The Jewel Of Medina Read online

  We left at dusk, one thousand men, seventy camels to be sacrificed to al-Lah, plus more camels, donkeys, and horses carrying sacks of barley, bags of dates, cooking pots, tents, rugs, clothing, bowls, kohl, flowers, daggers, water skins, hopes, memories, and prayers for a peaceful reception in our motherland. Although, as usual, braggarts swaggered about and recited verses about how we’d bring Quraysh to its knees if its leaders tried to stop us from entering the city.

  But Muhammad wasn’t looking for a fight. He’d decided to go to Mecca because of a dream: Our men in white robes streaming into the city, drinking from the sacred well of Zamzam and circling the Ka’ba like a river.

  “Al-Lah is calling us to Him,” Muhammad told me.

  The timing was perfect for such a bold move. The samoom that had shredded Abu Sufyan’s camp on the eve of his army’s invasion had convinced all of Hijaz that islam was a mighty power. Many of the converts who had come to Muhammad since the Battle of the Trench hailed from Mecca, and all told Muhammad the same tale: Abu Sufyan was losing the respect of Quraysh. Some advocated replacing him with al-Abbas, uncle to Muhammad and Ali.

  “Our people are weary of losing battles and caravans to Muhammad,” one convert said. “Many would like to make peace with you.”

  We left Medina buoyed by the cheers and ululations of the women, children, and shaykhs who lined the street. Our men’s eyes outshone the scattered stars; the desert air exhilarated us all as the caravaners sang and cheerfully urged their camels onward, eager to see their beloved Mecca again. But by the tenth night, tensions cracked like stiff whips around us. The donkeys lowered their heads and refused to budge. The horses reared and spooked. The camels belched their weird, garbled noises, like the rantings of demons. The men muttered about a Qurayshi attack, and they grumbled about Muhammad’s prohibition against carrying weapons on the journey. Only daggers were allowed, for slitting the throats of the sacrificial camels.

  “We could not fight a flock of birds with these puny toys,” I heard the driver of my camel complain. “If Quraysh attacks, we might as well lie down and let them kill us.”

  Probably because of the grumbling, Muhammad consecrated the camels that final night instead of waiting until we arrived in Mecca. We wives watched from our tent as he walked the first camel amid the camp, calling out, “God is great!” Cheers and shouts dispelled the gloom that had shrouded us. Then, with a stick of kohl, Muhammad marked the girlish face and strong haunches of his animal with lines, squiggles, and circles.

  “Labaykh al-Lahumah labaykh!” he cried, announcing our arrival to God, as he placed a garland of bright flowers on the camel’s neck.

  Soon the entire camp bustled as sixty-nine other men paraded the remaining camels. With their long eyelashes and flowered necklaces, the beasts reminded me of women made up for a party. Tomorrow, our one thousand pilgrims would lead them into Mecca, the sacred city we faced in prayer five times a day. At the Ka’ba they would offer the animals to al-Lah.

  We slept, and then, even as the sun struck our eyes and hearts with heat so intense we could barely breathe, we prepared to ride the few remaining hours to Mecca. We’d enter the city while the Qurayshi warriors dozed away the hottest part of the day. Or so we thought.

  I heard the hoof beats first, then the shouts. Sitting in my hawdaj, I parted the curtains to see our scout riding at full speed through the shimmering heat, waving his whip and kicking his feet against his horse’s flanks. When he arrived, Umar handed him a water skin. He gulped messily, sloshing liquid onto his clothes. Then, gasping, he told us that Khalid ibn al-Walid was on his way with two hundred fully armed fighters.

  Rumbling erupted like thunder among our men. “By al-Lah, we will tear them apart with our bare hands!” Umar shouted.

  Only Muhammad appeared unfazed.

  “Alas for Quraysh!” he said, shaking his head. “War has completely devoured them. It would have done them no harm to simply let us come and worship. But they can think only of fighting and killing. In that way, we are already victorious.”

  He turned to my father. Did anyone among us know a different route to Mecca? My father went to find out. I and my sister-wives followed Muhammad to our tent. In moments Ali and Umar burst in, ranting.

  “We should have brought our swords!” Ali cried, sweating and striding in circles inside the tent. “I told you, cousin, that Quraysh would attack us. They have not yet learned the power of islam and they will not—not until we shame them the way we did at Badr.”

  “I do not want to kill our relations anymore,” Muhammad said. “AlLah will grant us peace. Today He has shown me a vision of myself standing in Mecca with a shaved head and the keys to the Ka’ba in my hand. In my dream, my clothes were spotless. Mecca will be ours, and without a drop of blood spilled.”

  “Has the heat made you dizzy?” Umar said. “Khalid ibn al-Walid killed many of our men at Uhud. He is a ferocious fighter, very bloodthirsty. If he catches us, we will die!”

  “Al-Lah willing, Khalid will not overtake us.” My father stood in the doorway. “We have found a Bedouin who knows an alternate route. He promises we will not encounter a single Qurayshi on our way to Mecca.”

  Ali glared at my father as if he were an intruder. “But Khalid ibn al-Walid has spies, also,” he said. “When he discovers our path, will he not follow us? Yaa Prophet, without arms to protect ourselves we are doomed.”

  “The alternate route is rugged and broken, covered in thorns,” my father said. “Serpents hide among the rocks. Our guide says the Qurayshi will not follow us there.”

  “Weak merchants.” Umar’s laugh stabbed the air.

  “We are accustomed to hardship, thanks to Quraysh,” Muhammad said. “Such a path would be difficult, but not impossible.”

  “For the men, yes. But women are another matter,” Umar said. “They are too frail to withstand a journey through that country.”

  “A’isha? Zaynab? Umm Salama? Will you speak to these doubts?” Muhammad said.

  “I can do anything a man can do,” I said. Muhammad grinned.

  “And I can do anything A’isha can do,” Zaynab added.

  All waited for Umm Salama, who sat with her hands folded in her lap, her back as straight as if she were made of stone. As the daughter of a rich man, she probably worried about getting calluses on her hands. Then I chastised myself for such unkind thoughts. After all my visits to the tent city hadn’t I learned compassion?

  As if she could hear me thinking, Umm Salama lifted her gaze to meet mine.

  “I have given birth to four children,” she said. “Is there any man in Hijaz who can make that claim? A few bumps in the road are nothing in comparison.”

  I wanted to laugh at the blush that spread across Umar’s face. “By alLah, Prophet, if these were my wives they would not speak so audaciously.”

  Umm Salama nodded. “Yaa Umar, I am aware of your attitudes toward women,” she said. “It is why I refused your offer of marriage.”

  Our route carried us over sharp-toothed lava beds choked with thorny weeds. Our progress was slow and lurching, and several of our horses bruised their hooves or forelegs on the rocks. A serpent spooked Umm Salama’s camel, and it fell to its knees, but she never made a sound. No one complained, male or female: A stubbed toe was a knife in the heart.

  At last we reached al-Hudaybiyyah, the Sanctuary outside Mecca where we could camp in safety. As the men set up our tent, Muhammad led Umm Salama, Zaynab, and me to the overlook. There we feasted our eyes on Mecca, spread below like a cloth filled with jewels encircled by a necklace of black mountains. Although the terrain was dustier here than in Medina, the city was much bigger and brighter-looking. Colorful canopies dotted the bustling market and homes of stone gleamed white under the sun. Whitest of all sparkled the Ka’ba, flanked by the twin hills the men would run between as part of the worship ritual.

  Ali rushed up, excitement sharpening his features. “With Khalid and his men out of the way, we can ride into Mecca unch
allenged,” he told Muhammad.

  “I want to enter in peace, and I want to depart in peace,” Muhammad said. “We have one thousand men. If we march in unannounced, the people of Mecca may think we are invading them. The Qurayshi may be merchants, but they are also Arabs. They will fight. No, we will need to send an emissary to Abu Sufyan to announce our arrival.”

  Ali followed us to our tent, gesturing and arguing, until my father interrupted with the news that Suhayl ibn Amr, a friend of Muhammad’s from Mecca, approached on horseback with three men wearing chain mail.

  “He says he wishes to speak with you alone.”

  Muhammad’s smile illuminated his face “Suhayl, my sahab,” he said. “This is a good development.”

  “But he still clings to the old ways.” Umar scowled. “Are we now negotiating with idol-worshippers?”

  That evening, while Muhammad talked with his visitors, Zaynab and Umm Salama sat in the tent and reminisced about Mecca, ignoring me. I contented myself with my spindle, listening. In a low, sad voice Umm Salama spoke about the last time she’d seen her father.

  “When I and my husband Abdallah tried to leave for Medina, my father forced me to stay behind. Abdallah’s father took Salama from us, claiming our son belonged to him. How I begged them to let us go! But they would not listen to the pleas of a woman. So I went to the people of Mecca.”

  Wearing the dark indigo robe of a mourner, she walked to the market, sat on the ground, and wailed. She wept and tore her clothes and prayed to al-Lah before the entire marketplace. When the sun began to set and the market closed, Umm Salama walked back to her parents’ house. The next day she did the same, and the next—every day for a year.

  “My father forbade me to go to the market, but I refused to listen, just as he had refused to listen to me,” she said. How the townspeople gossiped! They said her mind had flown away.

  “Finally, when abi could no longer endure the shame, he brought my camel and my son to me and ordered me to leave the city immediately. I could not even say good-bye to my mother. I wonder if she will want to see me again.”

  I stared at Umm Salama as she spoke, awed by her courage. On the surface she seemed so compliant, so obedient. Yet hadn’t she stood up for the women who came to Muhammad, complaining about their husbands’ harsh treatment? Maybe she’d learned the same lessons I had—that for a woman to have any power over her life, she had to seize it with both hands.

  After a while Umm Salama fell asleep, leaving me under the watchful eye of Zaynab, who refused to slumber. I longed to slip out and spy on Muhammad’s talk with Suhayl—information that could make me useful as his advisor. The minutes dragged on while Zaynab watched me squirm, sending sly smiles to tell me she knew what I had in mind.

  At last I mumbled that I needed to relieve myself and, donning my wrapper, made my escape to Muhammad’s tent.

  Of course his Companions hadn’t allowed him to meet Suhayl alone, without any protection. I wasn’t surprised to see a crowd of men in his tent, but I was amazed to hear them shouting at Muhammad.

  “Yaa Prophet, you cannot sign this!” Umar was yelling. He waved a sheepskin with writing on it. “This agreement is an insult to islam.”

  Ali nodded; Uthman and my father sat on the ground with their faces locked and their arms folded, saying nothing.

  “To sign this agreement with Quraysh is islam, submission to al-Lah,” Muhammad said quietly. “We must put our pride aside and do as He instructs.”

  “Does al-Lah allow Quraysh to strip away your position?” Ali said. “Why does the contract fail to name you as God’s Messenger?”

  “I do not know Muhammad as anyone’s Messenger,” Suhayl said. “To me, he is simply Muhammad, son of Abdallah ibn al-Muttalib. He is a man, not a god.”

  Ali rushed forward and pressed his dagger to Suhayl’s throat. “Say that again, and you’ll soon discover for yourself who is a god and who is not.”

  “Release him!” Muhammad sprang to his feet, his face darkening. The vein between his eyes throbbed; the tendons in his neck bulged. Ali yanked the dagger away from Suhayl’s throat and pushed him to the ground.

  “My apologies, Suhayl.” Muhammad helped Suhayl to stand. “Ali’s love for me overwhelms him.”

  “I have never seen a man so worshipped by his people,” Suhayl said. “When a hair falls from your head, they vie to catch it. When you utter a sound, their talk ceases. Whom do they really worship, al-Lah or Muhammad?”

  “As you said, Muhammad is a man. He is not God,” my father said. “A man makes mistakes. Al-Lah does not.”

  “Yaa Prophet, you are making a very big error here, it seems,” Uthman said. “Agreeing to halt our raids on Qurayshi caravans? The umma will starve.”

  “Al-Lah will provide for us,” Muhammad said. “Losing the proceeds from our raids is a small price to pay in exchange for peace with our brothers.”

  “Abu Sufyan is no brother of mine,” my father said. “Do you forget how he wanted to slaughter us all?”

  How I wanted to cry out in my father’s favor! Remembering the scene from my bedroom window that night, how Abu Sufyan had treated Raha so roughly. All these years later, his cruelty had only increased, along with his girth.

  Curses and oaths careened through the crowd. Muhammad smiled at Suhayl, who was signing the sheepskin. Muhammad took the date-palm stem, dipped it in ink, and drew a crescent moon next to Suhayl’s name. “That will suffice as my signature,” he said. He turned to his Companions. “The pact is official. At dawn we will thank al-Lah with our sacrifices.”

  “Here or at the Ka’ba?” Ali said. He held his arms rigidly at his sides.

  “At our camp, of course.” Muhammad’s voice was as calm as if he discussed the weather. “We have just agreed not to enter Mecca until next year.”

  My spirits sank. Not enter Mecca? After traveling all this way, eleven days of heat and dust and lurching camels? We’d all tended visions of the sacred Ka’ba as we’d journeyed, and yearned for repose in the bosom of our motherland. Now Muhammad was saying we had to leave. A cry of outrage rose in me, but I held it back. My task was to support him—but what if he was making a terrible mistake?

  “I have agreed to nothing!” Ali shouted, and stalked away. I jumped back into the shadows moments before he passed. My heart pounded as I ran back to our tent. Inside, Zaynab combed her hair by candlelight.

  “What a long time you spent relieving yourself,” she said. “Just like the night you lost the caravan, hmm, A’isha?”

  I was too upset to respond. I slumped in my bed and tried to sleep, but I could only toss about as I puzzled over what I’d seen and heard. Did Muhammad understand what he’d done? Suhayl had spoken truly: Ever since the Battle of the Trench, the people of the umma practically worshipped Muhammad. He possessed as much power as a king.

  Any other man would be satisfied—but not Muhammad. “How can I rest knowing my own people are destined for Hell?” he would say. But I knew their salvation was only one of his concerns. He wouldn’t be happy until he had the respect of Quraysh again.

  Was their acceptance worth losing the umma? By signing this pact against the wishes of his Companions, Muhammad had taken a great risk. If his closest Companions protested it, how would the rest of the men respond? As for Abu Sufyan, I could imagine the smile on his face when he read the treaty. I’d heard how he’d been boasting since the trench disaster: Not even the Prophet of al-Lah could amass an army of ten thousand. The obvious retort was that one hundred thousand men were nothing when God was on your side, but alas, Muhammad wasn’t the bragging sort.

  Now, it seemed, he wasn’t the fighting sort, either. But why? And this treaty included a promise to stop raiding Qurayshi caravans. Without the loot from those raids, how would we in the umma buy food and clothing? Those riches would fill Abu Sufyan’s purse, instead—and buy Bedouin friends for his next attack on Medina.

  In spite of my dislike for Umm Salama, I dreaded giving her the bad news the next
morning. She awoke early full of excitement, which drained away like milk from a broken bowl when I told her we wouldn’t be entering Mecca this year.

  Zaynab smirked at me. “How do you know, A’isha? Did Gabriel visit you while you were relieving yourself?”

  “What does it matter?” I snapped at her. “Muhammad has submitted to Quraysh, and for no good reason. Abu Sufyan wouldn’t dare attack us now, not after the Battle of the Trench. He thinks we used magic to cause that terrible storm.”

  Umm Salama toppled her cup, spilling water onto the sand. “We cannot always understand the ways of al-Lah. We must believe in Muhammad.”

  She spoke the truth, I knew. Yet I also understood the anger of the men. From our tent door that morning we watched Muhammad call for the sacrificial ritual to begin—and watched every man in the camp turn his back on him. Muhammad cried out again, but they stood mute as if they heard only the wind.

  His face darkened. His worried gaze flew around the camp and landed on me. His troubled eyes seemed to grope like the hands of a blind man as they locked with mine. The scuff of sand under his heavy steps sounded like ripping cloth. I pulled the tent flap aside, and we sister-wives made room for him to enter.

  “I do not know what to do,” Muhammad said when he was inside, his voice hoarse from shouting. “Yaa A’isha, my helpmate. I need your advice more than ever.”

  “The solution is obvious.” I’d devised a strategy for him in the night, while I’d tossed and turned in my bed. “You have to renounce that pact and lead us into Mecca as you promised.”

  Muhammad’s jaw dropped. “So you take their side against me?” He tore at his beard. “By al-Lah, has everyone abandoned me?”

  I looked to Umm Salama for support. She’d been so disappointed by this agreement. But she moved to Muhammad’s side and clasped his hands in hers.