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

by Kamran Pasha

  The Prophet now looked away from me and stared across the room. He continued to speak, but it was to himself and not to us.

  “They bark at the Angel of Death…who follows her skirts…so much death in her midst…”

  A terrible silence followed and the only thing I could hear was the pounding of blood in my ears. And then the Jewess stood up, her eyes filled with the terror that we all now felt.

  “Who is she? Who do the dogs bark at?”

  The Prophet stirred from his silent reverie and then looked again at each of us, sorrow etched on to his features.

  “I…I don’t know…but I grieve for her…”

  The air of festivity was gone, replaced by a terrible sense of doom hanging over us. The Messenger of God shook his head as if trying to free himself from the awful vision that had captured his heart. He turned to leave and then stopped, his eyes suddenly focused on me. He leaned close so that only I would hear.

  “Please, Humayra,” he said softly. “Don’t let the dogs bark at you.”

  He walked out, leaving me with an unearthly sense of foreboding. I suddenly threw on my veil and ran outside. As I fled the pavilion and raced back to the security of my little home, I felt like a terrified gazelle charging through the wilderness, escaping an unseen predator that was coming closer every moment.

  In years to come, when the Messenger’s prophecy came true, I learned that we are all gazelles, and the lion that is bearing down upon us is the heartless hunter called fate. And the tragedy of life is that no matter how fast we run, no matter how far we go, the lion always wins.

  39 Mecca—AD 630

  In the eighth year after we had emigrated to Medina, when I was seventeen years old, the Meccans broke the truce of Hudaybiyya. Men of Quraysh helped a group of hotheads from the Bedouin clan of Bakr attack Muslims from the Bani Khuza’a. It was some foolish quarrel, a blood feud over a woman from a pagan clan who had fallen in love and run off with a Muslim boy. But it was a clear violation of the peace that had stood for two years, and the Prophet ordered the army of Islam to march out to Mecca in response.

  By now, we truly could be called an army. Having been battle-tested in dozens of increasingly complex skirmishes, the barbarian tribes were now a powerfully disciplined and honed fighting force, one that had in recent months had its first confrontation with the legions of the Byzantine empire. After the failure of the Roman alliance with Khaybar, the day had been rapidly approaching when the imperial troops would engage our men. The Byzantines had precipitated the crisis by capturing the Prophet’s emissary to Syria and brutally killing him. The murder was a ruthless violation of the ancient diplomatic sanctity of envoys and was no doubt intended to show the Byzantine contempt for the rising Muslim power and to provoke a response.

  The Messenger had sent a force of three thousand to avenge his ambassador’s death, led by his adopted son, Zayd. The resulting battle against Byzantine troops at the valley of Muta’h was the first in a war that would soon see the mighty Roman empire collapse at the hands of a group of desert warriors. The fighting was brutal and Zayd was killed. The death of Muhammad’s beloved kinsman had caused the Muslims to fight with such ferocity that the overconfident Byzantine legions were forced to retreat. The Meccan defector Khalid ibn al-Waleed took the standard of the army and fought the stunned Byzantine forces back to the Dead Sea before pulling his men into the safety of the desert. Though the battle could at best have been called a draw, the Byzantines were horrified. Their elite forces, which had ruled much of the earth for almost a thousand years, had been checked by lightly armed horsemen who had been outnumbered three to one.

  When the survivors returned to Mecca, the Prophet had congratulated them for their courage and awarded Khalid with the title “the Sword of Allah,” by which he would forever be known. And then the Messenger had retreated to the privacy of Zaynab’s apartment to weep bitterly over the death of Zayd, who had been a son to him and a husband to her.

  The Muslim army had faced down the Byzantines and was now ready to face its most important challenge—the conquest of the holy city of Mecca. The Messenger brought together ten thousand of his finest warriors and marched to Mecca in response to the treaty violation. Many of the men were filled with righteous indignation and a burning desire to avenge years of humiliation and death at the hands of the Quraysh. But the Messenger calmed their hearts, saying that he would prefer to take the city without bloodshed. Even though it had been the base of operations of our enemies, Mecca remained a sacred city and the Prophet had no desire to stain the Sanctuary of Abraham with blood.

  And so, as the Muslim army camped in the hills outside the ancient city from which we had been exiled, he ordered each and every one of the men to light a small campfire, rather than a few large bonfires around which the army would gather. And so it was that the night sky of Mecca was illuminated crimson with the combined flames of ten thousand fires, creating the terrifying impression of an army of one hundred thousand camped on the edge of the city. It was an effective ruse, and the citizenry of Mecca devolved into panic at the illusion.

  I stood by the Prophet’s side at the edge of a hill, my skin tingling with the waves of heat emanating from the burning camp behind us. The smoke from the fires made my eyes water and I was perennially terrified that a stray spark from one of the thousands of burning pits would consume the Prophet’s pavilion, which he had pitched just outside the perimeter of the camp. Though Umar and the other commanders had objected to the Messenger’s command center being established at the base of the hills, where it would be easy prey for the first Meccan attack force, my husband did not seem in the least bit afraid. And looking back at the flaming horizon, which seemed as terrifying as the gates of Hell, I understood his confidence. There would be no attack.

  Two men approached our camp, carrying the flag of heralds. Unlike the Byzantines, Muslims respected the immunity of envoys and these men did not need any protective force. As the tall figures clambered down the hill toward the Messenger’s simple green tent, my eyes went wide with recognition. These were not simple ambassadors. They were the lords of Mecca itself.

  Abu Sufyan had come, along with his son Muawiya, who had been a secret convert for several years. From the smile on Muawiya’s face and the tired and defeated look on Abu Sufyan’s, it was clear that there was no more need for pretense. Mecca had been defeated, and all that was left was to settle the terms of its surrender.

  The Messenger stepped forward with a warm smile and extended his hand to the man who had been his enemy for twenty years. Abu Sufyan looked at him wearily and then shook the Prophet’s hand with dignity.

  OVER THE NEXT HOUR, the Messenger and Abu Sufyan negotiated a permanent end to hostilities between our peoples. The Muslim army would enter the city in the morning with the guarantee of a general amnesty for its populace. This was a remarkably magnanimous gesture on my husband’s part. He had defeated the people who had persecuted him for two decades, the people who had killed his family members and loved ones and had nearly exterminated the entire Muslim population at the Battle of the Trench. And he would forgive them and grant them privileged membership in the Muslim Ummah. The Quraysh, the tribe that had expelled Muhammad from its bosom, would retain control of Mecca and their traditional right to administer the Sanctuary and the Holy Kaaba in the name of Islam.

  All of this the Messenger offered with a smile and an open hand. Abu Sufyan sighed, shaking his head at his enemy’s generosity, which he himself had failed to show over the years.

  “Perhaps I always knew this day would come,” he said after a long moment of silence. His hair was now as white as the clouds, and his once-handsome faced was lined heavily with creases, the shrewd eyes weighed down by dark circles. He looked more like an old beggar than the would-be king of the Arab nation.

  The Prophet leaned closer to him, took his hand in his as if they were old friends and not mortal enemies.

  “Then why did you resist for so long?”


  Abu Sufyan looked at his son Muawiya, his hope and pride, who had betrayed him and joined forces with his adversary. The dignified young man met his gaze and I could seen in them a glint of triumph, as if he had finally been proven right in an old family argument.

  “Pride,” Abu Sufyan admitted at last. And then he turned his eyes on the Messenger. “And perhaps jealousy. That Allah had chosen you over me.”

  The Messenger smiled.

  “You said Allah, and not ‘the gods.’”

  Abu Sufyan shrugged and rose to his feet.

  “If my gods were real, they would have helped me over the years.”

  The old man turned to leave, and then, almost as an afterthought, he turned to look back at my husband, an ironic smile on his lips.

  “I testify that there is no god but God, and that you, Muhammad, are the Messenger of God.”

  And with that, the last of Muhammad’s old enemies became his follower. Muawiya rose to help the old man limp out, when the Prophet called after them.

  “Tell your people to stay indoors and abandon their weapons,” he said slowly, making sure that every word was understood. “No man will be harmed who does not resist.”

  Abu Sufyan nodded. He was about to step out into the desert air, heated to frenzy by the thousands of campfires, when he looked one last time at the Messenger of God.

  “Congratulations, Muhammad. You have defeated Quraysh at last.”

  And then I saw the Prophet turn his gaze to Muawiya and for a second there was that strange and chilling flash of premonition in his black eyes. And then the Messenger smiled, and I was surprised to see a hint of sadness on his face.

  “No. I have given the Quraysh victory.”

  40

  The next morning, Muhammad entered as a conqueror the holy city from which he had been expelled. Khalid ibn al-Waleed had led an advance guard to secure the city, but there was little resistance. The exhausted citizens of Mecca stayed inside their homes, quietly praying to their gods that the man whom they had persecuted would show them the graciousness that had escaped them when they held the reins of power. And their prayers would be answered, but not by the idols that they had fought and died for. The days of Allat, Uzza, and Manat were over, and Allah had emerged triumphant. The many had been defeated by the One.

  My husband rode his favorite camel, Qaswa, back into the city that had been his home until he had questioned its ancient taboos and challenged its powerful elite. My father, Abu Bakr, rode at his side, followed by the ranks of the Muslim army, marching forward with dignity and discipline down the paved streets toward the Sanctuary.

  I was on my own camel, riding in the covered howdah that been the source of so much trouble when I had been left behind in the desert. The Muslims had a policy now that they would not break camp until the Mothers had all been safely tucked away in their honored carriages and accounted for. Normal decorum required that I sit behind the heavy curtains of the howdah until the company had come to a halt, but the excitement of the day won out and no one objected when I peered through the woolen covers at the glorious sight of the Sanctuary, which I had not seen since I was a little girl.

  The Kaaba was as I remembered it, the towering cubical temple covered in rich curtains of multicolored silks. The circular plaza around this holiest site of the Arab people was still littered with the three hundred and sixty idols that represented the different gods of the tribes, but this abomination would soon be at an end.

  The Messenger rode ahead of us and circled the holy house seven times while proclaiming God’s glory. He then stopped his camel and climbed down, approaching the Black Stone that was placed inside the eastern corner of the building. The Stone was said to have been lodged there by Abraham himself when our forefather had built the original temple with his son Ishmael. According to the Messenger, the Black Stone had fallen from heaven and was the only remnant of the celestial paradise from which Adam had been expelled.

  The Messenger kissed the Stone of Heaven with reverence. And then he signaled to Ali, who strode forth with his mighty sword and began to slash away at the idols that had polluted the House of God from time immemorial. He tore down the ancient statues of the Daughters of Allah, followed by the grinning carved faces of the Syrian and Iraqi gods who had been imported into the Sanctuary when their images were no longer welcome in the Christian world. As the idols fell, a tremendous chorus of chants rose from the Muslim ranks, cries of Allahu akbar and La ilaha illallah. “God is great. There is no god but God.” From this day forward the Arabs were no longer a disparate group of competing tribes, each with its own customs and beliefs. They were a single nation, united under one God.

  And then, when the plaza was covered in rubble and the last of the idols had been smashed to dust, the Messenger of God opened the doors of the Kaaba and gestured toward us, his family and closest followers. My father and Ali came to his side, as did Umar, Uthman, Talha, and Zubayr. Fatima joined them, holding the hands of her little sons, Hasan and Husayn. And then Prophet looked at me and nodded. I hesitated, feeling my heart pounding with anticipation, and then I led my sister-wives to the entrance of the Holy of Holies, where the Spirit of God dwelled for eternity.

  The Messenger stepped inside and we climbed the stone steps, following him into the darkness. There were no torches inside the Kaaba and for a moment I was blind and lost. And then my eyes adjusted to the gloom and I could see the three marble pillars that held up the stone roof of the temple. And on the far wall towered a mighty carnelian statue of Hubal, the god of Mecca.

  The Prophet stared at this icon for a long time, the symbol of everything that he had spent his entire life fighting against. And then he raised his staff and pointed it at the idol, and for a moment he looked very much like Moses confronting the hubris of Pharaoh. And then the Messenger of God recited a verse from the Holy Qur’an: Truth has come and falsehood has vanished. Verily falsehood always vanishes.

  I heard a rumble and I suddenly felt the ground beneath me shaking. And then as the tremors intensified, the majestic icon of Hubal shuddered and pitched forward on its face. The idol fell to the ground and shattered like a crystal vial thrown from a great height.

  The ground became still and a deep silence fell over the Kaaba.

  And then I heard the voice of Bilal, the Abyssinian slave who had been tortured in the Sanctuary so many years before. He was calling out the Azan, the call to prayer, summoning men to the Truth that could no longer be denied.

  There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.

  41

  The Messenger of God pitched his tent on the outskirts of the city, where each and every one of the residents of Mecca came to give him their pledge of loyalty. Abu Bakr sat at his right and Umar at his left hand, while Uthman stood to one side and gave to each of the new converts a gift of gold or jewels from the Bayt al-Mal, the Muslim treasury, a gesture of reconciliation and welcome to the new order. Ali stood behind the Prophet, Dhul Fiqar unsheathed and held aloft, a warning to any who might try to take vengeance on the man who had defeated the proud lords of Mecca.

  It was not idle posturing, for the Messenger had recently survived an assassination attempt. During a visit to the conquered city of Khaybar, the Prophet had been welcomed by the Jewish chieftains who were eager to keep the peace after their humiliating defeat. But not everyone in the city shared their leaders’ sentiments, and a woman of Khaybar had poisoned a feast of lamb that had been prepared for the Prophet by his hosts. The Messenger had tasted the meat and immediately sensed that something was wrong. He had spit out the poisoned morsel, but several of his Companions had been less fortunate and had died painfully at the table. The terrified Jewish leaders, fearing that their tribe would be annihilated in punishment, had found the cook and forced her to confess that she had acted alone. Ali had been prepared to execute her on the spot, but the Prophet had restrained his outraged cousin. My husband had asked the defiant Jewess why she had tried to kill him, and she had respo
nded with her head held proudly that she was merely avenging the deaths of her kinsmen at Muhammad’s hand. And to everyone’s surprise, the Messenger had nodded with understanding and pardoned her.

  As I looked at the faces of the defeated Meccans lining up before my husband, I did not see what I had glimpsed on that Jewish woman’s angry face. I saw no fire of defiance, no hint of rebellion still in their hearts. They were humbled and weary, tired of fighting, tired of losing, tired of being on the wrong side of history. I felt a particular flash of satisfaction when I saw Suhayl, the pretentious envoy who had negotiated the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, bow his head before his new master. There was no insouciance in his voice, no flash of contempt in his dark eyes. Just eager gratitude that the Messenger had chosen to show clemency to men like him who did not deserve it.

  And there were moments of sincere reconciliation and joy. The Prophet’s uncle Abbas, who had been his secret ally inside Mecca all these years, could finally embrace his nephew openly. And to my great joy, my estranged brother Abdal Kaaba, who had nearly killed his own father at the Battle of Uhud, rejoined our family. The Messenger embraced my brother and gave him a new name, Abdal Rahman. I had never seen my father so happy as on the day that his eldest son returned to his bosom, and it was as if years of pain fell off Abu Bakr’s face and he was a young man again.

  My half sister, Asma, also received a blessing when her elderly mother, Qutaila, came and finally embraced the faith that she had rejected years before. It was a tearful reunion, and I wondered how Asma had endured all those years cut off from the woman who had given her birth and then rejected her when she chose her father’s religion over the ways of the ancients. I suddenly realized how lucky I really was to have had a loving family that remained intact despite all the hardships we endured, and how brave my sister had been all these years when her heart had been weighed down with such unspoken sorrow.