Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam (59 page)

T
HE ENVOY WAS INTERCEPTED
by my brother’s men after one of their intrepid sentries realized that they were being followed. They caught the rider and searched him until they found the letter bearing the Caliph’s mark. When my brother read the secret dispatch, he turned bright red with rage. For it was a letter purporting to be from Uthman, ordering the governor of Egypt to arrest Muhammad and execute him as a rebel the moment he returned.

Muhammad’s men raced back to the city and immediately laid siege to Uthman’s house. I was already on my way to Mecca and was utterly unaware of the horrifying turn of events. I have often thought that the world would be a different place today had I just stayed home a few more days. But such are the pointless musings of regret.

Even as I traveled to the holy city of my birth, blissfully ignorant of the sword that now hung over the Muslim nation, my brother’s men proceeded to take control of Medina. They bullied their way into people’s homes and took whatever provisions they deemed necessary to support their “holy cause.” When other nations later heard about the course of events in the Muslim capital, they must have been shocked that a small band of rebels could have taken over so quickly. And yet there was no standing army inside Medina, as there had been no need for one for the past twenty years. The Muslims ruled the world from horizon to horizon, and the thought that Medina could come under attack had been laughable.

But no one was laughing now. My brother confronted Uthman with the letter and the old man denied any knowledge of it, despite the parchment carrying the Caliph’s seal. But Muhammad was not satisfied.

“Then you are either a liar or a puppet being used by others,” he retorted. “In either event, you are unworthy to lead Islam.”

The gentle Uthman was deeply saddened by these words, perhaps because he heard the ring of truth in them. Of course I have never believed that the Caliph ordered my brother’s death. The vile monster Marwan had clearly written the letter, but it would be the old man who was held responsible for it. And perhaps Uthman finally saw the reality of what had happened and his heart had shattered with the realization that he had been duped by a young man he loved like a son. He retired to his home and did not come out again, leaving his fate to God.

The rebels grew increasingly agitated as the days passed and Uthman neither emerged nor responded to their demands for his resignation. It soon became clear that tempers were boiling, and the threat of violence was no longer just an unfortunate possibility. Ali dispatched his sons, Hasan and Husayn, now grown into fine young men, to guard the Caliph’s doors, and the presence of the Prophet’s grandsons held back the spreading wave of anarchy for a time.

But as the weeks passed with no resolution, the Egyptian rebels decided to force the issue. They cut off all delivery of food and water to the elderly Uthman, who was a prisoner in his own home. The Jewess Safiya, my sister-wife, tried to save the beleaguered Caliph. She owned a house that bordered his and she set up a plank on her roof by which she would pass across food and water to Uthman’s young and pretty wife, Naila.

On the forty-ninth day of the siege, a group of men led by my brother stormed the roof of Uthman’s house and broke in. The gentle old man sat on the floor in his study, reading the holy Qur’an. He seemed utterly unafraid of the rebels who were ransacking his house, bloodlust flowing through their veins. My brother Muhammad, filled with the fire of idealism and pride, finally came upon Uthman and raised his hand to deliver the deathblow. He grabbed the Caliph by his beard, at which point the elderly leader looked up at him and smiled softly.

“Son of my brother,” he said, his warm eyes gazing into my brother’s soul. “Let go of my beard. Your father would not have done this.”

It was a simple statement, said without malice or accusation. And in that instant, his words penetrated my brother’s heart and Muhammad fell back, as if waking from a dream. Shame and horror filled him, and he realized how far he had fallen.

My brother turned back, ready to order an end to the attack. But it was too late. Several of his men broke into the room, the bloodlust burning wild in their eyes. Seeing the Caliph alone and unarmed, they raced to him, swords raised.

“No!” Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr screamed. But the rebels ignored him and threw their leader aside. And then they descended on the softhearted Uthman, who loved peace and could not bring himself to harm even his enemies. His wife, Naila, threw herself as a shield on top of her husband, but the rebels sliced off her fingers and tossed her aside like a rag doll. And then they stabbed the Caliph nine times, their blades slicing through his neck, his heart, and his skull with monstrous brutality. Uthman fell over dead, the pages of the holy Qur’an he had so carefully compiled stained with his blood.

Even as I write this, dear Abdallah, tears stain these pages. It was a brutal murder of a good man, and I cannot hide from God the truth that I share some of the blame. Had I not spoken out against Uthman in public, had I instead used my influence to calm the fire in my young brother’s soul, perhaps he would have lived. And I shudder as I remember the terrible words of my husband so long ago, his warning that the sword of God would be unsheathed against the Muslims should harm ever befall Uthman, a sword that would consume our nation until the Day of Judgment.

May God forgive me for what I did, for I acted then out of passion for justice, even if I was misguided. But for the actions I would take next, Abdallah, I do not know if pardon is possible. What I did in the aftermath of Uthman’s murder came out of the blackest pit of my own soul, a crime for which I can never forgive myself, even if God and the angels grant me reprieve.

I
was in Mecca when I first heard the news of the siege of Uthman’s home. I had just finished the Pilgrimage, along with my sister-wife Umm Salama, who had joined me. We were planning to return after completing the rituals at the House of God, when envoys sent by Zubayr advised us to remain in Mecca until the rebellion was over. My heart had sunk when I heard word of my brother’s actions, and I desperately sought to return so I could calm him and arrange some kind of reconciliation. But Umm Salama begged me to stay away from the chaos and our guards pointedly refused to permit me to leave until peace had been restored to the capital.

The weeks dragged on without word and I began to have a terrible feeling in my heart that things had gone wildly wrong. And then two men rode in from the desert, bearing news that horrified me and brought my blood to a boil. They were not envoys—the matter was too urgent for messengers. They were my closest friends, my beloved cousin Talha and my brother-in-law Zubayr. One look on their ashen faces and my worst fears were confirmed.

We gathered in the old Hall of Assembly, where I had spied on Hind and the council of Mecca a lifetime before. The stone walls looked as they had almost forty years before, cold and proud, untroubled by the vagaries of time. As we sat inside the chamber that had once been the throne room of our enemies, Zubayr revealed all that had happened. His once handsome face was now heavily lined, and a mighty scar ran down his right cheek. Your father had fought in so many battles that I could not even remember where he had earned this mark of heroism.

Talha, for his part, had been unable to fight in the later wars of conquest because of his shattered hand. Instead, he had spent his years working as a merchant. His brilliant negotiating skills and his talent for learning the languages of our conquered subjects had allowed him to build a vast business empire, and he had been transformed over the years from an impoverished cripple into one of the richest men in the empire. And he had spent much of his vast wealth on spoiling his beautiful daughter, whom he had named, perhaps not surprisingly, Aisha. She was a vivacious young woman who had captured the hearts of many of the young men of Medina but had a shocking reputation as a flirt who enjoyed leading boys on. I had often sternly lectured the girl about social proprieties, and she had simply laughed and said I would have done the same had I not been married as a child and hidden away behind a veil. I would always give her a tongue-lashing for her impudence, but in my heart I loved her like a daughter, and I knew there was more than a little truth to what she said.

It was to Aisha bint Talha that my thoughts turned now as my friends revealed the shocking news of Uthman’s murder. I grieved for the old man who was a victim of his own kindness, and I feared for the people of Medina now that the blood of the Caliph had been spilled. According to Zubayr, Uthman’s cousin Muawiya was dispatching a mighty contingent from Syria to avenge the Caliph’s death. Apparently Marwan had been able to get word of the siege to the Umayyad leader, and when Uthman was killed, his blood-soaked shirt had been sent to Damascus, along with the remains of poor Naila’s severed fingers. The outraged Muawiya had held aloft these grisly relics in the newly constructed Grand Masjid of Damascus, built next to the church where the prophet John the Baptist was buried. With his brilliant oratory, he had riled up the passions of the crowd, and the cry for vengeance was rapidly spreading through the empire, especially after news of how the rebels had treated Uthman’s corpse

“What happened to Uthman’s body?” I asked and then saw Zubayr’s face grimace with pain.

“They threw his body in the trash heap and refused to let him be buried,” Zubayr said, horror welling in his eyes. “Safiya finally intervened and convinced them to let us bury him. But they would not allow us to inter Uthman with the Prophet or with the other believers in
Jannat al-Baqi
. So Safiya arranged for the Caliph to be buried in the Jewish cemetery near her ancestors.”

I hung my head in grief. I had one more question, but I was afraid to ask it. And then Umm Salama spoke up, her voice soft, almost a whisper.

“Who is in charge?”

It was a simple question, but the fate of an empire that ruled half the earth turned on the answer.

There was a moment of long silence, and then finally Talha spoke, a hint of bitterness in his voice.

“After the Caliph’s murder, there was chaos in the streets,” he said. “Ali, Zubayr, and I gathered in the marketplace and called for calm. It was then that the rebels arrived, their swords drawn, and your brother said that he would recognize no man as master except his stepfather, Ali.”

I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. Seeing the look of shock on my face, Talha nodded in understanding.

“We had arrived there, the three of us, with the understanding that we would call for an election by the elders of Mecca,” he said, his voice rising. “But the rebels surrounded the crowd, their weapons in view, and it was no surprise that the vote went unanimously for Ali. Even Zubayr and I pledged our loyalty to him. We had no choice.”

I could tell that the brutal way in which my brother’s men had secured Ali’s election haunted Talha and Zubayr. The three of them had been close friends for years, but this incident had clearly created deep ill will. They, like Ali, were two of the most revered leaders of Islam, men who had fought beside the Prophet and had been serious candidates for the position of Caliph after Umar’s assassination. They had accepted Uthman’s election and had supported him loyally. But now, in the face of Uthman’s murder, they had been denied the opportunity to assert their claim to the throne of Islam by the murderers themselves. It was a bitter pill to swallow, and I could sense their anger at Ali for going along with the tainted election.

And then I felt something grow inside me, something cold and ugly. The old wounds were opened all at once, and I could feel the poison of the past flowing through my veins. I remembered how Ali had nonchalantly convinced the Messenger to marry Zaynab bint Khuzayma in order to secure a political alliance, offering up my husband’s hand to another woman in my presence as if my feelings were worthless. I remembered how he had led that tragic girl of the Bani Qurayza who looked just like me to her execution and how the young woman’s mad laughter still haunted my dreams. And then I remembered most vividly how he had tried to get Muhammad to divorce me when I was falsely accused of a shameful crime.

“Now that he has finally received his lifelong wish and crowned himself Caliph, what has Ali done to punish the assassins?” I asked through gritted teeth.

My friends looked at each other and hesitated.

“Nothing,” Talha said coldly.

The world around me seemed to change colors, and suddenly I saw everything through a veil of red.

“Then Ali has failed in his first task as Caliph. To enforce justice.”

I saw the men look at me, and there were uncertainty and fear in their eyes.

“What are you saying?” Zubayr asked slowly.

“I am saying that Ali cannot be put on the throne of the Muslims by the murderers of the Caliph!” I felt my bones tremble with fury as I convinced myself of the justice of my position. “And even if his election were legitimate, he cannot lay claim to authority until he punishes those who have committed this vile crime. Otherwise the Caliph is complicit in the murder of his righteous predecessor, and God help the Muslims if we should fall that low to accept such a man as our master!”

The words came out of my mouth with such ferocity that both Talha and Zubayr sat back as if I had slapped them. And then my sister-wife Umm Salama rose, her eyes wide with anger.

“Stop this! End this mad talk at once!”

“What madness? Is there any greater madness than to let a criminal rule over the believers?” Any other woman—or man, for that matter—would have been terrified by the dangerous look in my eyes, but Umm Salama refused to back down.

“Remember yourself, Aisha,” she said, her voice stern. “You are the Mother of the Believers. You are meant to guide the Muslims, to heal their wounds, not inflict new ones. Do not go down this path, or the wrath of God will be unleashed on the
Ummah
.”

I had never heard this matronly and warmhearted woman speak in such an outraged tone, and I would have been stung had there been any feeling left inside me except rage.

“It is Ali who will bring down the wrath of God upon us if he holds on to his blood-soaked throne,” I said, my voice soft but dangerous.

Umm Salama turned to Talha and Zubayr but saw that they had been moved by my words. And then she shook her head in despair and stormed out of the Hall of Assembly.

As I sat there in triumph, a memory came back to me of the last time a woman had convinced men in this room of the justice of her argument. It had been Hind, who had called for the murder of Muhammad. It was a troubling thought and I quickly pushed it out of my head.

O
VER THE NEXT SEVERAL
weeks, I convinced Talha and Zubayr, along with many other Muslims in Mecca, that we had a moral responsibility to challenge Ali. My cry for justice on behalf of the murdered Uthman stirred the hearts of the people of the city, who had benefited tremendously from the old man’s generosity. As more and more men gathered to our cause, it became clear that we had enough to form an army, one strong enough to challenge Ali and force his abdication.

And then word came to us that Ali had raised his own troops to try to secure peace in the troubled empire. Although many of the Muslim governors in Yemen and the eastern provinces of Persia had accepted Ali’s claim to authority, Muawiya refused to acknowledge him as Caliph. Ali’s army of supporters included many devout Muslims who revered him for his reputation for wisdom and moral character, while others, known as the
Shia
, or Partisans of Ali, believed that he had always been the rightful leader of the Muslims through the claim of his lineage. And a rather shady group among his followers included the rebels of Egypt, who had a vested stake in ensuring that Uthman’s clansmen did not get a chance to avenge the death of the Caliph.

As Muawiya gathered his forces in Syria, Ali had decided to leave Medina and move north into the green fields of Iraq. He sought both to spare the holy city the horror of further bloodshed and to garner the support of the Iraqi provinces in what would likely be a protracted war with Muawiya.

When word came to us that Ali’s army was on the move, it became clear to Talha, Zubayr, and me that our moment had come. By then, our call for justice had attracted many of the most prominent Muslims to Mecca, and I remember with great joy the day that I saw you arrive, Abdallah, on horseback from Medina. You had grown into a dashing young man, so much like your father, and yet whenever I looked upon you, I saw only the little boy who’d played in my sister’s lap. Your support meant more to me than that of all the gathered nobles of the tribes, some of whom I did not trust but whose help I desperately needed.

The worst of these was the rat-faced Marwan ibn Hakam, whose machinations had brought all this evil upon us. Not surprisingly, he had fled Medina after the rebels killed his sponsor, Uthman, and had sought refuge in Mecca, which was still governed by one of Uthman’s appointed viceroys. I despised Marwan, but I kept my hatred in check, for he still commanded the loyalty of the Umayyad clan, whose support I needed to bring down Ali. Unfortunately Talha was less able to hide his feelings, and he openly insulted the young manipulator and publicly humiliated him by reminding the nobles of Mecca that Marwan had been cursed and expelled by the Messenger of God himself. It was a disgrace that Marwan never forgave and that would lead to tragedy for my beloved cousin.

During the weeks that our group planned its revolt against Ali, my fellow Mothers arrived from Medina, sent by the new Caliph to dissuade us from taking any rash actions. Umm Salama rallied my sister-wives to try to change my mind, but their voices fell on deaf ears. I had convinced myself of the righteousness of my cause, and my passionate defense of my actions nearly swayed Hafsa to join us. But her brother Abdallah ibn Umar, a stern and powerful man like her father, convinced her to stay clear of my ambitious and dangerous plan.

And so the day came when our army prepared to journey north into Iraq and intercept Ali. I alone of all the Mothers of the Believers joined the men, who had prepared for me a special camel that was carrying an armored howdah. I often look back and call that day the Day of Tears, for I remember how my fellow wives wept and begged for me to stay. And yet my heart had been turned to stone by my hatred for Ali, and their words did not reach my soul.

Talha, Zubayr, and I rode out from Mecca with an army of three thousand and began a march that would forever change the destiny of Islam and the world.

A
S WE PASSED OVER
the deserts of Arabia and entered the rolling plains of Iraq, I gazed out from my howdah in wonder at the vast fields of green all about me. Tears welled in my eyes as I realized that this was the first time I had ever crossed the boundaries of the peninsula. I was over forty years old and the queen mother of an empire greater than any known to human history. And I had never set foot outside the desolate patch of sand where I had been born. I wondered what would happen once we had defeated Ali, whether the new Caliph (in all probability either Talha or Zubayr) would permit me at last to fulfill my childhood dream and wander free, to see the world that I knew of only through tales told by travelers and merchants in the marketplace. I imagined reclining in the gardens of Damascus under the shade of pink cherry trees or climbing through the snow-covered mountains of Persia. Or perhaps gazing upon the ancient pyramids that towered over Egypt and the mysterious lion’s head that gazed out from the sands of Giza, as I had heard my brother Muhammad describe. My poor, idealistic brother whose cry for justice had set in motion the terrible events that had brought me here.