It should have been so easy. Hadn’t we both loved Muhammad nearly all our lives? And weren’t we fairly close in age? Those two traits alone might have made us friends. But Fatima was the youngest of Muhammad’s daughters, his baby, as beloved by her father as I was by mine. She’d been glad to see her sisters marry and move into their husbands’ households, leaving Muhammad for her alone. Yet he never did belong completely to Fatima, because, when I became his betrothed at age six, I took possession of a tiny piece of his heart—a piece that grew with each of his daily visits to me. When I married him, at nine, his eyes welled with love. By the time I moved into his home, when I was nearly twelve, he’d lost his heart to me completely. Meanwhile, Fatima found herself shunted off to Muhammad’s temperamental cousin, Ali.
It was no wonder that she’d been jealous. Yet, as I listened to al-Abbas say the prayers over her body—normally the khalifa’s duty, but Ali had refused to let my father—I couldn’t help chastising myself. Why hadn’t I tried to befriend Fatima?
In fact, I’d been jealous, also. Love is not a dish of tharid, Muhammad had told me once—meaning I didn’t need to be greedy because the human capacity for love is limitless. Muhammad had enough love for me and eleven sister-wives, as well as an entire umma. His affection for Fatima had never diluted his devotion to me. Yet I’d behaved as wickedly as she, cutting her with my tongue, clinging to Muhammad whenever she visited, and, worst of all, supporting my father’s decision not to grant her inheritance to her.
We do not have heirs. Whatever we leave is alms. Try as I might, I couldn’t recall hearing Muhammad say these words, although abi insisted he had. Why had I gone along with my father’s tale? If I’d argued with him or urged him to compromise, abi might have given Fatima some portion of the Khaybar lands, at least.
I remembered how Fatima seemed to shrink in the mosque that day until she resembled a tiny, squeaking mouse. I’d felt a stab of satisfaction at the sight of her so diminished, but now my face burned at the memory, and I realized that I was the one who’d been small.
How ridiculous I felt now, sniffling over her grave. I looked around, self-conscious. I needn’t have worried about being noticed, though. Next to me, Umm Salama and Zaynab sobbed and held each other as if to keep from falling into the hole. Sawdah, who had raised Fatima from girlhood and loved her as though she were her own, wailed and moaned too, ignoring Umar’s baleful glances. Even my father’s eyes were moist, for, as Muhammad’s longtime friend, he’d known Fatima since the day of her birth.
He’s the hypocrite. The thought struck me like a blow, stealing my breath But, no. My father had denied Fatima her inheritance so that the umma might live, as he’d told her. In truth, she couldn’t have chosen a worse time to ask for the lands. And her cold demeanor toward my father in the past—in support of Ali, who had always regarded abi as a rival for Muhammad’s affection—hadn’t inclined him favorably to her. She must have known her petition might fail. But she’d also known she was dying, and she’d wanted to make sure her family would be cared for.
My heart’s edges softened even more when, as Ali scattered rose petals in Fatima’s hair, their son al-Hassan began to cry and call for his ummi. “Come to A’isha,” I said, holding out my arms to the little boy.
I patted and stroked his hair the color of wheat, his father’s hair, and told him his ummi had gone to be with her father, Muhammad, and that she was waiting for him in Paradise. His sobbing subsided as I carried him to the back of the crowd. What was Ali thinking of, bringing the boy here? Watching the gravediggers fling dirt over his mother’s body would give him nightmares for the rest of his life.
“Don’t worry,” I murmured. “Your abi is here to take care of you. And you have me to cry on, see?”
Rough hands jerked him out of my grasp, and I looked up into the savage face of Ali. “What are you doing with my son?” he said. Heat spread across my cheeks as though he’d slapped me.
“Comforting him,” I murmured, lowering my eyes.
Ali laughed harshly. “Comforting the child after hastening the mother’s death? By al-Lah! How Fatima would have benefited from your compassion a few weeks ago.”
Murmurs rustled through the crowd like blowing sand as he swept through the onlookers, his arms gripping his little boy who had begun to cry again. As I rejoined my sister-wives, his words echoed in my head. All I could see was Fatima’s wan face that sad morning as she’d petitioned abi for her inheritance. Again, the question tormented me: Had Muhammad in truth said We have no heirs?
If someone else—al-Abbas, for instance, or even his son—had claimed to hear such outlandish words from Muhammad, I’d suspect him of inventing the tale. Only three months after my husband’s death, incredible stories about him were moving through the umma. The Prophet said my infant son would become the mightiest warrior Hijaz has ever known! After someone died, it often surfaced that Muhammad had predicted the time, place, and circumstances of the death and promised that person a place with him in Paradise.
I knew abi wasn’t inventing his tale. But if what he said was true, there was one question I couldn’t answer: Why would Muhammad have bequeathed his property yet neglected to appoint a khalifa? The resulting struggle for power had almost torn our community apart—and Muhammad’s strange bequest had broken Fatima’s heart.
As a warrior under Muhammad, Ali had collected plenty of booty—although, like Muhammad, he’d given most of it to the poor. Now, Ali no longer had the earnings from Fatima’s work as a laundress, and his disloyalty to my father had cost him his right to fight. The income from just one of Muhammad’s date plantations would have gone far to help Ali and his family. If only Muhammad hadn’t left that income to the needy! But he couldn’t have foreseen that Ali would lose his war booty so soon. He wouldn’t have wanted his own family to go hungry.
When I’d broached these questions with abi, he’d frowned. There are aspects to the khalifa that even you cannot understand. But I knew a lot more than he realized. I knew Muhammad had left an empty treasury. I knew the Byzantine emperor now sent his caravans on a trade route that bypassed Medina, depriving our merchants of income or goods. I knew that, since Muhammad’s death, many had turned their backs on islam and were refusing to pay the zakat, the alms-tax they’d been giving Muhammad. These were desperate times for the umma. That was why abi had said “no” to Fatima.
But Ali’s support was crucial, not just to my father’s ability to rule, but also to the future of islam. As Muhammad’s cousin, son-in-law, and foster son, and as father to Muhammad’s heirs, Ali held sway with Believers throughout Hijaz. If he continued to oppose my father, the Muslim community would tear like a ripped cloth, its edges too frayed to ever mend. Abi must gain his allegiance for the sake of the umma.
Ali is stubborn, my father had said to me, but his children’s hunger will weaken his resolve.
Sitting on the courtyard grass that evening, my sister-wives fed my anxieties with their talk.
“With all respect to your father, yaa A’isha, I don’t blame Ali for being angry,” Zaynab said with a toss of her head. “What Abu Bakr did was wrong.”
Hafsa leapt to my defense. “Maybe we should make you the next khalifa, yaa Zaynab,” she said. “Since you seem to know so much.”
“As for me, I know little,” Umm Salama said quietly. “Yet I do not believe Muhammad would have wanted to leave his grandchildren in destitution.”
“Why not?” Raihana said. “He left us without anything, didn’t he?”
“Some of us,” Saffiya said, cocking a jealous eyebrow at Hafsa, who wore a new robe that her father, Umar, had given her for the funeral. Like Raihana, who was her cousin, the pretty, young Saffiya had come to our harim a princess from a Jewish tribe—a captive who had used her wiles to captivate. She hadn’t fooled any of us sister-wives—although I later befriended her—but Muhammad had been so entranced that he’d broken all the rules by marrying her on the battlefield, instead of waiting until they returned
to Medina. I still grinned to remember her triumphal entry into town, for I always imagined the shock that must have followed when she’d beheld her squalid hut.
“Aw, we will be all right,” Sawdah said. “We know we will be taken care of.”
“By whom?” Raihana lifted her eyebrows. “You’ve got a lucrative leather trade, Sawdah, and the rest of you have your families to depend on. But as for Saffiya, Juwairriyah, and me, Muhammad’s army killed our fathers and brothers. What’s going to happen to us?”
“If we could marry again, survival would be easier,” Juwairriyah said timidly.
“It’s going to be a lonely life,” Saffiya said with a sigh.
As they spoke, I felt as though a leather strap had been tied across my chest. How could my sister-wives talk about remarrying just a few months after Muhammad’s death? Yet there was truth in their words. By forbidding his wives to marry again, Muhammad had relegated us all to lives of loneliness. He’d made the pronouncement in order to stop gossip about us, but his decree had a far-reaching effect.
Hafsa snickered. “Maybe we should follow Maryam’s example and hire eunuchs to keep us company.”
“Maryam seems happy enough,” Raihana said. “Of course, there’s only so much a eunuch can do.”
“You might be surprised,” Umm Habiba said with a sly smile. “I’ve heard tales about eunuchs that would make your toes curl.”
Maryam was Muhammad’s concubine from Egypt, a gift from that country’s Muqawqis, or religious leader. She had brought with her a servant, a tall black man named Akiiki. His devotion to Maryam had sparked many rumors until, confronted by Ali, he’d lifted the hem of his skirt to prove that he was no threat. How I would have loved to be a fly in Ali’s eye at that moment! His double-bladed sword must have dropped to the floor.
Afterwards, Ali had accused me of meddling for telling Muhammad about Akiiki. “That’s high praise, coming from an expert in the art,” I retorted. Jealous not only of my father, but of me also, Ali had caused problems in my marriage that I could never forgive him for.
Amused though I was by my sister-wives’ speculations, I knew I couldn’t let this dangerous talk continue. In spite of the restrictions Muhammad had placed on his wives, he’d resisted the urgings of men like Umar to lock us up in our homes. Now that Muhammad was gone, who would guard us from losing our freedom? If scandal touched a hair on any of our heads, we’d all be prisoners forever.
“By al-Lah! Muhammad trusted Maryam, and so should we.” My voice rang harsh. “Be careful, sister-wives, not to turn against one another out of boredom or fear. Look what’s happening in the umma, with Ali’s accusations turning brothers against brothers. If we don’t pull together, islam will die—and we, the Mothers of the Believers, will be nothing.”
“We’ll be a house full of widows waiting for a man to claim us,” Raihana said with a shrug. “I lived through it once, and ended up here.”
“Yes, but you gained Muhammad as a husband,” I argued. “What other man treated women with such respect?”
“Respect is wonderful, but you can’t eat it,” Raihana retorted. “Without a husband, who is going to feed me, yaa A’isha? Your father? He talks a lot about following Muhammad’s example while he lets the Prophet’s wives starve.”
I knew Raihana spoke truly, but I also knew my sister-wives were wrong to blame my father for their hunger. Without money in the treasury or any means of getting it, abi could only listen day upon day to his constituents’ pleas for help—men as well as women. Our only hope was Osama’s expedition to Syria. Sending those warriors had left Medina in a vulnerable position, as my father’s critics loved to point out, but abi hoped desperately that Osama would convince the Byzantine emperor to route his caravans through our city again.
Secretly, I also questioned my father’s sending Osama. Muhammad had originally appointed him, trying to assuage the boy’s grief over his father’s death, but things were different when Muhammad was alive: We’d been collecting taxes from outlying tribes and weren’t desperate for the trade. Now that our tax money had dried up like a wadi in the summertime, I wondered if the critics were right, if my father hadn’t sent a boy to do a man’s job. But abi had been adamant: Muhammad, not Abu Bakr, had assigned Osama the task. How can I fold up this flag which was unfurled by the Prophet of God, yet profess to follow his example? he’d asked his advisors. None of us could argue.
Yet when it came to following Muhammad’s example, my opinions sometimes differed from my father’s. For instance, I couldn’t imagine Muhammad’s naming the vicious Khalid ibn al-Walid as commander of his army—and I worried that my father’s doing so would lead to disaster.
And so things stood until, about a week after Fatima’s funeral, Osama brought his troops back to Medina amid cheers from hundreds who lined our main street, a wide swath of dirt so dry it seemed to exhale dust whenever a donkey-cart rolled down it. Watching from the mosque, I could barely make out Osama ibn Zayd leading an army bedraggled by the long journey to Syria and back. I smelled them before I could see them, their pungent, sour stench telling me they hadn’t bathed in many weeks. Emaciated and pale, they looked more like skeletons than mighty warriors, and jubilant greetings turned to shocked gasps as they passed. As for me, the sight of Khalid ibn al-Walid riding beside Osama stilled my tongue and sent chills down my spine.
The murderous warrior, once our enemy, was infamous for his cruelty. His eyes were pale and cold. A scar like a long, thick worm ran across one cheek, and his nose, broken many times, jutted like a knife blade. His hair sprung wildly about his face. Arrows stuck in every direction from his loosely wound turban. His filthy Bedouin robes hung in shreds from his broad shoulders. From the saddle of his snorting war-horse, he looked down at the crowd as dispassionately as if they were a pack of yapping pups. His glance fell on me as he passed, and recognition twitched at his lips.
A short while later, when Khalid strode into the mosque by Osama’s side, the taste of ashes filled my mouth. After glancing carelessly at Talha, Umar, and Uthman, all of whom sat with me behind my father, he stared at my single uncovered eye—Muhammad had required his wives to pull our wrappers about our faces so that only one eye showed—with such intensity that I had to fight the urge to cover my face completely. Did he recall that morning long ago when Muhammad led him into the cooking-tent and assigned me to watch over him? Khalid’s gaze had raked my twelve-year-old body as brazenly as if I’d been performing a dance, and his lewd remarks had made my skin burn with shame.
Osama’s guileless face, as open as an angel’s, seemed childish in contrast to Khalid’s brooding one. As Osama stepped forward to kiss my father’s signet ring, I couldn’t help thinking how young, in truth, he’d been to lead an army to Constantinople.
“Our expedition to Byzantium was unsuccessful, khalifa,” Osama said. His ears, sticking out from his head like gourd handles, glowed a bright red. “The emperor has no interest in resuming the trade route past Medina. Life is too unstable here, he said.”
“By al-Lah, the situation is grave for us, then.” My father’s voice betrayed his fear. “We must find a way to entice the Syrian caravans back to Medina. Does anyone have suggestions?”
“Trade is the least of your worries, yaa khalifa.” Khalid ibn al-Walid broke in without asking permission to speak. Yet abi leaned forward in his seat and stared at Khalid as if he were the angel Gabriel bringing a message from God.
“On our journey home, we saw Bedouin travelers crossing the desert in great numbers,” Khalid said. “Five or ten thousand, at least. Our scouts informed us that they were gathering at the Wadi al-Hamd oasis, preparing to invade Medina.”
“We cannot possibly defend ourselves against such an army.” My father’s voice shook.
“That’s what we thought the last time we were invaded, remember?” I pointed out. “Then we dug a trench that kept the army out. They had ten thousand, as I recall—including Khalid ibn al-Walid, the famous fierce warrior.” I tossed
a haughty glance at Khalid.
“Your trench was unique in the history of Arab warfare,” Khalid said to my father. “Our army was thwarted by the element of surprise. But such a device would not stop the Bedouins now. Our attackers would be prepared to overcome it.”
“We’ll have to devise something equally surprising, then, won’t we?” I retorted.
Talha smiled at me in appreciation. “As I recall, that trench was your idea, A’isha,” he said. “Of course, you’ve always been full of surprises.” His compliment made the heat rise to my face as he turned to my father. “Yaa khalifa, I propose that we convene a council to discuss the matter—”
“The time for discussion is past,” Khalid snapped, cutting Talha off as effectively as if he’d sliced off his tongue. “We must act now.”
I opened my mouth to protest Khalid’s abrupt behavior toward my cousin, but a shout from outside stole my chance. The door to the mosque crashed open. In stormed Ali, his stride long and sure, his turban wound about his head like a tightly coiled serpent.
“Forgive me, khalifa,” he said, brushing past Khalid to kneel at my father’s feet. He seized abi’s hand and kissed his ring as fervently as if Muhammad still wore it.
“I have come to offer my allegiance to you,” Ali said. His voice was hoarse with emotion and his lips trembled. “Forgive me for taking so long to do so.”
My father’s smile was as thin as barley mush. “If you had pledged to me earlier, would your words have been sincere?” he said. “‘A truth that displeases is better than a lie that pleases.’”
I wondered if Ali’s pledge was true, but I held my tongue. What did it matter? In those days, an Arab’s word was binding, no matter what lurked in his heart. With Ali’s allegiance secured, my father could at last turn his full attention to governing the umma.
“There is much work to be done, Ali,” he said. “Khalid is telling us now of a Bedouin expedition amassing to destroy us. Some desert tribes have stopped paying their tax, and now they want to increase their insult by raiding our city.”
The Sword Of Medina Page 4