Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam (49 page)

T
he battle was over and Khaybar had surrendered. The Jewess named Safiya had served as a mediator between the Prophet and the people of the besieged city, convincing them to lay down their arms on the promise of clemency for the local populace.

With the clash of swords silenced, I helped an elderly Jewish woman step over the grisly carnage in the streets of Khaybar and guided her to the pavilions that had been hoisted for the sick and the injured on both sides. She held me tight, her skeletal fingers cutting into the flesh of my wrist, and whispered her gratitude repeatedly. And then she asked me if I knew what had happened to her son, a young soldier named Nusayb, who had raced from her house to fight the first wave of Muslim infiltrators pouring in through the breached walls. I gently told her that I would find out and reassured her that he was probably with the other prisoners of war. I did not have the heart to tell her that none of the warriors who had thrown themselves at Ali and his men had survived the initial foray.

I left the elderly woman in the care of Umm Salama, who gave her a bowl of water and a small plate of figs. The pavilion smelled of the sickly musk of the dying, a stench that I had come to despise over the past several days, and I quickly turned to exit. Wrapping my cloak against the bitter chill of the morning, I wandered through the devastated alleys as Muslims and Jews worked together to pick up the bodies that littered the streets and haul them away for burial in a cemetery on the outskirts of the oasis.

I stopped before an open field where the prisoners were being held, tied and surrounded by hundreds of Muslim soldiers. A quick round of questions confirmed what I had suspected—the old woman’s son was not among them and had probably already been buried in the mass graves, which were overflowing.

I looked at the center of the field and saw that new graves had been dug here, ditches like the ones in the marketplace of Medina where the Bani Qurayza had been buried. The Prophet’s truce with Khaybar promised amnesty only to the citizens of the town. But the men of Bani Nadir who had taken refuge with them and then incited them to war with the Muslims received no such guarantees. And I could tell from the grim look on the faces of the captives that they knew their fate had been sealed.

As I turned away, I saw my husband approaching with Ali, followed by the Jewish woman Safiya who had helped bring the fighting to an end. She was as I remembered her, tall and statuesque, her bones delicate and perfectly crafted. But her gray eyes were reddened with tears. I saw her look upon her father, Huyayy, who stood proud, exuding dignity even in captivity, and I could not imagine the pain that she must have felt, seeing bound him like an animal for sale in the marketplace.

Ali stepped forward, his black hair glistening like a lion’s mane in the morning sunlight.

“O men of Khaybar, the Messenger has spared your lives because of the pleadings of one whom you cast out,” he said, looking pointedly at Safiya. “The good people of Khaybar are not responsible for the treachery of your guests, and so your prisoners will be set free. And you may retain your lands unmolested upon payment of a tribute of half your annual produce.”

As Ali spoke, I saw the Muslim soldiers move forward and cut the bindings of the prisoners who had been identified as native to the city. The men of Khaybar were stunned to be set free, and many wept and kissed the hands of their captors.

And then Ali turned to face the remaining prisoners, the exiled men of the Nadir whose machinations had led them to this awful place from which there would be no further escape.

“But your brethren among the Bani Nadir have broken every covenant and spread discord through the land,” he said forcefully. “They will be held to account. Such is the command of God and His Messenger.”

I glanced at Safiya and saw tears streaming down her pallid face. And then she ran forward and embraced Huyayy and wept. The guards moved to push her off, but one stern glance from the Messenger caused them to relent. She stood there, holding her condemned father and weeping in his arms, until Huyayy kissed her on the forehead and gently pushed her back.

“I tried to save you…” I heard her say through the chokehold of grief.

Huyayy smiled at her softly, no blame or recrimination in his eyes.

“I know…”

Ali’s men stepped forward, prepared to lead the chief of the Bani Nadir to the grave that would soon be his eternal home.

As the guards gently pulled Safiya away, Huyayy gazed at his daughter. I could see deep regret on his lined face, the look of a man who had realized too late that he had been wrong about everything that truly mattered in life. And then he looked at the Messenger of God, his rival and nemesis who had finally bested him after a decade of bitter conflict.

“I was reading last night a story from the Torah,” Huyayy said, his voice thoughtful, bearing no hint of malice. “About the death of Abraham. His sons Isaac and Ishmael, estranged for many years, came together and buried him in the cave of Hebron.”

The Messenger smiled gently at the reference and nodded.

“I’d like to think that story is a prophecy,” Huyayy said, a warm grin playing on his lips at the end. “Perhaps one day our nations will find a way to bury the past together.”

And with that, Huyayy ibn Akhtab turned and knelt before the ditch as Ali raised
Dhul Fiqar
and Safiya’s cry of sorrow echoed around the ancient stones of Khaybar.

S
afiya and the Messenger were married in the days following the defeat of Khaybar. The Prophet told me that it was an act of mercy for a girl who had lost her entire family to the vengeful swords of the Muslims. And it was a political marriage as well, he explained, since Safiya would continue to be a helpful diplomatic link to the remaining Jews of Arabia as the Muslim state consolidated its power. All of what he said was true, but I saw the way his dark eyes looked appreciatively at her flawless skin and the ugly demon of envy was ignited yet again in my soul.

Even though Safiya had embraced Islam, I always called her “the Jewess” and was not above making snide comments in her presence about her ancestry and the duplicity of her people. When she complained to the Prophet about my denigration of her kinsmen, he told her to respond that she was the daughter of Aaron and the niece of Moses, which she invariably did with great pride, increasing my jealousy toward her.

The addition of Safiya to the harem increased our number to eight Mothers, along with Sawda, myself, Hafsa, Umm Salama, Zaynab bint Jahsh, Juwayriya, and Ramla. As mentioned before, the kindly Zaynab bint Khuzayma, the Mother of the Poor, had died of fever, and her calming influence over the household was missed. Despite our years living together, and despite the Messenger’s best efforts to treat us as equally as he could, petty rivalries still existed. The hot-tempered Hafsa and the Bedouin princess Juwayriya often locked horns, as did the haughty Ramla and the down-to-earth Umm Salama. But not everyone in the harem was at war. I had made my peace with Zaynab after her kind support in the days of the false accusation against me, and the grandmotherly Sawda was loved by all.

Our arguments were over the petty things—who had said what about whom, who was trying to take too much of the Prophet’s time and attention. Who had the prettiest clothes and jewelry, although the reality was that we all lived spartan lives and had few adornments. And in truth, our rivalry was no longer over who would be the first to become pregnant, as we had all quietly given up the hope of carrying the Prophet’s heir. He had had six children with Khadija, and both sons had died. Since then, God had not blessed him with any more issue, despite the fact that he was married to several young and fertile women.

There were whispers among the believers that God did not wish the Prophet to have a male heir. Many said it was because the Muslim
Ummah
was not meant to be ruled by a monarchy, as would inevitably happen if the Prophet had a son, who would be expected to succeed him as leader of the community. And a few speculated that it was because God had already chosen the male lineage of the Prophet by favoring his cousin Ali, who had fathered Muhammad’s two grandsons, Hasan and Husayn. Those who held this viewpoint were a tiny minority of the believers, but in the years to come, they would become a powerful voice whose message would tear apart our nation.

But those years of strife and division over the Messenger’s legacy were still far off. With the pacification of Khaybar and the treaty with the Meccans, peace had come to the peninsula. And as the Messenger had predicted at Hudaybiyya, the truce proved to be a greater victory for Islam than any of the battles we had fought over the past decade. With hostilities ended, trade flourished between the northern and southern tribes, and Muslims now regularly made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, where they were finally able to preach the oneness of God without fear of reprisals.

It was in that atmosphere of peaceful commerce and dialogue that the message of Islam began to spread rapidly through the desert, and it was said that in the two years that followed the agreement at Hudaybiyya, more people embraced Islam than in the two decades prior to the treaty.

As the power of Islam spread through the peninsula, the wise among the Quraysh began to realize that the old days were gone forever. Though some of the elders like Abu Sufyan stubbornly refused to join the Prophet’s movement, the next generation of leaders realized that the future of Arabia was in Medina, not Mecca. The cracks in the dam of Meccan unity became a flood after two of the most prominent nobles of the holy city defected. Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the commander of Mecca’s armies, and Amr ibn al-As, the city’s most respected diplomat, rode to Medina and gave their allegiance to God and His Prophet, and there was much feasting in celebration of their conversion.

Medina became a bustling metropolis where goods from all over the region were traded, and the tiny oasis began to expand and look more and more like the capital of a prosperous nation. And we, the Mothers of the Believers, found our hands overflowing with work on behalf of the growing Islamic state. Whether it was organizing delivery of food and medicine to the needy or teaching other women and their children about the moral principles of our faith, our hours were increasingly filled with the demands of our role as Mothers. We did not have time to indulge in our habitual cattiness, and peace began to reign in the Prophet’s household even as it did throughout Arabia.

All that changed with the arrival of a slave girl from Egypt.

Mariya was a Coptic Christian, a gift to the Messenger of God from an Egyptian governor who had the political foresight to realize that Muhammad’s vision was on the way to triumph in neighboring Arabia. She was a girl of shocking beauty, her hair a flowing sea of soft brown curls, her eyes shaped like perfect almonds, and her breasts generous. She was soft-spoken and majestically feminine, more womanly than any other girl I have ever known.

The moment the Messenger of God saw Mariya, he was besotted, and the rest of us were filled with despair. Sensing that she would be the unwelcome target of much jealousy if she were housed near his other wives, the Prophet had a special home built for her on the outskirts of Medina, where he would spend increasingly large amounts of time, to the growing alarm of the Mothers.

And so it was that the wives of the Messenger came together and asked me for help. They feared that the Prophet’s love for Mariya would displace all of us, and they asked me to intervene as the one who still, in theory, remained the most beloved of the consorts.

One night, when the Prophet was relaxing with his head in my lap after a long day of dealing with the affairs of state, I sprang my trap. Muhammad looked up at me with his soft smile and stroked my hair. But when he leaned up to kiss me, I turned my head away.

“Don’t. Please,” I said, with intentional sharpness.

The Messenger sat up and looked at me with his obsidian eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

I turned my back to him and began to sob. Though I was definitely acting in accordance with my plan, the tears and the pain in my heart were real.

“You don’t love me anymore!”

The Messenger placed a hand on my shoulder and I could feel that strange cooling sensation that always seemed to emanate from his presence.

“How can you say that? I love you first among all my wives.”

I turned to face him, the tears still flowing down my cheeks.

“Your wives, perhaps. But not among the women your right hand possesses.”

My husband stiffened and I saw his kindly smile fade.

“Mariya gives me comfort,” he said slowly, as if measuring every word with due care. “But she does not take your place in my heart. No one can.”

I took his hand in mine and squeezed it.

“Then prove it.”

The Prophet sighed and he suddenly looked very tired.

“What do you want of me?”

I leaned closer, my eyes fixed on his.

“Leave this slave girl! Promise never to see her again!”

The Prophet blinked in surprise at the audacity of my request.

“
Humayra
—” he began, but I cut him off by removing my hand from his and shifting away from him.

“Promise, or you will never have my assent to touch me again! If you take me, it will be by force and not love.”

The Messenger looked as shocked as if I had slapped him. In all the years of our marriage, I had never threatened to withhold the intimacies of our bed from him, no matter how fiercely we had argued or fought. Even after the Messenger harbored doubts of my fidelity, I did not punish him by denying my embrace, and through the gentle warmth of our union, we had begun to repair what the gossips had shattered.

The Prophet stared at me with those powerful, unreadable eyes, but I met his gaze defiantly. For a long moment, the only sound that I could hear was the rhythmic call of the crickets and the gentle rustle of palm leaves in the wind.

And then the Prophet spoke and I could hear the frustration he was trying to suppress.

“I promise,” he said, although I could tell he was bitter at having to take this oath. “I will not go to Mariya again. Are you happy now?”

I felt a rush of excitement at my little victory and I smiled like a little girl who had finally been given a much-sought-after toy. But when I moved forward to kiss my husband, it was his turn to back away.

“Did the other women of the household put you up to this?” he asked, and I realized that he knew us too well to be deceived. I did not respond, but he seemed to find the answer he was seeking in my guilty face.

The Messenger of God stood up and shook his head, and I suddenly had a strange sinking feeling in my stomach, a sense that my victory was a mirage and that I had actually brought defeat down upon myself and my fellow wives.

“You are like the women who threatened Joseph with prison if he did not give in to their demands,” the Prophet said with a weary sigh, and I felt a sting of humiliation at being compared to the sinful ladies who had tried to seduce the son of Jacob.

And then without another word, the Messenger of God turned and walked out, leaving me feeling suddenly very alone and helpless. There was something in the way he closed the door behind him, a finality in his stride, that made me feel as if he were gone for good and would never return.

New tears welled in my eyes, tears of shock and loss, as I suddenly realized that I had made a terrible mistake.