Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam (57 page)

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.

T
HAT NIGHT, THE
M
USLIMS
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.

M
uawiya 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.

T
HE
M
USLIM 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.

T
he 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.