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

by Kamran Pasha

  I slipped on the heavy curtain that was my shield against the world and was about to close the chest when I saw something glittering to the side, beneath a pair of pretty bronze bangles and a coral comb that my father had given me upon my arrival in the oasis. It was the onyx necklace, the Messenger’s wedding gift.

  I reached down and took the necklace in my hand and tied it above my slender collar. A smile of memory played on my lips as I wrapped my face behind the black veil, the niqab, such that only my golden eyes peeked out from behind the soft cotton. The Prophet reached out and took my hand before opening the door. I blinked for a second, blinded by the ferocity of the now-unfamiliar daylight.

  And then I took a deep breath and strode back out into the world from which I had been banished. The Masjid courtyard was full of worshipers who turned with surprise to see me emerge. Some quickly looked away, while others gazed in fascination at the bulky black mass that had once been a beautiful girl. A girl whose familiar face none of them would ever see again as long as they lived.

  The Messenger led me through the throng of believers who always crowded about him, hoping to touch his hand or the hem of his robe and absorb the baraka, the divine blessing, that emanated from his body.

  As my husband led me through the streets of Medina that seemed so alien to me now, I had a strange thought that the disorientation I was feeling was akin to the confusion of a soul resurrected from the grave and wandering toward the terrible Throne of God’s Judgment.

  It was an impression that would prove far more apt than I could have ever known.

  23

  The attack on the Bani Mustaliq was a resounding success. The Bedouin tribesmen had been caught wholly unprepared for the assault, and their raiding party was no match for the thousand well-armed Muslim warriors who descended on their camp at the break of dawn.

  I witnessed the battle, such as it was, from the back of my she-camel, a sturdy beast I had nicknamed Asiya, after the wife of the Pharaoh who had secretly embraced the religion of Moses. I was inside a heavily armored howdah that had been specifically built for the protection of any of the Prophet’s wives who accompanied him on a military expedition. I peered through the curtain of steel rings into the heart of the blazing desert, where the Messenger’s troops struck down the treacherous Bedouins. The fighting lasted barely an hour, and the Bani Mustaliq capitulated after their chieftain, al-Harith, was decapitated by the sword of a Companion named Thabit ibn Qays.

  I watched with grim satisfaction as the Bedouin fighters dropped their weapons in despair and fell to their knees, prostrate in surrender. The Messenger strode out on the battlefield and walked up to the nearest man, a dark-skinned warrior with broken teeth, and lifted him to his feet.

  “Do not prostrate yourself before men,” he said to his defeated adversary. “Bow only before God.”

  The enemy soldier looked at him in gratitude and I knew that the Bani Mustaliq would soon be won over to our cause. They were a clan of mercenaries who blew with the wind, and the surprise attack by Medina had shown them that the climate in Arabia had changed permanently. The Prophet had wisely shown them that their future lay with us rather than Mecca. The loss of nearly two dozen of their warriors was a heavy blow, but had they made the mistake of serving as Abu Sufyan’s proxies, they would have lost many more.

  As Umar and Ali began the process of herding the defeated tribesmen into rows and binding them with solid ropes, I heard a cry of anguish and saw an old woman emerge from the dusty tent city that served as the shelter of her people. She was elderly and her face was lined with years of struggle against the cruel life of the desert. But she moved with startling speed for her age and raced across the bloodstained sand toward the headless corpse of al-Harith. I realized from her piercing wails that she was the chieftain’s wife, and I felt sorry for her.

  And then another woman, a girl of about twenty years, emerged from the brightly colored pavilion that must have been al-Harith’s dwelling and ran over to the old woman. The girl looked away from the sight of the dead chieftain, but she did not cry out. Instead she put her arms around the old woman and comforted her, whispering softly into her ear until the elderly lady stopped shaking and collapsed into her arms, resigned to the loss that had struck their tribe that morning.

  I saw the men staring at the girl, who had flowing brown hair, flecked with gold, and olive skin that matched the color of her eyes. She was quite attractive, and I realized that the Muslim warriors would soon be competing to lay claim to her as a captive of war.

  The girl sensed their eyes on her and stood tall, throwing her head back in defiance.

  “I am Juwayriya, daughter of al-Harith, whom you have slain,” she said without any hint of fear. “This is my mother and the mother of my entire clan. Treat her and her kin with dignity if you fear Allah.”

  Her words were brilliantly chosen and had the desired effect. The lustful men turned their heads away, embarrassed at their own crassness, and I grinned inside my armored howdah. The girl had spirit.

  And then I saw my husband watching her intently with a smile, and my own quickly vanished.

  WE CAMPED NEAR THE tents of the Bani Mustaliq for two days, during which the booty was divided among the troops. The tribe had been successfully raiding caravans for years, and their robbery had brought them considerable wealth that would soon be apportioned among their conquerors. A fifth of the spoils would go to the Messenger, including the tribe’s store of rare gems—opals, emeralds, and sapphires that made my heart stop with their glittering beauty. I touched the jewels with a wistful sigh, knowing that they would soon be redistributed to the needy and the Prophet’s own household would remain as impoverished as ever.

  The thorniest issue remained the fate of the captives from the tribe, especially the proud Juwayriya. Arguments erupted over who had the best claim to the daughter of the chieftain, who had shown the greatest bravery and prowess on the battlefield to merit a slave girl of such rare beauty. The rivals turned to Umar, who had been designated by the Messenger as the judge over all disputes regarding division of spoils. The grim-faced giant listened impatiently to each man, cutting him off when he had heard enough of his case, and then made his decision without hesitation. The girl belonged to Thabit, the man who had personally killed the chieftain of the Bani Mustaliq, her father.

  While the other claimants were disappointed, none had the courage to grumble about the judgment before the mighty Umar, and the matter was resolved in everyone’s eyes.

  Everyone except Juwayriya herself. When informed of her fate, she loudly demanded to speak with the Messenger of God himself. Her furious and stubborn insistence made even her captors cower, and shortly thereafter I accompanied the Prophet to the slave tent where she and the other women were being housed.

  The moment we entered, Juwayriya was transformed from a haughty and demanding princess into a humble slave girl, her head lowered, tears instantly flooding her cheeks as if by command. She begged the Messenger to save her from her ignominious fate. She was the daughter of one of Arabia’s chieftains, a princess of her people. It was the height of degradation and shame for her family that she should now become the property and sexual plaything of a lowly soldier in the Muslim army.

  I watched her through the heavy cloth of my veil, grudgingly impressed with her performance. Juwayriya alternated between sorrowful dignity and emotional hysteria as she made her case, and I could see my husband was moved by her pleas. I could feel the familiar sting of jealousy as the Messenger agreed to free her from her bondage—on the condition that she marry him and serve as a voice of conciliation that would bring the remainder of her tribe into a treaty with Medina.

  Juwayriya readily assented to the proposal, and I shook my head in wonder at what a strange day this girl had experienced. She had risen with the dawn as a Bedouin princess. By midday, she was a captive and a slave. And by sundown, she had become a Mother of the Believers, one of the queens of Arabia.

  That night,
as I slept alone in my tent and the Prophet enjoyed the charms of his beguiling new wife, I fingered the onyx necklace, letting all the fury and envy in my heart flow into the dark beads. No matter how hard I tried, I could never be the center of Muhammad’s life. He was too vast for any one woman, and his life’s mission was greater than the call of any marital union.

  I wanted desperately to be the most important of his wives, the one who would even replace Khadija in his memories, but I knew this would never happen. I would have to settle for being the first of an ever-expanding circle of consorts, one name lost among many in the annals of history.

  I felt my angry heart scream at the injustice of my life. The most shining star in the firmament of Arabian women, I was nonetheless being buried like a diamond in a sand dune, my delicate beauty hidden from the world, my sharp mind unable to sparkle in the open light of the sun. I was more than this fifteen-year-old girl wrapped in a black veil and sleeping on a rough mat in the desert. But the world would never see me as such. I was a queen who could never claim her crown.

  I made a silent oath that of all the Messenger’s wives, I would be the one whom the world would still talk about a thousand years from now. The one whose name would play on the lips of men and women when all the others had been forgotten.

  It was a terrible vow, and one that should never have been made. For the Lord heard my dark prayer that night and granted it, but not in any way that I could have hoped or desired.

  24

  The morning that changed my life, as well as the history of the world, was unremarkable. I woke at first light to the haunting sound of Bilal’s voice calling the believers to prayer. I had slept fitfully and had been troubled by dreams that immediately fled as I rose from the straw mat. I performed my ablutions from a pail of water that had been left discreetly outside the entrance to my tent by a soldier.

  I let the soothingly cold water flow through my hands and then washed the sleep out of my eyes and dabbed my hair and feet according to the proper ritual of wudhu—the lesser ablution that one normally performed before any prayer. Only after sexual intercourse was one required to take a ghusl, a full bath in which every part of the body had to be cleansed before one could stand in worship of the Lord of the Worlds. The thought flashed through my mind that the Messenger would, of course, have to perform the ghusl after spending the night with his new bride, and I felt the pangs of jealousy tighten my chest.

  When I emerged, fully veiled and covered head to toe, as was now required of me, I saw the Prophet was gathering the men in single lines facing south toward the Holy Kaaba. He smiled when he saw the black bundle that was me, but I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. I saw from the corner of my vision that his smile widened just slightly, as if he were amused by my clear annoyance at his marriage to Juwayriya, and I had to bite my tongue before I said something out loud that would be unworthy of a Mother of the Believers.

  After we had performed the Fajr ritual, before the disk of the sun had yet emerged on the horizon, the men began to break down our camp for the journey home. I went off to brood by myself, staying aloof from Juwayriya despite her glances in my direction. She was now wearing a purple veil that matched her flowing robes, and even in her modest dress she seemed to exude great sensuality. She was taller than me and her bosom was round and firm, her thighs shapely—a girl who was clearly capable of bearing the Prophet children.

  I seethed as I realized that Juwayriya would now become the new hope of the community, since I had failed to give the Prophet a son despite the six years we had shared a bed. The tongues of cruel gossips wagged that I was infertile, and yet my courses came every month without fail. It was true that the Prophet now spent only one night a week with me, so the chances of conception were accordingly lowered. There was, of course, still hope that my womb would bear fruit in the years to come. Yet some part of me had begun to believe that it was not the will of Allah that I should carry my husband’s son. The only thought that caused me more grief was that God might choose one of my rivals for that honor.

  As I sat by myself in a corner of the camp, brooding over my lot in life, I felt the arid desert air suddenly cool around me, even though no wind rustled my robes. I looked up to see the Messenger of God standing above me, the infuriating smile still on his lips.

  “Come, let us have a race,” he said, reaching out his hand to me.

  I stared up at him in complete surprise, and then I felt my anger evaporating under the warmth of his gaze. In the early days of our marriage, when I was still a girl in body and heart, the Prophet would often play such games with me. He particularly loved to race, as I, with my lightning speed, was the only person who had any chance of beating him.

  It was a tender offer, a reminder of days long past when it was just the two of us, before his harem was filled with beautiful women whose charms were an easy match for my own. I took his hand and rose, following the Messenger past the bustling crowds who were taking down tents and untethering the camels for the voyage. I saw Juwayriya standing by her widowed mother, watching us like a hawk, and I smiled beneath my black veil.

  My husband led me to a hillock where a lone oleander bush stood in defiance of the wilderness, its pink-and-yellow buds shimmering in the early morning light. I saw him gaze across the landscape until he found a suitable landmark, a cactus tree near a ledge, beyond which was a sharp drop into rocky gorge.

  “There,” he said, pointing to our finish line. “Don’t fall over the edge. The angels might not catch you in time!”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and he laughed heartily. The Prophet waited with an amused grin as I girded my robes above my ankles to make sure I didn’t trip—there were no men in the immediate vicinity, and he did not object. I then kicked off my sandals and let the coarse sand caress my feet as I used to do when I was a child.

  I saw the Messenger’s face change and the teasing look left his eyes, replaced by genuine fondness. I suddenly realized that he, too, missed the days when the world was simple, when it was just a handful of us speaking truth to power. Now we had become the power in the land and nothing was simple anymore.

  The Messenger faced straight ahead, bending down in preparation. And then without the customary countdown from three, he simply cried, “Go!”

  And the race was on.

  I tore past him with the vibrancy of youth, my bare feet flashing beneath me. The hot air smashed against my face, pressing the heavy cloth of my veil against my mouth. I could feel my heart pounding as I pushed every sinew in my legs to the utmost. I could see the cactus growing closer, even as the empty desert appeared to stand still, and for a moment I had the strange thought that I was stationary and the plant was running toward me.

  I could see no sign of my husband from the corner of my eye and wondered whether he had even left his position. And then I felt a rush of cold wind to my right, and the Messenger of God thundered past me, his black hair flowing wildly in the wind, the thick curls of his beard shaking from his hearty laughter.

  And then he was at the cactus and he turned to face me triumphantly as I arrived a second later. We both dropped to the ground, gasping for breath and laughing with a joy that neither of us had expressed in so many months. The joy of being together, bound by destiny, this great man and this little girl, the most improbable of couples.

  He held me close to him and I could feel the steady, comforting beat of his heart. I realized in that moment that no matter how many women entered his bed, I would remain special. I would never replace Khadija, his first love. But I would assuredly be his last. And in the end, what more could any woman ask of a man?

  After we had caught our breath, I lowered my skirt and we walked back, hand in hand, to the camp, which was by now almost completely dismantled. My tent had been taken down and I went obligingly to Asiya, my she-camel, while my husband rejoined his men and helped them complete the preparations for the journey.

  I sat inside the armored howdah and placed my hand across my heart, fee
ling the wonderful pangs of love renewed. And then I realized that something was wrong. My onyx necklace, which should have been lying on my bosom, was missing. I quickly searched through the howdah, but the tiny compartment was empty. I gingerly climbed out and looked around the camel, but all I could see was yellow sand and orange pebbles. The distinct black stones would have stood out like a blot on the sun, and yet there was no sign of them.

  And then I remembered. I had last felt the necklace on my bosom during the race, the sharp beads pressing against my delicate flesh as I ran toward the cactus. It must have fallen off near the ledge where we reclined after the Messenger had beaten me to the finish.

  I cursed the faulty clasp that had always given me trouble and began walking away from the camp in search of my wedding present. The onyx necklace was the first gift the Messenger had given me, and every time I felt it around my neck, I would remember that special night when I became a woman. I treasured it above all of my meager possessions and was not about to let it vanish into the sands for all time because of carelessness.

  I climbed over the hillock and soon lost sight of the base camp. My eyes scanned the ground as I carefully retraced my steps, but there was no sign of the necklace. Frustrated, I looked around the base of the cactus, and still the necklace eluded my search. I stubbornly crossed the path again and again, kicking aside stones and overturning an anthill in my quest to find my wedding present. I became increasingly agitated and wondered how I would tell my love that his special gift to me was lost forever.