The Jewel Of Medina

by Jones, Sherry

  He touched his hands to my shoulders, making me shiver, then slid his palms down my arms. I stood as if in a trance, looking up into his handsome face, listening to the words of love I had longed for so many months to hear from Muhammad.

  “He has so many other wives,” Safwan murmured. “How long will he miss you? Yet, with you as my bride, I’d never look at another woman. You would be my world. You are my world.”

  His face drew nearer to mine. His breathing was slow and deep. His hair fell forward like water against my hands, and I buried my fingers in its softness.

  “A’isha.”

  His lips pressed against mine. His hands kneaded my arms. He kissed me again, coaxing my lips apart. I felt my body leap to life like an animal released from its cage. I collapsed against him and returned his kiss as the wind swirled around us. “Habibati,” he murmured—but then the image of Muhammad’s face appeared before me.

  Shame burned the backs of my eyes, flooded my skin like a fever. No one but Muhammad had ever called me “beloved.” I pushed Safwan away, fled around the tent and into the stinging sand, and lurched into the mosque—where Ali stood in the doorway, watching me like the Evil Eye.

  “What were you doing out in the storm?” he demanded.

  “I went to the cooking tent where I could dine in peace,” I said.

  His lips twitched as if he suppressed a laugh. “Tell me, A’isha, on what did you feast tonight? Or should I ask whom?” Safwan slipped past us, his turban set neatly on his head. Ali stretched his neck to watch him duck into the crowd, and I fled to my apartment.

  On the way I bumped into Umar, who scowled at me. “Your cousin Talha bragged tonight that he would marry you after Muhammad dies. Why would he say this unless you had encouraged him?”

  I started. Talha, my future husband? It had never occurred to me. “I expect Muhammad to live for many years,” I said coolly.

  “I saw you touch Talha’s hand when you poured his water,” Umar said.

  “That was an accident!” I cried, losing my temper.

  “The way you women behave, it is no wonder the umma crawls with rumors about the Prophet.”

  I turned and walked away from him, holding my head high. Hafsa stood near my apartment door, her eyes wide. “Yaa A’isha, what did my father say to upset you?”

  “He accused me of flirting with Talha.”

  “From what I saw, he suspects the wrong man.”

  I felt myself blush. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She poked me with her forefinger. “I saw you and Safwan leave the mosque together. Take care with him, A’isha. He’s not a child anymore.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed.” I smirked, belying the crazed thumping in my breast. “But I think Umar is the one to worry about. Why is he suspicious of me?”

  “He suspects every woman. Why do you think I was so eager to marry—both times? In his house, if a woman glances at the mirror she’s plotting evil. He’s upset about the scandal this wedding has caused. And he blames Zaynab, of course.”

  “Why shouldn’t he? She seduced Muhammad.”

  “By al-Lah, are you agreeing with my father?” Hafsa pretended to swoon, then lowered her voice. “But you speak truly: My father is the one to beware. I heard him tell Ali today that the Prophet’s wives should all be sequestered, to avoid more gossip.”

  “God forbid that from happening. We would kill one another if we had to stay indoors together all the time.” Suddenly, the crowded mosque seemed too warm and close, as if the walls had shifted inward.

  “Who’s afraid of Umar? Not me,” I said, wiping my damp palms on my robe.

  “I am afraid of my father, and you should be, too,” Hafsa said. “He knows how to command the Prophet’s attention. And he can be very convincing.”

  Although I shrugged and scoffed, the idea that we might be confined to the mosque sent fear racing through my limbs, reviving memories of how I had stood at my bedroom window and watched life march by like a caravan redolent of spices. Yet I couldn’t believe Muhammad would agree to such drastic measures. Hadn’t he given women more rights? Before islam, women were as chattel. Now we could inherit property, testify in hearings, and write provisions for divorce into our wedding contracts. Hadn’t those rights come at al-Lah’s behest? Muhammad’s revelations proved that God valued women, also.

  Yet it wasn’t fear of imprisonment that made me pace the floor of my apartment that night. My mouth still burned, enflamed by Safwan’s kiss. His seductions pricked my longings like blowing sands. Come away with me. Tonight. As if I’d leave the Holy Prophet of God for a mere warrior, no matter how persuasive! Yet Safwan offered something Muhammad could not: True freedom, to ride in the wind, to fight as a warrior, to choose for myself how to live.

  Hadn’t Safwan once held me rapt with his daring plots? He was only a warrior, true, but he was far from ordinary. Life with him would never be dull. We’d have adventures together every day. He wouldn’t spend all his time with other wives. You’d be my whole world. If only Muhammad would make that promise!

  I heard a knock on my door, the one leading into the mosque, and I felt my pulse flutter in my throat. Safwan wouldn’t dare come to my room—would he? With a trembling hand I opened it, but it was only Muhammad, come to complain about his wedding guests.

  “They finished their meals long ago, yet three men remain, arguing among themselves about the history of our incest laws,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I’ll bet Zaynab wishes she could disappear,” I said with a smirk.

  “She is enduring,” Muhammad said. “She sits with her face to the wall, hoping the men will realize how badly they are behaving and depart. So far, they notice nothing.”

  As he spoke, he paced also, stomping up dust. I felt the urge to hold him in my arms—until I remembered why he was upset.

  “Why not ask the men to leave?” I said. But I knew Muhammad would never do it for fear of offending his guests—or, worse, having them guess how eager he was to be alone with his new bride.

  Another knock on my door. I cracked it open and peered out, holding my breath, praying it wasn’t Safwan. To my relief I greeted a man about my height with round, anxious eyes and a mustache as stiff as if it had been dipped in candle wax.

  “Good news for the Prophet,” he said.

  Inside my apartment, the messenger bowed and, in a high, quavering voice, told Muhammad that his guests had departed at last.

  “Yaa Prophet, your beautiful new bride awaits you in her chamber.” His eyes shone as if he were about to enter Zaynab’s bed.

  Muhammad’s smile was so bright it brought tears to my eyes. He excused himself and hurried out into the courtyard with his visitor on his heels while I stood in the doorway, watching, my heart in my throat. The wind had ceased, and the night was chilly. The crescent moon gleamed like a dagger over Zaynab’s hut. Muhammad looked over his shoulder, saw the man following him, and stopped suddenly. A titter flew from the little man when Muhammad whirled around to face him, his eyes snapping.

  “Yaa Anas, I thought you said all the guests had departed.”

  “They have. Abu Ramzi, Abu Shams, and Abu Mahmud walked out together. They asked me to say good-bye to you.”

  “And you, Anas? Are you planning to spend the night with me and my new bride?”

  The little man tittered again. “I am afraid I would be in the way. But if there is anything you desire …” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  A gust of wind blew through the courtyard and knocked Anas’s turban to the grass. He scurried after it, shouting. Muhammad slumped to the ground, shaking, and his eyes rolled like loose stones. I screamed and ran to him, having seen him like this before.

  A door slammed and Hafsa raced toward us in her nightgown, her hair falling into her eyes. Together we helped Muhammad lay his head in my lap. He smelled of almonds and miswak. Sweat beaded his brow. His mouth moved as he tossed his head from side to side.

  Umm Salama floate
d over in white like a pale cloud, one hand holding her wrapper tight around her face. She knelt down to hold Muhammad’s limp hand. “Is he ill?”

  “He’s having a revelation,” I whispered.

  Anas dropped to his knees beside us. “I never meant to cause him harm, I swear it by al-Lah!”

  Muhammad’s trembling stopped, and the wind settled about our shoulders like a sigh. With a corner of my robe I dabbed the moisture from his brow. He opened his eyes, took in our hovering faces, and slowly pushed himself up.

  “Are you still here?” he said to Anas. “Good. Then you can bear witness to al-Lah’s pronouncement.”

  With our help he stood and then, with his eyes closed, spoke words I could have lived the rest of my life without hearing—words that changed everything for me, for all of us in the harim, forever.

  He said: “Do not enter the Prophet’s home unless you are invited, and leave as soon as you finish your meal.”

  He said: “When you ask his wives for something, ask them from behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts.”

  And: “It is not for you to cause injury to the Messenger of al-Lah, or ever marry his widows after him. To do that would be something dreadful in the sight of God.”

  When he had finished, he turned and walked into Zaynab’s apartment, closing the door behind him. Anas hopped from foot to foot, repeating Muhammad’s words. I sat on the dry courtyard sand, clutching handfuls of it, and flinging it down. Ask them from behind a curtain. What did it mean? Would we in the harim need to carry curtains around with us everywhere?

  Silence fell like a shroud on the courtyard as we sister-wives turned fearful eyes on one another.

  “It looks as if we’ll be spending a lot of time at home,” Hafsa finally said, her voice cracking.

  “All our time,” Umm Salama agreed. She held herself as erect as ever, but I could see her hand tremble as she dabbed a tear from her eye. “How else are we to hide ourselves from view?”

  “My father must have convinced Muhammad, after all,” Hafsa said.

  I puzzled over Muhammad’s words as I walked back to my hut. Would I really be kept in the mosque, confined and hidden like a bird in a covered cage? I would rather die than face imprisonment for the rest of my life. Would my visits to the tent city be forbidden? I gasped for air, feeling as if a pillow covered my face.

  In my hut I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Not allowed to marry after his death? Even God’s Prophet couldn’t live forever; he had told me so himself. Soon he would be sixty, and his remaining years would be as fingers on my hands. I would be a very young widow. Would I remain so for the rest of my life, never allowed to remarry, as lonely as the moon in a starless sky?

  Come away with me, Safwan had said. We’ll ride away together, and never look back. At the time, I’d thought he was possessed by a djinni. Now, though, Safwan appeared as an angel of mercy, sent to me from al-Lah Himself.

  THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

  THE RED SEA, JANUARY 627

  FOURTEEN YEARS OLD

  For three days after Muhammad’s wedding-night revelation, my sister-wives talked endlessly about what his words might mean. Despair weighted me like a wet cloak as I listened to them agree that we’d all be confined to the mosque. In my room I prayed that, if I were to be imprisoned again, al-Lah would take me soon. I would rather roam free in Paradise than spend the rest of my life inside these walls.

  Yet when Muhammad emerged from his time with Zaynab, he surprised us. The “curtain” he’d commanded for us was not a prison door, after all.

  “Ibn Ubayy says he harasses you because he mistakes you for common slaves,” he told us in the courtyard. “You must set yourselves apart by covering your faces. Then he will not be able to make such a claim.”

  Relief washed over me like a cool breeze, to hear that I wouldn’t face another purdah. But then Muhammad described how we were to cover ourselves: From head to toe, every inch, except for a single eye.

  “And so Ibn Ubayy and his Hypocrites are victorious,” I said. Muhammad gave me a sharp look, but I was too indignant to care.

  “Have you ever tried to move about with only one eye exposed?” I pulled my wrapper over my face and began to walk. A few steps later, I misjudged the location of the date-palm tree and kicked it with my bare foot. I released my wrapper to grab my throbbing toe, as my sister-wives watched in grim silence.

  “Yaa Prophet of God, see what a time I’m having,” I said with a wry grin. “Three steps, and I’ve already broken your rule.”

  Muhammad frowned. “This difficulty is not my intention,” he said. “I will think more about this new requirement.”

  That evening, he and Umar discussed the hijab in my room—while I hid myself behind a screen, as now mandated.

  “A woman’s eyes are her most enticing feature,” Umar said. “Even your wives know how to use them for seduction. Covering one eye is the only true way to avoid scandal.”

  His words rankled me, but I said nothing. How could I argue? I’d used my eyes with Safwan—not to seduce him, but to test my charms. And now, as Umar might have predicted, I fantasized about riding through the desert with Safwan, free from all the cares of the harim.

  Yet I mourned privately about not being able to fight. I’d dreamt for so long of becoming a warrior and now, so close to my fifteenth birthday, alLah had taken the privilege away. When I complained in the harim, though, I found little sympathy.

  “Yaa A’isha, these new rules benefit the umma,” Fatima said, sitting with Zaynab and Umm Salama in their own corner of the tent. “How can my father build his empire and worry about you at the same time? It would be best if you remained at home.”

  “Not everyone benefits.” Zaynab smirked. “Poor Safwan ibn al-Mu’attal will be bereft of her company.”

  “What you need is a child, A’isha.” Fatima patted the baby boy she held to her breast. “Then you would be too busy to complain.” My heart squeezed like a fist, but I rolled my eyes as if her words were ridiculous.

  Sawdah clucked her tongue. “Yaa Fatima, mocking a woman for not having a child while you nurse your own baby? It would break the Prophet’s heart to hear it.”

  “It breaks my heart, also.” Hafsa looked askance at Fatima. “I have been in Muhammad’s household nearly as long as A’isha, and I haven’t given him a child, either.”

  Zaynab preened the dark curls wisping around her face and throat. “Two barren wives? That’s more than a coincidence.”

  Hafsa’s face reddened as if she’d been too long in the heat. “Are you implying that the Prophet isn’t intimate with us? By al-Lah, I’ll bring you my bed sheet after his next night with me, if you need evidence.”

  “As for me, I have nothing to prove,” I shot back, my cheeks burning. “Especially to a woman who would seduce her husband’s father.”

  “I desire no proof of anything.” A smile hovered at the corners of Zaynab’s mouth. “I know very well what a lusty man Muhammad is. But I do find it strange that, after several years with him, neither of you has conceived a child. Could it be the work of al-Lah? Perhaps He is waiting to sow Muhammad’s seed in a more desirable garden.” She patted her stomach.

  I wanted to grab my sword and hack the laugh off her tongue. Umm Salama merely showed her tiny, secretive smile, as elusive as a shadow, but Zaynab tossed her hair and crowed like a raven. Around her neck she wore a beautiful topaz pendant, which set off her golden eyes. Muhammad now gave each new wife a necklace, courtesy of Abu Ramzi, the jeweler, who made them free of charge. I still wore the agate necklace my father had given me on my wedding day, yet I longed for a gift from my husband, something to mark me as his own. Even more, though, I yearned to be free of the harim and the taunts and sneers of Zaynab, Umm Salama, and their new friend Fatima.

  My wish came true a few days later, when I was chosen to join Muhammad on an expedition. A man had tried to assassinate Muhammad but his hurled dagger had missed its mark, praise al-La
h! With Ali’s twin-pointed sword aimed at both his eyes, the attacker confessed: Abu Sufyan of the Qurayshi bribed my chief to kill your Prophet. He came from the Mustaliq, a prominent Red Sea tribe. If they find out I have failed, two thousand of my tribesmen are prepared to invade your city. They wait at the Well of Muraysi.

  “We must surprise them and attack first,” Ali had urged, and for once Muhammad agreed with him.

  As the troops readied for battle, Umar railed against Muhammad’s tradition of bringing wives with him to battle. Thank al-Lah, he didn’t prevail. Muhammad enjoyed women’s company more than men’s, and he didn’t like to sleep alone. In appeasement, he agreed to bring only one wife. Ever concerned with fairness, he drew date-palm stems to determine which of us would join him—and, to my relief, I was the winner.

  Yet, in another concession to Umar, I was forbidden to carry my sword. Umm ‘Umara would be fighting in full battle regalia, I pointed out. Muhammad ruffled my hair as though I were a child. “Umm ‘Umara is not my wife,” he said. “And you would have difficulty fighting with your face covered.”

  On the evening of our departure, I faced another unpleasant consequence of the new rules: the hawdaj Umar had devised for me to travel in. It consisted of a seat resting on a pair of long wooden poles, surrounded by curtains. I pushed them aside and called out to Muhammad as he inspected the caravan.

  “This hawdaj is uncomfortable,” I said when he came over. “I’d rather ride my horse, or on a camel with you.”

  “You will be fine, Little Red. Princesses ride this way in India,” Muhammad said. So I perched in my box on the ground and gripped the bars as servants tipped and teetered me onto the back of my camel. When the camel lurched to standing I held on, terrified, certain I’d topple over.

  After a while I became accustomed to the swaying of the hawdaj and forgot about falling. Then my thoughts returned to Fatima’s words, and Zaynab’s laugh, and Umm Salama’s sly half-smile. What a disaster it would be if they discovered my marriage had never been consummated! They would knock me down to the lowest position in the harim. I would be made their servant. Even Sawdah wouldn’t be able to help me.