazed down at the thousands who had come to hear him speak, the crowd stretching from horizon to horizon, and I had a persistent thought that what I was seeing was a small precursor of the awe of the Day of Judgment, when mankind will rise from their graves and stand side by side before the Throne of God.
As I looked upon the sea of white-garbed pilgrims, all dressed in equal humility regardless of wealth or status, with fair-skinned and dark-skinned believers praying side by side to the same God, I was struck by my husband’s remarkable triumph. He had taken a group of fiercely divided tribes, at war with one another for centuries, and had forged them into a single nation. A community that valued moral character over material success, an Ummah in which the rich eagerly sought to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Such a feat could not have been accomplished by a thousand great leaders over a thousand generations. And yet my love had done it single-handedly over the course of one lifetime.
As the Messenger stood atop the ancient mountain of Arafat, I heard his voice echo to the thousands who eagerly stood under the punishing sun to hear his words.
“O people, hear me well as I speak to you, for we may not meet again in this place after this year. O people! Your lives and your property are as sanctified to each other as the sanctity of this day, and this sacred month. Have I given the message? O God, be my witness.”
At his words, the Pilgrims cried out in unison, “Yes!”
The Prophet raised his hand and continued.
“So let whoever has been given something for safekeeping give it back to him who gave him it. Truly, the usury of the Era of Ignorance has been laid aside forever. And truly, the blood vengeance of the Era of Ignorance has been laid aside forever. Truly, the hereditary distinctions that were the pretense of the Era of Ignorance have been laid aside forever.”
He paused and then laid out his final commandments for the people, even as Moses had done at Sinai.
“O people: truly you owe your women their rights, and they owe you yours. They may not lie with other men in your beds, let anyone into your houses you do not want without your permission, or commit indecency. You in turn must provide for them and clothe them fittingly. So fear God in respect to women, and concern yourselves with their welfare. Have I given the message? O God, be my witness.”
The crowds cried in assent again, their voices thundering through the valley with such power that I could feel the earth beneath me tremble.
“O people, believers are but brothers. Your Lord is One, and your father is one. All of you are from Adam, and Adam was from the mud of the earth. The noblest of you in God’s sight is the best in conduct. An Arab has no merit over a non-Arab, nor a white man over a black man, other than in his moral conduct. Have I given the message? O God, be my witness!”
As the crowd shouted again its agreement, I saw a strange light surrounding the Messenger, like a circle of fire. I told myself it was just the punishing desert sun playing tricks on me. And yet the light persisted and grew gradually brighter.
“Today I received these words from God, which the angel Gabriel has told me will be the final Revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.”
There was stunned silence and everyone listened carefully as the Prophet recited in his beautiful flowing voice the Word of God.
Today the disbelievers have lost all hope that you will give up your faith.
Do not fear them, but fear Me.
Today I have perfected your religion for you
Completed my blessing upon you
And chosen for your religion Islam-the Surrender.
We all stood there in awe as God’s final words to mankind sank into our hearts. And then the Prophet raised his voice and asked the question one last time.
“Have I given the message? O God, be my witness!”
And as the cries of affirmation echoed all around us, I saw tears flowing down my husband’s face. For in that moment, I realized that he had finally completed his life’s work. There was nothing more left to be done.
“Then let whoever is present tell whoever is absent. And peace be upon all of you, and the mercy of Allah.”
Even as he spoke these words, the strange light around him appeared to intensify and for a moment it seemed as if my husband were made of light itself, shining brighter than the sun. I looked down, unable to bear the blinding rays emanating from about his noble figure.
And then I gasped, for my eyes fell on the earth around where he stood. And I could see no sign of a shadow. My father and Umar were right beside him, and their shadowy outlines fell away from them as the sun slid toward the horizon. And yet Muhammad alone among all those who stood at the peak cast no shade.
And then the mysterious light around my husband vanished, and his shadow reappeared against the craggy rocks as if it had always been there. And without another word, the Messenger of God climbed down from the mountain peak and immersed himself in the adoring masses.
AS WE RETURNED TO Medina at the end of the Pilgrimage, two events occurred that would change the course of Muslim history. First was the birth of my half brother Muhammad. My father had taken a second wife in his old age, a war widow named Asma bint Umais, who had become pregnant with his last child. Even though she was late in her term when the season of Pilgrimage had come, my stepmother had insisted upon accompanying my father to Mecca. She had performed all the rituals admirably and without complaint, but soon after we left the precincts of the holy city, her water broke and my baby brother was born.
I fell in love with little Muhammad the moment I saw him, for he had my fiery red hair and adorable dimples on his cheeks whenever he smiled, which was often. In the years to come, Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr would become like a son to me, even as you have been, Abdallah, and it is my greatest regret that I was not able to restrain him or guide him away from the terrible destiny that awaited him.
And though I did not know it then, the man who shared responsibility for my brother’s destiny was among us, and it was because of the events that occurred on that road home from Mecca that their souls would become intertwined.
Our pilgrim caravan stopped for water at a pond located in a small valley called Ghadir Khumm, a barren place of no significance that would later be remembered as the home of the great schism that drove the Muslims apart forever, shattering a unified Ummah into sects that were perennially at war.
As the camels and horses drank at the pond and the believers refilled their water caskets, a man approached the Prophet and loudly complained about Ali, who had been his leader in a recent military command and had been seen by the men as too strict in enforcing discipline.
I saw the patient smile on my husband’s face vanish and a dark look cross his features. I knew that he was very sensitive about Ali, and I had learned through experience to keep my own rather dismal opinions of the Prophet’s son-in-law to myself. Of course the Messenger was aware that Ali was unpopular with some of the Muslims, but hearing that the soldiers under Ali’s command were now openly agitating against a man whom Muhammad loved like a son inspired in him a rare fury. He suddenly summoned all the believers to gather about him and then called forth Ali, who had been sharpening his sword against the jagged rocks of the valley.
The Messenger of God held Ali’s right hand aloft and called out loudly, his black eyes shining with a frightening intensity.
“Hear, O Muslims and do not forget. Whosoever holds me as his Mawla, know that Ali is also his Mawla. O Allah, befriend those who befriend Ali, and be the enemy of whosoever is hostile to him!”
It was a powerful pronouncement and one unlike any I had ever heard my husband say. He had clearly exalted Ali in a way that he had never done for any other man among his followers. And yet the words themselves were unclear and open to interpretation, for the word Mawla means many things in Arabic, including master, friend, lover, and even slave. But whatever my husband meant, it was clear that he was tired of the grumbling about the young man who had fathered his grandchildren and wanted to put an end to the cheap gossip about his closest relative.
Whether Muhammad intended anything more in that moment than to remind us to respect and honor his cousin would become a matter of passionate debate in the years to come. And one day the argument would devolve into open warfare.
Several months after we returned from the Pilgrimage, the Messenger entered my house one day when I was sewing. I looked up from the patch that I was applying to my old cloak to see him gazing at me serenely, a soft smile on his lips.
“Is it not Maymuna’s day?” I asked, referring to the most recent of my husband’s wives, Maymuna bint al-Harith, an impoverished divorcée whom he had married shortly after the truce with Mecca. She was a kindly woman in her thirties who was always seeking ways to raise money to free slaves, as she believed that no man should be a slave to anyone except God. Maymuna was an aunt of Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the Sword of Allah, and many believed that she had influenced her nephew to abandon Mecca and defect to the Prophet’s side.
The Prophet had continued his policy of spending one day with each of his wives to ensure that they were all treated equally. Today was dedicated to Maymuna, and my husband was normally meticulous about spending all of his allotted time with the wife whose turn had come, so I was surprised to see him in my room.
“I just wanted to look at you,” he said simply, but there was something in his voice that worried me. It was the tone of a man who was about to leave on a long journey and was unsure when he would see his loved ones again.
The Messenger walked toward me slowly. He looked weak and tired, and I sat him beside me on a small cushion. He smiled warmly as I ran my hand through his black curls, which were now peppered with strands of silver.
As I looked into his eyes, I sensed he wanted to say something, and yet he was holding himself back.
“What is it?” I asked, despite my growing apprehension about whatever it was that he was hiding from me.
“You will live long, insha-Allah,” he said rather elliptically. “But there are times that I wish you would have passed away before me.”
I was shocked at these words. My husband wanted me to die before he did?
“Why would you say that?” I asked rather sharply, not bothering to hide my hurt.
The Prophet ran his hand across my face, like a blind man trying to recognize someone’s features. Or a traveler who was leaving and wanted to imprint a memory onto the tips of his finger.
“So that I could pray over your body and ask forgiveness for you.”
I gave him a surprised and perhaps ungracious look, as my pride managed to twist his words into some kind of insult. But in the years to come, there would be many times that I wished that I had indeed died that day, and that his blessing could have protected me from the Day of Judgment, when the true burden of my guilt will be weighed by God.
But alas, that was not my destiny, nor his. The Messenger of God took no offense at the rather sharp glance I had given him. He smiled again and rose to his feet to leave…and then collapsed to the floor!
“My love!” I cried out in shock, forgetting to be angry at his enigmatic words. The Messenger had fallen as if his knees had been cut from beneath him, and he lay curled at my feet like a baby in a crib.
I quickly bent over and touched his forehead. He was burning up.
And then I felt his body shake with tremors, but they were not the unearthly convulsions of the Revelation; they were the very human shivers of a man consumed by fever.
FOR THE NEXT THREE nights, we gathered around the Messenger as he lay in Maymuna’s bed. The Mothers had been at his side nonstop since the moment I had cried out for help and Ali and Abbas had arrived to aid their kinsman. We had kept a vigil into the late hours, applying cold rags to his forehead to lower the fever and feeding him bowls of soup and broth to give him strength. But the days passed and my husband’s state only worsened.
“It will pass…” I would reassure the other Mothers. “It always does…He is the Messenger of God…the angels will heal him…”
But even I had difficulty believing my own words.
ON THE FOURTH NIGHT of the Messenger’s illness, a council of his inner circle gathered at his bedside to debate the future of Islam. With the Prophet incapacitated and steadily deteriorating, the future of the entire Ummah was at stake. The fragile unity that the Messenger had forged among the Arabs by the sheer strength of his personality was now on the verge of collapsing. Rumors were coming that some of the Bedouin tribes were considering renouncing their pacts of alliance with Medina. And the Byzantine empire was allegedly massing its forces for an invasion.
While these were the kinds of political and military threats the Muslims were accustomed to facing, there was a more troubling development. A group of pretenders to the mantle of prophecy was rising, each trying to steal some of Muhammad’s success to enhance his own glory. A rogue named Musaylima had proclaimed himself a new prophet of Allah. He had written to my husband in the months past calling on his “brother” to recognize Musaylima as his fellow Messenger of God and suggesting that the two should divide the world between them. Before he had fallen ill, Muhammad sent a response to Musaylima branding him a liar and proclaiming that all the world belonged to God alone. But the false prophet was undeterred and had begun to raise a following from among the superstitious clan of Bani Hanifa on the eastern edge of the Najd desert. And a woman of the Bani Tamim named Sajah, a kahina who was rumored to be versed in dark magic, had similarly proclaimed herself a prophetess and was busy gathering a small but fanatically loyal group of disciples. Had the Messenger not been confined to his sickbed, the defeat of these new threats to Islam would have been his priority.
The council of believers had arrived, hoping to find the Messenger in a rare moment of lucidity in which he could guide them as to how to run the affairs of state. The small band consisted of my father, Umar, Uthman, Ali, Talha and Zubayr, along with Muawiya, a new member of the Messenger’s inner circle. The son of Abu Sufyan had emigrated to the oasis after the surrender of Mecca and had been chosen by the Messenger as his personal scribe, an honor that had formerly belonged to Ali. Muawiya’s sudden rise to prominence in the community had startled some Muslims, but my husband had wisely realized that an overture to this scion of the Quraysh would accelerate the process of reconciliation. And the honey-tongued young man had quickly proven his skills as a politician, winning over skeptics with gifts and sweet words. Umar in particular had taken a liking to the former prince of Mecca and had taken him under his wing. Muawiya’s star was rising rapidly in the heavens of Islam, and it appeared that the only one who remained suspicious of his intentions was Ali, which was perhaps understandable.
The Companions waited quietly by the Prophet’s side for over an hour until his eyes opened briefly. My poor husband looked at them all for a second as if he did not recognize them, and then his black eyes finally kindled with their mysterious inner light and he sat up slowly in bed.
My husband must have guessed why these men were here, as he spoke before any of them could greet him. His eyes focused on Muawiya as he gestured with his hand.
“Bring a parchment and pen…” the Messenger said, his voice hoarse and trembling. “I have something to dictate…As long as the Muslims follow my command, they will prosper…”
Muawiya rose and removed a sheaf of parchment from inside his rich emerald robes. But before he could move to the Prophet’s side, Umar put a restraining hand on his arm. I saw the troubled look on the towering Companion’s face when he glanced at the Messenger, whose eyes were struggling to stay open as the delirium came back with a vengeance.
“The holy Qur’an is enough for us,” Umar said, clearly nervous that the Messenger was in no state of mind to give commandments.
But Ali stepped forward, his green eyes flashing.
“Obey the Messenger of God,” he said to Muawiya sharply. The hawk-faced young man met Ali’s gaze without flinching and then turned his attention back to Umar, who shook his head gravely.
“He is sick and his words may be confused. Do you want to bring fitna on the people?” Umar said sharply, using the Arabic word for chaos and political strife.
Ali did not back down.
“You are bringing fitna by disobeying the Prophet!”
I felt the tension in the room rise, and my father quickly moved between the men and tried to calm them.
“My brothers, please, lower your voices,” Abu Bakr said, glancing at the Messenger, who was struggling to speak but was unable to form the words.
And then Talha rose and took Ali’s side.
“Do as the Messenger says,” he said quietly, but there was an edge I had never heard before in my gentle cousin’s voice.
Your father, Zubayr, who was Talha’s closest friend, inserted himself into the debate, taking the opposing position.
“Umar has a point. If the fever sways his words, the people will be misguided,” he said grimly.
As the argument grew heated and voices rose in fury, I glanced at my husband, who was now fully awake and aware of the rapidly deteriorating situation. And I saw that his face had become hard and angry, and his black eyes blazed with a fury that frightened me.
“Enough!” the Messenger said, his voice echoing like a blast of thunder in the small room. The men immediately fell silent, but I saw that their tempers were still smoldering. Muawiya, ever quick to gravitate toward authority, was at my husband’s side in an instant, pen and paper in hand to record whatever commands his master issued.
There was a tense moment of silence as we waited for what we assumed would be his instructions about the succession of leadership. Would he order the Muslims to obey Ali, even though many would do so halfheartedly? Would he appoint my father or Umar to take charge and risk forever denying his own bloodline a claim to authority? Or would he devise another solution that satisfied all parties in the Muslim Ummah, an answer that only a visionary statesman like Muhammad could find amidst the chaos of competing interests?
After a long moment spent looking at the men he had led to victory, men whom he loved like children and who had now been behaving like children, Muhammad finally shook his head and sighed wearily. Muawiya leaned closer, but my husband waved him away.
“Leave me. All of you,” he said with a trace of bitterness. And then the Messenger of God rolled over in bed and closed his eyes, refusing to divulge his final testament to a people who had proven unworthy.
I saw the fire of contention go out in the Companions’ eyes and they all looked ashamed. One by one, the men who held the future of the Ummah in their hands walked out with their heads bowed, leaving the wives alone with their sick husband.
I have often wondered what the Messenger of God would have said that night and whether his words could have spared us the horror and the bloodshed that was to come. Looking back, I realize that of all the mistakes the Muslims made in the course of our history, none was graver than the pain we caused an old man that night, a man who loved his people and who wanted for them only peace.
On the seventh day of his illness, the Messenger awoke in the middle of the morning and looked around at the Mothers in confusion.
“Whose day is it?” he asked softly, his voice barely audible.
Zaynab bint Jahsh took his hand in hers and smiled. Even in the midst of his raging fever, he remained concerned that each of his wives be treated equally.
“Mine, O Messenger of God,” she said.
The Prophet looked at her for a long moment as if trying to remember her name. And then he gazed around at us again.
“And tomorrow?”
Ramla stepped forward.
“Mine, my husband.”
The Prophet’s eyes fell on me and I saw the confusion in his face fade.
“And the day after?”
And then I and the other women understood. Even as his mind burned with fever, even as the Angel of Death hovered in terrifying proximity, the one thing Muhammad cared about was when he would be able to spend the day with me, the most beloved of his wives.
I felt tears pouring down my cheeks and I could not speak. And then the elderly Sawda put a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“The next day is mine. But I give my day freely to my sister Aisha.”
And then one by one, each of the other wives said the same thing. I looked at them in shock, and my tears now flowed in gratitude.
My husband tried to rise to his feet, but he could not.
“Help me…go to Aisha…” he said, his voice cracked and trembling.
Ali and Abbas, the Prophet’s closest living kinsmen, were the only men with us that day. They stepped forward and helped the Prophet to his feet, holding him up by the shoulders as they gently guided him out of Maymuna’s house.
There was an immediate roar from the Masjid courtyard, where hundreds of believers had held a vigil since the news of the Prophet’s illness. The faithful cried out to him like babies calling out for their mother. The Messenger smiled weakly at them but did not have even the strength to raise his hands to wave in acknowledgment. And then a terrible silence fell over the crowd as they watched the Messenger limp toward my house. It was a shocking and tragic sight, and I saw many grown men weep openly at the Prophet’s deterioration.
The Messenger looked at his people and tried to smile encouragingly, but I could see the sadness in his eyes. This was not how he wished them to remember him, and yet he was a mortal man and no more immune to the ravages of time than the least of his followers.
Ali and Abbas led the Prophet into my room and helped him lie down on the soft lambskin mattress where we had spent so many nights wrapped in love. The moment his back touched the soft, familiar fur lining, I saw him breathe deeper and the muscles in his face relax.
Whatever else happened now, he was home.
I sat down beside him and brushed his hair. He looked at me with deep love and then ran his fingers across my cheek. And then he stirred, as if finally remembering something he had long forgotten.
“Is there any money left in the house?” he asked, and I heard a strange urgency in his voice.
“A few gold coins. Nothing more,” I said, surprised by his question. The Prophet did not need money to purchase anything. He was the master and lord of the Arab nation, and whatever he desired his followers would have gladly given him without recompense.
But he was, as usual, not thinking about himself.
“Give them to the poor,” he said, and I saw in his eyes that he wished his request to be carried out immediately.
I rose and went to a corner of my apartment. Under a loose stone I had buried a handful of coins that were the sum total of the wealth my husband, the king of Arabia, possessed.
I took the gold and saw Ali step forward, ready to take the coins from me and fulfill the Messenger’s wishes. But I turned away from him and placed the coins in the hands of Abbas, who nodded and left to hand them out to the poor souls who still gathered at the Bench seeking alms.
I could feel Ali’s intense green eyes on me, and then he turned and followed Abbas out without a word.
A FEW HOURS LATER, I heard the melodious voice of Bilal echoing in the courtyard as he summoned the believers to noon prayers. At the lyrical calls of the Azan, my husband’s eyes opened and he rose from the bed. I looked at him in surprise and saw that his face was bathed in sweat and his graying hair shimmered with perspiration. And then I clapped my hands in joy and praised God.
The fever had broken. The Messenger of God had recovered.
I went to his side and wiped his brow with the hem of my skirt. I urged him to lie back down and rest. But he ignored me and changed into a clean white robe and reached for a stone pitcher from which he performed his ritual ablutions.
And then my husband stepped outside, standing tall and erect like the man he had always been. The worshipers had already gathered in straight lines behind Abu Bakr, who had led the prayers at the Masjid in the Prophet’s absence. But at the surprising sight of the Prophet emerging from my room, looking refreshed and recuperated, there was a tumult of shouts as the believers broke ranks and hurried to surround the man who had become the center of their whole world.
I watched from behind my hastily donned veil as the Prophet strode through the excited crowd to Abu Bakr’s side. My father looked at him with tear-filled eyes and stepped back, gesturing for the Messenger to take his place at the head of the jamaat. But my husband shook his head.
“Lead the prayers,” Muhammad said to my father, clasping his old friend’s shoulder.
Abu Bakr blinked in confusion.
“I cannot lead you in prayer. You are my master,” my father said, his voice trembling with emotion.
“Lead the prayer,” my husband repeated.
Abu Bakr hesitated and then returned to his place as imam of the Masjid. The worshipers quickly gathered behind him in perfectly straight lines, shoulder to shoulder, the feet of each man touching the feet of his neighbors in spiritual equality.
And then the Messenger of God moved to sit to the right of my father and prayed beside him. It was a strange sight, for never in my life had I seen the Prophet, our leader, pray beside any man. And then I felt my stomach twist in apprehension as I realized how the community would interpret this action and what it would mean for my gentle-hearted father, who had no desire for any authority in this world.
When the prayer was over, the Messenger rose and embraced Abu Bakr, kissing his cheeks warmly. And then he walked slowly back to my apartment, surrounded by throngs of adoring followers. As he approached the threshold of my door, I saw his face and my breath stopped. There was a white light shining on his features unlike any I had ever seen before. It was as if he were glowing like the moon, and suddenly the years fell from Muhammad’s face and he looked younger than I had ever known him. He was no longer a stately old man but a youth filled with boundless life and energy. It was as if I were seeing him in the days before the Revelation, as Khadija would have seen him in the early days of their union almost forty years before. He smiled at me, and in that moment I fell in love with him all over again.
The Messenger stopped at my door and turned to face the excited crowd of believers. He looked at them with such joy, as if each of them were the most precious person on earth to him. He raised his hand to them as if waving farewell and then turned and joined me alone in our apartment.
The Messenger lay down with his head against my breast. He breathed slowly and deeply, as if savoring every single breath. I felt his hand searching for mine and I squeezed his palm. His fingers caressed mine steadily, and then he lifted his face for a moment to look at me.
I looked into his black eyes, which seemed farther away than ever, and I had a strange sensation that wherever he was, I would not be able to join him. Gazing into those obsidian pupils, I saw myself reflected in their unblinking gaze. How different I looked from that little girl on her wedding night! I was nineteen years old now, tall and slender, my waist tightly curving into the muscles of my hips, my breasts full and generous, yet still untouched by an infant’s lips. It was strange seeing myself as a woman and stranger knowing that in my heart I was still a child.
The Messenger leaned close to me and we kissed. It was long and deep, and I felt my heart pouring into him. I held him close, not wanting to ever let him go. And after an eternity that was only a moment, he broke away and leaned his head so that his face was pressed against my gently beating heart.
I heard footsteps and I saw my elder brother, reconciled with his family and renamed Abdal Rahman, enter the room and greet the Messenger. Seeing my husband and me entwined in an embrace, he flushed in embarrassment and turned to leave.
And then I saw my husband raise his hand and point toward something Abdal Rahman held in his grip. A miswak, a rough toothbrush carved out of olive twigs. I saw my husband looking at the small instrument with surprising intensity and I gently asked my brother to hand it to me. Abdal Rahman did so readily and kissed the Messenger’s hands before leaving us alone.
I chewed on the miswak and moistened the rough bristles with my saliva. And then I handed the toothbrush to my husband, who began to brush his teeth with great vigor.
When he was done, he handed this miswak back to me and leaned against my bosom, closing his eyes. His breathing slowed and became rhythmic, and I assumed he must have fallen asleep.
I don’t know how long we lay like that together, two lovers who had been thrown together in a mad world and had somehow managed to come out of the chaos still bonded at the heart. After so many years of hardship and struggle, I finally felt at peace.
It was a moment that I wanted to last forever. And yet, like everything in this fleeting world, it came to an end.
I felt my husband stir and he opened his eyes. But instead of turning to me, his gaze fell upon an empty corner of the room. And then I had a strange sensation that we were not alone. There was a Presence in the apartment, and I felt the hairs on my neck stand up.
And then the Messenger spoke, his voice loud and clear and strong.
“No,” he said, as if responding to a question. “I choose the supreme communion in Paradise…with those upon whom God has showered His favors…the prophets and the saints and the martyrs and the righteous…most excellent for communion are they…”
And then I remembered what he had said to me years before. That prophets were given the choice at the moment of death whether to remain in the mortal realm or return to their Maker.
My heart began to pound wildly as I understood that the angel had given him the choice at last. And he had chosen eternity.
I wanted to scream, but no sound came out of my throat. I was frozen to the spot, unable to move as the shock of what was happening hit me in the stomach.
Muhammad, the Messenger of God, the man I loved more than any other in the world, was dying in my arms.
“O God…” I heard him say, his voice now faint and distant. “With the supreme communion…“
And then Muhammad’s eyes closed and I felt the last breath emerge from his breast and fly away to heaven, like a caged dove set free, soaring back to the openness that was its joyous home.
His head grew heavy against my heart and he was gone.
I held the lifeless body of Muhammad in my arms. Tears streamed down my cheeks in rivulets, and I rocked back and forth, like a mother singing a lullaby to her baby.
I don’t know how long I sat there. But something in my broken heart finally moved me to let him go, to let my love lie in peace. I pulled away from him and set his corpse down on the lambskin mat that had been the sanctuary of our love. His face looked up at me, more beautiful in death than it had been even in life, the lips curled slightly in a serene smile.
And then the dam of grief burst and I screamed, my cries echoing through the streets of Medina and telling the whole world the tragic news.
Muhammad ibn Abdallah, the last Prophet of God to mankind, was dead.
Abu Bakr pushed his way through the crowd that had flowed out from the Masjid into the streets of the oasis. He managed to jostle his way into the courtyard, where he found Uthman sitting on the ground, sobbing like a little boy.
“What has happened?” Abu Bakr’s heart filled with dread at the answer he feared was coming, but Uthman remained silent, wiping his eyes and looking around like a lost child seeking its mother.
Realizing that Uthman was in no state to talk, Abu Bakr turned and saw Ali standing nearby, oddly looking away from the crowd and staring across the horizon. The old man moved to Ali’s side, pushing aside a youth who was laughing like a madman even as thick tears flowed from his eyes.
Ali stared straight ahead, as if gazing into eternity with his otherworldly vision. He did not seem to notice Abu Bakr come up to him, and the elderly minister finally laid a hand on Ali’s shoulder and shook him as if awakening him from a reverie.
“Tell me,” Abu Bakr said simply.
Ali blinked several times, but his green eyes still flickered with confusion. And when he spoke, his voice sounded odd and distant.
“They say the Messenger-may God’s blessings and peace be upon him-has passed away,” Ali said, confirming Abu Bakr’s worst fears. And then he returned his gaze to the horizon. “But that is strange…because I can still see him…”
Abu Bakr felt a chill go down his spine. And then a loud shout caused him to turn his head and he saw that Umar was standing on the minbar, the small platform from where the Messenger had given his sermons. He brandished a terrifying sword above his head and called for the attention of the believers, who soon massed around the towering figure.
“It is a lie!” Umar bellowed, his eyes bulging with madness. “The Messenger lives! He has only gone to commune with his Lord! Even as he did when he rose to heaven on Lailat-ul-Mi’raj!”
The crowd rumbled at Umar’s words, and many cried out in support of his claim. The Messenger of God was not dead. His soul was traveling through the heavenly spheres as it had done before and would shortly return to revive his body.
It was a dream and a fantasy, and it was what they wanted to hear. And yet Abu Bakr had long ago learned the painful lesson that wishful thinking and reality were often desperately at odds.
He turned and stepped inside his daughter’s home to see the terrible truth for himself.
I SAT IN THE corner, shaking violently as the other Mothers gathered around me, their loud wails tearing the hole in my heart even wider. And then a shadow fell across the threshold and I saw my father enter, hunched and weary with age. His eyes immediately fell upon the figure of the Prophet, which lay on my bedspread covered in his favorite green cloak.
Somehow I managed to get to my feet and run into his arms. He held me tight as I wept like a little girl, patting my hair gently as he used to do when I would skin my knee racing down the streets of Mecca a lifetime ago.
And then he stepped back and let me go, his attention fully on the unmoving outline of the Messenger’s body. My father approached the shrouded corpse slowly, and then, with great reverence, he lifted the cloak from my husband’s face. I watched through blurred eyes as Abu Bakr leaned close and checked the vein in Muhammad’s neck for a pulse and then his chest for any fleeting heartbeat. Abu Bakr finally put his ear close to my husband’s lips in search of any sign of breath. My father finally sighed and lifted his head, gazing down at the body of the man who had changed his life and the world.
And then he leaned down and kissed the Messenger on the forehead.
“Dearer than my mother and my father, you have tasted the death that God has decreed for you,” he said as tears streamed down his wrinkled cheeks. “No death after this will ever befall you.”
My father placed the cloak back over the body and turned to walk out. Not knowing what else to do and not wishing to spend another moment in the grief-stricken company of the other wives, I wrapped my face behind my veil and followed him into the courtyard.
The first thing I saw was Umar, waving a sword from the pulpit and shouting like a madman, his voice became increasingly hoarse from his cries.
“Those who say the Messenger of God is dead are like the Children of Israel, who proclaimed Moses dead when he climbed the mountain to speak with his Lord! And like those faithless cowards at Sinai, those who spread the lie against their Prophet will be killed! We will cut off the hands and feet of the traitors!”
My father stepped forward and called out to his friend, who had by now clearly taken leave of his senses.
“Gently, Umar. Calm yourself.”
But Umar ignored him. He continued ranting and raving about the various creative tortures he would impose on any man who dared to say that Muhammad had died.
My father shook his head sadly and then raised his voice, his measured words booming with authority.
“Listen to me, my brothers,” Abu Bakr called out, and suddenly all attention was upon him. I saw the terrified and grief-stricken people of Medina look upon my father, the first adult man to embrace Islam and Muhammad’s childhood friend and closest adviser. Their eyes were pleading for him to end their pain, to show them light and lead them out of the darkness of uncertainty that covered them from all sides.
And then my father spoke the words by which he would be forever remembered, the words he had been born to say.
“If anyone worships Muhammad, know that Muhammad is dead. If anyone worships God, know that God lives and will never die.”
A deep silence fell upon the crowd as the awesome, undeniable Truth was said at last aloud.
And then my father recited a verse from the holy Qur’an that had been revealed years before, during the aftermath of Uhud, when the Messenger had nearly met his death on the battlefield. It was a verse that I knew by heart, but it had somehow been forgotten in the midst of the madness of the past few hours.
Muhammad is just a messenger
And messengers have passed away before him.
If he dies or is killed
Will you turn on your heels?
Whoso turns on his heels will not hurt God.
And God will reward the thankful.
The Muslims gazed at one another in wonder, as if they had never heard these verses before. I saw the desperation in their eyes fade away, replaced by deep sadness that was nonetheless buttressed by the indomitable power of faith. And then I heard a terrible cry like that of a cat being strangled and my eyes flew to Umar. The power of God’s Word had penetrated the cloud of his madness, and he was standing bereft and alone on the minbar. And then the sword slipped out of his grasp and landed on the earthen floor of the Masjid with a clang. Umar fell to his knees and buried his mighty face in his hands and wept like a child.
As the truth finally sank into our souls, the claws of panic released their grip on our hearts, and then the flow of tears began in earnest.
Tears of loss, but not of despair.
We knew now that the journey of Muhammad had come to an end.
But the journey of Islam was just beginning.