Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam

by Kamran Pasha

  “The future of all Arabia is at stake,” she said. “We will live as free men and women. Or as slaves to Muhammad and the voices in his head.”

  Her words were met with a loud murmur of assent from the nobles. And then another voice rose above the din. Muawiya glanced over to see that it was his friend, the ever-diplomatic Amr ibn al-As.

  “But we have tried military action before, with little success,” he said with his practiced silky ease. “Is it not time to reach an accommodation?”

  Muawiya smiled in relief. Amr had the respect of many of the tribal leaders. If he had been persuaded to see the reality of their situation, perhaps the fire of this folly could be extinguished before it blazed out of control.

  All eyes were on Abu Sufyan to respond. The old man hesitated and then cast a bitter glance at Hind.

  “If ever there was a chance for an accord, it is long past,” he said with a tone of real regret. “The barbarism shown to the dead of Uhud by our women has inflamed their passions.”

  Hind turned to face him, one eyebrow raised defiantly.

  “Do not place the blame on women for your failure to be men,” she said with a dangerous smile.

  Muawiya saw his father wince slightly and he shook his head. After all these years, Abu Sufyan remained in thrall to this madwoman. The most powerful man in Mecca had long been enslaved by the chain that she had tied around his heart. Muawiya vowed never to let that happen to him.

  “In any event, Arabia is at a crossroads,” Abu Sufyan said with a heavy sigh. “We have received word that Muhammad is sending envoys to other southern tribes, asking them to join the Yamama against us. If he forges more alliances to the south, our trade routes with Yemen will be compromised. Without food, without trade, Mecca will die.”

  His words were meant to silence Amr’s dissent, but the son of al-As was persistent.

  “Even without allies in the south, Muhammad is well defended at Medina,” Amr said slowly, as if explaining a complex matter to a child. “We do not have enough men to challenge him.”

  His last words were meant to sting, and they did. At best, the Arabs could muster perhaps four or five thousand men. With Muhammad’s new allies, they would be matched on the battlefield. And if Muhammad’s luck prevailed, a match was as good as a defeat for Mecca.

  And then Muawiya saw his mother smile. She nodded to one of her servants, a boy of thirteen, who opened a small door that led to an antechamber. A mysterious figure emerged, his face shadowed by a dark cloak.

  Muawiya felt the stirrings of alarm. And then the tall man stepped into the middle of the room, standing between Abu Sufyan and Hind, and threw off his hood dramatically.

  It was Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the exiled Jew of Medina.

  “The sons of Nadir stand with you,” he said in a booming voice.

  The room immediately erupted in a tumult of voices, of shock, excitement, disbelief. Muawiya felt the bile in his stomach rising. He was angry at his mother for raising the stakes in this deadly game with Muhammad when the tribes should have been moving toward a treaty. And he was outraged at himself for not having seen this coming, for not having a plan to counter her strategy.

  Abu Sufyan raised his hands and shouted over the din.

  “Silence! Let us welcome our brother with the dignity of Mecca,” he said, and the crowd immediately went still. Muawiya wondered if his father had been privy to Hind’s scheme to enlist the support of the Jews of Bani Nadir, but the troubled look on his face suggested that he was as surprised by this development as the other tribal chiefs.

  Huyayy cleared his throat. When he spoke, it was with a rich fluidity, the naturally seductive tone of an experienced politician.

  “My friends, I have lived next to this Muhammad for the past several years,” he said in a measured voice, but his eyes burned with passion. “I have seen his sorcery up close. He claims to be a prophet of my God. But I tell you with certainty that he is a fraud and a liar. He does not even know what is contained in the holy books of Moses, and he contradicts the Word of God with his own fabrications. Such a man is deemed a false prophet in the Torah, worthy of death. And so my brothers in the Bani Nadir stand with you. Together we can wrest Yathrib from the hands of this wizard and restore peace to Arabia.”

  His words were met with enthusiastic applause. Muawiya cursed under his breath. Huyayy was a fool who had been outmaneuvered by Muhammad. And now they were expected to follow his guidance to bring Muhammad down? It was madness, but as Muawiya looked around at the hopeful faces of the chieftains, he realized that they were all mad. Old men desperate to hold back the flow of time, they were clinging to the sanctuary of their memories rather than facing the truth of the world as it was today. Hind and Huyayy were playing to their false hopes, and the outcome would be devastating for all of Arabia.

  Muawiya looked over at Amr, who shook his head in frustration, as if thinking the same thought. And then a deep voice echoed in the grand chamber, and Muawiya’s head turned.

  It was Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the greatest of the Meccan generals and the architect of their sole victory against Muhammad at Uhud.

  “Then let us end this once and for all,” he said solemnly. “Let us send against Medina the greatest force ever seen in the sands of Arabia.

  If Muhammad is a false prophet, as you say, we will prevail. And if he is victorious, then the heavens will have rendered a judgment that can no longer be gainsaid. In any event, let this be the final battle between us.”

  His words were met with shouts of assent from the weary tribal leaders. As the crowd moved in to surround Huyayy, the nobles vying to offer him lodging and hospitality during his stay in Mecca, Muawiya turned and walked out of the Hall in disgust.

  He stood outside, gazing up at the clear night sky. The red flame of Mars, al-Mareek, twinkled above him like an angry wasp. It was fitting that the planet of war should rule the heavens tonight. With the Jews and the pagan Arabs united, the bitter skirmishes with Muhammad would now escalate into full-scale war that would tear the peninsula apart. It was not that Muawiya feared war. Conflict was a necessary part of a world where survival itself was a daily battle. What he despised was war conducted under the foolish compulsion of emotion and hubris, the two flags that always led to defeat. A true warrior was dispassionate, saw the battlefield for what it was, not what he wanted it to be. He advanced when the opportunity presented itself and retreated when it was the right thing to do. There was no glory in the reckless death of a warrior. Or of a civilization.

  He felt a figure move to his side and glanced over to see Amr. Muawiya nodded to him, and then returned his eye to the stars. Rising across the eastern horizon was the noble star he loved the most—Zuhal, the planet the Romans called Saturn. It was the star of destiny, and the kahina s said it had shone over him at his birth. And so it was that he had been born with a sense of purpose. Muawiya had known that he had been meant to lead his people, to bring these barbaric, illiterate tribes to greatness. But if his mother succeeded in destroying Arabia with her fanatical pursuit of the one man who was bringing it together, then his destiny would be thwarted.

  Muawiya realized in that moment that the time had come for a break from his family, his people. The only way he could save them was to distance himself from their madness. Only when they had destroyed themselves could a man like him move in to build something new from the ruins.

  “We must make preparations,” he said in a soft voice. Partly to Amr. Partly to himself.

  “For victory?” Amr still clung to the false hopes of the masses, even though his diplomatic nature sought conciliation over conquest.

  “No.” Muawiya’s voice was sharp. “For defeat.”

  Amr stood beside him for a long time before speaking again.

  “Khalid has never been beaten in battle,” he said softly, as if trying to convince himself that there was still some hope for the survival of the world he knew.

  Muawiya turned to face him, his eagle eyes piercing the other
man’s soul.

  “Khalid has never been defeated against men. But we are fighting something greater than any man.”

  Amr breathed in sharply, surprise lighting his eyes.

  “This invisible God?”

  Muawiya smiled.

  “History. I have read enough of the tales of the past to see when the end of an era is coming. My father is wedded to a dying way. We must be the vanguards of the future. If Mecca is defeated, as I believe it will be, we must secure for its leaders a role in the new order.”

  Amr bowed his head, realizing the truth of Muawiya’s words. The end was coming and they needed to prepare.

  “What do you propose?”

  Muawiya thought for a moment, letting the quick mind he had inherited from his mother spin its threads. And then he realized that the answer was closer to home than he had expected.

  “Muhammad is making alliances through marriage,” Muawiya said, his voice rising in excitement. “My sister Ramla is one of his followers, living in exile in Abyssinia. If she marries Muhammad, then the clan of Umayya may yet survive what is coming.”

  A smile creased across Amr’s handsome face.

  “I will serve as an intermediary, if Allah wills.” Amr had been to Abyssinia before in a failed effort to convince the Negus to surrender the Muslim refugees. He knew the country well, had established profitable relations with its merchants, and could get a message to Ramla without alerting the other Meccans as to Muawiya’s plans.

  Muawiya placed a friendly arm on Amr’s shoulder and smiled shrewdly.

  “You said Allah and not the gods,” he said.

  Amr grinned widely.

  6

  I was knitting in a corner of my tiny room when the Messenger’s adopted son Zayd entered. It was a bright winter day, the sun streaming in through my window and warming the crisp air. I was in a cheerful mood, as tonight would be my night with the Messenger. My husband followed a strict rule, rotating nights with each of his wives in order to make sure that each was treated equally as commanded by the holy Qur’an. Accordingly, as the harem steadily increased, my limited time with the Prophet was becoming more precious. There were now five women who bore the title Mother of the Believers: the elderly Sawda, myself, the fiery Hafsa, the ghostly quiet Zaynab bint Khuzayma, and most recently Umm Salama bint Abu Umayya. The latest addition to the household was another war widow whom the Messenger had married out of compassion. Umm Salama’s husband, Abdallah ibn Abdal Asad, had been killed at Uhud, leaving three children and a pregnant wife with no means of support. The Messenger had married Umm Salama after the four-month-and-ten-day iddat, her period of mourning, had ended, and she had given birth to her martyred husband’s son Durra shortly after the wedding.

  When I had first learned of the Prophet’s intention to marry Umm Salama, I had been filled with jealousy. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, with sparkling eyes and a gentle smile. And she was still of age to bear children, and I had failed to produce an heir. But I had grudgingly accepted Umm Salama after the wedding, as it was difficult to dislike her patient and pleasant personality. Unlike Hafsa, who was my chief rival to give Muhammad a son, Umm Salama already had many children from her former marriage and did not appear overly eager to bear more. And so life continued largely as it had for the past few months in the house of the Prophet, with the petty jealousies among wives at a low simmer.

  I sat by my husband’s side, knitting a woolen scarf for him to keep him warm during early morning prayers. The Messenger was busy with his own handiwork, using a needle and thread to repair the torn leather straps of his sandals. I had never met any other man who enjoyed simple housework like fixing shoes or sewing patches in old clothes. It certainly did not fit the masculine ideals of his followers, who were perplexed by his strange affinity for what they dismissed as women’s work. But the Prophet seemed more comfortable around the quiet hearth of the home than around the boastful jousting of the battlefield. As I watched him slowly suture his footwear, his black eyes utterly focused on and absorbed in the task before him, I realized how difficult it must have been for a boy with a gentle temperament to grow up in a world where cruelty and aggression were the proud hallmarks of a man. It struck me in that instant that the Messenger’s admitted love of the company of women had less to do with sexual hunger than with an innate comfort with their feminine nature.

  But I would soon be reminded that, however gentle and nurturing his soul was, his body still belonged to a man, with all the needs and desires of the masculine flesh.

  As we quietly continued on with our work, a shadow fell across the open door and I saw that the Prophet’s adopted son Zayd ibn Haritha had arrived. He was tall and lanky, with thinning hair and a face that years of labor under the sun had brutally weathered. His eyes, which always appeared sad, seemed particularly distraught today.

  The Messenger caught the haunted look on his face and turned to face him, setting the sandals on the floor with a hard thump.

  “What brings you here, my son?” Even as the Messenger spoke, I heard a strange tone in his voice, which in other men I would have recognized as a hint of embarrassment. But that, of course, made no sense coming from God’s Chosen One, the most perfect man in creation.

  Zayd knelt beside the Prophet, whose slave he had been before he had been freed and inducted into the family. He hung his head, not looking his adopted father in the eye.

  “My wife told me what happened between you two.”

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “What happened?” I felt the scarf slip through my fingers. Zayd’s wife, Zaynab bint Jahsh, was the Messenger’s cousin and one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, her statuesque features only growing more elegant with age. I had always thought it strange that she was married to the ugliest man I knew. The Messenger had known Zaynab since she was a child and I was always relieved that he treated her like a little sister and was the only man who did not stammer or make a fool of himself in her presence.

  The Messenger glanced at me and I could see discomfort in his eyes. And I realized that something had changed.

  “It was nothing,” he said quickly. “The matter is closed.”

  His words did not alleviate the growing alarm in my heart.

  “Tell me,” I insisted.

  The Messenger remained silent. And then Zayd spoke up. The Prophet had come to visit him a few nights before, but Zayd had been out. Zaynab had heard the knock on the door and assumed that it was her husband. She had run to the door, forgetting her cloak and dressed in all her finery, her luxurious hair flowing below her waist. But when Zaynab opened the door, she was startled to see the Messenger. He had been struck by her beauty and quickly walked away. But she thought she heard him say, “Praise be to God, Master of the hearts.”

  I felt my own heart sink. I knew that my husband had always been fond of Zaynab. Could the sight of her in all her bedecked radiance have inspired love?

  Zayd looked up and I could see that whatever emotions I was feeling were nothing compared to the poor man’s torment. It was well known that Zayd and Zaynab had an unhappy marriage. She was from a proud and wealthy family, while Zayd was a freed slave, a social outcast in Mecca. They had wed after the Messenger had asked Zaynab to marry Zayd as an example to the other Muslims that piety mattered more in a mate than social class. Zaynab had always been fiercely loyal to the Prophet and had acquiesced to his request. It was clear to all of the women of the household that Zaynab was very much in love with my husband. Yet the Messenger had never expressed any interest in her, and she had resigned herself to her fate by marrying poor Zayd. But now, if the Prophet’s heart had turned, I knew that Zaynab would seek to escape her loveless union and join with Muhammad.

  “O Messenger, you are dearer to me than my family,” Zayd said. “I chose you over my own father.”

  I remembered the story of how young Zayd, who had been kidnapped by slave traders as a boy, had found refuge in Muhammad and Khadija’s home. The coupl
e had treated him with great love and respect and he had become for all intents and purposes a son to them after the death of their own infant boys. When the lad’s father had finally found him after years of searching through the desert towns, Zayd had refused to go back to his own family and chosen to stay as a slave to Muhammad. My husband had been so moved by the boy’s devotion that he had freed him and then taken Zayd to the Kaaba and formally adopted him. It had been a momentous occasion, for in Arab society an adopted son was considered to share a mystical bond that made him the same as a flesh-and-blood child. Zayd had risen in that moment from a lowly slave to the heir of one of the most influential families in Mecca.

  I realized with a sick heart that Zayd was the Prophet’s son for all intents and purposes. If there were rumors of impropriety between Muhammad and his adopted son’s wife, it would be deemed by the people as vile a crime as incest. My husband’s standing as the Messenger of God and the moral exemplar of the community would be brought into question, and the foundation of our faith would collapse.

  The Prophet must have been thinking similar thoughts, because he looked away, unable to face Zayd. But his adopted son leaned forward and took the Messenger’s hands in his, until the Prophet finally met his pleading gaze.

  “If it be your desire, then I will divorce her today and you are free to marry her,” he said, making yet another sacrifice for the man whom he loved more than his own flesh and blood.

  But this was madness. I felt my heart racing and I stood up, facing Zayd with balled fists

  “What are you saying?! The Prophet is your father! It is forbidden for a father to marry a woman his son has lain with!”

  My voice was shaking and I was unsure as to whether my rage came from horror at the violation of a taboo or from the thought of my husband in the arms of the radiant Zaynab.