Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam (27 page)

I
blinked heavily as sunlight poured over my eyelids. When I opened them, I saw a bright haze that slowly came into focus. A figure moved in front of me and I instinctively backed away in terror. But then his strong, manly features came into view and I gasped.

It was the gentle face of the Messenger smiling at me. He bent down over me and stroked my hair.

“Are you all right,
Humayra
?”

I managed a nod, and then looked around the barn, which had appeared cavernous the night before but was much more modest in the daylight.

“The man…Salim…where is he?”

A shadow fell over us and I saw my father, his face full of relief.

“He was a thief,” Abu Bakr said. “We caught him stealing in the marketplace. This criminal was to be punished tomorrow under God’s law, but now someone has helped him escape.”

I suddenly felt like the greatest fool on earth.

“Not someone, Father. It was I.”

The Messenger stared at me in shock.

“What?” both men asked in unison.

The back of my neck began to burn with shame.

“He told me a story…about how he loved this girl…and her father was keeping them apart…I felt sorry for him…So I loosened his bonds…”

I suddenly saw a dark cloud cover my husband’s face. His smile vanished and there was cold anger in his eyes.

“May Allah cut off your hand!”

I sat stunned for a moment, unable to process his fury. And then tears erupted from my eyes. The Prophet had never been angry with me before and I felt as if someone had just thrust a flaming arrow into my stomach.

The Messenger saw my grief but his anger did not abate. He turned away from me and I saw that there was a group of men standing by the door of the barn, keeping a respectful distance from this unfolding family drama.

“Organize a search party,” he said forcefully. “We must find him before he hurts anyone else!”

The men nodded and disappeared. My husband turned to look at me one last time, but I did not see any forgiveness in his glance. And then he stepped through the door and was gone.

I shook violently with grief and I turned to my father for his support. But Abu Bakr looked as stunned as I felt at Muhammad’s uncharacteristic rage, and he backed away from me as if I were a demon and not his daughter.

He left me alone on the cold floor of the barn. I stared around me at the gray walls that seemed to be closing in, burying me alive with my shame.

And then I remembered my husband’s curse and I lifted my hands and stared at them, waiting for the judgment of God that I knew would come upon me any moment.

I
WAS STILL SITTING
there like that hours later when I heard the sound of men approaching. And then the criminal Salim was dragged unceremoniously past me and thrown back into the cell from which I had freed him.

My father stood over the guards as they held the struggling captive down.

“Tie him doubly and post an armed guard at the door,” Abu Bakr said wearily. “He will be tried in the public square after midday prayers, and I would prefer that he actually show up for his judgment.”

The men tied Salim’s arms and legs, and gagged him for good measure.

I saw all of this from the corner of my eyes, but my focus remained on the palms of my hands.

I felt rather than saw the Messenger enter, for the hot morning air suddenly became cooler, as it always did in his presence. He watched me as I sat unmoving, staring at my hands with horrible anticipation.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you possessed by a djinn?”

I did not look at him. I found that I could look at nothing but my hands, which were pale and bloodless.

“I’m waiting to see which hand Allah cuts off.”

I heard the Messenger gasp as he realized I had taken his angry words at face value. And then he reached down and took my hands in his. He squeezed them tightly and I saw tears in his eyes.

We sat there, husband and wife, looking at each other. No words were said. None were needed.

And then the Messenger let go of my hands and raised his own upward in supplication.

“O Allah, Merciful and Compassionate Lord, forgive me for cursing this child. Bless her and anyone whom I have ever cursed.”

And then he lifted me to my feet and led me out of the barn, his fingers wrapped tightly around mine. As I walked past Salim, bound and guarded by men with swords, I saw the hint of a desperate plea for clemency in his eyes.

But my heart was not as big as my husband’s, and I had no forgiveness to offer.

S
ALIM WAS PUNISHED THAT
afternoon for his crimes. He was dragged out in front of a crowd of witnesses by Umar, who tied him spread-eagled to iron stakes that had been hammered into the dark oasis earth. I watched without any emotion as Umar raised his sword and cut off Salim’s hands for theft. He screamed in agony, a sound that would have made me cover my ears and hide my face in horror and empathy the day before. But the girl who came out of the barn that morning was not the same girl who had entered. I watched him writhe like a fish pulled from a stream, blood erupting in thick spurts from his severed wrists. And then Umar raised his sword again and chopped off Salim’s head as punishment for assaulting the Mother of the Believers.

The screams stopped instantly and there was only silence in the public square. I looked around to see the men’s heads bowed in silent prayer, the women’s faces covered in tears. They were all shaken by the severity of the punishment. But now there was no doubt in anyone’s mind what the price would be for breaching the hard-won peace of Medina. There would be no backsliding to the days of anarchy. Law had come to Arabia, and crimes carried consequences.

I took one last look at the grisly remains of the man who had taken advantage of my innocence, who had sought to mount me like a pig in the mud. And then I turned and walked away in silence.

A
few weeks later, I strolled through the central marketplace of Medina with my friend Huda. She was sixteen and almost as tall as a man, with legs that seemed to stretch toward the sky. Huda was everything I longed to be, worldly and sophisticated. She regularly went with her father on trading missions to Persepolis and knew the latest fashions of all the beautiful women to the east.

The bazaar was one of my favorite places in the city. It was full of life and there was always some new merchant there, selling some rare item that I had heard about only in stories from cosmopolitan travelers like Huda. The stands carried everything from oranges and pomegranates that had been shipped from Egypt by sea to colorful spices from the east that smelled sweet and sour at the same time. Sometimes there were pets for sale, and I remember how delighted I was the time I saw a cage full of striped cats that I learned were baby tigers. But my favorite section of the bazaar was the long line of tables displaying jewelry—silver rings, sapphire earrings, and jade necklaces that the merchants claimed came from the mythical land of China, where the sun is born each day.

We passed by the rainbow maze of jewelry stands, cooing at the wonderful items and giggling like little girls, until we reached a table manned by a Jew from the Bani Qaynuqa. They were goldsmiths and master craftsmen, and it was rumored that their unique designs were sought by customers as far north as Babylon.

My eyes fell on a remarkable bracelet made of pressed gold and engraved with lifelike images of doves in flight, emeralds studding their outstretched wings.

I tried it on under the watchful gaze of the old vendor, admiring how beautiful it looked against my skin. It fit my tiny wrist perfectly, as if it had been made for me.

“It looks wonderful on you,” Huda said excitedly. “You should buy it.”

I felt a pang of longing, but I knew it was impossible. I took off the bracelet and returned it to the shop owner.

“I don’t have enough money.”

Huda looked at me as if I were insane.

“But your husband is the Messenger of God! Surely he must be the richest man in all Medina. Doesn’t he take one fifth of all the booty from the raids on the Meccans?”

This was the normal Arab custom. The tribal chief was allotted one-fifth of any booty secured by a raid or a military operation. With the Muslims adopting a policy of economic siege against Mecca, my husband was in a position to secure tremendous wealth from the successful capture of caravans. Huda was right. I should have been the wealthiest woman in the oasis.

“He gives it all away to the poor,” I said in explanation. “The People of the Bench.”

The People of the Bench were a group of Medinese beggars who regularly sat near a stone bench that stood in a corner of the Masjid courtyard. Anyone who came there was entitled to a share of food and whatever booty was to be redistributed by the Messenger. His daughter Fatima sometimes spent hours standing in the sun and attending to the long lines that gathered there every morning after
Fajr
prayers. I usually saw the same people, some of them able-bodied men who should have been working instead of begging, and had grumbled to the Messenger that they were lazy scamps who took advantage of his generosity. But he had simply smiled and said that even such men serve a purpose. When I looked at him doubtfully, he explained. “They teach us to give without any expectations. That is true compassion.”

I had shaken my head in disbelief, even as Huda shook her head now to learn that the Messenger was as poor as he’d been the day he arrived from Mecca, despite the massive wealth that passed through his hands every day.

“The prophets of the Jews were rich,” she said. “Why does the Prophet of the Arabs have to be poor?”

I laughed.

“Maybe the Jews get a better deal because they are Chosen.” It was a stupid comment by a girl too young to know that words have power. We laughed at my minor witticism and continued looking around the jewelry stands.

But as we moved away from the table of the Jewish goldsmith, our words lingered. A young man named Yacub, the hotheaded nephew of the old merchant, heard us and was angered. He must have recognized me as the Mother of the Believers and added my comment to the litany of offenses that the Jews of Medina attributed to my husband. The Messenger’s unification of the oasis and his successful military expeditions had raised their fears that he would soon turn against them.

If I have learned anything in my life, dear Abdallah, it is that fear is the worst enemy of a man’s soul. For whatever it is that we fear comes rushing to us like an arrow across the fields of time.

As we stepped away from the table and turned our attention elsewhere, Yacub took a gold brooch from the stand and in one swift movement pinned Huda’s flowing skirt to a wooden post as she passed by. When Huda crossed over to a nearby stall, the thin fabric tore open and her skirt fell to her ankles, exposing her womanhood to the gathered crowd of shoppers.

I heard the sharp rip and then Huda’s horrified scream. I whirled to see the poor girl desperately trying to cover her privates, tears falling from her face as men in the marketplace whooped and jeered.

Acting faster than I could think, I ripped the scarf off my head and tied it around my weeping friend’s waist. I suddenly saw that everyone’s attention had left Huda and all eyes were on me. My scarlet hair glistened in the sun and I felt a flush of horror that strangers were now gazing lustfully at my exposed locks. It was a shameful violation of a woman’s honor, but not as shameful as what Huda was enduring. I lifted my head with dignity and met the men’s probing gazes with my own defiant eyes.

“Stare at us all you wish, you fools! The sin is on you!”

My words shamed them, and the men quickly looked away. I reached down to pick up the pieces of Huda’s skirts and saw the gold pin that was responsible for her embarrassment.

I looked up to see Yacub staring at me with anger.

“I guess it’s our turn to laugh, you little wench.”

A shadow fell over us and I saw a young Muslim man named Muzaffar standing there. He did not look at me, but I saw that he held out a cloak in his right hand. I quickly took it from him and covered my hair again.

Muzaffar challenged the Jewish prankster, his face red with rage.

“How dare you speak to her that way! She is the Mother of the Believers!”

Yacub laughed with exaggerated bravado. He could see other young men of his tribe watching his confrontation with the Muslim and he was now trapped in a deadly contest of virility.

“You Arabs call your children your mothers.” He sneered. “No wonder you can’t tell your head from your asses! Although as mothers’ asses go, she certainly has a nice one. Maybe next time we’ll see hers, not just her friend’s.”

Faster than my eye could follow, Muzaffar pulled out a small knife and slit Yacub’s throat with the practiced skill of a butcher. The boy fell forward, his face frozen in a deadly grin. The blood from his gaping neck wound poured out over the beautiful golden jewelry that his uncle had spent many months crafting with such great love.

I screamed in horror, but my voice was drowned out by the shout of Jewish men rushing to avenge their fallen comrade. They threw Muzaffar to the ground and beat and kicked him until I heard the sickening crunch of his skull shattering.

The marketplace devolved into chaos as Muslims and Jews attacked one another with righteous indignation. As I fled with Huda to safety, my heart tightened at the knowledge that a terrible new day was upon us.

The first blood between the sons of Isaac and Ishmael had been spilled. And I had a dark vision in my mind’s eye that the trickle of death would soon become a flood.

T
he peace of Medina had been shattered from within, and retribution was swift. An army of a thousand men surrounded the walled district to the southwest that housed the Jewish tribe.

In the days following the marketplace brawl, the Messenger had sent Ali to negotiate blood payment to resolve the tensions between the Muslims and Jews. Each side had lost a man in the scuffle, and according to the terms of the treaty, the matter had to be submitted to Muhammad for arbitration. But the Jews of Bani Qaynuqa turned back Ali, saying they considered the alliance void after the murder of one of their men by a Muslim.

Tensions had risen as the Jews barricaded themselves inside their walls, and there were rumors that that the chiefs of Qaynuqa were sending urgent messages to Abdallah ibn Ubayy, the treacherous leader of the Khazraj. The Jews allegedly promised that they could marshal seven hundred men to their defense. If the Khazraj matched them, then perhaps together they could wrest the oasis from the sorcerer.

But if such an offer was indeed made, Ibn Ubayy declined it. Though we had heard talk that he had been happy to incite the Jews to do his dirty work in antagonizing Muhammad, Ibn Ubayy was not the kind of man who would be willing to risk his own life to settle their scores.

And so the day had come when the Bani Qaynuqa were friendless and alone. The Messenger considered their renunciation of his treaty an act of war and had besieged the settlement. The Muslims had cut off the roads leading to their sister Jewish tribes, the Bani Nadir and the Bani Qurayza, and the fortress had no independent wells. Soon the Bani Qaynuqa would run out of water, and they would have to fight or surrender.

I watched as the Prophet strode among the Muslim soldiers who surrounded the gates of the Jewish fortress. He was dressed in glittering mail made of concentric steel rings, and his helmet covered most of his face. His black eyes glistened from behind his steel visor.

A battering ram had been devised to tear down the heavy wooden doors that protected the Qaynuqa. It was a long pole made of a series of thick palm trunks tied together and reinforced with steel plates. Thirty of the strongest Muslims would join forces to pummel the gates until they fell and the fortress was overrun. The soldiers had been ordered to kill any man who was armed but to spare the women and the children.

As war drums resounded, announcing to the Bani Qaynuqa their approaching end, I saw a man who was dressed in flowing scarlet robes approach the Messenger. It was Ibn Ubayy come to bargain on behalf of the Jews, whom he would not defend with arms.

He pushed past Umar and Hamza, who scowled at his presence, and walked up to the Prophet, addressing him from behind as he surveyed his men.

“O Muhammad, treat my allies well.”

The Messenger glanced at Ibn Ubayy briefly and then continued on his tour of the company, his presence inspiring courage among the warriors.

But Ibn Ubayy was persistent. He followed the Prophet and shouted for all to hear.

“Muhammad! Have mercy on my allies!”

The Messenger pretended not to hear him, even though his cries could have woken the dead in
Jannat al-Baqi,
the graveyard outside Medina.

Frustrated, Ibn Ubayy came up behind the Messenger and grabbed him by the collar of his mail shirt.

“Listen to me!”

Instantly a dozen swords were drawn and held to Ibn Ubayy’s neck. And yet he held on firmly. The Prophet turned to face him and a silence so great fell over the field that all I could hear was my pounding heart.

“Let go.” There was more danger in those two words than any lengthy tirade could have held.

And yet Ibn Ubayy, for all his flaws, could not be called a coward. Feeling the prick of blades against the skin of his neck and back, he nonetheless refused to release the Prophet’s armor.

“By God I will not, until you promise to treat them well,” he said, and I saw in his face what appeared to be real pain. “The Bani Qaynuqa have four hundred men without mail and three hundred armored. Not much of an army, but in all the years before you came to Medina, those men were my sole protection from my enemies. This Arab lives because those Jews saved him.”

He paused and his eyes glistened with grief. If he was performing, he was an astounding actor.

“Seven hundred men who kept me alive before you brought peace to this oasis,” he said, his voice choking. “Will you cut them down in one morning?”

The Messenger looked at him. I could not see his face through the visor of the helmet, but I saw the tension in his shoulders fall as ibn Ubayy’s plea touched his heart.

When he spoke, his voice was firm but compassionate.

“I give you their lives,” was all he said.

Ibn Ubayy’s hand fell and the Messenger walked away. He stood for a while staring after the man who had stolen his crown, who ruled Medina while he watched from the sidelines. I do not know what he was thinking, but he looked shaken and confused. Finally, he turned toward the gates of the fortress and went to deliver the good news to his erstwhile allies.