The Sword Of Medina

The Sword of Medina

A Novel

A Novel

SHERRY JONES

The Sword of Medina
is a work of fiction. All characters, with the exception of well-known historical figures herein, and all dialogue, are products of the author’s imagination.

Copyright © 2009 by Sherry Jones

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cover Image: An Arab Girl holding a Sword, a Shield Behind her by Paul Desire Trouillebert (1829-1900) Private Collection/Photo © Christie’s Images/The Bridgeman Art Library

Map: Kat Bennett, 360Geographics

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jones, Sherry, 1961-

The sword of Medina : a novel / Sherry Jones.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-8253-0520-7

1. ‘A’ishah, ca. 614-678--Fiction. 2. ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, Caliph, 600 (ca.)-661--Fiction. 3. Muhammad, Prophet, d. 632--Fiction. 4. Muslims--History--Fiction. 5. Islam--History--Fiction. I. Title.

PS3610.O6285S96 2009

813’.6--dc22

2009016281

Published in the United States by Beaufort Books, New York
www.beaufortbooks.com

Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books, New York
www.midpointtrade.com

Printed in the United States of America

For Michael, who reminds me every day that love is a verb.

The author thanks Natasha Kern, literary agent extraordinaire and very dear friend, and my publishers, editors, and publicists around the world for their support during the most trying of times, especially Eric Kampmann and Erin Smith at Beaufort Books and publicist Michael Wright. Special thanks for editing help goes to Carol Craig and Trish Hoard, both of whom have helped make me a better writer, to Margot Atwell at Beaufort Books and Meike Frese at Pendo Verlag, who made this a better book, and to Richard Myers, Todd Mowbray, and the many other friends and fans who have encouraged me to persevere.

A
BU
B
AKR

632–634 A.D.

Muhammad is dead.

In the heart-skip between waking and sleep, I remembered the awful truth. The long, slow exhale—my husband’s final sigh—the evening before. His head pressed to my shuddering heart. His stiffened face, as if turned to stone, when I’d laid him in our bed. Now he lay beneath me, buried in my room, the fresh earth moistened by my tears. Exhausted after the long night, I’d fallen asleep atop his grave. Not even the call to morning prayer had roused me. Now a hand was shaking me awake, and Hafsa’s voice, urgent.
A riot in the street. Your father. A’isha, you must come now.

I could still hear the thunder and crash of my dreams. The images were already dissolving like mist burned away by the sun, but I vaguely recalled a splitting—was it the Ka’ba, our sacred temple, cracking in two? I sprang from my bed, my pulse fluttering, and shrugged off my nightmare, leaving it on the dirt floor. Holding our wrappers close about our faces, I and Hafsa ran into the small, cool mosque adjoining my hut, our bare feet kicking up dust, then out the mosque’s front door and into Medina’s main street. There a stampede of men brandished blades and cried, “
Yaa
Abu Bakr!
Yaa khalifa
! Praise to al-Lah for our new leader!” My heart’s skitter slowed as I realized that
abi
wasn’t in danger. The opposite was true: While I’d slept, my father, Abu Bakr, had won the heart of Medina.

Hours earlier, just after Muhammad’s death, I’d gone to see
abi
in the
town hall, where the men of Medina had gathered to choose the successor to my husband, the Prophet of al-Lah and the leader of our community. My father and his friends had learned of the meeting and hastened away to join it, leaving Muhammad’s body unattended in my hut. I’d followed close behind, then returned to discover the terrible deed Muhammad’s cousin Ali had committed, with his uncle urging him on.

I’d raced back to tell
abi
, who’d listened with his air of infinite calm as I’d described the digging of the grave in my bedroom floor while I’d listened outside the door; the washing of Muhammad’s body while he was still clothed; the murmured assurances from al-Abbas, Ali’s uncle, that this secret burial was necessary. If there were a public ceremony, he’d pointed out, my father, Muhammad’s closest friend and advisor, would perform the prayer.
That would seal him once and for all as the Prophet’s successor
, al-Abbas had said. Ali wanted the
khalifa
for himself. He and his uncle had hoped to keep my father from becoming the leader of Muslims. Today, I could see that their efforts had failed.

Men in white—Muhammad’s color—and women whose wrappers sheltered their heads from the sun cheered and leaped and sang and whooped: “Come all, come! Pledge allegiance to the new
khalifa
, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the Truthful.” After watching Muhammad’s slow death from Medina fever I’d thought that my well was empty of tears, but now water flowed again at the sight of my father floating in the people’s midst, carried aloft like a hero or king, his own eyes brimming, delaying his grief for the sake of the
umma,
the community of Believers.

I flattened myself against the building to avoid being trampled. But the torrent turned before it reached me and roiled into the mosque: Aws and Khazraj, the main tribes of Medina; emigrants from Mecca, our homeland, and elsewhere who’d come to Medina to escape persecution; and Bedouins of the desert, who’d loved Muhammad because he’d treated them as equals. Behind them marched Companions to Muhammad, including the stern Umar, his dark face forcing a heartsick smile, and Abu Ubaydah, whose eyes held worry even as he hoisted his sword and shouted
abi’s
name.

Once they were all inside—by al-Lah, I never saw so many men squeeze into that tiny mosque!—I slipped in, also, made invisible by the wrapper I wore over my hair and face. The crowd set
abi
on the date-palm stump where Muhammad had stood countless times to lead our
umma
in prayer,
and tears began to pour in earnest down my father’s cheeks. My stomach twisted as I thought again of my husband’s death the night before, his head on my breast; his sword in my hand, bequeathed to me; his dying command to
use it in the
jihad
to come
. He’d known I would honor his request, for he’d taught me how to fight and he’d witnessed my bravery on the battlefield. Recalling what had followed—Ali’s wicked deed—I cried anew—not only from sorrow, but also from outrage over the funeral we’d all been deprived of.

“My dear brothers,” my father’s voice sounded gargled and torn, as though his throat had been cut, “although I am unworthy to stand on our Prophet’s pulpit, I humbly thank you for your trust.”

From the rooftop rang the
muezzin’s
call to worship, summoning all Muslims to pledge their allegiance. In the doorway I spied the fat, bald-headed al-Abbas lurking like a spy in the shadows. Revulsion sent me out to the courtyard where my sister-wives clustered in the mosque’s entryway and watched the goings-on.

“Everyone seems so happy, all of a sudden,” drawled Raihana, the Jewess, her haunting,
houri
eyes turning down at the corners. She’d been a gift to Muhammad from his men, a captured princess. Our warriors had killed all the men of her tribe after their leaders had tried to assassinate Muhammad, and her resentment over the deaths of her husband and sons had given her a bitter tongue. “Don’t tell me another prophet has risen from the dead.”

“Do Jews believe in resurrection now?” Hafsa arched one of her famous flying eyebrows. She’d never believed in Raihana’s conversion to
islam
; like her father, Umar, she was skeptical about everything. Unlike Umar, however, she possessed a keen sense of humor. “By al-Lah, soon you’ll be saying you believe in prophets, also!”

“Girls, this is no time for making jokes.” Superstitious old Sawdah, married to bring up Muhammad’s daughters but a mother to us all, gripped her evil-eye amulet so tightly I thought she’d strangle herself. “The Prophet is not even buried yet.”

“Actually, he
is
buried,” I said. My sister-wives turned their faces to me, open-mouthed—except for Ramlah, who laughed.

“Let me guess: Al-Abbas had a hand in it, did he not?” She showed her large teeth. “The man knows no limit to his ambition. Yet he certainly did not dirty his own hands. His spineless nephew Ali did the digging, I wager.”

I was tempted to point out that, as far as ambition was concerned, Ramlah’s father had set the example for all. Abu Sufyan, leader of the Meccan Quraysh tribe, had tried to kill Muhammad many times, jealous of his growing influence. Although Muhammad had married the daughter in effort to win the allegiance of the father, Abu Sufyan had been stubborn. He’d continued to send assassins to the mosque until, at last, he’d been forced to convert to
islam
—by the tip of Ali’s sword pressing into his neck. Ramlah had scorned Ali ever since, which made me feel almost tolerant toward her.

Maymunah, al-Abbas’s daughter—Ali’s cousin—didn’t bother to hold her tongue. “
Yaa
Ramlah, when you criticize Ali, it is the Prophet you denigrate,” she said, her billowing black hair making her look like a storm cloud. “He loved Ali as a son. And as the father to Muhammad’s only male heirs, Ali has a right to succeed him.”

“Yet we cannot ignore the desires of Quraysh,” the elegant, fair-skinned Umm Salama said in the measured tones that marked her as a member of the Qurayshi elite. Beautiful and aristocratic, she’d been a widow when Muhammad had proposed to her—three times. “Quraysh is the most powerful tribe in all of Hijaz. Would they support a leader from the Hashim clan?”

“Muhammad was a Hashimite,” Maymunah reminded her.

“But God spoke through Muhammad,” Ramlah said. “Has anyone heard revelations from the mouth of Ali?”

“Some of the Bedouin tribes might resist Ali’s rule,” Juwairriyah said, surprising me with her tinkling-bell voice, so rarely heard. She’d been a member of a Bedouin tribe—another enslaved princess—before marrying Muhammad in exchange for her freedom. “Passing the
khalifa
to the male heir would look too much like a monarchy. No Bedouin would ever serve a king.”

“As for me, I don’t care about any of this,” Zaynab said in a choked voice. My fiercest rival for Muhammad’s affection and for leadership of the
harim
, Zaynab was normally a fiery competitor who’d displayed her beauty and her passion for Muhammad as if she were a bird of paradise and the rest of us were mere chickens. Today, though, her curly hair was frizzled and matted, as if she had not combed it in weeks, and her tawny eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. She looked the way I felt.