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

by Kamran Pasha

  A single man stood outside the protection of those doors tonight, his dark eyes gazing over the tops of the hillocks toward a world he no longer recognized. Kab ibn Asad, the chieftain of the Bani Qurayza, saw the burning clouds of smoke that rose to the north, where an army stood on the verge of destroying the town that had once been called Yathrib. His brothers among the Bani Nadir had returned to reclaim their homes and had brought with them thousands of Arab warriors to support their cause. True, they had been temporarily blocked by the Muslims’ ingenious trench, but Kab knew that the moment would come when the barrier would fail and vengeance would be taken.

  Almost a fortnight had passed with the army of liberators held back at the gates of Medina, but the delay had served a purpose. The Muslims were like trapped animals, hungry and exhausted, cut off from the necessities of survival by their own hubris. They were hanging fruit, ripe to be plucked. When his spies had confirmed the extent of the famine, the weakness of the Muslim troops, Kab had sent a specially trained falcon to the camp of his kinsman Huyayy, leader of the exiled Bani Nadir. In its deadly claws it carried a small message written in Hebrew, a language none of the enemy would understand if the bird were captured or killed. But the mighty falcon had returned unharmed, a reply written in Hebrew with the answer Kab had been hoping for.

  And so it was that he stood alone tonight just past the safety of the fortress walls. He was doing what he had done for many months. Watching and waiting.

  And then he saw it. A flicker of movement against the black lava flows that surrounded the southern pass. Kab focused his eyes but could see nothing more in the darkness. For a moment, he wondered if he had imagined it, his eager mind showing him what he hoped to see. And then he heard the steady crunch of footsteps against the cold pebbles and two small shadows broke free of the great black shadow of the hillside.

  Kab stood perfectly still as the cloaked men approached him. He glanced up at the walls above. Archers were hidden in the turrets, ready to take action at his signal. If his message had indeed been intercepted by Muhammad’s men and these two were assassins sent to even the score, the matter would be dealt with quickly.

  The cloaked men stopped ten feet before the chieftain. And then the shorter one spoke, his voice rich and wonderfully familiar.

  “You can tell your men to stand down,” Huyayy ibn Akhtab said. “Unless they want to do the enemy’s work for them.”

  Kab smiled and raised his left hand. Although there was no sound from the turrets above, he knew that his men had lowered their weapons. And then he turned to greet the newcomers.

  Huyayy removed his cloak and embraced Kab warmly. The chief of the Bani Nadir nodded to his companion, who pulled off his hood, revealing the aging but still regal features of the Meccan lord Abu Sufyan.

  The Arab greeted the Jew with a sardonic smile.

  “It is a changed world where old friends must meet with such intrigue,” Abu Sufyan said.

  Kab took Abu Sufyan by the hand and led him toward the mighty gates of the fortress, which sung aside with a harsh groan.

  “Then it is time to change the world back,” he said.

  IT WAS NEARLY FIRST light before the iron gates thundered open again. The three men emerged from a night of negotiations that had not gone as Kab had expected. His offer to work with the Confederates had been welcomed, but Abu Sufyan had sought to place the burden of risk on the Bani Qurayza’s shoulders. The Arab chieftain had asked for the Jews to take Muhammad by surprise and attack from the rear. Once the warriors of the Qurayza had spread chaos through the oasis, forcing the defenders to leave their places at the trench, the Confederates would traverse the barrier and come to Kab’s aid.

  It was a tactic that put the Bani Qurayza’s head on the block, with only a hope and a prayer that the Confederates would be able to intervene before the executioner’s blade descended.

  Kab had been bitterly disappointed by the stratagem. He had waited so many months, patiently praying for deliverance from the sorcerer who had hijacked his home, but now, when the answer had come, it carried too high a price.

  But his views were not shared by the other elders of his tribe. Hungry to confront Muhammad and gain revenge for the humiliations the Jews had suffered over the past five years, the shining lights of the Qurayza had embraced this foolhardy plan. Kab had been shouted down in the council of war by old men who dreamed of victory but who would not themselves carry a blade into battle.

  But Kab had been able to gain one concession from his allies. The Arabs would be required to send a dozen of their most noble leaders to the fortress of the Bani Qurayza as “guests” during the hostilities. The safe return of these hostages would require the Meccans to take decisive action to end the siege. If the Quraysh failed to speedily come to the aid of the Qurayza, they would risk losing their own men in the fire of Muhammad’s vengeance.

  Abu Sufyan had reluctantly agreed and offered the sons of the Meccan chieftains who had been killed at Badr and Uhud, the most prominent being Ikrimah ibn Abu Jahl. Kab had made a sour face when he heard the name. Ikrimah was as brutal as his late father but lacked the charm and diplomatic skills to be a leader like Abu Jahl. Kab wondered if anyone would come to his rescue when the flames of chaos were ignited. He had politely asked Abu Sufyan the whereabouts of his own son, the charismatic Muawiya. At mention of the young man’s name, Abu Sufyan’s face had darkened and he had refused to speak further. Kab had wisely dropped the topic.

  As the three men stepped outside, Abu Sufyan turned to face Kab and looked him straight in the eye.

  “Do we have an understanding?” he said, in a tone that suggested he was not convinced of Kab’s support after the contentious meeting.

  Kab felt a flash of fury. He leaned close to Abu Sufyan and spoke slowly, making sure that the Arab understood what was being asked of the Qurayza.

  “If my people break the treaty, there will be no turning back.

  Should any of Muhammad’s men survive our attack, they will seek vengeance.”

  Huyayy put an arm on Kab and pulled the men apart.

  “Then we will leave none alive.”

  Kab turned to face his old friend. He had been so delighted to see him only a few hours before. And now he was beginning to regret ever letting the chief of the Bani Nadir inside the fortress.

  “You seem very sure of yourself, Huyayy,” he said sharply. “Considering that your own web collapsed on you, I would think that you’d be cautious about spinning new ones.”

  Huyayy stepped back as if struck. He looked at Kab as if he did not recognize him.

  “There is a time for caution and a time to seize the initiative,” Huyayy said coldly, his eyes narrowing. “This is our last chance, Kab. And yours. If Muhammad defeats the siege, he will be emboldened. He will find a pretext to expel the Qurayza and then will wage war on Khaybar. The Jews of Arabia will vanish into the sands of history.”

  Kab stepped back, let the anger seep out of him until he was calm again. They were both on the same side. Both trying to save their people from extinction. It was true that the Confederate plan placed his tribe at risk of immediate annihilation. But it was also true that should the liberators be defeated, the Qurayza would eventually be destroyed anyway as Muhammad’s movement gained supremacy.

  The choice Kab faced was stark and cruel, like the wilderness of Arabia he loved with all his heart. Either way, the Bani Qurayza ran the risk of defeat. But if his people were to face death, then it was more honorable to do so fighting by the side of his fellow Jews.

  “I will stand by our people,” Kab said after a moment of painful reflection. “But you must not tarry. The gates will open tomorrow night when the new moon covers the land in its veil. If you are not ready then, they will be closed to you forever.”

  Abu Sufyan nodded, satisfied that Kab would uphold his end of the bargain.

  “We will be ready.”

  The two men then slipped on their cloaks and vanished into the darkness, seeking t
o reach their camp before dawn penetrated the gloom and revealed their presence.

  They needn’t have hurried, for they had already been detected. As Kab returned inside the fortress and the powerful gates shut with an ominous boom, a small figure, dressed in robes of midnight black, rose up from a hidden position in the crevices of the lava flow and hastened toward the oasis.

  12

  I approached the stout housewife and handed her a dagger.

  “Take this,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. The woman hesitated and I grabbed her by the wrist and placed the hilt of the blade in her hand. “It is not a request.”

  “Why?” she asked, her voice quivering with fear.

  I had spent the entire morning performing this ritual and was weary of the question. I was about to respond with a sharp retort, but I peeked at the woman and suddenly felt compassion for her. She could not have been more than thirty, but years of toiling under the cruel sun had left her as withered and wrinkled as a dried fig, her hair colored red with henna to hide the early streaks of white. She was not ready for what was coming. None of us were.

  “The Messenger says we must be ready to fight in the streets,” I replied with a conscious effort to be gentle. “Every Muslim, man or woman, who can lift a weapon must do so when the time comes.”

  The frightened woman—Nuriya was her name—looked closely at the weapon with a trembling hand. I heard the rustle of her skirt and looked down to see a toddler, a boy of perhaps two, clinging to her and staring up at me with wide eyes. The child’s cheeks were sunken and his stomach was distended, a sign that famine had struck this home with particular fury.

  Nuriya lowered the weapon and looked at me with dead eyes.

  “So this is the end.”

  I reached out and took her bony fingers in mine, squeezing them gently.

  “Only God knows.”

  Fear had gripped the oasis ever since our spies had returned with word that our enemies had been secretly meeting with our putative allies, the Bani Qurayza. The Messenger did not know what their plan was, but one thing was clear. The last of the Jewish tribes had renounced its pact with us and was now poised to help the Confederates. We had to prepare for the worst.

  Nuriya began to cry and pray desperately to Allah for the deliverance of her children. She tried to reach out to me, as if she wanted my comfort, but I turned away, ready to continue my rounds. My straw basket was heavy and overflowing with small weapons—knives, arrows, anything that could be spared by the defenders at the trench in order to arm their families. I had two dozen homes to visit before the sun went down and did not have time to soothe this woman any further.

  And then the sound of a newborn crying from inside stopped me. From the desperate wails, I could tell that the infant could not have been more than a week old. My heart sank as I wondered whether this poor baby’s destiny was to enter this world only to leave it again in a few days in the chaos of flames and destruction. It was an unjust fate and I felt a flash of anger at the Meccans, at the arrogance and heartlessness of men, at the cruelty of life in this miserable desert wasteland.

  I looked at Nuriya, saw the terror and uncertainty on her features. And the anger I felt building inside me was suddenly released on the poor, cowering woman.

  “Stop it! Stop crying!”

  Nuriya looked up at me, stunned and hurt.

  I leaned forward to her, my heart pounding in my ears.

  “Listen to me,” I said with grave intensity. “Your children will not be saved by your whimpering! They need you to be as strong and as cold as a man. If the enemy knocks at your door, do not let the softness of your heart be your undoing. They will give you no quarter. Give them none as well.”

  The steel in my voice cut through her grief and her tears stopped. I saw a stony mask come upon her lined face as she slew the weak housewife she had been and gave birth to the warrior that is buried inside every woman’s heart, one who is unleashed when her children’s lives are at stake.

  She wiped her tears and nodded, gripping the dagger like a lion locking its jaws on the throat of its prey.

  I nodded and moved away. And then, when I could find shelter in the nook of an abandoned alley, I dropped the basket and fell to my knees. My body trembled violently as the emotions I had been suppressing all morning erupted from inside me like a volcano. I vomited and then buried my face in my hands, letting the tears I had forbidden Nuriya to shed flood my cheeks.

  A dark cloud covered the sun and the world looked utterly black, without any hint or hope of light.

  The shadow of death hung over Medina. War would soon cover the streets in blood. And I could see no escape from the final doom that my people had somehow avoided up until this day. The end was near and I surrendered to despair, closing my eyes and forgetting everything. My duty. My family. My life. I just wanted to go to sleep and never awaken again.

  To let the darkness take me into the eternal void.

  And then I heard a soft voice. Whether it was in my ears or in my heart, I will never know.

  God leads from darkness to light, Humayra.

  I opened my eyes in shock. It was my husband’s voice, as clear and as loud as if he were standing above me. But the alley was empty, except for a small gray cat that looked at me from atop a pile of rubbish with its mysterious yellow eyes.

  The shadow that had covered the city began to lift. I looked up to see small rays of light tearing through the angry clouds. And then, as each ray broke through, opening a way for another beam of light to cut a path out of the gloom, the cloud began to shatter and disperse until the golden disk burst forth in all its glory.

  I realized in that moment that the sun was a fire composed of an infinite number of tiny sparks, each playing its role in creating the light that drove away the darkness. Even the tiniest and most insignificant ray had a part in the heavenly dance.

  I found myself rising to my feet and reclaiming my store of weapons. The people of Medina needed me. And even if it was all meant to end under the harsh steel of our enemies’ blades, I would play my part to the last.

  13

  Kab stood outside the southern gate as the sandstorm raged all about him. The devil’s wind had risen with no warning an hour before sunset, sending a wall of earth crashing down on the oasis like a wave in a turbulent ocean. By nightfall, the winds had worsened and the stars were blotted out by the fury of the desert squall. It had taken ten men to push open the massive doors that protected the fortress as the wind fought back with the force of a thousand battering rams. Kab had managed to step into the chaos, his body and face covered by a heavy woolen cloak, but tiny particles of sand slipped through his protective wrap and stung him like a cloud of angry wasps.

  The chief of the Bani Qurayza had stayed by the threshold of the gate for nearly three hours, braving the merciless winds, his burning eyes peering through the maelstrom for any sign of the expected delegation of Meccan lords. It was a futile hope, of course, as no man could have successfully navigated the swirling sand in the darkness of night. The torches Kab had ordered lit on the battlements of the fortress as a beacon had blown out in seconds and proved impossible to ignite again in the midst of the raging storm. If any of the Quraysh had undertaken the journey through the southern passes, they had likely perished as sand clogged their lungs and a rain of tiny pebbles shredded their flesh raw. Their corpses would likely be lost forever in the dunes that would serve as their anonymous graves for eternity.

  Kab bowed his head. He had failed. Tonight was their only window for attack. His spies had alerted him to the Muslims’ defensive preparations earlier that day. Somehow Muhammad had learned of the Qurayza’s intrigues with the Confederates and had begun arming the citizens of Medina in preparation for the invasion. The elders of the tribe had made emergency deliberations that afternoon and had agreed—against Kab’s better judgment—to commence the attack that night, even if the Quraysh failed to send the hostages that would secure their support durin
g the chaos that was to follow.

  And then the wind had changed from a gentle spring breeze into an angry tempest and the world had been plunged into darkness even as the sun still kissed the horizon. The offensive was now impossible, and the small window of time the Qurayza had before the Muslim defenses were erected was gone. Even if the sun rose on a clear morning, Muhammad would have shifted enough warriors from the trench to the Jewish quarter to make the initial onslaught a pitched battle rather than an easy victory. With the Meccan forces likely to be in disarray because of the sandstorm, there would be no intervention by the Confederates to shift the scales back in favor of Kab’s people.

  The battle was over before it began, but the consequences would linger.

  Kab finally turned back and stepped inside the protective walls of the fortress.

  “Close the gate,” he said to the weary men who had braved the elements and kept the passage open for the past several hours. They quickly complied, their dust-covered faces revealing relief that Kab had finally faced reality.

  As the mighty doors slammed behind him with a thunderous crash, Kab saw a small figure step toward him, bearing a robe. Even in the dark he caught sight of a lock of flaming red hair and knew immediately who had come to greet him. It was Najma, his beloved niece, who had been like a daughter to him over the years. She wrapped him in the soft linen and led him back home by the hand.

  KAB SAT BY THE stone fireplace, sipping a cup of warm goat’s milk that Najma had prepared for him. He stared at the far wall of the chamber, which was lined with tiny cracks that spidered out across the sturdy mud bricks. Najma had insisted for many years that he should refinish this room, which served as his personal study, but Kab had refused.

  The chamber was one of the original structures in the Jewish settlement, having been built over three hundred years before when Kab’s forefathers had found the oasis after a deadly journey through the Arabian sands. The small room had once housed entire families, before succeeding generations had added a dozen more rooms and turned the modest home of the tribal chief into a palatial estate. The remaining chambers were elegantly decorated with marble tiles and furnished in a style that befitted the prosperity of his people, but this central room, with its plain walls and harsh stone floor, remained as it had in the days when the first Jew had found refuge in Yathrib.