Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam (39 page)

T
he Bani Qurayza held out for twenty-five days. But as their supplies of food and water vanished and the pestilence that had struck the Muslims during the siege of the trench migrated to the Jewish quarter, Kab’s people were faced with no alternative but to surrender and hope for the Messenger’s mercy.

But my husband was not in a forgiving mood. In all the years that I had known him, I had never seen such anger in his eyes as I saw on the day he first learned of Qurayza’s betrayal. Had God not intervened with the sandstorm that blotted their plans, the Jewish tribe would have struck us from the rear while we desperately held back the Confederate invaders at the barrier. Our women and children would have been the first casualties, as the homes where they were lodged would have been the first line of attack when the gates of the fortress had swung open.

The Messenger knew that the Qurayza had planned the utter annihilation of his people, and their treachery could not be left unanswered. Muhammad had shown clemency to the other Jewish tribes, guaranteeing their lives and letting them leave the oasis in safety. And they had repaid him by joining with his enemies. If the Qurayza were allowed the same easy fate of expulsion, they would inevitably join their kinsmen at the citadel of Khaybar to the north, where even now Huyayy was plotting to regain his lost lands despite the failure of the Confederate invasion. All of Arabia would be watching how we treated the Qurayza now that they had fallen into our hands. And mercy would be seen only as a weakness to be exploited by our enemies.

As the battered gate of the fortress opened, I watched the weary residents of the Jewish quarter emerge, their necks bowed in surrender. First the men came out, their bodies shorn of armor and their hands held high to show that they carried no weapons. There were at least seven hundred males, and I could see in their eyes the fire of defiance even as Ali, Talha, and Zubayr took them to the side and tied their hands together with sturdy ropes. I shuddered at the thought that these would have been our executioners had the sands not risen in rebellion.

And then, when the final man had emerged, the women and children followed. The women’s eyes were filled with grief and rage at the sight of their men bound like slaves, but I also saw a hint of relief in many of their faces. Their children had gone without food for days, and many were too weak even to cry. But now that the end had come, at least they could find a way to feed the little ones.

I quickly led the other Mothers to their side, carrying bowls of dates and figs and buckets of water. The Jewish women hesitated when they saw us, but their children ran forward at the sight of the food, their hands outstretched in desperation. I felt tears welling in my eyes as I saw their parched lips and sunken cheeks. They were the innocent victims of war, too small to understand or care about the differences of politics and theology that had led our peoples to this terrible moment. As the children swarmed around us, I saw their mothers looking at us with gratitude as we poured water into their open mouths and placed small treats in their tiny hands.

It was a heartbreaking scene and I felt numbed. I moved toward a woman of the Qurayza who could not have been older than my mother, her dark hair streaked with gray, and embraced her. At that moment, we were neither Muslim nor Jew, neither friend nor foe. We were just women caught in a world that was bigger than us and we held each other tightly, sobbing in our shared grief at the tragedy of life in this cruel wilderness.

And then I saw a young woman step out of the fortress to join the others and I broke free of the embrace, my eyes wide with concern. It was the redheaded girl who had so stubbornly defied us during the opening days of the siege. She walked slowly, as if in a dream, the fire in her eyes now quenched by hunger and exhaustion. Had this girl, whose name I learned was Najma, been more discreet, had she hidden her face behind a veil during the attack, she might have walked unrecognized among the other refugees.

But her fiery hair, so like my own, burned like a beacon in the crowd and she was immediately surrounded by several Muslim soldiers. I ran over to her side just as Ali arrived, holding a rope.

“What are you doing?!” I cried out as Ali steadily bound the girl’s hands.

“She goes with the men,” he said simply.

“They will kill her,” I said. I did not know this for sure, but I sensed that the Muslims were in no mood to give quarter. Whatever punishment awaited the warriors of the Qurayza, I did not feel that this young and impressionable girl should suffer it.

Ali shrugged as if I were commenting about something as trivial the weather.

“If she wishes to fight like a man, then she must be willing to die like a man,” he said. And from the look he gave me, I felt that somehow his words were not meant for the Jewish girl alone.

I stood shaking with impotent rage as Ali led the girl to stand with the male prisoners. Najma did not resist, and she followed like a lamb patiently walking to slaughter. But then, just before she disappeared inside the crowd of captured men, the girl raised her eyes and met mine. I did not see in Najma’s look sorrow or anger at her fate. Just confusion, as if she were lost in a strange world that she no longer recognized.

And for a terrible moment, I understood how she felt.

T
hat night I accompanied my husband to the granary, where the prisoners were kept. Abu Bakr and Umar joined us, along with a man of the tribe of Aws I recognized as Sa’d ibn Muadh, who walked in great pain, a thick bandage around his gut that was stained with blood. Sa’d had been injured by an arrow during the Confederate attack and the whispers were that he was dying. Why he would leave his bed to walk here tonight was a mystery. But I saw from the grim look on the Messenger’s face that my normally inquisitive nature would be unwelcome tonight.

I wasn’t sure why I had been asked to come, but some instinct in me said that Ali must have mentioned to the Prophet my compassion for the Jewish girl who was the sole woman to be held prisoner. I sensed that judgment would be rendered against the Qurayza tonight and my husband wanted me to be there to witness it. If not to approve, then, perhaps, to understand.

As we entered the granary that was now a prison, I saw the Jewish men standing in prayer, surrounded by hundreds of armed guards. Their arms were still tied, but their legs had been freed so that they could sway back and forth as the elderly rabbi of the settlement, Husayn ibn Sallam, led them in reciting the ancient Hebrew words that sounded so much like our own tongue and yet were still so foreign

The Messenger stood respectfully, watching the men pray. I caught sight of the girl Najma alone in a corner, her red hair covered by a scarf. She did not join the others in worship but stared straight ahead, unblinking.

When the rabbi finished his invocations, a blanket of silence fell upon the crowd as all turned to face the man who would decide their fate. A tall, thin man with dark eyes who had been standing beside ibn Sallam now stepped forward, his head held proudly, and faced the Messenger of God.

My husband met his eyes for a long moment. When he spoke, it was in a deep voice. His words echoed throughout the vast chamber that had stored our supplies of wheat and barley before they were consumed during the siege and the famine.

“Kab ibn Asad,” my husband said, and the tall man nodded in acknowledgment. “You have sought my judgment against your people.”

“I have,” he said with great dignity.

The Messenger stepped forward, his black eyes glistening in the torchlight.

“Your treachery nearly brought the fire of death into he streets of Medina,” Muhammad said. “Had God not intervened, you would have assuredly left none of my people alive.”

Kab looked at his adversary without blinking.

“Yes,” he said. It was a simple statement of fact, without any guilt or shame.

The Messenger frowned and I could see a hint of the outrage that he had shown when he first learned of the Qurayza’s deal with the Confederates.

“It is not for me to judge you,” my husband said, to my surprise. “My anger is so great that I fear I will not be impartial.”

Kab nodded, no emotion on his face.

“I understand.”

The Messenger now turned to the injured Sa’d, who was leaning against a wooden post, his hand covering the bandage. I noticed that the splotch of blood had spread and now the entire wrap was soaked.

“Will you submit to the judgment, Sa’d ibn Muadh?” the Prophet asked.

Kab turned to face Sa’d. I recalled now that the two had once been friends and that Sa’d had served as an intermediary between the Muslims and Jews over the past several years. But if Sa’d had retained any memory of that friendship, I could not see it in his brown eyes, which were burning with anger at betrayal.

“Sa’d has always been a friend to the Qurayza. I trust that he will do what is just.” But even as Kab spoke these words, I knew that he, too, understood that whatever courtesies had existed between them, the bitterness of war had erased that past forever.

Sa’d moved forward, grimacing from the pain of his mortal wound. He stepped so close to Kab that that their noses almost touched. Kab did not flinch as Sa’d looked straight into his eyes and spoke.

“You are not Muslims and so you are not subject to the laws that God has revealed in the holy Qur’an,” he said, his voice quivering with anger. “I can only judge you by your own laws. Do you understand?”

Kab nodded, never letting his eyes leave Sa’d.

“Yes,” was all he said.

Sa’d stepped back and faced the elderly rabbi. Ibn Sallam had been the only one of the exiled tribe of Qaynuqa who had been permitted to stay in Medina, as he had always been respectful of the Muslims’ beliefs and had never disparaged my husband’s claim to being a prophet. The old sage had lingered in the oasis, ministering to the remaining Jewish tribes, until the Bani Nadir had been expelled and only the Qurayza remained.

“Tell me, Rabbi, what does Moses say is the punishment for a tribe that breaks its treaty and makes war upon its neighbor?”

It was a simple question, asked in a respectful tone, but I saw the color drain from Ibn Sallam’s wrinkled cheeks.

“The text is ancient,” the rabbi responded slowly, as if choosing every word carefully. “The words refer to a time long past.”

Sa’d ibn Muadh turned back to the Jewish chieftain.

“Do you believe, Kab, that the Torah is God’s Word?”

Kab smiled softly, realizing Sa’d’s intent.

“I do.”

Sa’d spoke loudly now, so that his words echoed throughout the granary.

“Then God’s Word does not change from day to day,” he said. “What was revealed to Moses in days long past will serve as a witness against you tonight.”

Kab nodded

“So be it.”

Sa’d faced the rabbi and pointed a finger at him.

“Ibn Sallam, what does your Torah say about the fate of a tribe that makes war upon its neighbors?”

Ibn Sallam hesitated. He looked at Kab, who nodded. And then the old rabbi unraveled the sacred scroll of the Torah from which he had been praying and read aloud, a quiver of sadness in his raspy voice.

“In Devarim, which the Greeks call Deuteronomy, in chapter twenty, verses ten through fourteen, the Lord says: ‘When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.’”

I felt a chill as I heard these words and realized that the fate of the Qurayza had been set. They had been doomed by their own scriptures to suffer the fate that their ancestors had unleashed upon others a millennium before. The men would be all killed, and the women and children would live as slaves in the land they had once ruled.

Sa’d nodded and met Kab’s eyes.

“Your Book has spoken,” he said.

Kab did not flinch at the cruel sentence but simply nodded in resignation, as if he had expected no less.

As we turned to leave, I heard the rabbi lead the prisoners in a haunting chant that I could not understand but whose intonations, rife with weariness and sorrow, did not need to be translated. I cast a final glance at Najma, who continued to stare straight ahead as if locked in her own dream, and then stepped outside.

We walked back to the center of the city in silence. When we reached the Masjid, the Messenger embraced Sa’d and thanked him for bravely pronouncing the judgment. The dying man nodded, and my father and Umar helped carry him back to his bed. I had no doubt from his gaunt and yellowing skin that he would not live long enough to see the punishment of the Qurayza carried out.

That night, I lay by my husband’s side, facing away from him rather than nestling against his bosom as was my habit.

“You are angry at me,” he said gently.

I hesitated, unsure of what I was feeling in the hollow of my stomach.

“No,” I said at long last. “They would have killed all of us had they been able to attack. If we let them leave as we did the Qaynuqa and the Nadir, they would have come back to attack us. The judgment is cruel, but they cannot complain. The Qurayza have been punished by their own traditions.”

The Messenger took my hand in his.

“Not quite.”

I looked up at him in confusion. In his dark eyes I saw no more anger, but a profound sorrow.

“The rabbi read the wrong section of the Book, as I had asked him to.”

My eyes went wide.

“I don’t understand.”

The Messenger squeezed my fingers and I could feel the depth of emotion that he was suppressing.

“The law of Moses he read was a punishment only for distant tribes who fought the Children of Israel from other lands. It was not the punishment for a neighboring tribe.”

I looked up at my husband, unsure of what he was holding back.

“What would have been the punishment in the Torah for a neighboring tribe?”

The Prophet looked at me and I saw lines of great sadness in his eyes.

“The rabbi read to me the verses that followed,” he said. “The Book says that in the cities that are near, the judgment is to kill everything that breathes.”

I was stunned and shuddered at the horror. Could the God of Moses, the God of love and justice that we worshipped as Allah, be so cruel that He would call upon the Children of Israel even to slay women and children?

It was a barbaric code for a barbaric world, and I began to understand why God had sent a new prophet to mankind. A new Book that sought to restrain and regulate the madness of war for the first time. In a world where greed and lust for power were enough to justify bloodshed, the holy Qur’an said
“Fight those who fight you, but do not commit aggression.”
In a world where soldiers raped and killed innocents in battle without any guilt, the Revelation had established rules that prevented such atrocities from happening. Women and children could not be killed under the rules of Islam, and protection was extended to the elderly, as well as to the priests and monks of the People of the Book.

Allah had even forbidden the destruction of trees and the poisoning of wells, tactics that were widely employed by so-called civilized nations such as the Byzantines and the Persians. And the Messenger did not permit us to use fire as a weapon, for only God had the right to punish His Creation with the fires of Hell. Flaming arrows would have helped us burn down the houses of the Qurayza and end the siege, but the Prophet rejected the horror of burning people alive in their homes, even if it was the accepted practice of warfare throughout the world.

We had shown restraint, but in a world where death hung over the sands like a bitter cloud, bloodshed was inevitable. I looked up at my husband and realized from the sadness in his face that he did not relish the massacre that was to come. He had done what was necessary to save his community from extinction, and the death of the warriors of Qurayza would send a clear message to all the neighboring tribes that treachery would be punished. Once the Qurayza had been dispatched, more chieftains would realize that it was in their best interest to join the alliance. A state was being born out of chaos, and the price of establishing order was high.

I leaned close to the Messenger and buried my face in his breast, letting the gentle pulse of his heart lull me into a dreamworld in which there was no death, no blood, no tears. A world in which love alone could end tyranny and save the weak from the depredations and cruelty of the strong. A world where there was no war and men could lay down their swords and live without fear of attack from their neighbors.

It was a world that could exist only in dreams.