Muhammad was dead, but the Ummah was very much alive and in desperate need of leadership. The next several hours were chaotic, as word spread through the oasis of the Prophet’s passing and various factions attempted to assert their own agendas. And then word came to the Masjid that the tribal elders of the oasis were gathering in the ancient meeting hall of the Bani Sa’idah, where they had forged their ever-shifting allegiances in the days before Islam. The old clans of Medina were apparently planning to choose one of their own for the leadership of the community, and they had pointedly met without inviting any of the immigrants from Mecca, those who had stood by the Prophet from the beginning.
Upon hearing this, Umar flew into a new rage and grabbed my father by the arm, urging him to go and intervene before a decision was reached that would tear apart the Ummah. A Companion named Abu Ubayda, a respected Muslim from the tribe of Quraysh, joined them as they turned to face this new crisis. As my father and the other men hurried along to the old meeting hall, a thought flashed through my mind that Ali would likely have desired to attend as well. He had retired to grieve in his house with Fatima and their sons, and Talha and Zubayr were with him. For an instant, I wondered if I should send a messenger to Ali’s house to inform the others of the tribal conference under way. And then I felt that old flash of bitterness at Ali’s betrayal, and the thought quickly fled my mind.
UMAR PUSHED HIS WAY through the heavy bronze doors that had been closed as the elders of the oasis gathered to discuss what to do now that the Messenger of God was dead. The issue that they had all been avoiding for the past several months could no longer be tabled, and a successor to the leadership of the community had to be selected.
And it was an issue that remained as contentious as it had always been. Umar scowled at the sight of the tribal chiefs arguing angrily, each selfishly asserting his own claims to power. The room was packed and tempers were clearly rising as the rival tribes of Aws and Khazraj jockeyed for position. The Prophet had spent years working master-fully to bring these disparate and antagonistic peoples together, and the moment he was gone, they were ready to backslide into old feuds and enmity.
Abu Bakr stood beside him, looking at the loudly arguing men with sadness. Umar knew that his friend’s heart was broken to see the cruel divisions of the past reassert themselves. Abu Bakr had always seen himself as a doting father over the Muslim community, and it must have been agonizing for him to watch people he loved like children fighting bitterly, the civility of the recent years torn apart with the opening of old wounds that only Muhammad had been able to heal.
The stone hall was held up by dozens of sturdy pillars, and Abu Bakr leaned against one to steady himself.
“Listen to me, my brothers,” he said. But his hoarse voice was lost in the tumult of dispute and heated emotion. The old man took a deep breath as if trying to find the energy to speak over the maddening roar of the crowd, and then tried again, but to no avail.
Umar felt his blood pound in his ears, and then he strode forward into the middle of the room and raised his thick hands above his head.
“Silence!” he cried out with such thunder that the windows shook. A pall instantly fell over the startled crowd and all eyes were upon him. He noticed that some of the tribal leaders were surprised, even irritated, to see that the Meccan immigrants had learned of this semisecret council. But if any wished him to leave, none had the courage to say so now.
Umar turned to Abu Bakr and nodded. The old man strolled forward into the room, his back hunched over more than usual, as if his bones could no longer hold up the weight of responsibility that he had carried for so many years.
“Listen to me, brothers,” Abu Bakr said, his voice hoarse but clear. “We are at a dangerous moment, when Satan will seek to mislead us, to tear apart what God has brought together. It is the time for measured judgments, not decisions made in the heat of passion.”
At Abu Bakr’s carefully chosen words, Umar felt the tension in the crowd ease slightly. Abu Bakr continued, gently praising the Ansar, the natives of Medina who had taken in the Prophet and his sorry band of refugees a decade before. He acknowledged that had it not been for the generosity of men like the tribal elders who were gathered here now, Islam would have died. Instead, the religion had prospered and had conquered all of Arabia, and Medina had gone from a backward and forgotten town to the capital of a new nation. A nation that was now facing new threats, from both rebels within and the great powers on its borders. What was needed now was a leader who could hold together the disparate tribes and guide the Muslims through the uncertain days ahead.
“Medina is the capital of Arabia, but the nation’s heart remains in Mecca,” my father said slowly, his eyes peering at the faces of the elders. “If the Arab nation is to remain unified, its leadership must remain in the hands of Quraysh, the only tribe that has the prestige and the resources to keep the smaller tribes united under its command.”
Abu Bakr’s words were met with silence. Then a tribal leader named Sa’d ibn Ubadah stepped forward. He was the head of the Abu Sai’dah clan, in whose hall they were meeting, and he had been one of the most prominent candidates for leadership whose name was being bandied about by the council before Abu Bakr had spoken. Umar tensed, knowing that Sa’d held in his hands the ability to rip apart the Muslim community or to bring it together
And then, to Umar’s surprise, the tribal elder chose the latter.
“You’re right,” the gray-haired Sa’d said, nodding to Abu Bakr. “The men of Medina have played their part in the destiny of Islam, and it is a hallowed role for which we will be remembered. But our hands are too small to hold the reins of Arabia.”
It was a stunning admission and a capitulation of authority that would have been unthinkable years before. At that moment, Umar realized that the Prophet’s legacy was very much alive and their people would survive. Islam was like the sea-even when the surface appeared torn apart by the storms of time, at its heart it remained calm and serene.
There was silence for a long moment. And then other chieftains stepped forward and nodded, accepting the truth of Abu Bakr’s words and joining Sa’d in renouncing their claims to power.
And then Umar felt Abu Bakr take his hand and pull him forward and he turned to see that the old man had done the same with their friend Abu Ubayda.
“I offer you these two men from Quraysh, men of nobility and character who can keep the Ummah united and spread the message of Islam to the world,” Abu Bakr said, holding Umar and Abu Ubayda’s hands high. “Pledge your allegiance to whichever you will.”
Umar was shocked, and he glanced at Abu Ubayda, who looked utterly terrified. Neither of these men had expected that Abu Bakr would nominate them for the leadership of Islam. Umar felt tears welling in his eyes at his friend’s loyalty and belief in him, this gentle old man who had no ambitions of his own, no desire for power over others. A man of such honesty and integrity that the Prophet had named him As-Siddiq, the Witness to Truth, and had trusted him as his sole companion in the cave while the assassins hunted him in the desert.
Abu Bakr. A man whom the Prophet had made his right hand in administering the daily needs of the Ummah, a man who had been wealthy and had given everything he had to free slaves and feed the poor. A man who lived like a pauper when he should have been clothed in the riches of power. A man who was loved by everyone and hated by none.
A man whom the Prophet had appointed to lead the prayers just before he died. A man for whom the Messenger of God had set aside his own position as imam and had prayed beside in the final hour of his life.
And then, like a bolt of lightning striking his heart, Umar knew what needed to be done. He lowered his hand and spoke words that seemed to come from someplace deeper than his own heart.
“O Ansar!” he cried out, his voice trembling with emotion. “Do you not know that the Messenger of God himself ordered Abu Bakr to lead the prayer?”
There was a stir of assent, and Umar saw Abu Bakr frown, giving him a warning look to stop. But Umar could not have stopped even if he’d wanted to. Something had taken possession of his soul, and the words erupted from inside of him, like the first shoot of life rising up from the dead earth after a rainstorm, signaling the beginning of a new era.
“Then who among you would dare take precedence over him?” Umar asked. There was a moment of awed silence as Umar’s words sank into their souls. And the son of al-Khattab, a man who had been a monster and a murderer in another life and was now a revered and honored leader among men, took Abu Bakr’s right hand in his and proudly pledged his allegiance to his friend.
Abu Bakr turned pale white and began to protest. But it was too late. Umar’s actions had stirred the emotions of the crowd, and suddenly the entire room descended on Abu Bakr. The reluctant old man was surrounded by the elders of Medina as they unanimously pledged their loyalty to him and proclaimed him Khalifat Rasulallah, the Caliph, or Vice-regent, of the Messenger of God.
I WAS KEEPING VIGIL over the Messenger’s body when I learned of the council’s decision to elect my father as the new leader of the community. And I grieved. For he was an old man, tired and weary of the world, with no love of power. And yet his new role as Caliph would place him in the deadly path of others whose ambitions had been frustrated. Every decision he made would be scrutinized by his rivals and he would inevitably be compared unfavorably with the Messenger, who had been the most brilliant statesman the Arabs had ever seen. Ruthless men would be eagerly waiting for him to make a mistake, their daggers sharpened both figuratively and literally. It was a terrible and thankless position.
But whatever my doubts, the men of Medina did not appear to share them. As word spread of Abu Bakr’s accession to power, crowds gathered outside his house and mobbed him with their enthusiasm, the Muslims lining up to pledge their loyalty to the man whom the Messenger had honored in the final moments of his life.
Every household in Medina sent representatives to pledge their fealty and support of the new Caliph. Every household except one.
Shortly after Abu Bakr had been chosen, Umar and the crowd of elders exited the ancient hall and headed immediately toward the small stone hut where Ali and Fatima lived with their sons. Umar pounded on the simple door of palm wood, demanding that Ali come out and pledge allegiance to my father, whose face was dark with embarrassment at the fervor of the mob.
When Ali emerged, he looked at the Muslims with his unreadable green eyes and listened as Umar announced what had transpired.
“Abu Bakr has been chosen,” Umar said. “Give him your hand.”
Ali remained rooted to the spot and made no sign of moving to my father’s side.
“You have made this decision without consulting the Family of the Messenger,” he said softly, a hint of hurt in his voice. The matter that had been on the minds of everyone that day, whether Ali would assert his own claim to power, had been settled in the least gracious fashion possible-by excluding him from the deliberations and denying him the opportunity to make his case.
Umar scowled, realizing that Ali had reason to feel insulted but refusing to budge from the conviction of his own heart.
“Even so, the decision has been made,” Umar said. “Give him your pledge of loyalty.” A hint of danger had entered his voice. If Ali chose now to challenge Abu Bakr’s appointment by the council, the Ummah would be torn apart and the demons of civil war would soon be upon us.
Ali looked at the towering Umar, gazing deeply into his eyes. Few men would have been able to withstand the glance of either of these powerful men, and seeing them staring each other down was like watching two rams preparing for battle.
And then a shadow fell between them and the Prophet’s daughter Fatima appeared as if out of nowhere. She took her husband’s hand in hers and squeezed it tight, and then turned to face Umar, who towered a head above her.
“Leave us,” she said, her eyes burning with an anger that no one had ever seen before on her gentle face. Umar stepped back as if he had been stabbed in the gut
My father immediately placed himself between them, seeking to prevent the tensions from escalating
“I apologize to the People of the House,” the new Caliph said. “May God shower his blessings forever on the Family of the Messenger.”
Fatima looked at Abu Bakr, her black eyes still burning. And then, without another word, she guided her husband back inside and slammed the door on the crowd.
ALI DID NOT PLEDGE his allegiance to my father that day, a fact that only increased my dislike for him. As long as he stood aloof, Abu Bakr could not reign in security, for the threat of rebellion from the Prophet’s bloodline would hang over him like a bitter and deadly sword. His legitimacy would remain in question, and the vultures that were even now gathering would move closer, ready to swoop in and destroy him.
But as the sun finally set on that terrible day, Ali emerged from his household and came to my apartment to help make plans for the Prophet’s burial. Fatima was with him, and though I refused even to look at Ali, I gave the Messenger’s daughter a deep embrace. Whatever poison existed between her husband and me, Fatima had always been kind to me and I felt nothing but respect for this sweet girl. She held me tight as I wept over the loss of the man we had both loved, but she did not tremble with tears like the other women and was, in fact, strangely calm. I assumed that she was in a state of shock or denial and that the tears would come when the truth finally sank into her heart. But as the hours passed and she remained resigned and dignified, I finally asked her about her restraint in the face of her father’s death. She gave me a strange smile and said she had no reason to grieve, as she would be joining him soon. It was an odd and unnerving comment, but then she was an odd and unnerving woman, and I decided to leave her be.
The immediate concern was what to do with the Prophet’s corpse. In normal Muslim tradition, the body of the deceased was washed ritually before it was shrouded, except in the case of martyrs, whose blood was considered a sign of eternal glory. The Prophet had not died on the battlefield and yet there was much hesitation to strip him bare and wash him like any other man. I myself had never gazed upon the Prophet’s naked body, for he was exceedingly modest, as I have said, and even when we made love, it was under the cover of darkness.
As the men stood and argued about what to do, we heard a voice say loudly: “Wash the Messenger with his clothes on.” It was a deep voice of great authority and I thought at first that Umar had entered while we were talking. And yet when we turned to look, there was no one there but us. I felt my heart begin to race and I saw the frightened look on the others’ faces. But the words had been distinct and clear, and Zubayr went out and filled a pail of water from the ablution pool, which Ali then poured over the Messenger’s body, washing him and his garments clean one last time. The men then shrouded my husband in three layers of cloth, the first two of plain white Yemeni linen and the third a green-striped mantle that the Prophet had often worn.
I watched with a broken heart as Ali, Talha, and Zubayr placed the soft cloth over Muhammad’s gentle face, and I felt my eyes blur with grief as I realized that I would never see those beautiful features again, at least not until Judgment Day.
And then, when he was completely covered by the shroud, a new and more animated argument began as to where the Messenger of God should be buried. Some suggested that he should be placed in Jannat al-Baqi, the main cemetery of the oasis, next to his son Ibrahim. Others suggested that we take his body back to Mecca, where he could be buried beside Khadija. But the teachings of Islam called upon believers to inter the dead within one day, and the journey to Mecca was at least twenty by camel. A few contended that he should be buried by his uncle Hamza on the battlefield of Uhud or that a separate tomb should be erected at the outskirts of the city.
And then I heard a voice behind the men, and this time it was no mysterious angelic presence. My father stepped into my crowded apartment and wiped his eyes as he looked down on the shrouded figure who had been his best friend and master.
“The Messenger of God once told me that no prophet dies except that he is buried where he dies,” Abu Bakr said softly and then glanced at Ali. After a moment, the young man nodded his agreement.
That night, my apartment was turned into a tomb. Abu Bakr organized a small group of trusted Muslims to bring shovels and pickaxes, and they dug a grave directly under the spot where the Messenger had passed away in my arms. There was no grand ceremony, and most of the city was unaware of what was happening. Abu Bakr had wisely reasoned that emotions were still running high and a public funeral could still incite passions that would be difficult to contain.
The handful of believers privy to the secret burial stood behind the Prophet’s body and prayed the funeral prayer. My father refused to lead the janaza prayer over the body, an act of presumption in his eyes, and he moved to stand beside Umar, Uthman, and Ali in a straight line behind the shrouded corpse.
And then, when the rituals were complete and there was nothing left to be said or done, Ali climbed down into the grave and my husband’s body was gently lowered into his arms. He placed the body on its right shoulder, as was the custom, with the face pointing south to Mecca.
And then as the believers poured dust over the body until it was completely covered, Muhammad vanished into the earth from which our father Adam had been born.
In the months following the Messenger’s death, my father was forced to face the first challenge of his caliphate: the rebellion of the Bedouin tribes. With Muhammad dead, many of the southern tribes declared that their treaties with the nascent Arabian state had been nullified and that they no longer felt bound by the authority of Medina. Some openly declared their apostasy, returning to the worship of the old gods. Others, perhaps realizing that the ancient practices were pointless now that Mecca itself had banned all idols, declared that they remained believers but refused to pay the zakat, the tax that was levied on the citizens to provide for the poor. But a few posed a greater problem, for they had joined forces with Musaylima and Sajah, the two false prophets who now declared themselves to be speaking in God’s name. The two pretenders to the mantle of prophecy had married and had brought their followers together in an alliance against Medina.
Of all the troublesome rebels, that last group was the most immediate danger. For the central tenet of Islam was that Muhammad was the final prophet of God. Any who arose after him were impostors who had to be defeated before they misled the people. And Musaylima was no wandering madman spouting prophecies. He had gathered the disaffected tribes of the eastern Najd to his side, and our spies estimated that he was amassing a force of almost forty thousand tribesmen, the largest army ever to assemble in the sands of Arabia.
And so my father dispatched Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the man my husband had proclaimed as the Sword of Allah, to face this new and grave threat to the future of Islam. Khalid’s forces confronted Musaylima’s armies at Yamamah, in the heart of eastern Arabia. Although numbering only thirteen thousand men, Khalid’s forces were better organized and disciplined than the tribal fighters. Khalid divided the troops into three wings and took personal command of the center. The battle was brutal, but the Muslims had the advantage of zeal and an utter fearlessness in the face of death that unnerved the Bedouins. The tribesmen scattered, leaving Musaylima only seven thousand fanatically loyal men, who walled themselves inside a garden. A foolish mistake, for now they were trapped and surrounded on all sides. Muslim warriors scaled the walls and broke down the doors, flooding into the enclave, which would forever after be known as the Garden of Death. The followers of the false prophet were massacred, and Musaylima himself was killed, struck down by Wahsi’s infamous javelin. The Abyssinian slave who had murdered Hamza had finally cleansed himself of his sin. Sajah, Musaylima’s wife and fellow claimant to prophecy, was captured and quickly embraced Islam. Khalid let her go, and she vanished into the desert.
With the death of Musaylima, the fire of the old pagan ways was quenched in Arabia. My father had successfully managed to quell the revolt of the Arab tribes. He had gained the trust and respect of the Muslims and was now busy administering the affairs of state. One of the thorniest issues he faced was dealing with my husband’s estate. Though Muhammad had died having given all of his worldly wealth and possessions away to the poor, there were several tracts of land, small gardens in Khaybar and the nearby oasis of Fadak, that had been spoils of war after the defeat of the Jews of Arabia. My husband had administered these lands while he was alive, feeding his family and the needy with the produce of the gardens. One day Fatima came to Abu Bakr and asked that these gardens be relinquished to her and her children as her inheritance. The People of the House were desperately poor, despite being the only surviving bloodline of the Prophet, and the gardens would help them ease the daily struggle to put food on their table.
My father was in an awkward position, and he gently told Fatima that the Messenger had once said to him that prophets leave behind no inheritance, that all their wealth should be given to the community. It was a comment that Muhammad had made to me in passing as well, and I spoke up in support of my father’s judgment. But Fatima was livid, claiming that Abu Bakr was stealing her patrimony, and she stormed out of my father’s house, leaving him heartbroken. He had done what he thought was the right thing according to his best understanding of the Prophet’s wishes, but it had only increased the chasm of pain that had opened up between him and the Messenger’s family.
Shortly thereafter, my father tried to reach a compromise. He learned that a Jew from Bani Nadir who had converted to Islam had died childless and had left the Prophet seven small garden plots in Medina in his will. Abu Bakr appointed Ali and the Prophet’s uncle Abbas to administer the gardens on behalf of the Messenger’s descendants. But Fatima refused to be reconciled by this gesture. She never spoke to my father after that day when he had first refused her claim to inheritance, despite his repeated overtures. Abu Bakr once told me that of all the things he had lost in the course of his life-his wealth, his youth, his health-nothing grieved him more than his estrangement from the sweet girl whom he had always loved like his own daughter.
ONE NIGHT, SIX MONTHS after Muhammad died, I lay in my bed, hovering on the edge of sleep. I tossed and turned on the sheepskin mattress on which I could still sometimes smell the scent of my husband, the strange aura of roses that always seemed to follow him in life. It had taken me some time to get used to sleeping in my apartment again, knowing that the Messenger was buried only a few feet away. But I had eventually grown accustomed to the strange feeling that I was never quite alone, that he was very much there with me, and not just in a metaphorical sense.
There was a heaviness in the room, as if the air itself had changed since the day he died, and eventually, as I learned to fall asleep again in the apartment, I started having vivid dreams, filled with strange and beautiful lights and colors I had never imagined. I would often wake up in the middle of the night thinking I had heard his voice or felt the touch of his cool hand on my hair. Over time, these experiences became part of my daily life and I eventually accepted them without question, if only to keep my sanity. But in the early days, it had been difficult and frightening, as if I were living in a portal between two worlds, and I was never quite sure which one I was in at any given moment.
And then on that cool winter night, something happened that I have never forgotten, something that still sends chills down my spine when I think of it. The heaviness in the air had grown almost intolerable, and I found that I had to breathe in deeper and deeper just to fill my lungs. It was as if a thick curtain were falling down on top of me, and I found it hard to move, as if I were being tied down by invisible ropes.
I struggled against the pressure, like a drowning woman deep underwater and desperately trying to rise to the surface to breathe. And then I heard a woman’s voice, which I thought must be coming from the courtyard of the Masjid. But the voice grew closer and clearer and I realized that it was whispering right beside me. Despite the heavy air that was holding me down, I managed to turn my head and look.
And I saw Fatima standing a few feet away. She was dressed in silvery white robes, her hair covered in a scarf that seemed to be glittering with stars. She was standing above her father’s grave, speaking words to him that I could not understand. The language was not Arabic, nor did it sound like the foreign tongues I had heard spoken in the marketplace-Persian, Greek, Amharic, Coptic. In fact, I could not say that she was speaking words at all. The sounds that were coming out of her lips were rhythmic and lyrical, almost like a song rather than speech.
I wanted to call out to her, to ask why she had come in the middle of the night, whether everything was all right for her and her children. But no words came out of my mouth. I simply stared at her, transfixed, until she finally turned to look at me.
And then I felt my breathing stop altogether. I recognized her and yet, at the same time, I did not. I somehow knew that the woman standing before me was Fatima, but her face had been wondrously transformed. Gone were the plain, harsh features, the long face that was always drawn in sadness. And in its place was the face of a new Fatima, a woman of such intense beauty and perfection that she no longer looked human. She had become what I had imagined an angel to be when I was a child. Her skin, which had often suffered from rashes and pimples, was now flawless and her cheekbones were crafted with such perfection that she looked like a living statue. Her eyebrows, once thick and unruly, looked as if they had been painted on her face. Her lips were no longer chapped, but full and sensuous, and her unruly hair now flowed like honey around her delicate shoulders, which had once been mannish and square.
The only thing about her that was unchanged was her eyes, the same black eyes that had belonged to her father, eyes that looked as if they could see deep into the farthest reaches of your soul.
She looked at me with those luminous eyes and smiled. And when she spoke, her voice sounded like the tinkling of bells.
“Tell your father that I understand now,” she said, and her words echoed as if she were calling to me from across a great chasm. “I understand and I forgive.”
Then she raised her right hand to me as if waving farewell. And my heart skipped a beat when I saw that in the center of her palm was what looked like a glowing blue orb shaped like an eye.
I stared into the swirling light at the palm of her hand as it grew brighter and brighter, until my entire room was bathed in its ethereal shine. The darkness of my room vanished in the cascade of wondrous azure light, as bright as heaven itself on a cloudless summer day.
I WOKE WITH A start to hear cries of grief from the courtyard. I looked around in confusion, expecting to see Fatima standing in the corner, but I was very much alone. As the sound of weeping intensified, I threw on a cloak and wrapped my face hastily behind a veil before peering outside.
A crowd of what looked like mourners had gathered in the courtyard, tearing at their clothes and wailing in sorrow.
“What is it?” I cried to them. “What has happened?”
A middle-aged woman stumbled toward me, slapping her breast and pulling at her hair.
“O Mother, the Ummah is bereft! Fatima the Shining has returned to our Lord!”
I felt my knees grow weak.
“When?” I managed to croak out. “When did this happen?”
An elderly man looked at me, his wrinkled face twisted in pain.
“Our master Ali said she died at sunset yesterday,” he sobbed. “He buried her in secret so that no man would worship her grave as the ignorant did of old.”
I sank to the ground, not able to comprehend what he’d just said. If Fatima had died the evening before, who had I seen in my room later that night?
No. I had imagined it. It was a dream, I told myself, nothing more, nothing less.
And then I remembered something that Fatima had said to me once when we were young girls in Mecca, a lifetime ago. I had told her that I had suffered through a bad dream the night before, one where I was being chased by a frightening old hag wearing a golden snake on her arm.
Fatima had simply shrugged and said not to worry. It was just a dream and no more real than anything else in life.
“What do you mean?” I asked, questioning her strange comment.
And then Fatima had fixed me with those powerful black eyes and spoke words that now echoed across the bridge of time.
“Life itself is a dream. When we die, we awake.”
Shortly after Fatima passed away, Ali went to my father and publicly reconciled with him. He told Abu Bakr that he bore no bitterness toward him and did not dispute his right to authority. He had withheld his endorsement, Ali said, as he felt that the family of the Prophet had been excluded in the handling of the succession. But the matter was done and Ali wished no more ill will between the House of the Messenger and the House of the Caliph. With the loss of Fatima, the Prophet’s young grandsons were motherless and Ali wanted to dedicate his time to raising them and spreading Islam through teaching. Abu Bakr was welcome to shoulder the burdens of the nation in his stead.
My father had wept and embraced the young man, and even my stone heart softened toward him slightly. Despite my inability to forgive him for betraying me, I felt sorry for Ali, who had, in the aftermath of the Prophet’s death, lost everything. As long as the Messenger had been alive, Ali had been one of the most prominent and influential members of the community. But since my husband’s death and the controversy around Ali’s refusal to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr, he had become increasingly isolated. His strange and awkward personality, tolerated during Muhammad’s lifetime, now made people wary, and he spent most of his days alone, tending to the plot of land that Abu Bakr had agreed to give him in trust. Ali had few friends, and only Talha and Zubayr could be considered regular visitors to his home. And now, with the death of Fatima, he was truly alone.
Abu Bakr led Ali out before the believers in the Masjid after Friday prayers, and the son-in-law of the Prophet clasped the right hand of the father-in-law of the Prophet and swore his loyalty. There were audible sighs of relief and cries of praise to God, for the uncertainty that had hung over my father’s reign, the nagging question of legitimacy, had finally been resolved.
At least in the hearts of most people. A few passionate supporters of Ali continued to grumble that the right of Muhammad’s bloodline had been usurped and that Ali remained the rightful claimant to the throne of the Muslims. Ali himself did not publicly endorse such talk, but I remained suspicious that he was not doing enough to silence these malcontents.
And then news came from Khalid in the east that made us all forget our squabbles and turn our gaze to the future of Islam.
THE MUSLIM DEFEAT OF Musaylima had placed our armies directly on the borders of the ancient Persian empire. The Sassanid kings had ruled this great nation for almost four hundred years, and at the height of their power, their empire held dominion from Anatolia to the Indus River. But over the past several decades, the Sassanid shahs had been locked in a brutal and destructive war with the Byzantines for control of the region.
For most of my young life, the Christians had been on the defensive. Antioch and Alexandria had fallen to the Sassanids. And then the Christians suffered the ultimate humiliation when the fire worshipers conquered Jerusalem and stole the sacred relics of the Church, including what was alleged by their priests to be the True Cross of Jesus. The Byzantines had been demoralized until the rise of the Emperor Heraclius, who had valiantly fought back against the Persians and expelled the invaders from the holy city.
The victorious Heraclius had rallied his people to take the fight to the enemy, and the Byzantines had attacked the very heart of the Persian empire, marching down the length of the Tigris River and sacking the Sassanid palace at Dastagered. Heraclius had nearly achieved his goal of taking the Persian capital at Ctesiphon, but the Persian defenders had destroyed the ancient bridges over the Nahrawan Canal, frustrating his advance. Heraclius had returned triumphantly to the seat of his own empire, but his victory was ultimately hollow. Though he had succeeded in pushing back his ancient adversaries, his army was broken by the constant warfare and the Byzantine treasury depleted.
The Sassanids were in even worse disarray, and the Persian king, Khusro, was overthrown and murdered by his own son Kavadh, who negotiated a shaky truce with the Byzantines. I remember when I first heard the news of Khusro’s death from a Yemeni merchant in the marketplace of Medina. I had smiled behind my veil, for Khusro had rejected my husband’s call to Islam, tearing up his letter in contempt. As the Messenger had prophesized then, his kingdom had been similarly torn in two.
The grand political events to the north provided interesting gossip, but they had been of little practical interest to the Muslims in the early years, as survival had been our primary focus. But now that Islam was established as the sole ruling force over a united Arabia, we could no more ignore the empires on our borders than they could us. These two great nations-Persian and Byzantine-had exhausted each other through centuries of warfare, and the rise of a new state in their midst presented an unexpected and dangerous threat to their delicate balance of power. Neither of the empires had the resources or energy to engage us directly, whatever threats may have rumbled from their envoys, and they were forced to use proxies in their effort to keep us in check. The Byzantines had tried to ally with the Jews of Khaybar, forcing my husband to conquer the city and use it as a defensive shield to the north. And the false prophet Musaylima was rumored to have received financing and training from the Persians to the east. But with the defeat of these quislings, the day was fast coming when our forces would come into direct contact with those of the rival empires.
And then one warm morning, a year after my husband had died, that day came. Acting upon orders from my father, Khalid sent an army of eighteen thousand men from Yamama into the fields of Persian Iraq, claiming them for Islam. The Persians responded with a force of nearly twice that size, led by elephants armored in steel. The Sassanid army was a terrifying juggernaut, the likes of which the Arabs had never before encountered, and the Arab swords and spears looked like toys compared to the mighty honed blades of the ancient Persian empire. But Khalid knew that this monstrous foe had one weakness. Mobility. The heavily shielded horses and elephants could not march for long under the hot desert sun without succumbing to exhaustion, and so he utilized the hit-and-run tactics the Messenger had perfected at Khaybar. The Muslims would ride out into the field and engage the front lines of the Persians, and then escape back into the wilderness, having goaded their adversaries into pursuit. The farther the Muslims drew the soldiers of Persia into the sands, the slower and more confused they became. By the time the Persian general Hormuz realized his tactical error, it was too late.
Khalid led the Muslims in one final charge, during which the tired and bewildered Sassanids used a standard defensive tactic that had worked for them in the past but would lead to tragedy that day. The Persian soldiers linked themselves together with chains to hold back Khalid’s cavalry. They stood united like a rock in the face of the Muslim charge. This tactic had been successful against Byzantine soldiers, who had decided that a frontal attack against the chain was nothing less than suicide. But the Persians did not understand that the guarantee of death on the battlefield did not deter Muslims but only encouraged them with the promise of eternal life. To the shock of the Persian defenders, Khalid’s horsemen crashed against the chained warriors without fear, immolating themselves on the lances of the Sassanids. As the Muslims continued to charge despite the wall of death, the Persians became frightened by their intensity and commitment, and panic began to spread among the dehydrated and exhausted troops. And then, when Khalid slew their commander, Hormuz, the Persian warriors tried to flee, but the chains that had been meant to hold back their enemies now became shackles that led them to their deaths.
Khalid’s men destroyed the Persian force in what became known to us as the Battle of the Chains. Thousands of the Sassanids’ best troops fell that day, and the Arabs had opened a door into the east. The Muslims exploded out of the desert and soon descended on the city of al-Hira, the capital of Persian Iraq, which had been administered by Arab Christians known as Lakhmids. Khalid showered the people of al-Hira with gifts and promised the Christians that their right of worship would be protected under the laws of Islam, a guarantee that had never been given by their Persian overlords. The Lakhmids quickly capitulated, and the boundaries of Islam had in one stunning swoop extended outside of the Arabian peninsula and reached the banks of the Euphrates.
Our nation had just become an empire.
THE REJOICING IN THE streets of Medina at word of Khalid’s victory was soon followed by sadness. My father fell deeply ill, and he was confined to his bed. I sensed the cloud of death that was hanging over Abu Bakr. I could not imagine a world without him any more than I could one without my husband. But in truth, I could still feel Muhammad’s presence in my room and found some comfort in the intuition that he was still with me. Yet my father was just an ordinary man, and when he passed away, he would truly be gone.
Asma and I stayed by his side, night and day, nursing him through the fever. And then one morning, I saw a look on his face, a serenity and resignation that told me that his time had come.
“Call Uthman,” he whispered to me.
I immediately dispatched a messenger, and within a few minutes the son of Affan arrived. As Uthman knelt beside my father, he looked older but was still remarkably handsome, and I noticed the sparkle of generosity and kindness in his eyes.
“What can I do for you, old friend?” he said, running a hand through my father’s thinning white hair.
“I have a testament for the people, a final command as Caliph that I want you to deliver to them,” my father said, enunciating every word carefully, his breath wheezing.
Uthman lowered his head. For a moment, I wondered if he would object, as had the Companions during Muhammad’s last illness. I trembled at the thought of another chaotic struggle for succession. The Muslims had established order only because of my father’s statesmanship. Would we have to endure another round of tribesmen jockeying for position? With the Muslim nation now expanding into the heart of the Persian empire, with enemies circling us like vultures over a battlefield, we could not afford another dispute over authority. And my heart chilled at the thought that the small but vocal faction that favored the right of Ali and the Prophet’s grandsons might not choose to acquiesce as easily as they had done before. If Uthman refused to pass along my father’s wishes, the Ummah could descend overnight into civil war.
Uthman finally raised his head and looked into Abu Bakr’s eyes. He squeezed my father’s gnarled hands and nodded.
“I will do as you wish.”
My father sighed in clear relief and then gave me a glance that I understood. I went and retrieved a piece of parchment and gave it to Uthman, along with a quill pen that was one of Abu Bakr’s few earthly possessions.
And then my father recited his last testament.
“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This is the order of Abdallah ibn Abu Quhayfa, known to men as Abu Bakr. Whereas…”
And then he stopped. I looked at my father and saw that he had fallen unconscious. My heart skipped a beat. If my father died before he could state his wishes, fitna would be upon us. I looked at Uthman and saw from his pale face that he was thinking the same thing.
I looked around and saw that we were alone. Asma had returned home to feed you, Abdallah, and there was no one present in the Caliph’s quarters to witness what happened next.
“What do we do?” Uthman asked me in a voice that sounded like a frightened boy’s.
I could hear the blood pounding in my ears, and my mouth was as dry as salt. And then I made a decision for which I could have been killed on the spot.
“Write in ‘I appoint Umar ibn al-Khattab as my successor among you,’” I said, fighting off the terror of my own presumption. Of all the men left in Medina, I knew that only Umar commanded the fear and the respect of every faction, and he could be counted on to hold the people together.
I looked at Uthman, my gold eyes focused on him like a hawk. If he objected and word spread that I had usurped the Caliph’s power and forged his final command, nothing would save me from the fury of the mob. The Mother of the Believers would be torn to shreds in the street by her children.
But Uthman’s saving grace, and his fatal weakness, was his trusting and gentle nature. He was like a little child who saw only the best in others and had no understanding of the machinations of politics or the treacheries of the human heart.
He looked at me for a moment and then nodded and wrote in the words in Abu Bakr’s name.
I felt the world spin around me. Had I just done this thing? Had I actually seized my father’s mantle and spoken on his behalf, single-handedly appointing the next Caliph of Islam? And then I began to tremble in fright at my audacity and wondered what madness had taken hold of me.
And then a miracle happened. Of all the wondrous and inexplicable things I witnessed during my years with the Messenger of God, none was as remarkable as the sudden sound of my father’s voice.
“Where was I?” Abu Bakr said, his eyes blinking away the sleep that had taken hold of him.
The blood drained from my face, and I shot Uthman a warning look, but it was too late. The gentle and unpretentious man simply handed over to the Caliph the sheet on which he had written in the words I had instructed him.
My father looked at the parchment in surprise, his eyes narrowing. And then he turned to Uthman, and, to my shock, a warm smile spread on his face.
“I think you were afraid that the people would dispute among themselves if I died in that state,” he said, no hint of accusation or outrage in his voice.
Uthman looked at me, and for a moment I expected him to reveal my presumption. But his eyes twinkled and he simply nodded in affirmation, and I realized that my secret was safe with him.
Abu Bakr nodded and praised God.
“You have done well,” he said. And then his eyes turned to me and he held out his hand.
I leaned close to my father and held his hand in mine.
“I have no love for this world,” he said softly. “But I am glad to have been in it for two reasons. One is that I knew and befriended the Messenger of God. And the second is that I have been blessed to call you my daughter.”
Tears welled in my eyes and I struggled to speak, but my father shook his head and I knew that there was nothing I could say with words that he did not know full well in his heart.
His hand fell from mine and his eyes slipped back into his skull as I heard him whisper his final words. There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His Messenger. And with that, Abu Bakr, the Witness to the Truth, the Second in the Cave, and the first Caliph of Islam, passed away into eternity.
THAT NIGHT, THE MUSLIMS buried my father in a grave next to my husband. Abu Bakr was laid to rest behind his master, his face near the Prophet’s shoulder. Ali led the funeral service and was kind and gracious in his eulogy.
And then, in accordance with my father’s last wishes, the Muslims gathered and paid allegiance to Umar ibn al-Khattab, who became the second and perhaps greatest of the Caliphs.
Muawiya gazed out at the mighty Byzantine army gathered at the river of Yarmuk and felt a rush of fire run through his veins. This day had long been coming. The initial Muslim victories under Abu Bakr had been highly improbable. The subsequent conquests under his successor, Umar, should have been impossible. Khalid’s brilliant entry into Iraq had placed the Muslims like a dagger aimed at the heart of Byzantium. Within a few months, the Sword of Allah had crossed the desert and come west. Khalid’s lightly armed and highly mobile horsemen descended on the plains of Syria without warning. The Byzantine commanders dispatched ten thousand local men to hold off what they thought were disorganized bandits seeking booty. They did not expect to find an efficient and highly disciplined Arab force that outnumbered them two to one. The hubris of the Byzantines led to their massacre at the Battle of Ajnadayn, and the Muslims exploded through the hills of Syria unchallenged until they surrounded the ancient city of Damascus. The stunned Byzantine commanders who had underestimated their foes were suddenly cut off from reinforcements and forced to evacuate what had been the proud capital of the imperial province. Within weeks, Damascus fell and Muslims were suddenly the rulers of all of Syria.
The unexpected loss of Damascus caused the Byzantine generals in neighboring Palestine to panic, and they sent a force to the valley of Jordan to confront the invaders. But Khalid had anticipated the attack from the south and the Muslims met and crushed the Roman troops at the village of Fahl. And then, like the gift of rain coming down from the heavens after a long drought, the Holy Land of Abraham, David, and Solomon, the land of the prophets and of Jesus the son of Mary, was now in the hands of Islam. Only Jerusalem itself remained in the possession of the stunned Byzantines, who desperately holed themselves up and prepared for a siege they knew was coming.
Heraclius had realized belatedly that he was dealing not with tribal marauders but with a highly organized army bent on conquest. The Arabs, with their light arms and camels that moved like a flash flood, were unlike anything he had faced in decades of warfare with the lumbering Persian juggernaut. His commanders had no experience in battle against such a mobile foe, especially one that did not appear to fear death, and they were at a loss for a strategy to rout the Muslims. So Heraclius decided to unleash the combined forces of the entire Byzantine army on Syria and crush the invaders. The time for gamesmanship was gone, and the moment of brute strength had come.
And so it was that Muawaya stood among the Muslims as they faced the greatest army ever gathered in the region. Over one hundred thousand of Rome’s elite warriors had been sent to crush the Muslim forces. The army of Islam was outnumbered four to one. Survival for the Arabs, let alone victory, should have been impossible and yet Muawiya felt excited. His men had seen so many impossible victories that even the most cynical of the Quraysh were now convinced that God was on their side. And if Allah, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, was with them, who could possibly withstand them?
The Muslims had one advantage-cavalry. Heraclius had sent primarily infantry soldiers with a small but sturdy contingent of horsemen for support. If the Byzantine cavalry were destroyed, the Muslims would be able to take on the massive fighting force with the benefit of superior horsemanship. It would mean taking a tremendous risk-to ride out and concentrate all their cavalry’s power on engaging the enemy’s horsemen. A horseman would always be superior to a foot soldier, but two horsemen were equally matched. If the Muslims won, they would have a chance to overwhelm the Byzantine infantry. But if they lost, then the battle was over. Without the shield of their horses, the Muslims would be slaughtered mercilessly.
It was a gamble, and the stakes could not have been higher-all or nothing. In the days before he had embraced Islam, Muawiya had been an avid gambler, known to take risks in games of chance that would have shocked the faint of heart. But if the son of Abu Sufyan had learned anything from his years of observing Muhammad’s improbable string of successes against his enemies, it was that fortune favored the bold.
And so it was that day that Muawaya sat on his stallion beside the greatest warriors of Islam, including Khalid ibn al-Waleed and the famed swordsman Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, and looked into the face of death. Once they charged into the heart of the Byzantine cavalry, there would be no retreat. Either they would emerge victorious, or they would never emerge at all.
Khalid met his eyes and Muawiya could see that he was thinking the same thing. The two Meccans grinned at each other like boys on the playing field. And then the Sword of Allah raised his blade and called the battle cry that had changed the world forever.
“Allahu akbar!”
As horses raced into the whirlwind of death, as swords clashed and arrows buzzed about him like angry bees, Muawiya laughed and thanked God for giving him a chance at glory.
THE MUSLIM CAVALRY DESTROYED the Byzantine horsemen that day, and the battle was over. Without the protection of their mounted troops, the enemy soldiers were crushed under the hooves of eight thousand Arabian stallions. The mighty legions of Constantinople scattered, fleeing back over the Yarmuk River or escaping into the desert.
In six days, an empire that had inherited the scepter of Rome was gone.
As Muawiya gazed out at the carnage on the battlefield, at the thousands of broken bodies carpeting the earth, he smiled to himself. How foolish the Arabs had been to resist Muhammad for all those years. He had given them a faith and then forged them into a nation. And now he had bequeathed them an empire. The only question now was whether his people had the courage and willpower to sustain their success or whether they, too, would disappear into the scrolls of history like the men they had just defeated. Was Islam a passing wave in the ocean of time, or could they turn it into a civilization that would outstrip all the nations that had fought for dominion over these lands?
As the sun set over a day that had changed history, Muawiya gazed up into the heavens and he saw a sign that caused his breathing to stop.
The new moon was shining high above him in the fading twilight. And al-Zuhra, the shining star known as Venus to the Romans, glittered closer than he had ever seen to the horns of the crescent. It was a beautiful and stirring sight, a conjunction unlike any in the memory of men, and his soldiers soon stopped what they were doing and stared up at the sky in amazement.
Muawiya joined them, gazing up at the strange celestial phenomenon, and then he felt a sudden chill go down his spine. A sense of wonder that had always been foreign to his fiercely practical-some would say cynical-heart.
And then he understood. The crescent and the star were a sign from God, an answer to the secret thoughts of his heart. Allah had showered his blessings on the Muslim Ummah that day and had shown Muawiya that His hand was indeed guiding the forces of history.
In that instant, Muawiya knew that Islam would triumph and the nations of the earth would turn and face the Kaaba. And he knew with even greater certainty that he was destined to lead the Muslims to their glorious victory. Muawiya’s childhood dream of becoming king of the Arabs would be fulfilled, but on a scale far greater than he could have ever imagined.
The Battle of Yarmuk was just the beginning.
The conquests that had begun under my father continued with miraculous speed during Umar’s reign. Damascus fell, as did Palestine. The Byzantine humiliation at Yarmuk had effectively destroyed Roman imperial power in the region after almost a thousand years of dominance. The Prophet’s command to treat conquered peoples with leniency, giving them the right to worship and live their lives as long as they paid the jizya tribute to the state, was a decisive factor in the ease of our victories. When word spread that the Muslims did not plan to impose their religion on the defeated peoples, quick and painless surrender became preferable to extended resistance. Our generosity toward our subjects was unusual in a world where conquerors were expected to vanquish and crush their opponents and played a major role in ensuring peace in the lands we took long after the last sword had been sheathed.
This was particularly true of Jerusalem, which finally fell after months of siege. Umar himself traveled to the holy city to formally accept its surrender. The Christian patriarch of Jerusalem had led Umar through the ancient streets where the prophets of old had walked, until they reached the sacred site where the Temple of Solomon had once stood. It was a place that was deeply sacred for Muslims, not only because it had once been the House of God but because Muhammad had ascended to heaven from its stones during the Night Journey. But when Umar arrived, he was shocked to discover that it was a garbage dump. Literally. The Christians of the city had dumped hundreds of years of sewage on the holy site, under the misguided belief that they were honoring Jesus, who had prophesied that the Temple would be destroyed. As long as the plateau was left in disarray, the prophecy would remain in effect and the truth of Christ’s words would be evident for all to see.
Outraged at the Christian desecration of the Sanctuary, Umar had personally cleansed the site with his own hands, carrying out rubbish in the folds of his cloak until the platform had been cleared and a small house of worship could be built. When the Sanctuary was again purified, Umar signed a treaty with the defeated Christians of Jerusalem, guaranteeing the safety of their lives and property and their right to worship freely. The Christian patriarch had politely asked that the Muslims continue the Byzantine policy of banning Jews from the holy city, but Umar refused. And so, for the first time in centuries, the Children of Israel returned to the Holy Land from which they had been expelled, ironically at the generosity of a religion they had rejected.
And our policy of religious tolerance was soon to have a proactive effect in generating support for our expansion. After the fall of Palestine, the Meccan emissary Amr ibn al-As led a small force of a few thousand horsemen into the Sinai and invaded Egypt, which had been traded back and forth by Persians and Byzantines during their all-consuming war over the past century. Neither side had shown much compassion to the people of Egypt, who were merely pawns in the great game of empire. The Persians were fire worshipers and had no love for the Christianity of Egypt, which missionaries and warriors had been trying to impose on their ancient people for centuries. And the Byzantines looked upon the Coptic Christians of Egypt as heretics who had been misled from the true teachings of Rome and Constantinople. Both nations had brutally persecuted the Egyptians and tried to erase their religious identity. And so it was that when Amr’s forces appeared on the horizon, the local populace rose up against the last of their Byzantine rulers and helped the Muslims take control of the land beyond the Nile. The Muslims did not understand, nor did we care for, the minute differences of theology that divided the Copts from their fellow Christians. They were all People of the Book as far as we were concerned, and as long as they paid their taxes, we didn’t bother with what they believed or how they performed their church services. Thus it was that the Holy Qur’an’s commandment Let there be no compulsion in religion became the rallying cry that brought the oppressed peoples of North Africa into our fold. And it was the great irony of God’s purpose that the Muslim prayer call of No god but God was at last heard to echo at the Pyramids, where Moses himself had sought to convince Pharaoh of this truth in a world long gone.
And even as the west fell to the forces of Islam, the east opened to our armies like the petals of a flower in the springtime. The defeat of the Persians in Iraq had rumbled through the Sassanid provinces like a landslide, and under Umar’s command, the Muslims tore through the heart of Persia. We crushed the last of the Sassanid troops at the Battle of Qadisiya and soon Ctesiphon, the mighty capital of Persia, fell to Islam and the ancient empire of the shahs vanished into the annals of history.
As nations fell before us with stunning ease, the coffers of Medina began to overflow with gold and jewels, tribute coming in from all over the world to the new empire that had slain the old. I heard one account that said that the storehouses of the Bayt al-Mal held tens of millions of gold dirhams, more wealth than had ever physically existed inside all of Arabia. It was a bounty beyond comprehension, and Umar was rightly concerned that such a concentration of wealth would corrupt the hearts of the Muslims. He ordered wide distributions from the treasury to the poor and placed the elderly and the sick on regular pensions to ensure that they were provided for. But no matter how much Umar gave away, more kept flowing into our coffers, as the borders of Islam expanded from the deserts of Africa to the mountains of the Caucasus.
It was an exciting time to be alive, and every day news came to Medina of some stunning victory of the Muslim armies. And yet I can only write of those battles as others have relayed them to me, for in all those years, I did not cross the borders of Arabia. With my husband’s death and then my father’s, I found that my role in the life of the Muslim Ummah was becoming circumscribed to Medina. During the Prophet’s life, I had traveled with him on his battles and had been his constant companion on diplomatic journeys to unite the Arab tribes. But after his passing, I rarely left the confines of the oasis except to go to Pilgrimage in Mecca, and then only under a heavy honor guard of the Caliph’s soldiers. The freedom that I had loved as a child was gone, and for all intents and purposes, I had become a prisoner to my honored status as Mother of the Believers.
Since there was nothing I could do to change things, I decided to make the most of the role that was given me. I became a teacher to both men and women, and every day prominent Muslims would come to my apartment and speak to me through the curtain, asking for spiritual and practical advice. My prodigious memory proved to be a valuable asset to the believers, as I could easily recite word for word conversations that I had had with my husband years before. I became one of the most trusted narrators of hadith, oral traditions about the life and teachings of Muhammad, which were soon being passed by word of mouth over the vast distances of the Muslim empire. Whenever the people wished to know what my husband had said regarding anything from how to properly cleanse themselves after defecation to the appropriate inheritance shares for their grandchildren, they came to me and I told them what I knew.
My reputation as a scholar had led Umar to rely on me heavily for advice during his reign, and I felt great pride that a young girl in her twenties had become an influential voice in the court of the Caliph, who was fast becoming the most powerful man on earth. Yet despite his unquestioned authority, Umar remained a deeply humble and austere man, wearing patched clothes and sleeping on the floor in his tiny hut. When envoys from conquered nations arrived in Medina, they were invariably shocked to find that their “emperor” lived like a beggar, without even the security of personal bodyguards.
But even as my prestige in the community rose, my loneliness increased. I and the other Mothers had been forbidden by God to marry again after the Messenger’s death, and so we lived alone in our apartments, the old jealousies fading away under the bond of shared boredom. In truth, even if God had permitted us to remarry, none of us would have done so. It was impossible to love any man other than the Messenger.
It would have been an easier life had we been blessed with children, but that was not to be for any of us. And so I contented myself with the company of the children of my loved ones. You, Abdallah, my sister’s son, became the closest thing I would ever know to a child of my own, and I loved you accordingly. I took great pride in watching you grow from a carefree child into a mature and responsible young man, and I know that as long as Islam is led by men like you, our nation will be safe from the temptations of power.
I also spent a great deal of time with my younger brother, Muhammad, who had been born during the Prophet’s final Pilgrimage to Mecca. After my father died, his mother, Asma bint Umais, married Ali, and Muhammad was raised beside Hasan and Husayn, who were also like children to me. Though I had no affection for their father, the grandsons of the Prophet were innocent and sweet, and whenever I saw them, I was reminded of my gentle husband. Hasan was a fun-loving youth who was always climbing trees and racing with the other boys, and his handsome face, so much like his grandfather’s, was always bright with a smile. Husayn was the more serious of the two, shy and reserved, his eyes exuding a deep compassion and sadness that reminded me of his ghostly mother. My little brother, Muhammad, was their constant companion and protector. If any of the naughty boys ever acted up or played rough with the Prophet’s grandsons, Muhammad was there to teach them a hard lesson in playground manners. He had always possessed a passionate sense of justice, a quality that would sadly lead to tragedy for him and the whole Ummah one day.
Though I loved the children of Ali’s house, my relationship with the Prophet’s cousin was still strained. We were always formally cordial in each other’s presence, but the chasm between us continued to grow over the years. My refusal to forgive Ali for his suggestion that the Messenger divorce me had become a matter of stubborn habit now, a fault of my pride that would be the cause of much sorrow.
But despite the minor frictions between members of the Prophet’s household, the life of Medina was one of peace and placidity. The excitement and the terror of my youth were replaced by a pleasant monotony of quiet days, each little different from the one before or the one to come. It was utterly safe and utterly boring, and some part of my adventurous spirit longed for a return to a time when every day was a matter of life and death, when the future was covered in mists and clouds and my heart beat loudly in the thrilling anticipation of change.
And then one cold winter day, when my twenties had at last given way to my thirties, the golden age of Islam ended with a single act of violence. Umar was standing at the head of prayers in the Masjid when a Persian slave sought revenge for the conquest of his nation. He rushed the Caliph and stabbed him viciously in the gut, before taking his own life.
Umar was mortally wounded by the assassin, but he lived long enough to appoint a small council of believers to choose a successor. As he lay dying in great agony, I saw him look up and smile and I heard him whisper something that I did not catch. When I turned to your father, Zubayr, who had leaned close to Umar and caught his words, he was pale.
“He said he sees his daughter holding out her hand,” Zubayr recounted, and I felt a chill go through me as I remembered the stories of the little girl he had buried alive during his days as a pagan. Umar raised his hand weakly and I watched him curl his fingers as he took hold of something I could not see. And then the Caliph of Islam, the most powerful and noble leader I had seen next to my own husband, passed away to his eternal reward.
That night, Umar was buried alongside my husband and my father, and that day, I erected a curtain inside my apartment, separating their graves from the tiny space where I lived.
The council of believers had no time to grieve, for the fate of the empire was at stake. After three days of secret consultation, the elders of Medina emerged and proclaimed the sweet-hearted Uthman to be the next Commander of the Believers.
It was a decision that made political sense, since Uthman was a prominent leader of Quraysh and could be expected to keep the nobles of the far-flung empire in check. But in the end it would prove to be a disastrous mistake, one that would lead to the horror of blood flowing through the streets of Medina.
The first several years of Uthman’s rule were unremarkable. The conquests of Islam continued unabated. The Muslim armies pushed west out of Egypt and seized control of most of the Mediterranean coastline. On the eastern front, our soldiers pushed through the dying remnants of the Persian empire to seize the Kerman province, where a race of fierce tribesmen called Baluchis reigned. To the north, Armenia and the mountains of the Caucasus came under our dominion. Following my husband’s commandment to seek knowledge even if you must go to China, Uthman sent an envoy to the Emperor Gaozong and invited him to accept Islam. The Chinese overlord politely declined to convert but was shrewd enough to open trade with the Muslim empire and allowed our people to preach and propagate our faith inside his borders.
Perhaps most significantly in the realm of international relations, Uthman supervised the building of the first Muslim navy. His kinsman Muawiya, who had become the highly respected governor of Syria, soon led a naval attack on the Byzantine forces off the coast of Lebanon. The Muslims, filled with the brash confidence of decades of success, rammed the Byzantine ships, bringing their own vessels so close to the opposing fleets that their masts were almost touching. And then our warriors leaped across decks and engaged in ferocious hand-to-hand combat with the Greek sailors, using their fiercely honed skills from urban warfare on the ocean.
The Byzantine marines were accustomed to shooting at their enemies from a distance with arrows and launching flaming pellets at rival ships, but they had never fought in this fashion, with ships used merely as bridges for foot soldiers. Their confusion quickly devolved into chaos, and the sea was stained crimson with the blood of imperial sailors. Muawiya emerged triumphant, his prestige rising like the sun among the Muslims. In later years, we would learn that the victory could have been even greater, for the emperor himself had been on one of the Byzantine ships that Muawiya’s men had boarded. The lord of Constantinople had escaped certain death only by disguising himself as a common sailor and jumping into the sea, where he was rescued by his men and rushed to safety on the island of Sicily.
Uthman continued and expanded upon his predecessor’s military success, but it was in the spiritual realm that he left his greatest legacy. As the caliphate continued to grow by leaps and bounds and the number of Muslims went from thousands to millions, the need to present the standard written copies of the holy Qur’an became pressing. The Holy Book had never been compiled into one document during the Prophet’s lifetime, primarily since he was illiterate, as were a great many of the Arab tribesmen, and symbols on a parchment were meaningless to them. Because of this stark reality, Muslims committed the Qur’an to memory and relayed its teachings orally. This system worked well in the early years of our faith, but as we came into contact with highly advanced civilizations where literacy was the norm, the need to present the Word of God to the new believers in written format became a priority.
My father had kept a private copy of the Qur’an in his study, one that he had compiled after the Garden of Death, where many of the Companions who had memorized the entire Qur’an had been killed. Before his death, Abu Bakr had passed along his personal compilation to Umar, who had subsequently left it to his daughter Hafsa. When Uthman learned that she still had the folio in her possession, he asked her to submit it to him for verification. And then he summoned those in Medina who were known to have memorized the entire Qur’an, forming a committee in which I and my sister-wife Umm Salama participated. We were given Hafsa’s codex, which was a jumbled collection of verses written on parchments and palm leaves, and asked to verify its accuracy. Once it had been confirmed by all those in the holy city who knew the Qur’an by heart, Uthman ordered copies of the authorized text to be made and sent to the capitals of every province of the empire. And thus he ensured that the Word of God would not be changed according to the desires of men, as the Prophet had claimed to have happened with the scriptures of the Jews and Christians. And in doing so, Uthman fulfilled the prophecy of God in a verse of the Qur’an itself: Truly We have sent down this Reminder, and truly We will preserve it.
I have often thought that Uthman would have been fortunate if he had passed away shortly after issuing the standard written text of God’s Word. He would have been remembered purely as a man of great wisdom and vision, whose life had been of great service to the cause of Islam.
But, alas, this was not meant to be. His memory has been tainted by the actions of evil men and fools. And I grieve to say that I count myself among them.
AS THE YEARS OF Uthman’s reign grew, so did the wealth of the Muslim empire-and the ambitions of its leaders. Uthman had increasingly relied on members of his own clan, the Umayyads, to administer the business of the rapidly expanding state. Some of his kinsmen, like Muawiya, were efficient and respected governors who were loved by their subjects. But as the empire grew ever wider and the supervision by Medina became more difficult, local politicians from among the Quraysh, many of whom had embraced Islam only when Mecca fell and they had no choice, became increasingly free to rule as they wished.
And in a world where gold was flowing in rivers, corruption and venality began to set in. Complaints arose over the self-serving conduct and brutality of some of the Umayyad governors, but the Caliph himself did not hear of the growing unrest until the sparks of discontent had become a raging fire.
For Uthman had made one terrible mistake in choosing his own inner circle. He had appointed a young cousin named Marwan ibn al-Hakam to serve as an adviser. Both Marwan and his father had the dubious distinction of being cursed by my husband, who had expelled them from Arabia because he saw in their hearts the disease of grave treachery. They had remained in exile until Uthman took power. Feeling great sorrow for his kinsmen, the old man had pardoned them and recalled them to Medina in the hope of rehabilitating them. It was a foolish mistake, motivated by the softness of his heart, for the moment the bitter young man returned, he quickly sought to achieve power over those who had humiliated him. Using honeyed words and feigning humility, Marwan rose to power as Uthman’s personal scribe, thereby becoming responsible for writing-and reading-all of the Caliph’s correspondence. Using his newfound power, Marwan began issuing commands under the Caliph’s seal without his knowledge, furthering the interests of corrupt members of the Umayyad clan while keeping word of the growing unhappiness in the empire from the old man’s ears.
But even if Uthman remained oblivious to the rising cries of discontent, word was rapidly spreading to others in Medina, and our alarm at the deteriorating situation began to grow. My brother Muhammad, now a handsome and passionate young man, had emigrated to Egypt and had become embroiled in the political strife there. He was an idealistic youth who was ready to fight against injustice wherever he saw it, and his status as the son of Abu Bakr gave him immediate standing among the Egyptians. Within a short time, my brother became a vocal leader of the opposition, and he gained the support of Amr ibn al-As, the revered conqueror of Egypt, whom Uthman had displaced as governor in favor of his own kinsman.
The unrest in Egypt soon boiled over into rioting, during which the Umayyad governors brutally suppressed the protesters. Muhammad sent several letters to Uthman demanding that he address the grievances of the Egyptians, but they quickly disappeared into the void through Marwan’s machinations. Convinced that the Caliph had himself become corrupt, my young and idealistic brother led an armed band of rebels to Medina to demand Uthman’s resignation.
It was a foolish act, the tactic of a young and misguided man who wanted only to do the right thing. For that, I hope he is one day forgiven. But the one person I cannot forgive in the drama that subsequently unfolded is myself.
I WAS NOW A woman in my forties and I thought I had gained the wisdom necessary to intervene in these dangerous affairs of state. As word of the uprising in Egypt came from my brother, I went to Uthman to plead with him to replace the corrupt governors who were fomenting chaos. Marwan attempted to deny me an audience, but when I stormed inside Uthman’s palatial home, his guards stepped aside, afraid to lay a hand on the Mother of the Believers.
When I saw Uthman, he looked old and very tired. I could see a hint of confusion in his eyes as he looked at me for a long moment. It was as if he did not recognize me, a woman he had known from birth. Even though my face was veiled, my golden eyes still sparkled. But his mind soon cleared and he smiled, his face still beautiful despite the weight of decades. He listened to me patiently for some time, but I could tell that he did not understand what I was saying. And then I realized to my horror that Uthman had absolutely no idea that the situation in Egypt had changed, that there were men marching in the streets of the province calling for the ouster of his appointed envoys. He kept looking to Marwan for confirmation, but that wily rat shrugged as if this were all news to him. At the end of our audience, Uthman politely rose and asked me to give his regards to my mother, Umm Ruman, and all blood drained from my face.
My mother had been dead for over twenty years.
I left the Caliph’s manor with dread in the pit of my stomach. Not only was Uthman being manipulated by corrupt officials, he appeared to be suffering from dementia. The future of the empire was at stake and I had to act fast.
I BEGAN TO SPEAK to the elders among the Companions. Talha and Zubayr, who were revered by the community as two of its greatest war heroes, were sympathetic to my concerns but were wary of openly challenging the Caliph. I finally turned in frustration to Ali, who sternly warned me to stay out of political affairs.
“You are playing with a sharp sword, my Mother,” he said. “It is a weapon that could cut you in turn.”
My face grew red at what I perceived to be his condescension, and I stormed out of his house. I returned to the Masjid and shared my concerns with the other Mothers, but they all joined Ali and the other elders in warning me to stand back. Ramla was especially caustic in her words, which was no surprise, considering that she was the daughter of Abu Sufyan and a kinsman of Uthman. Umm Salama was kind but firm, saying that our place as the Mothers of the Believers was to teach and nurture the Muslims. Politics was the domain of men. Even Hafsa, who had gone from a bitter rival to a close friend over the years, was nervous and refused to commit herself to supporting me against the Caliph.
Angered by my failure to drum up support among my peers, I decided to turn to the masses. I began to appear regularly in the marketplace, standing veiled but proud and calling out to the men to pressure Uthman to step down. It was a dangerous act of rebellion in the heart of the city, and only my honored status as the Prophet’s wife kept me from being arrested by the Caliph’s men. As I shared my concerns with the people of the city, I lit a fire that I hoped would smoke the old man out of his home and cause him to see the truth of the world. But it became a fire that soon threatened to consume everything I had worked for my entire life.
For my brother Muhammad arrived with hundreds of armed and angry young men from Egypt and the rebellion I had sought to incite suddenly became a terrifying reality.
MUHAMMAD MET WITH ME and explained that he did not seek violence, but he was willing to defend himself and his men. Realizing that my young brother’s veins ran hot with the fire of justice and that his emotions were ruling his reason, I tried to mediate. I arranged for a private meeting with the Caliph, who listened patiently to the litany of complaints from the Egyptians-how Umayyad officials were stealing from the local treasury, how wealthy and well-connected criminals were being pardoned in exchange for bribes while the poor suffered the lash, how taxes were being levied unfairly on the populace without their consent. Such behavior might be the norm of other nations, Muhammad argued with passion, but we were the servants of God. If the Ummah turned a blind eye to injustice, the incredible wealth and power God had given us would be taken away,
Uthman nodded throughout the meeting, but his eyes looked glazed and I wondered how much of my brother’s speech the old man truly heard or understood. But in the end, the Caliph surprised me by agreeing to Muhammad’s request that the Umayyad officials in Egypt be replaced. And then he summoned the wretched Marwan to draft a letter to that effect, removing the Umayyad governor and replacing him with my brother. I saw Marwan’s eyes narrow, but he complied. I read over the letter myself to make sure that he had obeyed the Caliph, and I saw no irregularities in it. The parchment was signed by Uthman and sealed in wax with his insignia, and Muhammad rejoiced. He had come to Medina prepared for a fight, and the Caliph had instead given him everything he had asked for.
I was delighted but not completely surprised. Uthman had always been an exceedingly kind and generous man, and in truth, I could not remember him ever denying a request by anyone. Indeed, it was his complete openness that had been the cause of the current scandal, for he had never turned down the request of any man-including those who sought to use him to their advantage.
I embraced my brother and led him back to his men. When they learned that the Caliph had capitulated, there was much rejoicing and a few danced with joy, until stern looks from some of the more pious fellows quickly sobered them all up.
As Muhammad rode back into the desert for the long journey to Egypt, the nation he now ruled, I decided to go to Mecca on Pilgrimage and thank God for bringing the troubling crisis to a peaceful resolution. As I rode out in my armored howdah, surrounded by the Caliph’s finest guards, I did not see a lone rider emerge from the stables and ride north, carrying a secret letter that bore Uthman’s seal.
THE ENVOY WAS INTERCEPTED by my brother’s men after one of their intrepid sentries realized that they were being followed. They caught the rider and searched him until they found the letter bearing the Caliph’s mark. When my brother read the secret dispatch, he turned bright red with rage. For it was a letter purporting to be from Uthman, ordering the governor of Egypt to arrest Muhammad and execute him as a rebel the moment he returned.
Muhammad’s men raced back to the city and immediately laid siege to Uthman’s house. I was already on my way to Mecca and was utterly unaware of the horrifying turn of events. I have often thought that the world would be a different place today had I just stayed home a few more days. But such are the pointless musings of regret.
Even as I traveled to the holy city of my birth, blissfully ignorant of the sword that now hung over the Muslim nation, my brother’s men proceeded to take control of Medina. They bullied their way into people’s homes and took whatever provisions they deemed necessary to support their “holy cause.” When other nations later heard about the course of events in the Muslim capital, they must have been shocked that a small band of rebels could have taken over so quickly. And yet there was no standing army inside Medina, as there had been no need for one for the past twenty years. The Muslims ruled the world from horizon to horizon, and the thought that Medina could come under attack had been laughable.
But no one was laughing now. My brother confronted Uthman with the letter and the old man denied any knowledge of it, despite the parchment carrying the Caliph’s seal. But Muhammad was not satisfied.
“Then you are either a liar or a puppet being used by others,” he retorted. “In either event, you are unworthy to lead Islam.”
The gentle Uthman was deeply saddened by these words, perhaps because he heard the ring of truth in them. Of course I have never believed that the Caliph ordered my brother’s death. The vile monster Marwan had clearly written the letter, but it would be the old man who was held responsible for it. And perhaps Uthman finally saw the reality of what had happened and his heart had shattered with the realization that he had been duped by a young man he loved like a son. He retired to his home and did not come out again, leaving his fate to God.
The rebels grew increasingly agitated as the days passed and Uthman neither emerged nor responded to their demands for his resignation. It soon became clear that tempers were boiling, and the threat of violence was no longer just an unfortunate possibility. Ali dispatched his sons, Hasan and Husayn, now grown into fine young men, to guard the Caliph’s doors, and the presence of the Prophet’s grandsons held back the spreading wave of anarchy for a time.
But as the weeks passed with no resolution, the Egyptian rebels decided to force the issue. They cut off all delivery of food and water to the elderly Uthman, who was a prisoner in his own home. The Jewess Safiya, my sister-wife, tried to save the beleaguered Caliph. She owned a house that bordered his and she set up a plank on her roof by which she would pass across food and water to Uthman’s young and pretty wife, Naila.
On the forty-ninth day of the siege, a group of men led by my brother stormed the roof of Uthman’s house and broke in. The gentle old man sat on the floor in his study, reading the holy Qur’an. He seemed utterly unafraid of the rebels who were ransacking his house, bloodlust flowing through their veins. My brother Muhammad, filled with the fire of idealism and pride, finally came upon Uthman and raised his hand to deliver the deathblow. He grabbed the Caliph by his beard, at which point the elderly leader looked up at him and smiled softly.
“Son of my brother,” he said, his warm eyes gazing into my brother’s soul. “Let go of my beard. Your father would not have done this.”
It was a simple statement, said without malice or accusation. And in that instant, his words penetrated my brother’s heart and Muhammad fell back, as if waking from a dream. Shame and horror filled him, and he realized how far he had fallen.
My brother turned back, ready to order an end to the attack. But it was too late. Several of his men broke into the room, the bloodlust burning wild in their eyes. Seeing the Caliph alone and unarmed, they raced to him, swords raised.
“No!” Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr screamed. But the rebels ignored him and threw their leader aside. And then they descended on the softhearted Uthman, who loved peace and could not bring himself to harm even his enemies. His wife, Naila, threw herself as a shield on top of her husband, but the rebels sliced off her fingers and tossed her aside like a rag doll. And then they stabbed the Caliph nine times, their blades slicing through his neck, his heart, and his skull with monstrous brutality. Uthman fell over dead, the pages of the holy Qur’an he had so carefully compiled stained with his blood.
Even as I write this, dear Abdallah, tears stain these pages. It was a brutal murder of a good man, and I cannot hide from God the truth that I share some of the blame. Had I not spoken out against Uthman in public, had I instead used my influence to calm the fire in my young brother’s soul, perhaps he would have lived. And I shudder as I remember the terrible words of my husband so long ago, his warning that the sword of God would be unsheathed against the Muslims should harm ever befall Uthman, a sword that would consume our nation until the Day of Judgment.
May God forgive me for what I did, for I acted then out of passion for justice, even if I was misguided. But for the actions I would take next, Abdallah, I do not know if pardon is possible. What I did in the aftermath of Uthman’s murder came out of the blackest pit of my own soul, a crime for which I can never forgive myself, even if God and the angels grant me reprieve.
I was in Mecca when I first heard the news of the siege of Uthman’s home. I had just finished the Pilgrimage, along with my sister-wife Umm Salama, who had joined me. We were planning to return after completing the rituals at the House of God, when envoys sent by Zubayr advised us to remain in Mecca until the rebellion was over. My heart had sunk when I heard word of my brother’s actions, and I desperately sought to return so I could calm him and arrange some kind of reconciliation. But Umm Salama begged me to stay away from the chaos and our guards pointedly refused to permit me to leave until peace had been restored to the capital.
The weeks dragged on without word and I began to have a terrible feeling in my heart that things had gone wildly wrong. And then two men rode in from the desert, bearing news that horrified me and brought my blood to a boil. They were not envoys-the matter was too urgent for messengers. They were my closest friends, my beloved cousin Talha and my brother-in-law Zubayr. One look on their ashen faces and my worst fears were confirmed.
We gathered in the old Hall of Assembly, where I had spied on Hind and the council of Mecca a lifetime before. The stone walls looked as they had almost forty years before, cold and proud, untroubled by the vagaries of time. As we sat inside the chamber that had once been the throne room of our enemies, Zubayr revealed all that had happened. His once handsome face was now heavily lined, and a mighty scar ran down his right cheek. Your father had fought in so many battles that I could not even remember where he had earned this mark of heroism.
Talha, for his part, had been unable to fight in the later wars of conquest because of his shattered hand. Instead, he had spent his years working as a merchant. His brilliant negotiating skills and his talent for learning the languages of our conquered subjects had allowed him to build a vast business empire, and he had been transformed over the years from an impoverished cripple into one of the richest men in the empire. And he had spent much of his vast wealth on spoiling his beautiful daughter, whom he had named, perhaps not surprisingly, Aisha. She was a vivacious young woman who had captured the hearts of many of the young men of Medina but had a shocking reputation as a flirt who enjoyed leading boys on. I had often sternly lectured the girl about social proprieties, and she had simply laughed and said I would have done the same had I not been married as a child and hidden away behind a veil. I would always give her a tongue-lashing for her impudence, but in my heart I loved her like a daughter, and I knew there was more than a little truth to what she said.
It was to Aisha bint Talha that my thoughts turned now as my friends revealed the shocking news of Uthman’s murder. I grieved for the old man who was a victim of his own kindness, and I feared for the people of Medina now that the blood of the Caliph had been spilled. According to Zubayr, Uthman’s cousin Muawiya was dispatching a mighty contingent from Syria to avenge the Caliph’s death. Apparently Marwan had been able to get word of the siege to the Umayyad leader, and when Uthman was killed, his blood-soaked shirt had been sent to Damascus, along with the remains of poor Naila’s severed fingers. The outraged Muawiya had held aloft these grisly relics in the newly constructed Grand Masjid of Damascus, built next to the church where the prophet John the Baptist was buried. With his brilliant oratory, he had riled up the passions of the crowd, and the cry for vengeance was rapidly spreading through the empire, especially after news of how the rebels had treated Uthman’s corpse
“What happened to Uthman’s body?” I asked and then saw Zubayr’s face grimace with pain.
“They threw his body in the trash heap and refused to let him be buried,” Zubayr said, horror welling in his eyes. “Safiya finally intervened and convinced them to let us bury him. But they would not allow us to inter Uthman with the Prophet or with the other believers in Jannat al-Baqi. So Safiya arranged for the Caliph to be buried in the Jewish cemetery near her ancestors.”
I hung my head in grief. I had one more question, but I was afraid to ask it. And then Umm Salama spoke up, her voice soft, almost a whisper.
“Who is in charge?”
It was a simple question, but the fate of an empire that ruled half the earth turned on the answer.
There was a moment of long silence, and then finally Talha spoke, a hint of bitterness in his voice.
“After the Caliph’s murder, there was chaos in the streets,” he said. “Ali, Zubayr, and I gathered in the marketplace and called for calm. It was then that the rebels arrived, their swords drawn, and your brother said that he would recognize no man as master except his stepfather, Ali.”
I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. Seeing the look of shock on my face, Talha nodded in understanding.
“We had arrived there, the three of us, with the understanding that we would call for an election by the elders of Mecca,” he said, his voice rising. “But the rebels surrounded the crowd, their weapons in view, and it was no surprise that the vote went unanimously for Ali. Even Zubayr and I pledged our loyalty to him. We had no choice.”
I could tell that the brutal way in which my brother’s men had secured Ali’s election haunted Talha and Zubayr. The three of them had been close friends for years, but this incident had clearly created deep ill will. They, like Ali, were two of the most revered leaders of Islam, men who had fought beside the Prophet and had been serious candidates for the position of Caliph after Umar’s assassination. They had accepted Uthman’s election and had supported him loyally. But now, in the face of Uthman’s murder, they had been denied the opportunity to assert their claim to the throne of Islam by the murderers themselves. It was a bitter pill to swallow, and I could sense their anger at Ali for going along with the tainted election.
And then I felt something grow inside me, something cold and ugly. The old wounds were opened all at once, and I could feel the poison of the past flowing through my veins. I remembered how Ali had nonchalantly convinced the Messenger to marry Zaynab bint Khuzayma in order to secure a political alliance, offering up my husband’s hand to another woman in my presence as if my feelings were worthless. I remembered how he had led that tragic girl of the Bani Qurayza who looked just like me to her execution and how the young woman’s mad laughter still haunted my dreams. And then I remembered most vividly how he had tried to get Muhammad to divorce me when I was falsely accused of a shameful crime.
“Now that he has finally received his lifelong wish and crowned himself Caliph, what has Ali done to punish the assassins?” I asked through gritted teeth.
My friends looked at each other and hesitated.
“Nothing,” Talha said coldly.
The world around me seemed to change colors, and suddenly I saw everything through a veil of red.
“Then Ali has failed in his first task as Caliph. To enforce justice.”
I saw the men look at me, and there were uncertainty and fear in their eyes.
“What are you saying?” Zubayr asked slowly.
“I am saying that Ali cannot be put on the throne of the Muslims by the murderers of the Caliph!” I felt my bones tremble with fury as I convinced myself of the justice of my position. “And even if his election were legitimate, he cannot lay claim to authority until he punishes those who have committed this vile crime. Otherwise the Caliph is complicit in the murder of his righteous predecessor, and God help the Muslims if we should fall that low to accept such a man as our master!”
The words came out of my mouth with such ferocity that both Talha and Zubayr sat back as if I had slapped them. And then my sister-wife Umm Salama rose, her eyes wide with anger.
“Stop this! End this mad talk at once!”
“What madness? Is there any greater madness than to let a criminal rule over the believers?” Any other woman-or man, for that matter-would have been terrified by the dangerous look in my eyes, but Umm Salama refused to back down.
“Remember yourself, Aisha,” she said, her voice stern. “You are the Mother of the Believers. You are meant to guide the Muslims, to heal their wounds, not inflict new ones. Do not go down this path, or the wrath of God will be unleashed on the Ummah.”
I had never heard this matronly and warmhearted woman speak in such an outraged tone, and I would have been stung had there been any feeling left inside me except rage.
“It is Ali who will bring down the wrath of God upon us if he holds on to his blood-soaked throne,” I said, my voice soft but dangerous.
Umm Salama turned to Talha and Zubayr but saw that they had been moved by my words. And then she shook her head in despair and stormed out of the Hall of Assembly.
As I sat there in triumph, a memory came back to me of the last time a woman had convinced men in this room of the justice of her argument. It had been Hind, who had called for the murder of Muhammad. It was a troubling thought and I quickly pushed it out of my head.
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL weeks, I convinced Talha and Zubayr, along with many other Muslims in Mecca, that we had a moral responsibility to challenge Ali. My cry for justice on behalf of the murdered Uthman stirred the hearts of the people of the city, who had benefited tremendously from the old man’s generosity. As more and more men gathered to our cause, it became clear that we had enough to form an army, one strong enough to challenge Ali and force his abdication.
And then word came to us that Ali had raised his own troops to try to secure peace in the troubled empire. Although many of the Muslim governors in Yemen and the eastern provinces of Persia had accepted Ali’s claim to authority, Muawiya refused to acknowledge him as Caliph. Ali’s army of supporters included many devout Muslims who revered him for his reputation for wisdom and moral character, while others, known as the Shia, or Partisans of Ali, believed that he had always been the rightful leader of the Muslims through the claim of his lineage. And a rather shady group among his followers included the rebels of Egypt, who had a vested stake in ensuring that Uthman’s clansmen did not get a chance to avenge the death of the Caliph.
As Muawiya gathered his forces in Syria, Ali had decided to leave Medina and move north into the green fields of Iraq. He sought both to spare the holy city the horror of further bloodshed and to garner the support of the Iraqi provinces in what would likely be a protracted war with Muawiya.
When word came to us that Ali’s army was on the move, it became clear to Talha, Zubayr, and me that our moment had come. By then, our call for justice had attracted many of the most prominent Muslims to Mecca, and I remember with great joy the day that I saw you arrive, Abdallah, on horseback from Medina. You had grown into a dashing young man, so much like your father, and yet whenever I looked upon you, I saw only the little boy who’d played in my sister’s lap. Your support meant more to me than that of all the gathered nobles of the tribes, some of whom I did not trust but whose help I desperately needed.
The worst of these was the rat-faced Marwan ibn Hakam, whose machinations had brought all this evil upon us. Not surprisingly, he had fled Medina after the rebels killed his sponsor, Uthman, and had sought refuge in Mecca, which was still governed by one of Uthman’s appointed viceroys. I despised Marwan, but I kept my hatred in check, for he still commanded the loyalty of the Umayyad clan, whose support I needed to bring down Ali. Unfortunately Talha was less able to hide his feelings, and he openly insulted the young manipulator and publicly humiliated him by reminding the nobles of Mecca that Marwan had been cursed and expelled by the Messenger of God himself. It was a disgrace that Marwan never forgave and that would lead to tragedy for my beloved cousin.
During the weeks that our group planned its revolt against Ali, my fellow Mothers arrived from Medina, sent by the new Caliph to dissuade us from taking any rash actions. Umm Salama rallied my sister-wives to try to change my mind, but their voices fell on deaf ears. I had convinced myself of the righteousness of my cause, and my passionate defense of my actions nearly swayed Hafsa to join us. But her brother Abdallah ibn Umar, a stern and powerful man like her father, convinced her to stay clear of my ambitious and dangerous plan.
And so the day came when our army prepared to journey north into Iraq and intercept Ali. I alone of all the Mothers of the Believers joined the men, who had prepared for me a special camel that was carrying an armored howdah. I often look back and call that day the Day of Tears, for I remember how my fellow wives wept and begged for me to stay. And yet my heart had been turned to stone by my hatred for Ali, and their words did not reach my soul.
Talha, Zubayr, and I rode out from Mecca with an army of three thousand and began a march that would forever change the destiny of Islam and the world.
AS WE PASSED OVER the deserts of Arabia and entered the rolling plains of Iraq, I gazed out from my howdah in wonder at the vast fields of green all about me. Tears welled in my eyes as I realized that this was the first time I had ever crossed the boundaries of the peninsula. I was over forty years old and the queen mother of an empire greater than any known to human history. And I had never set foot outside the desolate patch of sand where I had been born. I wondered what would happen once we had defeated Ali, whether the new Caliph (in all probability either Talha or Zubayr) would permit me at last to fulfill my childhood dream and wander free, to see the world that I knew of only through tales told by travelers and merchants in the marketplace. I imagined reclining in the gardens of Damascus under the shade of pink cherry trees or climbing through the snow-covered mountains of Persia. Or perhaps gazing upon the ancient pyramids that towered over Egypt and the mysterious lion’s head that gazed out from the sands of Giza, as I had heard my brother Muhammad describe. My poor, idealistic brother whose cry for justice had set in motion the terrible events that had brought me here.
And then I heard a dog bark and I snapped out of my reverie. I peered through the heavy metal rings of my armored curtains and saw that our caravan had entered a valley. The sun had fallen behind the mountains and the earth was draped in shadow.
And then I heard a chilling howl, followed by another. I looked out from my howdah as dozens of vicious dogs ran out from behind the rocks and crevices and raced around my camel, barking wildly. There was something unearthly and terrifying about them, and I felt my bones grow cold.
And then I felt the stirrings of memory and my blood fled from my face.
The dogs of al-Haw’ab…they bark so fiercely… my husband had said. They bark at the Angel of Death…who follows her skirts…so much death in her midst… And then he had turned to me, fear in his black eyes. Please, Humayra…Don’t let the dogs bark at you.
And then, at that instant, the demon that had possessed my soul departed and I became the Mother of the Believers again.
I called out to Talha in desperation. He rode over immediately at my cry for help.
“What is it? Are you all right?”
I peered out from my howdah, so agitated that I forgot to put on my veil. I saw him look at my face in stunned surprise, and I realized that he had not seen my features since I was a teenage girl. Talha immediately looked down and I felt my face flush in embarrassment and shame as I quickly wrapped my face behind the niqab. And some small part of me wondered if I looked ugly to him, a middle-aged woman who no longer possessed the vibrancy of youth that he remembered. But then the memory of the dark prophecy came to mind and all thoughts of vanity disappeared.
“We must turn back,” I begged him.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“This is the valley of Haw’ab!” I shouted to him. “The Messenger warned me against it! Please! This mission had been cursed! We must abandon it!”
Talha looked up at me in confusion. And then I saw the hateful face of Marwan as he rode up beside my camel.
“You are mistaken, my Mother,” he said. “This is not Haw’ab. That valley is miles to the west.”
“You lie!” I cried out, but Marwan simply smiled and rode off, pointedly joining the train of his fellow Umayyad lords who had financed this expedition. Even if I wanted to turn back, the men whose gold had brought us here wished to continue. And one woman’s voice of conscience had no weight on the scales of power.
Talha gazed at Marwan and I saw a defeated look cross his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then rode back to join Zubayr.
I felt steel talons gripping my heart, and I began to pray to Allah for protection from the darkness inside my own soul.
AND SO IT WAS that we at last came upon Ali’s encampment, deep in the heart of southern Iraq at a town called Basra. We had recruited sympathizers among the Bedouin tribes and some disgruntled Iraqis, and our army had now swelled to ten thousand, nearly equal to the fighting force of the Caliph.
Ever since the incident with the dogs of al-Haw’ab, the bloodlust had seeped out of my veins and I had no more desire for battle. And I could tell that Talha and Zubayr shared my feelings. The sight of an opposing army consisting of our fellow Muslims, the idea of shedding their blood, revolted us. And then an envoy from Ali arrived asking for a private meeting with me and the two Companions who led the army of Mecca.
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL hours, we met in Ali’s simple command tent, not as enemies but as old colleagues who sat in wonder at how things could have gone so wrong between us. Ali apologized to Talha and Zubayr for the ungracious way in which he had assumed power, but he said quite convincingly that he felt there had been no other choice. With the death of Uthman, chaos had reigned, and he had sought only to reestablish order and justice to the caliphate.
“If you sought justice, then why did you not punish the assassins?” It was a question that came out of my mouth before I could stop it, and I saw that Talha and Zubayr looked relieved that I had said aloud what they had been too diplomatic to mention.
Ali sighed wearily.
“I am well aware that the assassins still live, and some of them have even joined my army, thinking that I am their patron when in truth I hold them in contempt.” He paused and then looked into my eyes, green meeting gold. “But what did you expect of me? I had no soldiers at my command at Medina. How could I have enforced the law and held these murderers accountable, when they held the entire city hostage? I needed to bring together the forces of the Ummah, and then I would have the power to avenge Uthman’s death.”
It was a simple statement of fact, said with such clarity that we realized at once that he was right. And then I bowed my head in shame, for I realized that I had been in the wrong the whole time.
And then a thought came to me and I suddenly felt my heart beating faster.
“You have the power now,” I said, a smile suddenly spreading beneath my veil. “We have ten thousand men under our command who are eager to hold the assassins accountable. And of the army you have gathered here, the rebels can only be a few hundred. If we combine forces, we can easily arrest them with little bloodshed.”
Ali looked at me for a long moment, and then he smiled, his mysterious eyes twinkling.
“Then perhaps all of this has happened for the best,” he said. “Satan tried to divide us, but God has brought us together again.”
And so it was decided that day that we would join forces and avenge the death of Uthman. The Umayyads would be satisfied with the trial and execution of the rebels (Ali had pardoned my own brother, as he had renounced the actions of the killers). And Ali could then reign legitimately as Caliph under a united empire. This terrible moment of fitna would be over, and the Muslims would continue to expand and grow as one community, spreading to every corner of the world the message of unity-there is no god but God.
We retired that night to our separate camps, praising God for saving us from the folly of our own passions. But even as we slept in security, thinking that civil war had been averted, Satan had other plans.
THE NEXT DAWN I awoke to shouts and cries of horror. I leaped up and threw on my veil, staring out from the opening of my private sleeping tent at the plain of Basra. And raised my hand to my mouth in shock at what I saw.
A contingent of Ali’s men had raided our camp, setting fire to tents and killing our soldiers in their sleep. The men of Mecca poured out onto the field, quickly donning their armor to respond to this treachery.
For an instant, I thought Ali had betrayed us, but then the rising sun revealed the faces of the marauders and I recognized them as the accursed Egyptian rebels whose penchant for violence had brought us to this terrible place. I realized that they must have learned of our plans to turn on them, and they had attacked preemptively, seeking to turn our armies against each other before we could unite against them.
I raced out into the field, calling for the men to stop fighting. But it was too late. Blood had been spilled and the madness of battle was flowing through their veins. Our soldiers raced across the field to avenge themselves on Ali’s men, and the nightmare that we had sought to avert was upon us.
Civil war.
As arrows and spears began to fly all around me, I raced to the safety of my armored howdah. My brave camel rose and tried to pull me to safety, but there was nowhere to run. The fighting had begun in earnest, and the two armies of Muslims came rushing out into the field, hatred consuming them as they fought their brothers like savage beasts.
I felt tears flowing down my face as I saw swords clashing and the beautiful emerald grass turn dark with the blood of the believers. Blood that had been spilled not by idolaters or the hordes of foreign empires but by their fellow Muslims. I screamed at the top of my lungs, calling out to the men whom I called my sons to stop killing one another, but my voice was lost in the terrible din of war.
As the madness spread, my camel was soon swimming in a sea of twenty thousand men who clashed brutally all around. Arrows struck my carriage from all sides, and yet the multiple layers of ringed armor saved me, even though my howdah was beginning to look like the shell of a porcupine.
I managed to watch the unfolding battle through a small hole in the curtain, but all I could see was a blur of blood and death, and the terrible stench of defecation and decay made me want to wretch.
My camel tried to shift away from the carnage, but everywhere it went, waves of enemy soldiers were upon us. And then I realized with deep horror that they were chasing me-the warriors of Ali were hunting me down. Somehow I had become the symbol of the entire rebellion, and they had made me the vaunted prize, the target of their fury.
I had become a vortex of death.
And then I heard in my head a terrible cold laughter and I felt something burning on my forearm. I looked down and my eyes went wide in horror.
I was wearing Hind’s gold armlet.
She had given it to me that day when Mecca fell, the last day I had seen her. I had wanted to throw it away, but some small part of me was fascinated by the dark beauty of the entwined snakes with their ruby heart. I had told myself that it was just one small, meaningless trinket, and I had locked it away inside the trunk that held my few valuables, including the onyx necklace that had nearly destroyed my life. Over the years I would look at the armlet from time to time, examine its fine craftsmanship, but I had never worn it.
And now, somehow, it was there on my arm. And it burned like a torch, as if the ruby at its center were a live coal. Frightened, I tried to tear it off, but it was seared to my flesh.
And the laughter in my head became a voice. A clear distinct voice. Hind’s voice.
I always liked you, little girl. You remind me of myself.
I screamed in rage.
“I am not like you!”
And then the laughter grew louder and I thought I would descend into madness. I was trying to fight this monster that was inside me, and it was winning.
And then I heard another voice, a voice that was soft and gentle and familiar. The Voice of the Messenger.
Do not fight anymore. Surrender.
I closed my eyes and let go. Let the rage and the guilt and the horror wash through me like rain running down a gully in a mountainside. I felt myself fall, as I had done that fateful night on the mountain where Muhammad and my father were hiding from the assassins. I was falling deeper and deeper, my shame and anguish tearing through me.
And yet I did not resist. I let myself feel all the anger and doubt and misery and loneliness and regret that I had locked inside myself, let it all flood into my heart, until I felt swelled up with its bile.
And then I said aloud the words that Adam had said after he had been expelled from Paradise. The words that had reconciled him to his God. The words that even now could free me from the weight of the million sins that were poisoning my soul. The words that my husband had come to remind mankind of, one last time.
“Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned.”
And then the darkness took me, and I knew no more.