Mother of the Believers Part 20

"He must be opposed. His lies must be unmasked before the people."

Ibn Ubayy grabbed a velvet-backed chair, plumping himself down next to Huyayy. With Kab to his right and the Arab to his left, Safiya thought her father looked liked a tiny mouse trapped between the talons of a mighty bird.

"Follow the wisdom of your fathers, Huyayy," Ibn Ubayy said, his eyes burning with the fire of intrigue. "Muhammad claims to be a prophet like Moses, your lawgiver. Yet he cannot even read or write. He only knows of your Torah what he has heard from the mouths of others. Fragments of tales, misunderstood and misconstrued. His entire claim to power lies in his alleged revelations from G.o.d. Challenge Muhammad on his knowledge of scripture, show that his Qur'an differs from your Torah. Undermine the credibility of his prophecy, and you will defeat him in a way that no army ever could. That is the only way that you will protect your people from this new religion that seeks to dispossess you from your rightful status as the Chosen People."

Safiya knew that what Ibn Ubayy was proposing was far more dangerous than any contest of swords. Men could make war over land, water, or women, and still peace could be achieved, for the underlying matter under dispute was tangible, rational. But if Ibn Ubayy convinced her father to launch an ideological war against the Muslims, if they tried to insult or denigrate their neighbors' faith, then there could be no reconciliation.

If there was one thing Safiya had learned from arguing about the Torah with her own people, it was that fighting over intangible ideas was a losing proposition for all sides. Opinions hardened and conflict became a matter of hazy beliefs, phantoms that could never be satisfied, no matter how much blood was spilled. If the Jews allowed themselves to fall into this trap, they would become like a gazelle prodding a sleeping lion.

"Father, don't listen to him!" she cried, falling at Huyayy's feet and clinging to his knees. "It is not the way of our people! Jews do not ridicule the beliefs of others! Let them have their religion and we ours. Or we risk bringing war upon us."

Huyayy gazed at her and she could see how tired he was. The lines around his eyes had become so thick that he looked like an owl. He ran a hand through her sandy hair as he had when she was a little girl.

"War is already upon us, my child," he said softly. "The Quraysh were the first to fall. We will be next. Unless the fire of Muhammad's religion is quenched, it will consume the world-and our people with it."

Safiya looked at her father with pleading eyes, but he rose and gently nudged her away. The Jewish chieftain turned to his guests with a look of grim determination.

"The time has come to show the world that this Arab who claims to speak for the G.o.d of Moses is a liar," he said.

Ibn Ubayy and Kab smiled in satisfaction. They had finally come up with a plan they believed could tear Muhammad off the throne that he had steadily been building himself for the past two years.

The three men turned to walk into the courtyard and continue their conversation. Safiya stayed back, her heart heavy. There was no point in pursuing them, for she had lost the argument. She watched her father step through the carved oak doors into their manicured garden. And she had a vivid image in her heart of Huyayy walking into a lion's den from which he would never return.

8.

I sat near the Messenger in the courtyard of the Masjid as he shared with the worshipers the wondrous tale of Moses and Pharaoh. He was a remarkable storyteller, his hand gesticulating as he drew for his followers a vivid picture of the ancient prophet and his confrontation with the king of Egypt. All eyes were on him as Muhammad recited the newly revealed words of the Book. sat near the Messenger in the courtyard of the Masjid as he shared with the worshipers the wondrous tale of Moses and Pharaoh. He was a remarkable storyteller, his hand gesticulating as he drew for his followers a vivid picture of the ancient prophet and his confrontation with the king of Egypt. All eyes were on him as Muhammad recited the newly revealed words of the Book.

Moses said, "Pharaoh, I am a messenger from the Lord of the Worlds Duty bound to say nothing about G.o.d but the truth And I have brought you a clear sign from your Lord."

Pharaoh said, "Produce this sign you have brought, if you are telling the Truth."

Then Moses threw down his staff, and behold, it was a serpent!

And he drew out his hand, and behold, it appeared white to the onlookers!

Gasps of awe spread through the crowd of worshipers at the startling images. As the words of the Qur'an flowed from the Messenger's lips in magnificent Arabic verse, the serpent and the white hand were so clear that we could almost see them with our eyes.

And then I heard a loud cough coming from the back of the crowd. I looked up to see Huyayy, the Jewish chieftain of Bani Nadir, standing near the entrance to the courtyard. In his hand he held what appeared to be a scroll wrapped in blue velvet, although I did not recognize the writing that had been embossed in gold over the coverlet.

There were murmurs of surprise at Huyayy's unexpected appearance. The Messenger had long invited the Jews to come hear him preach, but they had politely refused, saying they did not need him to teach them what they already knew. And now the leader of one of the most powerful tribes had come on Friday, when the Masjid was overflowing with believers who had flocked to hear the Messenger's weekly sermon.

"Excuse me, but may I ask a question?" Huyayy's voice was polite, but I sensed an edge there that I did not like.

I turned to my husband, who looked at the visitor warily before nodding.

"Who did you say it was that threw down the staff before Pharaoh?"

The Prophet met the other man's challenging gaze calmly.

"It was not I that said it, for I only recite the words of G.o.d," the Messenger responded. "G.o.d says in the holy Qur'an that it was Moses who threw the staff."

Huyayy's face contorted as if he were confused.

"How interesting. And yet the Torah says that it was Aaron that threw down the staff while Moses looked on."

There was a murmur of surprise in the crowd. It was such a minor difference that I did not care-the point of the story obviously wasn't whether Moses or Aaron had thrown the staff but Pharaoh's defiance of G.o.d's clear signs. And yet some of the less sophisticated believers, unable to grasp the subtleties of poetry, found this seeming discrepancy troubling.

Sensing that his challenge had the desired effect on at least some of the worshipers, Huyayy stepped closer to the Messenger and held aloft the velvet-covered scroll. He kissed it reverently before removing its wrap and unfurling the parchment to a page of what I a.s.sumed was Hebrew writing.

"Perhaps you can show us where in the Holy Torah it says that Moses threw down the staff?"

I felt the Messenger stiffen beside me.

"I cannot read," he said, a matter that had once been a source of shame for him but had since the days of Islam been the one clear sign of G.o.d's favor. That a man who was illiterate could suddenly recite such great words of poetry had been the proof for many Muslims of Muhammad's divinely inspired mission. And now Huyayy was using his unlettered past as a sword to mock the Revelation.

"Oh yes, I forgot. I apologize," he said, with no hint of apology in his tone. "But if you would indulge me, I have another question."

I saw the Messenger's dark eyes beginning to narrow in irritation.

"Ask, and if G.o.d has revealed it to me, I will answer."

Huyayy looked at the men and women seated on the floor of the Masjid as he spoke.

"How many signs did G.o.d send to Pharaoh to let the Children of Israel go?"

That was easy. Even a young girl like me who was not well versed in theology had heard the story of Moses enough times to know the answer.

"The holy Qur'an says nine," the Prophet responded with dignity.

Huyayy made an exaggerated look of surprise, his dark lips curling back to reveal yellowing teeth.

"Really? But the Torah claims that there were ten plagues. Perhaps G.o.d forgot one when He spoke to you."

Now I could sense real unrest among the crowd. There was a rumble of conversation as people asked one another how the Messenger of G.o.d could have made a mistake like that. Even an illiterate man could still count, they whispered.

"Another question, if I may-"

I had had enough of this uninvited guest insulting my husband. I leaped to my feet and shouted at the top of my lungs.

"No, you may not! You only seek to mock him!"

Huyayy looked at me with amus.e.m.e.nt, and his contemptuous gaze made my heart pound in anger.

"I did not know that the child bride speaks for the Prophet. It was not so in the days of Moses."

I felt a cooling hand against my forearm. The Messenger shook his head slightly and I felt a flush of embarra.s.sment. I sat back down, suddenly wanting to be unseen and forgotten.

The Messenger turned is attention to Huyayy. He spoke calmly, but I could see the vein at his temple beginning to throb.

"Ask, and I will answer if G.o.d has revealed it to me."

Huyayy stepped forward, his eyes glistening like a falcon on its prey.

"Who was Haman?"

The Messenger glanced at his followers, who were looking at him eagerly, pleading with their eyes from him to best this arrogant interloper.

"He was the Pharaoh's adviser," the Messenger said, repeating the verses of a Revelation that had come a few months before. "Haman built a tower of baked bricks so that his king could see if the G.o.d of Moses lived in heaven."

Huyayy smiled triumphantly.

"Alas, I am confused. The only Haman I know of in the books of my people is in the legend of Esther. He was the adviser to the Persian king Ahasuerus, many centuries after Pharaoh. And the only tower I know of that is as you described is the Tower of Babel, built in the days when all mankind spoke one tongue. But that was centuries before Moses."

Huyayy turned his attention the crowd with a look of pity.

"Surely if you were the Messenger of G.o.d, you would know that which was revealed to the prophets before you."

I could feel a terrible wave of anger and confusion building among the worshipers. It was like the rumble preceding an earthquake. Some of the people looked at the Prophet with newfound distrust, as Huyayy had intended. But most were glaring at the Jew who had come to make a mockery of their most treasured beliefs.

In the dark silence that followed, I heard the rustle of robes as the Prophet rose to his feet. His eyes were shining with a fiery light that suddenly made me feel afraid. I had never seen him so angry.

"I am indeed the Messenger of G.o.d, as were my brothers the prophets Moses, David, and Solomon before me." His voice was soft, but there was more danger in his tone than any angry shout.

Huyayy smiled in his sickly sweet falseness.

"You see, that really confuses me. For the books of my people say that David was a king, not a prophet. And Solomon-well, the books say that he was a reprobate who worshiped idols and cavorted with evil spirits."

I had never heard this. The Solomon in the Messenger's stories was always a man of great wisdom and piety.

"If your books say that, then they lie," Muhammad said sharply, as if someone had impugned the reputation of his daughters. "Solomon was a sincere servant of G.o.d."

"But how could that be?" Huyayy responded with the rhetorical flourish that now filled me with rage. "You claim that your Qur'an and our Torah come from the same G.o.d. Surely they could not contradict each other if that were so."

I looked at the Messenger and saw him struggling for an answer. He was accustomed to defending his claim to prophecy from the pagan Arabs who rejected his words as mere poetic fables. But no one had ever dissected the stories of the Qur'an to show that they differed from the Book of the Jews-whose G.o.d the Messenger claimed had sent him. I suddenly realized that Huyayy's gambit was a grave threat not only to the Prophet's credibility but to the entire basis of our faith.

The Prophet's teachings had taken the ancient G.o.ds away from us, and we could not go back to them any more than an adult can revert to being an infant. But now, in one fell swoop, Huyayy had threatened to take away also the One G.o.d for whom we had suffered for so many years. He was like a thief who steals everything a man owns and then returns one night to take his life as well. If the Messenger was not who he claimed to be, we were worse off than the pagan Arabs who still believed in something, even if it was nothing more than a dream wrapped around rocks and carved pieces of wood.

Without Allah, we had nothing but despair and emptiness. Huyayy wanted to take away the very meaning of our lives.

And then I saw the Prophet go terribly still. His body began to shake violently as the familiar tremors set in. I jumped to my feet as he fell to the ground, convulsing wildly. Sweat poured down his face and neck. I pushed the men around him aside and threw my cloak over him as he shivered violently.

"Stay back!" I shouted with all my authority as Mother of the Believers, and the crowd that threatened to surround him and cut off the precious flow of air obeyed. Through the corner of my eye, I could see Huyayy shaking his head in amus.e.m.e.nt, as if he had just seen a monkey perform a clever trick.

The Messenger's tremors calmed and then stopped altogether. His eyes opened and I saw peace and tranquillity on his face. Muhammad rose to his feet slowly, and there were murmurs of relief from his followers. He turned to face Huyayy, the confusion gone and confidence shining from his handsome features.

"Behold what G.o.d has revealed to me," he said, and then recited new verses of the Qur'an with flowing harmony.

There is among them a section who distort the Book with their tongues You would think it is a part of the Book, but it is not part of the Book And they say, "That is from G.o.d," but it is not from G.o.d.

It is they who tell a lie against G.o.d, and well they know it.

Huyayy looked at him with raised eyebrows, as if demanding an explanation of these strange words.

"What nonsense is this?" he said, but I heard the first hint of uncertainty in his voice.

"G.o.d has revealed to me a great secret that your forefathers have hidden from mankind for centuries," the Prophet said, his voice raised for all to hear. "The words you claim to be revealed to Moses in the Torah have been changed. Your priests and rabbis have corrupted the Book, distorting the true teachings of the prophets. That is why He has sent the holy Qur'an now, to bring mankind out of darkness and into the light."

There was a moment of utter silence, like the stillness of night before the break of dawn. And then the Masjid erupted in pandemonium as Muslims excitedly repeated his words and debated their meaning.

I saw the looks of distrust vanish, and the confusion was replaced by cries of subhan-Allah subhan-Allah-Glory be to G.o.d.

Huyayy was flummoxed. In this one stroke, the Messenger had taken away his entire argument, and indeed had flipped it on its head. Suddenly the subtle differences between the Book of the Jews and the Qur'an were no longer evidence of forgery on Muhammad's part. Instead they were evidence that the Jews had continued their tradition of rebelling against their prophets and had even altered their own scriptures to suit themselves. Their failures to uphold their own religion had stripped them of their pretentious claim to be G.o.d's Chosen, and Allah had sent his Message to a new people who were not trapped in a web of falsehood. The Messenger's claim to prophecy was actually strengthened by the distinctions between his faith and that of his predecessors who had corrupted G.o.d's Word.

Huyayy had tried to destroy our religion, but he had given it new life. Islam was no longer an upstart faith forever destined to suck on the teat of another people's past. It now held itself as a restoration of ancient truth, the original religion of Abraham and Moses that had been corrupted over the centuries. Huyayy had tried to show that Islam was a deviation from Judaism, and the Prophet instead had shown that Judaism was a deviation from Islam. Huyayy's people would no longer be looked upon by their Arab neighbors as wise sages whom Muslims should defer to but as heretics who had broken their own covenant with G.o.d.

I saw his face betray anger as his stratagem fell apart. As the crowd turned to jeer at him, he squared his shoulders and left the Masjid before the rules of hospitality were forgotten.

I looked at the Prophet, who was beaming like a child. The Revelation had freed him from having to show any deference to the Jews and Islam could now spread on the strength of its own authenticity. The shackles of the past were lifted. Instead of being the moon, shining with the reflected light of the People of the Book, Islam was now the sun. It could burn with its own fire and blot out the other stars, the earlier religions that had sought to illuminate men's hearts.

A FEW WEEKS LATER FEW WEEKS LATER, the final break from our Jewish brothers came. The Messenger received a Revelation that the believers were no longer to face Jerusalem in their daily prayers. Instead we would kneel toward the Kaaba at Mecca, the House that had been built by Abraham hundreds of years before the Temple of Solomon rose. It was a welcome change, for our hearts had always belonged to the Sanctuary.

The mihrab, mihrab, the small prayer niche of palm wood that indicated the direction of Jerusalem, was boarded up. A new the small prayer niche of palm wood that indicated the direction of Jerusalem, was boarded up. A new mihrab mihrab facing south was carved. As the Muslims bowed to Mecca for the first time in years, I could feel the collective longing in their souls for the city we had lost. facing south was carved. As the Muslims bowed to Mecca for the first time in years, I could feel the collective longing in their souls for the city we had lost.

As I bowed my forehead to the cold earth, a thought flashed through my mind that I knew must be in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of my neighbors. Now that the center of Islam was Mecca, we could not let the pagans hold on to the Sanctuary.