The Father of Locks

by Andrew Killeen

  At last I managed to stop a serving girl who pointed me the way to the Hall of the Barid. This was a long, high room, with sleeping mats along one side. There was only one occupant, a man of around forty years who was winding his turban around his head. He looked at me quizzically.

  “New, are you?”

  “Actually, I don’t know what I am.”

  And at that it all came out, my journey to Baghdad, capture in the Chamber of the Ancients, the Wazir, the poet, and all the rest of it. If the man was surprised at my rambling answer to his simple question, he did not show it. He was an excellent listener, nodding and gasping in all the right places, and something about his frank, plain face invited confidence. When I had finished, he stroked his beard thoughtfully.

  “So you’re the new hobble for the Father of Locks.”

  “Hobble?”

  “Hobble, lad. A length of rope used to tie a horse’s legs together to slow it down. Our friend Ja’far ibn Yahya likens Abu Nuwas to a swift but hot-tempered stallion. Says he needs a hobble so the rest of the team can keep up.”

  “He doesn’t seem that brilliant to me.”

  “Don’t be fooled by the drunkenness, the lisp, and the other affectations. He’s got one of the sharpest brains in the city. He’s not what you’d call a regular in the service, but Ja’far likes to employ him for occasional, particularly tricky tasks. I think the Wazir considers it proof of his own cleverness, to use and manipulate such a maverick mind.”

  “What happened to his last – hobble?”

  The man stared sympathetically at me.

  “A good question, lad. They tend not to last very long. Abu Nuwas has an appetite for risk that most find unpalatable. Sometimes fatally so.”

  I must have looked alarmed, because he tried to reassure me.

  “Still, you’re very different to the usual sort. In the past Ja’far has used men of middle age, stolid and unimaginative, hoping they would rein in the poet’s extravagance. Perhaps he has a new plan. And you’ve joined the Barid without even knowing what it is?”

  I understood that he was trying to change the subject, but I needed to learn whatever I could.

  “Sit down, lad. I’m going to teach you how to rule an empire. You say you journeyed here from Ifriqiya?”

  “It took me nearly three years.”

  “And you have not seen even half of the Khalifate. You could keep going all the way to China without leaving the Land of Islam. Different peoples, different languages, different cultures. Now, how do you think our masters keep the peace, enforce the law, arbitrate disputes?”

  “Well, there are governors …”

  “Think, lad! When you were in Tiaret, where did the people go for judgment?”

  “To the Amir.”

  “Correct. The men who rule the nations of the Khalifate are the same people who always ruled them. The Amirs, the Shaikhs, the kings and princes. Do you think Harun al-Rashid is interested in disputes over cattle between Mongolian herdsmen who don’t even speak Arabic?

  “No, the governors are there for one thing only: to collect taxes. That revenue pays for the infrastructure of the empire, and most particularly the armies that hold the empire together. You see the beauty of it? The subjects pay their taxes, and those taxes pay for the soldiers who keep them subjected, and who come to collect if they’re slow in paying.

  “And the profits of this elegant racket permit the Abbasids, the Barmakids, and all their flunkies, parasites, concubines and half-wit second cousins to live in a decadent luxury that the Caesars of Rome would have considered excessive.

  “It is a delicate equilibrium, however. The subjects are also taxed by their own, local rulers. It only takes a governor to squeeze his province too hard, perhaps because he is taking the cream off the top before passing it on to his master, and the people might decide that there are worse things than the Khalifah’s armies. Baghdad needs to know what is going on, in Bukhara and Antioch and Alexandria, without waiting for the governor’s bland reports about how terribly well he is doing.

  “And that’s where you and I come in, my friend. We are the Barid, the postmen. The Khalifah cannot openly send spies to check on his top officials. Such lack of trust creates more conspiracies than it prevents. But nobody can refuse entry to the messenger, with important letters from the Commander of the Faithful.

  “Of course we do carry mail. There are post stations with fresh horses all across the empire. That journey from Tiaret, that took you three years? I could do it in three weeks, if the urgency was great enough. But we get everywhere, and we talk to everybody. And then we come back here and talk to Ja’far al-Barmaki.”

  “So we only spy on our own officials?”

  The man laughed.

  “They’re the only real threat to the peace of the Khalifate. The Romans are too weak to mount any serious offensive. As long as the Emperor’s mother keeps her grip on the balls of her feeble-minded son, there’s no chance of them trying to regain the lands we liberated from them.

  “I suppose the Emperor of China could raise an army which might rival that of Islam. But between our lands and his lie the empty wastes of Qyzylqum, which blaze in summer and freeze in winter. Any expedition seeking to cross it would face grave difficulties.

  “There are other dangers within our borders though, beside corrupt governors. We have to keep our ears open, maintain contacts amongst the heretics, particularly in Makkah and Madinah. There is always some fanatic seeking to overthrow the Abbasids, to put an Alid on the throne.”

  “What is an Alid?”

  He looked at me incredulously.

  “You truly do not know? Such political naivety could be terminal, in a member of the Barid. The Alids are the descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was married to Fatimah, who was the daughter of the Prophet – you have no idea about any of this, do you? I’d better tell you the whole story.”

  So he did.

  The Tale of the Righteous Ones

  Aisha bint Abi Bakr was playing on the swing with her friends when her mother called to her. The girl ran to the house, thinking that dinner must be early tonight. Instead her mother tugged a comb through her hair and told her that she must go and wash, for she was to be married that day.

  Vaguely Aisha recollected her betrothal, three years previously, although she had barely understood it at the time. All day long, serious beards had come and gone, waggling at each other. Then she had to hold the hand of a nice old man. She only really remembered it because that evening there was feasting, and she had been allowed to stay up until she drifted to sleep in a torchlit, noisy tent.

  Before that, she had apparently been promised to a boy of good birth from a local tribe. His family had broken off the engagement, though, after the trouble in Makkah. This Aisha did not remember at all, but only knew from the stories of the women. Instead of being a disgrace, however, the broken engagement was a blessing. Because her father, Abu Bakr, had been free to give her in marriage to his best friend, the most important man in the history of the world.

  Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, peace be upon him, was the Prophet of God, chosen to be the messenger of the Last Testament. For over a decade now the Angel Jibril had been visiting him, bringing the Word, pure, perfect, and eternal. All mankind needed for salvation was submission, Islam, to God’s will, as dictated to his Apostle.

  This was not a new religion but a reclamation of the only true faith, the faith of Adam and Nuh, of Ibrahim and Musa. The Word had been given to the Jews, but they had perverted it in their sinfulness. Isa ibn Maryam brought it to all men, but his followers twisted his meaning, calling him the Son of God and dividing the one God into three. And finally had come Muhammad, humanity’s last chance to listen.

  Not everybody welcomed the chance. The Prophet’s tribe, the Qurayshi, governed the city of Makkah, and within it the Ka’bah, the most sacred shrine of the Arabs. This brought them not only prestige but profit, as the trucial zone around the shrine made
it an important trading post. When Muhammad preached against idolatry and false gods, most of the Qurayshi felt that he had turned against his own.

  Things had got so bad that Abu Bakr fled to Aksum, taking his daughter with him. Only now that the Prophet had settled in Madinah could they return to Arabia, and the marriage take place.

  Aisha had been chosen by God to be his Apostle’s wife. The Angel Jibril had brought visions of the little girl to his dreams. Abu Bakr, though, was worried about engaging his young daughter to Muhammad. He was concerned that he and the Prophet were brothers by oath, and that the marriage would be incestuous. The Angel came again, reassuring them that God had sanctioned the union.

  On the day of the wedding, Aisha’s playmates were frightened by the imposing man with his cloak and staff, and ran away. However Muhammad called them back, sat on the floor with them and joined in their games. So the Prophet played with the children as the sun declined, until it was time for the husband to take his wife to bed.

  The marriage was happy on the whole, although not without occasional troubles. Even the favourite wife of the Chosen One was but a woman. There was the time when she left her husband’s camp to look for a lost necklace, and returned to find the caravan had moved on without her. She was rescued by a man named Safwan, only for evil slanderers to claim that she had slipped away deliberately to meet him for sex.

  Muhammad was troubled by the allegations, but the Angel visited him to inform him of Aisha’s innocence. Jibril also told him that those who accuse honourable women must produce four witnesses to the adultery or face eighty lashes and never be believed again. The slanderers received the punishment they deserved.

  Then there was the time the Christian concubine, Maria al-Qibtiyya, bore a son to the Prophet. Muhammad spent much time with her, sharing dishes of honey, of which Maria was very fond. Consumed with jealousy, Aisha and another of the wives told him that the honey made his breath stink. The Angel warned him of the deception, however. The Prophet did not visit Aisha for a month, and she was duly chastened.

  Despite these difficulties, it was to Aisha’s house that Muhammad retired when he realised the end was near. And it was there that God took back His Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. He was sixty-two years old, and passed away with his head in his young wife’s lap, in the ninth year of their marriage.

  And that was when the trouble started. Muhammad had named no heir. His son by Maria had died in infancy, as had all his children except his daughter Fatimah. On his deathbed he had asked for writing tools, so that he could record the name of his anointed successor. But Aisha chased off the attendants who brought them, telling them not to worry a sick old man with such things.

  The Prophet’s legacy was not only religious, but also political. By the time of his passing all the tribes of Arabia had come under his sway, either by conversion or by conquest. In addition there was the not inconsiderable matter of his personal wealth, his slaves, land and property. A great deal depended on the events of the next few hours. Aisha immediately sent a messenger to her father Abu Bakr, who was a couple of miles away in the small town of al-Sunah. However, while she was busy, Muhammad’s body was snatched from her house, carried away by Aisha’s greatest rival for his affections.

  Fatimah bint Muhammad was the only child of the Prophet to survive to adulthood and give him grandchildren. Her mother was Khadijah, Muhammad’s beloved first wife. Indeed, while she lived, Khadijah was Muhammad’s sole wife; he refused all other offers of marriage, even for reasons of charity or alliance.

  Fatimah herself was married to her father’s cousin, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Loyal and devout, she had reason to consider herself to be the leader of Muslim womanhood. Recently however she had faced a rival in her father’s child bride, to whom he had gone to be nursed through his final days. By claiming his body for washing and burial, the Prophet’s daughter was asserting her position at the head of the Ummah.

  As Fatimah’s household wailed around the corpse, Aisha’s messenger reached Abu Bakr. The old disciple, who still bore the scars of the beating he had received when he first preached the Word on the streets of Makkah, knew what had happened. He knew before he saw the dust kicked up in the distance by the messenger’s horse. He knew from the stillness that had descended on the mud huts and olive trees. The animals, the birds, even the wind seemed to have fallen silent. So he merely nodded, when the sweating rider climbed down from his mount and gasped out the grim tidings.

  Now, men have fought and died over what happened next. You can read a hundred different accounts of the events of that tempestuous summer in Madinah, and no two will be exactly the same. But this is my story. I had it from my grandfather, and he had it from his grandfather, and he was that sweating horseman who broke the news to Abu Bakr; or so he always claimed to his family. Whether this is the true story, nobody knows for certain, and anybody who might have known is long dead. But this is how I heard it, and this is how I tell it.

  Nobody had discussed what would happen after the Prophet’s death, as if to speak of it was somehow to wish for it. Abu Bakr, however, was a man and a warrior, and it fell to him to care for the well-being of the Ummah. He had lost his best and oldest friend as well as his leader, but the time for mourning must come later. He called for his horse and hurried back to Madinah.

  On his arrival more bad news awaited him. Abu Bakr’s right hand man was Umar ibn al-Khattab, a fierce zealot who had fought at his side through the difficult years. Now word came that Umar had gone mad with grief, and was rampaging around the city. Abu Bakr found him in the market place, brandishing his sword and raving.

  “The liars are saying that the Prophet is dead! He is not – cannot be dead. He has gone into the wilderness for forty days, like the Prophet Musa. He will return! By God, he will come back and cut to pieces those who said he was dead!”

  Gently Abu Bakr took the sword from Umar’s hand, and gripped his shoulder.

  “Do you remember, my friend, the words of God, that his Apostle relayed to us? ‘Muhammad is no more than a Messenger. Other Messengers have passed away before him. If he dies, will you turn your back on their message?’ The Prophet is gone, my friend. God’s work is still to be done.”

  And Umar ibn al-Khattab, veteran of a score of battles, threw his arms around his friend’s neck and wept like a baby.

  The tremors from the Prophet’s death were still spreading through the city. The elite of Islam were the Sahaba, the Companions who had come from Makkah with Muhammad. They were a tiny minority though. The dramatic expansion of the faith over the previous decade had been dependent on the new converts of Madinah, known as the Ansar. Abu Bakr heard that the Ansar had gathered at the Saqifah, a tribal meeting house, to choose their next leader. If they elected one of their own number, then the Companions would be irrelevant to the future of the true faith.

  Abu Bakr and Umar crashed into the assembly at Saqifah. While Ali and Fatimah saw to the body of the Prophet, the warriors argued over the soul of the Family he had created. Many of the Ansar viewed Islam more as an Arab unification movement than a religion, and could not see why their own tribal chiefs should not be candidates for the leadership. There seemed no way forward other than dissolution, and a return to idolatry and constant warfare.

  Then the impetuous Umar seized the hand of Abu Bakr, and loudly declared him Khalifah ar-Rasul Allah, Successor to the Prophet of God. In the stunned silence that followed, other allies stepped forward and swore allegiance. Now any rivals for the succession would have to declare their challenge openly, or fall into line. One by one they yielded, and pledged loyalty.

  However there was another potential Successor, who was not present at the assembly. Ali ibn Abi Talib was the Prophet’s cousin, and his son-in-law, and father to his grandchildren. Ali seems to have filled the void in Muhammad’s life left by the sons he had lost. Moreover, he had been one of the first to accept the new teaching, and had fought heroically as captain of the Prophet’s bodyguard. When Muham
mad fled Makkah, Ali had risked his life by sleeping in his cousin’s bed, covering his escape as the blades of the assassins closed in.

  Ali was not pleased to hear that the succession had been decided without him having even been consulted. He and his followers, who were called the Shi’at, or Faction, of Ali, were in no position to challenge for power. On the other hand, nor were they prepared to acknowledge the new regime. They simply stayed out of the way, licking their wounds. This withdrawal became increasingly embarrassing for Abu Bakr, who was struggling to assert his authority over the fractious tribes.

  Finally, Abu Bakr sent Umar to the house of Fatimah, to negotiate a deal. Fatimah, though, was smarting that her father’s huge estates had been claimed by the Khalifah, who had remembered Muhammad saying that “Prophets left no inheritance”, and had taken it all for the Ummah. Worse, she had watched the smirking Aisha be awarded a pension for life, as had the other wives, whilst she, the daughter, was left with nothing. She refused Umar entry to her house.

  Not for the first or last time, Umar lost his temper. He broke through the door by force. Fatimah, pregnant with the Prophet’s grandchild, was standing in the way. She was trapped against the wall, and lost the baby. She never recovered, dying two months later.

  Ali was no coward, but after that night he had no stomach for the fight. Although he had never feared to risk his own life for the true faith, he was reluctant to venture the lives of innocents. He pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr.

  The first Khalifah ruled for only two years of constant warfare. First he had to convince Arabia that Islam had not ended with the death of Muhammad. That could only be done by a show of military might. Abu Bakr subdued the tribes, then took Iraq from the Sassanid Persians, and Syria from the Romans.