The Sword Of Medina (5 page)

“You wouldn’t assault a Mother of the Believers.” She gazed steadily into my eyes.

A’isha spoke the truth: I could not strike her, no matter how I hated her. She was a widow of Muhammad, revered as the mother of Muslims. Nor
would I strike any woman, al-Lah help me, because Muhammad had taught me to exhibit, as he did, the utmost respect for all women—even this one.

“You are mother to all Believers, it seems, except my poor wife.” I took a step back from her and allowed my arm to drop impotently to my side. “She lies dying of the Medina fever, and you and your father deny her care.”

“Dying!” Sorrow clouded her eyes. She turned and said a few words to Abu Shams, who scowled at me, nodded, and handed her a small pouch.

She offered the packet and I snatched it from her, part of me fearing a prank such as she would have played when she was a child. “Give it to Fatima, with my prayers,” she said. “It won’t cure her—only al-Lah can do that—but it will make her feel better.”

And then, as I struggled to form words of thanks, A’isha hurried away from me into the market crowd—not like a lioness, as she so frequently paraded herself before the public, but, for the first time in my memory, with her head down and her eyes to the ground, humbly, as befits a woman.

The Medina fever was no way to die, as I knew from years of tending those stricken with it. Imagining Fatima’s agony filled me with compassion as I stood over her grave with the thousands of mourners who’d come to her funeral. I was grateful, for once, for the requirement that the Prophet’s wives veil their faces. Otherwise, those around me might take one look at my red-rimmed eyes and whisper
See how A’isha forces her tears!

I and Fatima had not been friends. In truth, we had despised each other. We’d clashed since the day we’d met—not in the way Ali and I did, like sharpened blades, but more quietly, like rams butting heads over a fence. Today, huddled in the drizzle with my sister-wives, I watched Ali step down into Fatima’s grave and I regretted that I hadn’t at least tried to set things right between us during her final weeks.

It should have been so easy. Hadn’t we both loved Muhammad nearly all our lives? And weren’t we fairly close in age? Those two traits alone might have made us friends. But Fatima was the youngest of Muhammad’s daughters, his baby, as beloved by her father as I was by mine. She’d been glad to see her sisters marry and move into their husbands’ households, leaving Muhammad for her alone. Yet he never did belong completely to Fatima, because, when I became his betrothed at age six, I took possession of a tiny piece of his heart—a piece that grew with each of his daily visits
to me. When I married him, at nine, his eyes welled with love. By the time I moved into his home, when I was nearly twelve, he’d lost his heart to me completely. Meanwhile, Fatima found herself shunted off to Muhammad’s temperamental cousin, Ali.

It was no wonder that she’d been jealous. Yet, as I listened to al-Abbas say the prayers over her body—normally the
khalifa’s
duty, but Ali had refused to let my father—I couldn’t help chastising myself. Why hadn’t I tried to befriend Fatima?

In fact, I’d been jealous, also.
Love is not a dish of tharid,
Muhammad had told me once—meaning I didn’t need to be greedy because the human capacity for love is limitless. Muhammad had enough love for me and eleven sister-wives, as well as an entire
umma
. His affection for Fatima had never diluted his devotion to me. Yet I’d behaved as wickedly as she, cutting her with my tongue, clinging to Muhammad whenever she visited, and, worst of all, supporting my father’s decision not to grant her inheritance to her.

We do not have heirs. Whatever we leave is alms.
Try as I might, I couldn’t recall hearing Muhammad say these words, although
abi
insisted he had. Why had I gone along with my father’s tale? If I’d argued with him or urged him to compromise,
abi
might have given Fatima some portion of the Khaybar lands, at least.

I remembered how Fatima seemed to shrink in the mosque that day until she resembled a tiny, squeaking mouse. I’d felt a stab of satisfaction at the sight of her so diminished, but now my face burned at the memory, and I realized that I was the one who’d been small.

How ridiculous I felt now, sniffling over her grave. I looked around, self-conscious. I needn’t have worried about being noticed, though. Next to me, Umm Salama and Zaynab sobbed and held each other as if to keep from falling into the hole. Sawdah, who had raised Fatima from girlhood and loved her as though she were her own, wailed and moaned too, ignoring Umar’s baleful glances. Even my father’s eyes were moist, for, as Muhammad’s longtime friend, he’d known Fatima since the day of her birth.

He’s the hypocrite.
The thought struck me like a blow, stealing my breath But, no. My father had denied Fatima her inheritance so that the
umma
might live, as he’d told her. In truth, she couldn’t have chosen a worse time to ask for the lands. And her cold demeanor toward my father in
the past—in support of Ali, who had always regarded
abi
as a rival for Muhammad’s affection—hadn’t inclined him favorably to her. She must have known her petition might fail. But she’d also known she was dying, and she’d wanted to make sure her family would be cared for.

My heart’s edges softened even more when, as Ali scattered rose petals in Fatima’s hair, their son al-Hassan began to cry and call for his
ummi
. “Come to A’isha,” I said, holding out my arms to the little boy.

I patted and stroked his hair the color of wheat, his father’s hair, and told him his
ummi
had gone to be with her father, Muhammad, and that she was waiting for him in Paradise. His sobbing subsided as I carried him to the back of the crowd. What was Ali thinking of, bringing the boy here? Watching the gravediggers fling dirt over his mother’s body would give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

“Don’t worry,” I murmured. “Your
abi
is here to take care of you. And you have me to cry on, see?”

Rough hands jerked him out of my grasp, and I looked up into the savage face of Ali. “What are you doing with my son?” he said. Heat spread across my cheeks as though he’d slapped me.

“Comforting him,” I murmured, lowering my eyes.

Ali laughed harshly. “Comforting the child after hastening the mother’s death? By al-Lah! How Fatima would have benefited from your compassion a few weeks ago.”

Murmurs rustled through the crowd like blowing sand as he swept through the onlookers, his arms gripping his little boy who had begun to cry again. As I rejoined my sister-wives, his words echoed in my head. All I could see was Fatima’s wan face that sad morning as she’d petitioned
abi
for her inheritance. Again, the question tormented me: Had Muhammad in truth said
We have no heirs
?

If someone else—al-Abbas, for instance, or even his son—had claimed to hear such outlandish words from Muhammad, I’d suspect him of inventing the tale. Only three months after my husband’s death, incredible stories about him were moving through the
umma. The Prophet said my infant son would become the mightiest warrior Hijaz has ever known
! After someone died, it often surfaced that Muhammad had predicted the time, place, and circumstances of the death and promised that person a place with him in Paradise.

I knew
abi
wasn’t inventing his tale. But if what he said was true, there was one question I couldn’t answer: Why would Muhammad have bequeathed his property yet neglected to appoint a
khalifa
? The resulting struggle for power had almost torn our community apart—and Muhammad’s strange bequest had broken Fatima’s heart.

As a warrior under Muhammad, Ali had collected plenty of booty—although, like Muhammad, he’d given most of it to the poor. Now, Ali no longer had the earnings from Fatima’s work as a laundress, and his disloyalty to my father had cost him his right to fight. The income from just one of Muhammad’s date plantations would have gone far to help Ali and his family. If only Muhammad hadn’t left that income to the needy! But he couldn’t have foreseen that Ali would lose his war booty so soon. He wouldn’t have wanted his own family to go hungry.

When I’d broached these questions with
abi,
he’d frowned.
There are aspects to the
khalifa
that even you cannot understand
. But I knew a lot more than he realized. I knew Muhammad had left an empty treasury. I knew the Byzantine emperor now sent his caravans on a trade route that bypassed Medina, depriving our merchants of income or goods. I knew that, since Muhammad’s death, many had turned their backs on
islam
and were refusing to pay the
zakat,
the alms-tax they’d been giving Muhammad. These were desperate times for the
umma
. That was why
abi
had said “no” to Fatima.

But Ali’s support was crucial, not just to my father’s ability to rule, but also to the future of
islam
. As Muhammad’s cousin, son-in-law, and foster son, and as father to Muhammad’s heirs, Ali held sway with Believers throughout Hijaz. If he continued to oppose my father, the Muslim community would tear like a ripped cloth, its edges too frayed to ever mend.
Abi
must gain his allegiance for the sake of the
umma.

Ali is stubborn,
my father had said to me,
but his children’s hunger will weaken his resolve
.

Sitting on the courtyard grass that evening, my sister-wives fed my anxieties with their talk.

“With all respect to your father,
yaa
A’isha, I don’t blame Ali for being angry,” Zaynab said with a toss of her head. “What Abu Bakr did was wrong.”

Hafsa leapt to my defense. “Maybe we should make you the next
khalifa, yaa
Zaynab,” she said. “Since you seem to know so much.”

“As for me, I know little,” Umm Salama said quietly. “Yet I do not believe Muhammad would have wanted to leave his grandchildren in destitution.”

“Why not?” Raihana said. “He left
us
without anything, didn’t he?”

“Some of us,” Saffiya said, cocking a jealous eyebrow at Hafsa, who wore a new robe that her father, Umar, had given her for the funeral. Like Raihana, who was her cousin, the pretty, young Saffiya had come to our
harim
a princess from a Jewish tribe—a captive who had used her wiles to captivate. She hadn’t fooled any of us sister-wives—although I later befriended her—but Muhammad had been so entranced that he’d broken all the rules by marrying her on the battlefield, instead of waiting until they returned to Medina. I still grinned to remember her triumphal entry into town, for I always imagined the shock that must have followed when she’d beheld her squalid hut.

“Aw, we will be all right,” Sawdah said. “We know we will be taken care of.”

“By whom?” Raihana lifted her eyebrows. “You’ve got a lucrative leather trade, Sawdah, and the rest of you have your families to depend on. But as for Saffiya, Juwairriyah, and me, Muhammad’s army killed our fathers and brothers. What’s going to happen to us?”

“If we could marry again, survival would be easier,” Juwairriyah said timidly.

“It’s going to be a lonely life,” Saffiya said with a sigh.

As they spoke, I felt as though a leather strap had been tied across my chest. How could my sister-wives talk about remarrying just a few months after Muhammad’s death? Yet there was truth in their words. By forbidding his wives to marry again, Muhammad had relegated us all to lives of loneliness. He’d made the pronouncement in order to stop gossip about us, but his decree had a far-reaching effect.

Hafsa snickered. “Maybe we should follow Maryam’s example and hire eunuchs to keep us company.”

“Maryam seems happy enough,” Raihana said. “Of course, there’s only so much a eunuch can do.”

“You might be surprised,” Umm Habiba said with a sly smile. “I’ve heard tales about eunuchs that would make your toes curl.”

Maryam was Muhammad’s concubine from Egypt, a gift from that country’s Muqawqis, or religious leader. She had brought with her a servant, a
tall black man named Akiiki. His devotion to Maryam had sparked many rumors until, confronted by Ali, he’d lifted the hem of his skirt to prove that he was no threat. How I would have loved to be a fly in Ali’s eye at that moment! His double-bladed sword must have dropped to the floor.

Afterwards, Ali had accused me of meddling for telling Muhammad about Akiiki. “That’s high praise, coming from an expert in the art,” I retorted. Jealous not only of my father, but of me also, Ali had caused problems in my marriage that I could never forgive him for.

Amused though I was by my sister-wives’ speculations, I knew I couldn’t let this dangerous talk continue. In spite of the restrictions Muhammad had placed on his wives, he’d resisted the urgings of men like Umar to lock us up in our homes. Now that Muhammad was gone, who would guard us from losing our freedom? If scandal touched a hair on any of our heads, we’d all be prisoners forever.

“By al-Lah! Muhammad trusted Maryam, and so should we.” My voice rang harsh. “Be careful, sister-wives, not to turn against one another out of boredom or fear. Look what’s happening in the
umma,
with Ali’s accusations turning brothers against brothers. If we don’t pull together,
islam
will die—and we, the Mothers of the Believers, will be nothing.”

“We’ll be a house full of widows waiting for a man to claim us,” Raihana said with a shrug. “I lived through it once, and ended up here.”

“Yes, but you gained Muhammad as a husband,” I argued. “What other man treated women with such respect?”

“Respect is wonderful, but you can’t eat it,” Raihana retorted. “Without a husband, who is going to feed me,
yaa
A’isha? Your father? He talks a lot about following Muhammad’s example while he lets the Prophet’s wives starve.”

I knew Raihana spoke truly, but I also knew my sister-wives were wrong to blame my father for their hunger. Without money in the treasury or any means of getting it,
abi
could only listen day upon day to his constituents’ pleas for help—men as well as women. Our only hope was Osama’s expedition to Syria. Sending those warriors had left Medina in a vulnerable position, as my father’s critics loved to point out, but
abi
hoped desperately that Osama would convince the Byzantine emperor to route his caravans through our city again.