The Jewel Of Medina Read online

  “A leader does not renounce his pacts, A’isha,” Zaynab said. I scowled at her, my face flooded with heat.

  “Please, husband, allow me to speak,” Umm Salama said. “I have advice that may serve you.”

  Muhammad nodded, and she continued. “The solution is simple. As Zaynab has said, a leader is one who leads. If you want your men to shave their heads, you must shave yours first. If you want them to make their sacrifices, you must sacrifice your own camel first.”

  “And if they do not follow?” Muhammad said.

  “Pray,” Umm Salama said. “Perform the ritual. Then, if you have pleased no one else, you will have pleased al-Lah. Is He not the reason we have come here?”

  The wrinkles of worry in Muhammad’s face smoothed as if caressed by a hand. “Your wisdom is my comfort,” he said with a weary smile. “I will do as you say. As for the rest, I will trust al-Lah.”

  He stepped outside and pulled out his dagger. “Labaykh al-Lahumah labaykh!” he cried. He stretched his long curls out from his head with one hand, and sliced the hair from his scalp with his dagger. “God is great!” he called.

  “This is ridiculous,” I snapped. “Muhammad is going to look more foolish than ever. He has made a mistake, and he needs to admit it. The men want to go into Mecca. I thought you wanted it, too.”

  “I did want it,” Umm Salama said. “But mostly I desire the best for Muhammad, always. That is the pact I signed when I married him.”

  I lowered my gaze, contrite. Umm Salama spoke truly: Unflinching support was a wife’s duty to her husband. Again, I’d let my emotions control me.

  My father looked over his shoulder and saw Muhammad’s shorn head, his bright excited face, his arms thrust toward the sky gripping the dagger and his tufts of hair. “Al-Lahu akbar!” Muhammad cried. “God is great!” My father gave a shout and ran over to him, pulled out his dagger—I gasped—and sliced off his silver hair.

  “God is great!” my father called.

  In another instant Talha had joined them, and Uthman, and Umar. And, yes, Ali. Soon the entire camp roiled in a haircutting frenzy as everyone shouted and praised al-Lah. Tears slid in rivulets down Umm Salama’s face, making her beauty shimmer. Zaynab watched proudly, her hands lifted as Muhammad stepped upon a large rock and led a prayer of thanks to al-Lah for His goodness and mercy. One thousand men fell to their knees around him and pressed their foreheads into the ground, facing Muhammad and Mecca. Meanwhile, I hid my face and cried, but mine were not tears of joy.

  I had failed Muhammad, and I had failed al-Lah. Think only, and cast aside your feelings. When would I learn to apply this lesson not only to sword fighting, but to life? Until I learned to control myself I’d never be able to control my destiny.

  LIARS AND SPIES

  MEDINA, AUGUST 627 AND 628

  FOURTEEN, THEN FIFTEEN YEARS OLD

  Peace. It slipped through the umma like a cooling breeze. Filling our mouths, our chests, our bellies. Soothing our fears.

  We Believers had faced attack for as long as I could remember: from Quraysh, from Ibn Ubayy and his Hypocrites, from the Mustaliq, from our Jewish neighbors, from an ever-changing mix of Bedouin tribes. We’d stood up to them all, vanquishing some enemies and making friends with others, except for Quraysh. Now, with this peace treaty, we’d struck an uneasy coexistence with them.

  Once the furor had died over the pact, I had to admit it was a good idea. The umma needed time to heal its battle scars, to settle down and to strengthen. Our army took advantage of the lull to train and recruit new warriors. My life, on the other hand, was anything but peaceful.

  Since our aborted pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad’s demeanor toward me had cooled. He’d accepted my tearful apologies without a smile, making me realize I’d have to work hard to gain his trust yet again. At night I wept into my empty hands and prayed for al-Lah’s guidance—and also for a son. Bearing Muhammad’s heir would soften his heart toward me. It might also help me reclaim the status I’d lost in the harim.

  Zaynab had assumed the role of hatun before we’d started back to Medina, giving orders to the camel-drivers and overseeing the packing of our tent. When I protested, she shot me a cold stare.

  “You’ve betrayed Muhammad—twice,” she said. “That disqualifies you from leading his harim.” Umm Salama stood beside her, regal and long-necked, lifting her eyebrows at me. Rage crashed through me, and I would have hurled myself atop them both, fists flailing, but a quiet voice that could only have been al-Lah’s whispered in my mind’s ear. Think only, and cast aside your feelings.

  “Instead of standing there with your mouth open, why don’t you make yourself useful?” Zaynab said. “Roll up our bedding, and carry it to the caravan for loading.”

  My very bones tensed, but I could see that I had no choice. Zaynab spoke the truth: I had betrayed Muhammad, and didn’t deserve to be his Great Lady. Shame filled the pit of my stomach as I rolled up our beds—a job for servants—and then, holding my wrapper over my burning face, walked to my hawdaj. There I hid for what seemed like hours, crying over my wrong-headed advice to Muhammad and the loss of my status that would result. When I’d exhausted my tears, the swaying of my camel jolted me to my senses. Was I going to let one mistake make a servant of me? Zaynab might have the upper hand now, but that wouldn’t last. Somehow I would prove myself worthy of my sister-wives’ trust as well as Muhammad’s. Unlike Zaynab, I wouldn’t have to seize the hatun position. My sister-wives would give it to me. Then no one, not even Zaynab, would be able to take it away again.

  One year later I was hauling water from the well for Zaynab’s hair, cursing. By telling everyone about my disloyalty to Muhammad, Zaynab had coaxed Raihana and even Sawdah to support her as hatun. And I? I wasn’t even the parrot. I was at the bottom of the heap, running to the market when she ran out of kohl and having to apologize if I didn’t return quickly enough; serving her the bread I’d baked and hearing her criticize it; washing her clothing; emptying her chamber pot. My only relief came during her afternoon naps when, shaking off my own need for sleep, I’d sling a bag of barley or dates over Scimitar’s back and ride off to the tent city.

  By nightfall, I was exhausted—too tired to give much pleasure to Muhammad, but not daring to complain to him about my plight. The one time I’d mentioned Zaynab’s tyranny, he’d told me he was too occupied with his own affairs to concern himself with harim squabbles.

  “If you want to be a leader, A’isha, you must learn to master those who would master you,” he said.

  In truth, Muhammad did have more pressing worries. Our peace treaty with Quraysh included their allies, but not everyone respected it. Incensed by our killing of his Qurayzah cousins, Huyayy, the leader of the Nadr, had boasted of plans to “cleanse the excrement of islam from Medina.” Something had to be done, or Muhammad would lose the respect of the other desert tribes.

  Muhammad’s face looked haggard, and his eyes held no spark as he led his army out of Medina to confront the Nadr. He was tired of fighting. We were all tired. Worry dragged the corners of my mouth down as I watched the caravan march away. How could he defeat anyone when he looked so defeated?

  Tension spread through the umma, straining the already-tight harim almost to breaking. Raihana’s snide comments, once so amusing, became as irritating as sand in a bed. Zaynab had missed a monthly bleeding, and made a point of measuring her waist with a rope every day, making me want to strangle her with it. In a few weeks, to my relief, her blood flow returned. Fatima’s crooning over her baby, and her pride in her own thickening stomach, carrying another child, grated on everyone’s nerves until, one day, Hafsa hurled a dish at the wall behind her head.

  “Get out!” she shouted. “Can’t you see you’re crowding us with your baby and your expanding belly and your smug fertility? Go home and gloat to your doting husband!”

  Something had to change. While Sawdah rushed over to beg Fatima not to leave and Zaynab berated Hafsa for being rude to the Prophet’s d
aughter, I thought again about the dangers of idle time. Boredom, not babies, was the reason for our bickering. Yes, I had my trips to the tent city and Zaynab to serve, and Umm Salama had four children to care for, but Hafsa, Juwairriyah, Zaynab, and Raihana had little to do. The only one among them who kept busy—and who never complained—was Sawdah, who filled her hours tooling leather and making items to sell at the market.

  I had an idea that would solve the problem—and, perhaps, enhance me as a leader in my sister-wives’ eyes. But I would need to present it at the right time, in the right way. Otherwise, Zaynab and her clan would reject it.

  When I walked into the cooking tent and saw Umm Salama displaying a threadbare garment—“Behold, my only gown!”—I saw my chance. But for my plan to succeed, I’d have to make my sister-wives think it was their idea.

  “How can Muhammad walk with pride through Medina when his wives wear rags?” Zaynab said.

  “Being impoverished doesn’t mean having no pride,” I said. “Many of the tent people are very proud.”

  “Yes, but they did not choose their poverty,” Umm Salama said. “Our husband forces ours upon us.”

  “Sawdah doesn’t wear rags,” I said.

  “And why not, I wonder?” Zaynab gave a snort at my stupidity. “She has a trade, while we have none.”

  “How sad,” I said with a sigh. “A harim full of women, and only Sawdah has a skill.”

  Hafsa gave me a puzzled frown. “Yaa A’isha, you know I’m a henna artist.”

  “The best in Medina,” I said. “But would someone pay for that?”

  “I don’t see why not,” she said. “Many brides hire artists to adorn their hands and feet for their wedding night.”

  “They have hair stylists, too, but I could do a better job,” Juwairriyah said.

  “And the makeup! By al-Lah, it’s a wonder their husbands don’t faint with fright when they remove their veils,” Zaynab scoffed “I, on the other hand, could transform a camel into a vision of beauty. Isn’t that a skill worth paying for?”

  It was like leading sheep to the shearing pen. In moments my sister-wives had hatched my plan: They would hire themselves out as tire women to prepare brides for their wedding ceremonies. Umm Salama would make lace for their veils, and Raihana would embroider their gowns. I even agreed to make cloth with my spindle and loom, thinking to earn a few dirhams for the tent-dwellers. Aside from hunger, I had few problems that money could solve. And with drought still sucking the life from Medina’s date-palms and grasslands and drying up our springs, there was little food to buy.

  “I already know who our first customer will be,” Hafsa said to me later, as we cleaned the dishes from the evening meal. “I heard Umm Ayman say today that Muhammad is going to marry again. You’ll never guess who. The daughter of that traitor Huyayy!”

  “Don’t believe everything that old gossip says,” I told Hafsa with a laugh. “Muhammad went to Khaybar to teach Huyayy a lesson, not make him an ally by marrying his daughter.”

  But I was wrong. When Muhammad arrived in Medina, he not only brought Saffiya bint Huyayy with him, he was already married to her.

  Breaking every tradition, he’d unwrapped his pert-chinned, slant-eyed gift the night he’d acquired her—and, according to rumor, every night since. Watching them together, I could easily see why Muhammad lusted for her: As they rode into Medina on one camel, she stroked his arms winding around her wisp of a waist. Her eyes laughed even when her lips didn’t, and when Muhammad helped her down from the saddle she winked at him.

  “She’s only a child,” Hafsa said as we sister-wives watched the caravan’s return.

  “She’s not much older than you, A’isha,” Zaynab said. “Now you’ll have someone your own age to play with.”

  “I’m not impressed,” I said to Hafsa, ignoring Zaynab and Raihana’s snickers. “This new wife is not the kind of woman to hold a man’s interest for long.”

  “She certainly holds the Prophet’s interest now,” Juwairriyah said. “He did not look at me like that on our wedding day.”

  “He has never looked at anyone like that,” Zaynab said. “Except me.”

  “As I said,” I retorted, “she won’t hold his interest for long.”

  Secretly, though, I seethed to see this new wife’s dainty hand in Muhammad’s large one and her flirtatious gazes commanding his attention. But I shook off my jealousy, knowing this marriage would force the Nadr and their relatives, the Kaynuqah, to fight on our side in the future. Besides, being nearly my age, as Zaynab had said, she might be an ally for me. Then, when Muhammad brought her into the courtyard to meet us, I noticed a fading yellow bruise under her right eye, and my heart softened toward her.

  Or it did until Raihana, her cousin, asked her how she’d acquired it. “Was that the work of Muhammad’s holy henchmen?” she quipped, arching an eyebrow.

  Saffiya giggled and blushed ever so delicately. “Oh, no,” she said in a voice that warbled like a songbird’s. “My husband gave it to me.” She glanced up at Muhammad and giggled again. “Not you, honey hive, my other husband.”

  Muhammad traced the bruise lightly with a finger. She gazed into his eyes so knowingly, I felt my face burn.

  “Before you came to me, Prophet, I dreamt that I would be yours. In my dream, the moon lowered itself down from Medina to make love to me. When I awoke, I told my husband Kinana about it, and he struck me with his fist.” Her voice wobbled as if she were drunk. “He said, ‘Whore! You want to marry that Muslim prophet?’ I didn’t know what he meant. I didn’t understand the dream.” She smiled at Muhammad through limpid eyes. “Now I do.”

  “By al-Lah, what a show,” Zaynab said in the courtyard, when they had gone to “rest,” in Muhammad’s words.

  “What a performance, you mean,” Raihana said. “Saffiya bint Huyayy is a born manipulator.”

  “Did she call him ‘honey hive’?” Hafsa said.

  I thought again of how this new wife might help me. “I thought she seemed nice,” I said feebly—drawing a gasp from Hafsa, who stared at me as if I’d grown another head.

  Sawdah approached then, wiping her forehead with her sleeve. A tall, masculine woman with large hips and prominent cheekbones—where had I seen that face before?—walked regally behind her.

  “Where is the Prophet? Is he here yet?” Sawdah said.

  “He went to bed with his new child-bride.” Zaynab smirked at me. She and the rest of the sister-wives strolled to the cooking tent, leaving me and Hafsa in the courtyard with Sawdah and the stranger.

  “A new bride? By al-Lah, what a mess!” Sawdah came over to us, wringing her hands. She glanced nervously at her charge, who’d seated herself under the date-palm tree. “This is awful,” she said in a low voice. “If I disturb the Prophet, he will get mad, but if I do not disturb him, then she will get mad.”

  “Who? That man in woman’s clothing over there?” Hafsa whispered.

  “Who is she, Sawdah? Not another wife, I hope.” I was joking, but the worry on Sawdah’s face told me this was no occasion for humor.

  She gestured for me and Hafsa to step closer. “She says her name is Umm Habiba bint Abu Sufyan.”

  Drawing in my breath, I scrutinized the woman, who stared stonily back at me. The daughter of Abu Sufyan and that shrewish Hind? What was she doing here?

  Sawdah lowered her voice further: “She says she is the Prophet’s wife.”

  Alarms clanged in my head like a thousand jarring bells. What trickery was this? I couldn’t imagine what Abu Sufyan was scheming, but I knew it was nothing good.

  “By al-Lah, does Abu Sufyan think Muhammad is a fool?” I said loudly, drawing Umm Habiba’s disdainful gaze. “Yaa Umm Habiba, tell your father his latest plot against the Prophet of God is his most pathetic one yet.”

  Muhammad’s voice rang from above. “It is no plot, A’isha.” He smiled down at our visitor from his apartment over the mosque, then climbed down the date-palm tree growing beside it. On the ground,
he extended his hands toward Umm Habiba, who returned his gaze boldly.

  “Ahlan wa sahlan, Ramlah,” he said, using her given name. “I did not expect your arrival until a month from now.”

  “I was so eager to leave Abyssinia, I rode ahead of the caravan.” Her voice sounded as shrill as her mother’s, but Muhammad didn’t seem to notice. He bestowed her with the heavy-lidded love looks I now realized wouldn’t last. Each new wife enthralled Muhammad at first, but when the newness wore off, he’d turn his attention back to me. Or so I hoped.

  I counted the number of nights until he would lie with me again. With nine of us in the harim, would I now have to wait eight nights between visits to my room?

  “Excuse me, Muhammad, but how can this marriage be?” Hafsa asked. “Have you traveled on a magic carpet while the rest of us slept?”

  “The king of Abyssinia has married us by proxy,” Muhammad said. “With my permission.” He turned to Sawdah to discuss sleeping arrangements for his new wife, and Hafsa and I began walking to our huts.

  “Why would Muhammad marry the daughter of his most dangerous enemy?” I said. Hafsa shook her head, as mystified as I.

  My old suspicions began to nag me again. After the trench disaster, Abu Sufyan’s Bedouin allies had deserted him for Muhammad. Meccans were flocking to Medina to convert to islam. Muhammad could have crushed Abu Sufyan if he’d so desired. But he’d signed a peace treaty, instead, giving our enemy time to build new alliances. Now that our raids on his caravans had stopped, Abu Sufyan would be able to collect more wealth. Soon he’d be able to buy the allies he needed to mount another attack on the umma.

  Positioning his daughter inside Muhammad’s harim was a brilliant ploy.

  “By al-Lah, this marriage is no coincidence,” I said as Hafsa opened the door of her hut.

  “I hope you’re wrong,” she said, “but I fear you speak the truth. If Umm Habiba is a spy, al-Lah help us.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m going to watch her more closely than Ali watches me. If she’s a spy, we’ll find out before even al-Lah knows it.”