Here’s a joke about being hated. A woman gives birth, and the midwife comes out to greet the father, who is nervously pacing up and down. “Good news,” she says. “It’s a baby boy, and he’s healthy.”
But the father still looks worried. “You’re sure he’s normal?” he asks.
The midwife nods. “He has ten fingers and ten toes. He has a wagging little penis. Oh yes, and he hates the Jews.”
The first Muslim I met laughed when I told him that joke. He was a servant to Abu Bakr, who fled here with Muhammad. Affairs had gone from bad to worse in Mecca. Hatred simmered for twelve years after Muhammad met the angel. Abu Bakr built a special structure for prayer outside his house, what they call a mosque. It was obvious no one wanted Muslims defiling the shrines where they kept their idols. This mosque was just four walls open to the sky, where Abu Bakr knelt before God five times a day. That’s what Muhammad told them to do. The walls were low, and anyone could look over to see what was happening; the sound of Abu Bakr’s devotions filled the street. The elders of the tribe took this as a deliberate provocation.
Muhammad’s enemies muttered that no amount of money was enough to keep him from being punished. Muhammad had already proven that the old idols couldn’t harm him or his followers. And yet these enemies were right about money not being enough.
Abu Bakr owed his life to a sworn protector who kept the tribe at bay. This protector, Ad-Dughunnah, came one morning and pleaded with Abu Bakr to go inside his house to pray. Instead of relenting, Abu Bakr gave him a hard stare and said, “I release you from your oath. The protection of Allah is all I need.”
The hate soon boiled over. The clans of the tribe hatched a plot to get rid of Muhammad without starting warfare in the city. Each clan agreed to pick one strong young man who could wield a knife. As a group, the chosen assassins would set upon Muhammad, each striking him with his dagger. In that way, blame would be equal among all the clans in the tribe of Quraysh. Blood money would be paid to absolve the crime. The new religion would fade away like a parched rose whose water has been stolen. As everyone knew, Muhammad was the water of Islam.
A Muslim merchant was telling me the story, and I stopped him. “Weren’t they his own people, the ones who wanted to kill him?”
“He has no people who stand outside God,” the man replied.
The appointed night for the assassination arrived. The band of killers stood by the gate of Muhammad’s house, holding vigil until he came out for his morning walk at sunrise. They failed to conceal themselves well enough, and inside Muhammad and his devoted young cousin Ali became aware of their presence and the looming danger.
Muhammad and Ali had little time to spare. Muhammad quickly devised an inspired plan. He took a nomad’s cloak of green wool that people frequently saw him in. He wrapped Ali in it and told him to lie on his bed disguised as the Prophet.
Ali was reluctant, because he would be leaving Muhammad defenseless. Eventually he was persuaded to obey. Left alone, Muhammad began to recite a verse given to him in a revelation. When he came to the words “I have enshrouded them, so they cannot see,” he understood what God wanted. Wrapping himself in a plain cloak, he departed from his house, walking past his assassins without any of them seeing him.
A few streets away he met an acquaintance, who nodded and passed. But the acquaintance was privy to the plot, and he rushed to Muhammad’s house and exclaimed that he had just seen him on the street. The band of assassins swore that no one could have gotten past them during the night. To prove it, they sneaked up to the window of Muhammad’s bedroom, where he lay asleep, wrapped in his favorite green cloak. The deception was revealed only at dawn when Ali emerged from the house and announced that his cousin had escaped.
Muhammad had made his way to Abu Bakr’s. There would be no choice but to flee. Muhammad had received a message warning him of imminent danger. God’s will was clear. To stay meant death for all.
With several packed camels, Muhammad and Abu Bakr left Mecca with a small party in haste. They spent three days in a mountain cave outside the city. Ali was left behind to settle Muhammad’s business affairs. When he was absolutely convinced that God wanted him to go, Muhammad agreed to cross the desert to his new home in the north.
After I heard this tale, curiosity got the better of me. One afternoon when I saw that he was particularly relaxed and in good humor, I asked Muhammad, “Do you always trust your messages?”
“It is Allah who trusts me,” he said.
“But he sent you into the wilderness. Is that a sign of love? Why didn’t he just kill your enemies?”
Muhammad gave me a look. He knows more about the Jews than you can imagine, and the look said, You’re speaking about yourself. He waited a moment as if deciding what he could tell me.
“I had a wife who believed in me when no one else did,” he said gravely. “She heard every word from God and accepted it, to the point that where I ended she began and where she ended I began. Our faith was a second marriage. Her name was Khadijah. One day she was coming to my room with a bowl of soup in her hands. At that moment, just as I heard her footsteps, God spoke to me about her. She came into the room and I said, ‘My dear, the Lord tells me that you are blessed. A place awaits you in the Garden, where there is no weariness and only quiet.’ She didn’t smile, but only gazed at me. We shared the same thought: this is Allah’s way of gently foretelling her death.”
Sorrow came into Muhammad’s eyes. I was touched that he would confide in me, and I had the urge to embrace and comfort him. But the next moment his body stiffened. He said, “Because God tells me the secrets of life and death does not mean that I am the master of life and death. These are great mysteries. By God’s mercy I am closer to them than ordinary men. That is just as much a cause for grief as joy.”
He never confided in me again, yet I had the strongest feeling that he understood the Jews, because that’s how God commands us to live: close to the mystery, but never solving it. Our sorrow and our joy are entwined. Later I heard that Khadijah died soon after that message. It was three years before the Muslims fled Mecca. They call that year Muhammad’s year of grief, because his old uncle, Abu Talib, died around the same time. He never converted to Islam, but he blessed Muhammad. They tell me he was hounded on his deathbed by relatives who wanted Abu Talib to give orders against the new faith. He always refused.
One thing I’ll grant these Muslims. They pray quietly. They purify themselves and recite the verses taught to them by Muhammad. And they’re not lawyers. Before the Muslims arrived, my whole life was lawyers in the rabbis’ court. I sat cross-legged in court with my writing table on my lap, scribbling down endless arguments. The judges nodded on the bench, swatting flies that buzzed around plates of sweetmeats. Plaintiffs supplied judges with sweets to keep them in good temper. The lawyers thought they were wiser than the Torah. Them and their niggling minds. One stingy bastard docked me an hour’s pay, because he said I smudged a line.
“You smudge the truth, and they pay you more,” I pointed out.
He bellowed and kicked me out of court. After that, it was harder to get work with the rabbis, which is why I snatched the job offered by the Muslims. Yathrib has its share of Jews, and too many of us can write.
“You will not take down the Prophet’s holy words,” they said. “We have our own scribes for that. Your job is to follow legal proceedings, disputes, and daily affairs. When the Prophet renders a judgment, record every word. If he gives advice on any subject, record every word. This is important. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I wanted the job, didn’t I? A few Muslims had been trickling into Yathrib for several years, but nobody really noticed them. They made a tiny solemn group when Muhammad entered the gates at sunset. A few Jews invited them to take refuge here. In Arabia, if you worship one God, you want allies. Now that Muhammad is among them, his people don’t just feel safe; they feel that God has shown them the way. They’ve even proclaimed that Yathrib should have a new nam
e: Medinat al-Nabi, “the city of the Prophet.” If they’re in a hurry, they just say Medina.
“Christians also write, perhaps more than the Jews,” said Muhammad. Because it was hot, I wasn’t writing, as I told you. When I was, he enjoyed watching me, with a look almost of wonder on his face. For a moment he wasn’t fifty-two with a gray beard, but a child again.
“Christians had to write to survive,” I said.
“Why is that?”
“Because the Romans hated their prophet, Jesus, and they would have killed the lot,” I said. “Luckily for them, the rich Romans were lazy. Many didn’t bother to learn to read and write.”
I caught myself, realizing that Muhammad might take offense. “I don’t mean you, sir. You’re not lazy. You work yourself half to death.” He smiled, which was rather incredible. Any other rich man in Medina would have given me a swift kick for my insolence.
I went on. “The first Christians were commanded to read their scriptures. They didn’t leave it to priests. After a while, so many could read and write that they became useful as scribes. The Romans hired them in the provinces. Time passed, and whenever a new emperor got it into his head to persecute the Christians, his governors would say, ‘You can’t. Tax collecting will fall apart without our filthy little Christians.’ In a few centuries the whole empire became Christian.” The irony pleased me.
Muhammad was intrigued. “First they persecute you. Then they need you. In the end, they convert to your religion.”
He repeated this to himself several times that day. Later on, I figured out why. No one in power needs the Muslims, not yet. There are not many of them, not enough to form a decent armed tribe. He’s worried about how they’ll survive. God commanded him to spread the good news, like Jesus, but how?
The Muslims told me that in Mecca Muhammad would sit near the town well every morning teaching his followers. If a servant came by, he could sit and listen along with everyone else. Even a slave could sit and learn.
The high-born people didn’t like this, but they wouldn’t draw near, because you don’t talk to a respectable man with slaves hanging about. Finally one of the elders came to Muhammad, saying, “I wish to have words with you, brother. Send the slaves away.”
Muhammad nodded as if he consented, but suddenly he couldn’t speak, and his face broke out in a sweat. Receiving no answer, the elder stormed off. A little after that, a new message came to Muhammad: “Do not drive the believers away or you will be among the evildoers.” So he had no choice. He had to save every idol worshiper in Mecca, rich or poor. The task seemed impossible. When Muhammad went to the fat elders of his tribe, they ridiculed the notion that one of their own was chosen by God. When he went among the poor, they were too easy to convince. They would hope for favors and money from a wealthy merchant who suddenly paid attention to them.
“Did he find an answer?” I asked one of the Muslims.
The man shrugged. “Would we be here if he had?”
I meet Jews who are suspicious of the newcomers. I tell them that Muhammad is like Moses leading his lost children, but they mock, “And Yathrib is their promised land? Where’s the milk and honey? They should keep moving.”
I went to Muhammad and asked him if this was their promised land.
“That’s not my concern,” he replied. “God can find his own anywhere on earth. There’s something more important.” He pointed to a pile of scrolls on the floor. “This is God’s book. It has been growing for twelve years now. Nothing is more precious. You are people of the Book, so you understand.”
I drew back. If I said yes, I understand, would that make me a bad Jew? Is it a sin for me to work for a Muslim whose book isn’t mine? I hear the whispering in my mind, and to the people of the Torah this is what I say. If the messiah comes tomorrow and drives the Gentiles into the sea, maybe he will turn to me and say, “Eli, dear boy, sit at my right hand. I will be busy rebuilding the Temple of David. You take care of business while I’m away.” Then I would rule the world and nobody’s God would be before mine.
But there is no messiah, no Temple, no way around the Gentiles. I must wander like Joseph among the unbelievers, only I don’t weep. I adapt. And if these Muslims have found their own Elijah or even Moses, why should I kick the cow that gives me milk? My job is to write, not to judge. I’ve never seen Muhammad when he gets his messages, which keep coming, they say. New scrolls appear around him. Some days I’m not allowed in the door. Other days I see him begin to change. His eyes roll upward; he trembles slightly, like a sparrow you hold in your hand. At the first sign I’m driven out of the room.
One thing I do know. Muhammad hands down their laws, just like a Moses. So if a prophet says, “God told me this,” and his followers say, “We believe you,” how can anyone disprove it? When I am safely behind my own door I can light candles remembering the Maccabees, who died as heroes defending the Jews, and I can curse our enemies. There’s time enough for that. Always time enough for that.
Muhammad hasn’t passed fifty without gaining some canniness, and he saw these warring thoughts in my mind. One day he told me to put down my writing tablet. “Look in my eyes,” he said. “Do you see a fraud and a liar?”
I was too startled to reply.
“If you don’t see a fraud and a liar,” he said, “then I am telling the truth. God has made me His messenger.”
I was embarrassed and mumbled something, I can’t remember what.
Muhammad became stern. “Don’t risk your soul. God commands me to save the Jews. He wants me to save the world.”
Muhammad paused, and for a moment I was afraid he wanted me to make a choice, then and there. But he looked away instead and continued.
“For three years I couldn’t even tell my uncles and cousins. Do you know what anxiety I felt? To know from God’s mouth that all sinners are damned. He sees everything. He marks every deed we do on earth, and at the last day the damned will testify against themselves out of their own mouths. Can that day be far off?”
My heart was pounding. There was steel in his voice as he spoke, but not the steel of a madman. Muhammad got his strength from something outside his body. A force like lightning that can turn a soul to ashes or forge it in flames.
I stammered, “Don’t ask me to believe. But I can see. You survived the fire.”
He looked surprised. “Do you see that? Because it’s true.”
I lie awake wondering if the world will come to an end before the next sunrise. My mind still goes back to my childhood when I waited for the bird-catchers. Sometimes a bird would die suddenly. Maybe they gave it the wrong food, or maybe it had a broken heart from being separated from its mate. The bird-man would pluck the feathers of a dead bird and weave a fantastic cap for himself, glittering with every hue, more than a rainbow. You could hardly tell the catcher from the catch.
I hope Muhammad gets to see the birds in Paradise, as God has promised. And I hope I’m not left out when that day comes.
15
FATIMAH, MUHAMMAD’S YOUNGEST DAUGHTER
The faithful are readying for war. The night I found out, I had a nightmare. A pack of hyenas brought down a lion, and they started to gnaw at its carcass while it was still alive. The hyenas laughed as they pulled out the victim’s entrails; the lion roared with defiance as it died. I woke up trembling and uttered one word: Father.
I must have shouted without knowing, because Ali, sleeping beside me, rolled over and mumbled. I held very still until he fell asleep again.
Is this coming war a test from God?
The summer caravans leaving Mecca all travel by Medina on their way to Syria. They are Qurayshi caravans, most of them, and the grandest have a thousand camels. From a height it must look like a trail of ants creeping from horizon to horizon. Most of our Muslims are poor. A few farm on the tiny plots of land they are begrudged. Many others try to trade, but struggle in a foreign city where no tribe is their own.
Hauling a small cart of crops to market with limited p
rospects for the week, a hungry Muslim is passed on the road by camels loaded with silk, jewels, and spices. The temptation to raid is great.
When the raids first began, they were no different from the custom of poor Arabs trimming some extra fat from the rich. The caravans were disrupted for an hour and moved on. Ali was amused. “Half the time they can’t find the caravans and come home empty-handed. The desert needs to be smaller.”
It was sport, a game. The nomads have been playing it since the time of our ancestors. If captives are taken, they can be ransomed. In the meantime, captives and captors sit around the same campfire and sing songs. One never hears of killings, because then a blood feud would erupt, and that means trouble on both sides.
Now everything has changed. It started when one of our real fighters, Abdullah ibn Jahsh, went south on the trail close to Mecca, risking greater danger. His raiding party found a small caravan camped in a palm grove. Three timid merchants guarded a few scrawny camels. When Abdullah’s band descended on them, the first arrow from Abdullah’s bow pierced a merchant in the heart. The shot was intentional. Shocked, the other two fell to the ground in surrender. They were marched to Medina, and Ali’s amusement changed. The mob didn’t greet Abdullah as a hero, but as a violator of the peace.
“Look at the rabble.” Ali pointed out the window at the grumbling people in the street, Jews and Arabs who had once welcomed us. They were disturbed and angry. Sport had gone too far. Rumors spread like wildfire that Abdullah had defiled the holy month of Rajab, when no fighting is permitted. His attack was unholy, and many thought that he had the blessing of Muhammad to commit violence. Confidence in the Prophet was badly shaken.
“It’s not our holy month,” Ali argued. “It belongs to the idol worshipers. How can we be bound by our enemy’s customs?” Ali fumed when word came that a few poets in the marketplace were making up songs ridiculing the Prophet.
We had been married only a year. The whole time I hid my face from the raids and never asked if Ali was part of them. Then he brought me the news. A message had come to Father from Allah: “It is permitted to fight.” The message was longer than that. It spoke of those who had unjustly been persecuted for worshiping one God and driven from their birthplace. God was favorable to Abdullah’s raid. A lesser crime by a Muslim was forgiven when the weak were oppressed, because that is a greater crime before God. But all I heard was the phrase that changed our lives. It is permitted to fight. Ali’s excitement matched my fear.
Muhammad Page 15