Muhammad (10 page)

The change that came over the city happened almost the day that the gates slammed shut behind Abrahah and his
army. It wasn't enough that the invaders all fell sick and their war elephants retreated like a mirage in the desert. Mecca felt defenseless as never before. A foreigner had breached the one barricade we thought was impassable, the desert. Now the Qurayshi elders decreed that no Christian or Jew should set foot inside Mecca. Since the idols had saved the city by miraculously defeating the invaders, they should have no competition. Foreign gods were banned, and worshiping them meant death or exile. One of Muhammad's own cousins was exposed as a
hanif
who bowed to one God and was forced to flee. The
hanif
were no more to be seen, except for Waraqah, and he had grown much quieter.

The rights of Jews and Christians meant nothing. To ordinary people only their money did. If a Jew was so rich that his business couldn't be done without him, he could pay a levy to come within the city walls. Once here, he couldn't be seen praying or doing obeisance to his god, Yahweh.

The Quraysh had risen to such power that they were able to enforce these decrees. Abu Talib listened to Muhammad's pleas for tolerance. Waraqah muttered at the door of the Kaaba. They were powerless to intervene, however, when the whole tribe stood against them. “I've tried to wear them down,” Abu Talib said mournfully. “My words evaporated like a summer shower hitting a hot stone wall.”

The rabble were organized into gangs who roamed the alleys beating on drunks and frightening servant girls on their way to the well with water jugs. A hush settled over the city. If you clamp down, people will obey, and the obedient can be mistaken for the contented, if you squint hard enough. To hear the elders talk about it, the Year of the El
ephant, as everyone started to call it, became the beginning of a golden age.

This state of Mecca went through my mind as I sat beside Waraqah. “Get pregnant. Drop as many young as you want,” he said. “But deep down you're with us.”

I looked at the ground, pressing my fingers into my upper thigh to make the biggest blue vein stop bulging.

“So I'm not far wrong,” he muttered, interpreting my silence. “I can tell you something else. Muhammad broke my heart when he left the cause. There were only four
hanif
to stand up for the truth, and we were all growing old. I think of your husband every day, but we barely speak when our paths cross. Maybe now I have an understanding with you.”

“Perhaps.”

It was Waraqah's turn to look surprised. “What gives a woman this kind of courage? I was just goading you.”

I shrugged. It wasn't courage, though. My caravans have traveled the length of the Arab world, from Yemen to Syria. When they returned home, I sat my men down and made them tell me about what they saw and heard. My father didn't raise me to be ignorant. Like Muhammad, he was fond of the old sayings. One of them is this: “A fat woman is better in winter than a blanket.” My father would frown and say to me, “I want you to be more than a better blanket when you grow up.”

My men told me in particular how foreigners think, because when you know what is in a customer's mind, you have an advantage over him. That's how it began. After a while, though, the peculiarity of men's minds gained its own fascination. Arabs believe that Abraham built the Kaaba, but Jews believe he founded their tribe in Jerusalem. We say
that God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his older son, Ishmael. The Jews say it was his younger son, Isaac. Muhammad was a bit shocked that I knew such things, perhaps more shocked that they made me think skeptical thoughts about the idols surrounding the Kaaba. He quickly realized, however, that this was a bond between us. We rarely spoke about it.

“I don't mind being hated, you know,” said Waraqah out of the blue. “A thousand curses never tore a shirt.”

I smiled. That was another of my father's sayings. The old man and I were relaxed now. He pointed to a donkey some yards away. The animal was tied to a long stick attached to a grinding stone. He trudged in slow circles, and as he did a lazy-looking boy threw grain under the millstone to be ground into coarse flour.

“There is your common Arab,” said Waraqah. “He walks in circles and thinks he's getting somewhere. Tie an idol to his nose, and he thinks the gods are leading the way to Paradise.”

The old man was growing deaf, and he said these words in a voice loud enough that two merchants passing by overheard him. They looked our way and frowned. Then seeing who it was, they bowed and moved on quickly.

I got up and dusted off my skirts, which were speckled with chaff from the millstone. “You know people who were driven out of Mecca,” I said. “They talked the way you do.”

“They didn't see what's coming. I've read the signs. I can afford to wait.”

With this strange comment Waraqah waved me on my way, saying that we'd meet again. When I returned home, I told Muhammad everything. I didn't leave out that he had
broken Waraqah's heart. He winced but said nothing, and when I asked him to open his mind to me, my husband said, “Better a free dog than a caged lion.” Men. They could pass their whole lives with old sayings. And yet I knew that my encounter struck deep inside him.

I
t finally happened. A
jinn
has driven Muhammad mad. He was seized in the hills somewhere, inside a cave, they say. Why was he there in the first place? It is well known that
jinns
hole up in caves, and the wind that blows through the blackness is their howling. Even shepherd boys won't chase a lost lamb into a cave without making a cut in their forearm and offering drops of blood to the gods.

A stranger in the street told me what had happened, which meant that the news was spreading fast. I ran to Muhammad's house near the center of town. Who would I meet there? My family is Hashim, and our first instinct would be to gather the clan around any member who's in trouble. But trouble isn't the same as being seized by a demon. That kind of thing is infectious. It was just as likely that I'd run into spies sent by the Qurayshi elders. I wouldn't put it past them to use this as a pretext for seizing control of Muhammad's affairs. Anything to get close to his wife's money.

There were no spies and no Hashim men milling around, though. There was nobody at all. A stray dog was sniffing at the locked gate. I stood there, listening. In a house of women
there's always something going on. Gossip, clattering pots, the clack of a loom. Here, there was nothing. I considered pounding on the gate and shouting for somebody to come. I was quite anxious for him. I would beg his wife to bring in a priest or a worker in spells. I looked around. The houses are pressed close together near the Kaaba, and my shouts would be overheard. Reluctantly I walked away. I wasn't an elder, and feeble as the Hashim have become, it's the elders' business to help or condemn one of their own. Let it never be said that I was the first to move against him by raising an alarm.

I fretted all the way home. Muhammad has strange ways. Everyone knows that, not least his family. I heard that he and some others, including his oldest friend, Abu Bakr, had gathered by night to swear an oath. A secret ceremony? I hate the
hanif,
but to tell you the truth, that sounded promising. My cousin is too sober for his own good. The spice of intrigue wouldn't hurt. Once the oath was made public, I ran to Muhammad in disgust.

“What is this? You've sworn to give to the poor? What the gods won't do, you are going to do instead?”

It was ridiculous. I'm not yet forty, but I agree with the old ones who grumble that this kind of sacrilege will tear society apart. Muhammad listened to me ranting for a few minutes, saying nothing. His silence made me more agitated.

“You think a man's life should be about helping dirty, squalid slaves?” I cried.

“I don't know what a man's life should be about. That's precisely why I help dirty, squalid slaves,” he replied calmly. “Do you have a few you can spare?”

Muhammad became even stranger after his marriage. I, his favorite cousin, no longer could tap at his window to run
off on an adventure. No one ever supposed he would lose his mind. I ached for news that he was all right. Muhammad wouldn't leave his house, but gossip can pass through the tiniest crack in a fortress. Soon servants ran from the house of Abu Bakr to see what my father was willing to pay for scraps of news. They were excited, out of breath. Abu Talib was taking a nap as usual, so I met them. I sat them down and gave out dates and well water. I saw them furtively slip the fruit into their robes rather than eat it.

“Tell me, quick,” I demanded. “If you're spreading scandal, I'll have you whipped.”

The youngest one, a curly-haired Syrian who was good-looking and therefore presentable among people of quality, spoke up. “He was wandering in the hills by himself. Very dangerous. Some people don't never return, and those people had ideas, just like him.”

“What do you know about ideas?” I asked angrily.

The Syrian slave gave me an insolent stare, and my hand itched to take out the leather crop I keep under my robe. But I let him proceed.

“I know about
tahannuf,
” he said. “My master has gone on such a one. He thinks he goes into the hills by himself, but I am sent along to keep guard. Out of sight, you can bet. He wouldn't like it.”

Well, it's no crime to go on
tahannuf
. For as long as we can remember, Arabs have sought solace in the wilderness. The meadows outside Mecca are ideal for this—green and quiet, closer to heaven. As for myself, I help to make sure Mecca stays filthy, if you know what I mean. But the Syrian's master, Abu Bakr, took
tahannuf
every spring, and so did Muhammad. Muhammad's interest in business affairs had steadily waned,
year by year. Even his four daughters found him aloof; he had turned away from our world, vainly hoping to find another.

“What are you telling me? Nothing new,” I said. I reminded this insolent slave of an old saying: “A grateful dog is worth more than an ungrateful man.” To underline the point, I held out a small coin. Despite himself, his eyes widened greedily.

He said, “I'm telling you, great sir, I have seen men kidnapped when they go on such retreats. I've hidden behind rocks and watched their throats get cut and their bodies flung into gullies. Some of them still had money in their purses.”

“They didn't have money for long,” I said dryly. “You can vouch for that, can't you?”

The ambushes couldn't be denied. Who goes on
tahannuf
but the devout? And no one is more devout than these troublemakers who cry out against our sacred ways. Some of them go into the hills to find their God, and we make sure they do. It serves as a warning to the rest. Muhammad had more sense.

“So you were sent in secret to spy on Muhammad?” I asked.

“To protect him, great sir, not to spy.”

“Abu Bakr had reason to fear for his friend's life?”

The Syrian slave bit his tongue; it wasn't his place to divulge his master's intentions. He looked surprised when I put the coin in his palm and closed his hand around it. “You did well,” I murmured. I love Muhammad. Once my father took him in as an orphan, he became my brother. In a tolerant voice I asked the slave to spare no details. He had to tell me what he saw that made Muhammad lose his mind.

“For a long time, he did nothing out of the ordinary,” the slave began. “Master Muhammad liked to walk on the slopes of Mount Hira, because it lies only an hour by foot from the city walls. I got bored following him. It didn't come into my head that he was searching for something, a hideaway, like. One day he found a lonely cave whose mouth was hidden by brush. He cleaned the cave of all the nasty debris and animal skeletons, even washing the floor himself with rags dipped in a stream. He began to take long retreats inside the cave, sometimes from dawn to nightfall. There were times when he had to use the stars to guide his way home. Like I told you, I was bored something terrible. I became restless sitting down below on the hillside with nothing to do but wait for him to leave. What use is there in avoiding other people like that? A rich man should enjoy himself. He should spread his money wherever he can find wine and women.”

The slave thought he was playing to my nature, but I showed no reaction. He went on.

“Master Muhammad's trips to the cave started coming more often. One day I couldn't help myself. I fell asleep in the sun, and when I opened my eyes, Muhammad was standing over me. He smiled a secret smile, but spoke not a word. We two made our way down the mountain together. That didn't stop my master. He insisted I keep watch even if Muhammad had caught on.”

“Listen carefully,” I said. “Did you see any signs?”

“Of madness? No, great sir.”

“Signs of anything unusual?”

I put my question cautiously. It seemed impossible that Muhammad was casting spells or trying to lure
jinns
to help
him with some dark business. He wasn't capable of such things (although I know more than a few who are).

The Syrian thought for a moment before replying. “He had moods. Of that I'm sure.”

“What kind of moods? I thought you hung back, hiding from him?” I queried.

“At first. But once he caught on to me, we kept company. He wanted to talk.” The slave's voice was hesitant. People of quality share their lives with servants. There's no other choice. We're surrounded by them day and night, but there's a barrier between us. The slave would be doing Muhammad no good by saying that he had lowered that barrier.

Do you want proof of how anxious I was? I went into the pantry and brought out the best bread and cold lamb. Without a word I spread the victuals out on the table. The slave watched warily. I tore off a piece of flatbread, wrapped it around a morsel of meat, and handed it to him. I was willing to lower the barrier that far to get more news, but the look in my eyes warned the Syrian not to push me. I knew I should have called the slave by his name, but I forgot to ask. I doubted that I would ever see him again.

“It's dry,” he mumbled as he chewed. The cheeky bastard wanted me to bring out some wine. I ignored him. When he had swallowed, I told him to finish his story.

He said, “Muhammad and me talked almost every day coming down the mountain. He liked to ask me questions.”

I couldn't hide my surprise. “What kind of questions?”

“It depended on his mood. That's what I'm trying to tell you.” The slave eyed the lamb. I gave a curt nod, and he took another chunk, holding it in his fist until he satisfied what I wanted to know. “One day we saw a dead kid goat in a ditch.
It had fallen in and broken its leg. The dogs got to it before anyone heard it. Muhammad stood a long time staring at the gnawed carcass. ‘Where is that goat now?' he muttered. I assumed he was talking to himself, so I didn't respond. He looked over at me and said, ‘I lost two sons before they even knew they had a father. I lost my father before he knew he had a son. Where are they now?'

“I was nervous, but I spoke up. ‘Wherever they were,' I said, ‘it was different from where dead goats go.' He laughed and said, ‘A good answer, but it wriggles out of the question.' After that he was quiet all the rest of the way home.”

I held up my hand for him to stop talking. I needed a moment to think. Muhammad never mourned his lost sons properly before the gods. Word started going around that he was a secret unbeliever. Because the Hashim clan was too weak, Abu Talib, my father, couldn't send anyone out to punish those who talked against Muhammad. We had to swallow our pride and take it. But if this Syrian was to be believed, the thought of those two dead babies preyed on him.
Jinns
sniff out weakness of mind; they know how to twist the knot of self-torment inside a man.

“Did he talk about his dead sons again?” I asked. The slave shook his head. “Did he ever bring his new son to the cave?” The slave shook his head again.

This new son was another piece of strange business. Muhammad is forty this year, but his wife, who is fifteen years older, cannot give him more children. He gave no sign that this was a grief for him. Then one day he came home and said, “I want you to buy me a son.”

Khadijah was all but speechless. “Who?” she asked, keeping her wits about her.

Muhammad explained that he was wandering through the bazaar when his eyes fell upon a young boy being sold as a slave. A raiding party had just returned to town, with captives taken on the trading routes. These raiders have only one thought in mind, to grab their prey and get away without being killed. They never think to take care of their prizes, so that they can be fit to be sold. Like the others, this boy was starving and gaunt. His eyes were sunken, but when Muhammad stared at him, the boy stared back defiantly. As if he had any power to do anything. But Muhammad was impressed, and he thought of the future.

A woman of Khadijah's age doesn't usually want to discuss what might happen in the future. She agreed to buy the boy for Muhammad. When he was brought to the house, she was just as impressed by him as her husband was. They changed his name from “Zayd, son of who knows what” to “Zayd, son of Muhammad.” So now the wealth of a lifetime may be passed on to a foreign captive. One day I may have to fight him for my share.

The Syrian was waiting impatiently for my next question. The only one left was the obvious. “What happened to drive Muhammad mad?”

“
Jinns,
” said the slave quickly.

I frowned. “Don't repeat what everyone else is saying. You were there. What did you see?”

The slave trusted me enough to tell the truth. “I saw a man running away from something he can never understand. We were on the mountain, but Master Muhammad didn't come out of the cave at sunset. I didn't know what to do. He has stayed all night before, when it's warm enough. I could run home and sleep in a warm bed, then go back at dawn, and nobody would be the wiser. But I stayed. Ramadan is a
strange month, they say. I didn't know what might happen. So I wrapped myself on the ground and tried to sleep. The next thing I knew, Master Muhammad stepped right over me. His heel brushed my shoulder, and I looked up to see him. He was as white as the dead. He acted as if he didn't see me lying there, but just kept walking, at a fast pace. Like I said, he was running from something. I gathered myself and ran after him. He didn't look like a man who was in this world. No matter how loud I called, he wouldn't look back or answer me. We went like that until we got to town. Muhammad stopped in his tracks and stared at the sky. He wasn't staring like some ordinary lunatic, but as if he expected someone to fly down. If we had been inside the walls, people would have gawked, I can tell you. Then he shuddered so hard I could see his body quiver under his thick robes. A few minutes later we went through the gates, and I followed him home until he shut himself up inside.”

So, there you are. The worse had come to the worst. I turned my face away. I didn't want the slave to get the satisfaction of seeing the effect his tale had on me. With a wave of the hand I signaled for him to leave. He and the other slaves wasted no time bolting out the door. Abu Bakr would surmise that his trusted Syrian was selling information. I sighed. Tomorrow he would find another rich house and another one willing to fling some coins at him. Muhammad's reputation was dashed. Our enemies were already laughing with glee.