Mother of the Believers Part 37

As my heart pounded in horror, the unholy torrent struck the campfire. But instead of extinguishing the flames, it was as if oil had been poured upon them, and the fire burned higher and brighter, illuminating the desolate valley as bright as day.

And then I saw a sight I will never forget. All about me the ground was littered with corpses from a battle. Men in armor, their breastplates pierced by dozens of arrows, arms and legs dismembered and thrown to the side like refuse. The terrible stench of rotting flesh engulfed me and I wanted to scream, and yet no sound emerged.

And then I watched with horror beyond horror as the veiled Hind stopped her dance and turned to look in my direction. In the light of the raging fire she could now see me, and she suddenly laughed with bloodcurdling viciousness. Her maidens, whom I now recognized as the same madwomen who had danced over the body of Hamza, pointed at me and sneered.

And then Hind was walking toward me and I saw that the timbrel in her hand had become a mighty sword, the blade curved and cruelly jagged. At that instant, my terror overcame my shock and I began to run. Yet everywhere I turned, I was blocked by a sea of corpses, and I had no choice but to step on their bodies, feeling the sickening sensation of my feet sinking into their rotting flesh.

I could hear Hind's laughter growing closer but I dared not look behind me. I needed to get away, far away from this madness. Every prayer I knew was on my lips, and yet the nightmare continued, my supplications met only with the terrible roll of thunder from above.

And then my sandals jammed inside the open mouth of a dead soldier whose skull I tried to run over, and I tripped, falling hard on my face. I desperately tried to move, to pull my foot free from the teeth of the poor man whose corpse I had no choice but to desecrate. I managed to pry my foot loose from the jaws of the unlucky soldier and crawled away, shuddering in disgust. I was ready to get back to my feet when lightning flashed and I saw the face of the poor man clearly.

It was the face of your father, my sister's husband, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam.

My eyes went wide in horror and I could not move. Zubayr lay on the ground and I saw that his head had been severed from his body. In each of his hands he held a sword, even as he had that fateful day he had protected our lives at Uhud.

I wanted to scream, but it was as if my tongue had been ripped from my throat.

And then I saw a figure lying beside him, pierced with a dozen arrows shot through his breast, his eyes looking up at me accusingly.

It was my sweet cousin Talha, the one man who loved me more than himself and had nearly died fighting those who sought to sully my honor.

Tears exploded from my eyes and I felt myself swooning. And then, in that terrible moment, Hind appeared, standing above the bodies of two of my dearest and closest friends, laughing in contempt. I threw myself at her, clawing at her veiled face with my fingers. She appeared startled by my onslaught and raised her sword to strike me. Somehow I found the strength to kick her in the womb, and she doubled over in pain, letting the blade fall from her grasp. I immediately took up the weapon, which felt surprisingly light and natural in my hand, and in an instant I was standing atop the fallen Meccan queen, the blade at her neck.

The terrible image of Talha and Zubayr dead before me consumed my eyes and I raised the weapon, ready to strike.

"You did this to them!" I screamed.

And then Hind spoke words that have never left me and haunt me to this day.

"No. You did."

I did not understand what she meant and I did not care to. Screaming with animal rage, my heart crying out for vengeance, I sliced the blade down and cut Hind's head from her sensuous body.

As her decapitated skull rolled away, the veil fell off.

And I dropped my sword in horror.

For I was looking at my own face.

26.

I screamed with such intensity that I woke myself from the nightmare, the cry still echoing from my lips even as my eyes blinked in confusion. There was no battlefield, no sea of corpses. My beloved Talha and your father, Zubayr, were nowhere to be seen, nor was the ghastly demon image of Hind-or was it myself? screamed with such intensity that I woke myself from the nightmare, the cry still echoing from my lips even as my eyes blinked in confusion. There was no battlefield, no sea of corpses. My beloved Talha and your father, Zubayr, were nowhere to be seen, nor was the ghastly demon image of Hind-or was it myself?

I was alone where I had collapsed hours before, in the middle of the empty desert, with only scorpions and lizards to keep me company. For a moment, a wave of relief ran through my veins and I said a silent prayer thanking Allah that what I had seen was just a dream, a delusion arising from the terror of my predicament.

And then my relief faded and the stark realization of my situation came back to me like a kick to the stomach. I was alone and lost in the wilderness, and had not had a sip of water since noon the day before. My head was pounding and the world swam before me as I tried to rise to my feet. I would not able to survive another day out here like this, and by the time the search parties reached me from Medina, I would be a desiccated corpse, partially consumed by the sands and the ferocious insects that hid in the shadows of the wastes.

And then I turned my head and saw the red glow on the eastern horizon. At least the sun would be up shortly and the icy air would give way to its unrelenting fury. I held myself tight, trying to warm my bones as the winds slapped at me from all sides, like an angry mother chiding a troublesome child. I had no choice but to keep moving toward the sun, hoping against hope that the caravan had returned for me during the darkness, that soon I would be home again in my small but comfortable little chamber in the courtyard of the Masjid. How I had longed to escape that tiny room as if it were a prison! And now I would have traded my soul for a chance to sleep inside its st.u.r.dy walls, free of wind and rain and the raging furnace of the sun. During the worst moments of my confinement, I had dreamed of running off into the open desert, letting the sands caress my bare feet and the air wash freely over my uncovered tresses. But now I hated this vast openness, this stark emptiness that was a dungeon far worse than any designed by man.

As I stumbled forward, memories of my family came back to me. My beautiful mother, softly whispering a lullaby to me as I fell into safe slumber in her arms. My father, hunched and careworn, yet always smiling at me with sparkling eyes that knew only kindness. My sister, Asma, whose plainness and strength and quiet dignity gave her more beauty than all the flighty girls whose glitter faded with time. As I coughed up dust from my battered lungs, I said a silent prayer that they would not grieve for me for long. Their lives were difficult enough without the weight of heartache and the bitter poison of loss.

And then the crimson disk of the sun broke over the horizon and I blinked in surprise. A figure was silhouetted against the heavenly fire, a man on a camel, riding steadily in my direction. No caravan, no contingent of soldiers that would have normally made up a search party for so august a person as a Mother of the Believers. Just one man, moving inexorably toward me.

I looked around, but there was nowhere to hide in the vast nothingness. And then I moved out of pure instinct. I grabbed a sharp rock whose cruel edges looked as if they could tear open flesh down to the bone. And then I pulled up the veil that I had tied around my waist and hastily covered my face.

And then the sun rose higher and I saw the man's face and recognized him. He was a youth of twenty years named Safwan who had often come by the Masjid to help the Prophet's daughter Fatima feed the People of the Bench. He had no wealth or social position, but his darkly handsome features always set my girlfriends giggling in his presence. Safwan was the source of many unspoken fantasies among the women of Medina, although he was remarkably pious and seemed utterly unaware of the heated thoughts he inspired in others.

And now he was here in the desert, and we were alone.

As the climbing sun illuminated the world about us, Safwan stopped his camel and stared down at the tiny figure standing inexplicably on the desert plain. I saw him blink several times as if he was trying to convince himself that I was not some sort of mirage or twisted vision of his mind.

And then I saw his dark eyes fall upon my onyx necklace, the accursed object that had brought me to this wretched place between life and death. And then I saw the color drain from his face.

"Inna lillahi wan inna ilayhi rajioon," he said, reciting the prayer in the Qur'an that is said when man faces adversity or a situation beyond his ability to handle. "Truly we belong to G.o.d and truly we are returning to Him." he said, reciting the prayer in the Qur'an that is said when man faces adversity or a situation beyond his ability to handle. "Truly we belong to G.o.d and truly we are returning to Him."

I stared up at him, unblinking, utterly unable to speak. And then Safwan climbed off his camel and approached me slowly, one hand on the hilt of his dagger.

"Are you...are you the Messenger's wife? Or a djinn sent to lead me astray?" There was fear and wonder in his voice, and I realized that he had not been sent to look for me. Somehow, by the strange hand of fate, this lone warrior had been wandering through the desert wastes and had come upon me at my moment of dire need. If ever there had been any small part of my heart that had questioned or doubted the existence of G.o.d, it vanished forever in that remarkable moment in the desolate wilderness.

My vision blurred as tears of joy and disbelief flooded my eyes.

"I am no djinn," I managed to croak out. "Please...help me."

27.

I had awakened from one nightmare and found myself in another. Within hours of my miraculous return to Medina, the daggers of envy were bared against me. The Messenger had dispatched search parties when he learned that I was missing from my howdah. But when the people of Medina saw me returning in the company of Safwan, salacious talk of my time alone with the attractive soldier began to spread like a brushfire. Nervous whispers fanned into open word in the marketplace that I had arranged to fall behind the caravan so that I could tryst with my young lover. Even though I was secluded again inside my tiny apartment, the rumors were so prevalent that they quickly reached my shocked ears. had awakened from one nightmare and found myself in another. Within hours of my miraculous return to Medina, the daggers of envy were bared against me. The Messenger had dispatched search parties when he learned that I was missing from my howdah. But when the people of Medina saw me returning in the company of Safwan, salacious talk of my time alone with the attractive soldier began to spread like a brushfire. Nervous whispers fanned into open word in the marketplace that I had arranged to fall behind the caravan so that I could tryst with my young lover. Even though I was secluded again inside my tiny apartment, the rumors were so prevalent that they quickly reached my shocked ears.

The Messenger of G.o.d reacted swiftly, calling the believers to a jamaat jamaat at the Masjid where he openly declared his rejection of such gossip, which was apparently being fomented by Abdallah ibn Ubayy and his disgruntled cohorts among the Khazraj. The gathering had become heated as members of the rival tribe Aws openly accused Ibn Ubayy of slandering the Mother of the Believers, and there had been a tense moment when it appeared that the ancient hatred between the clans had been rekindled and could lead to open warfare. Sensing the dangerous mood of the crowd, the Messenger had called for calm and forgiveness and then quickly dispersed the gathering. And yet the reopened wounds between the tribes did not heal so easily, nor did the accusation against me die with the Prophet's defense. at the Masjid where he openly declared his rejection of such gossip, which was apparently being fomented by Abdallah ibn Ubayy and his disgruntled cohorts among the Khazraj. The gathering had become heated as members of the rival tribe Aws openly accused Ibn Ubayy of slandering the Mother of the Believers, and there had been a tense moment when it appeared that the ancient hatred between the clans had been rekindled and could lead to open warfare. Sensing the dangerous mood of the crowd, the Messenger had called for calm and forgiveness and then quickly dispersed the gathering. And yet the reopened wounds between the tribes did not heal so easily, nor did the accusation against me die with the Prophet's defense.

And as the evil tongues continued to spill their poison, even my husband's trusting heart was no longer immune to the lies. He stopped visiting me on our appointed days and I realized with horror that the seeds of nagging doubt were beginning to germinate in his mind.

And so it was that I sat weeping in my tiny home, the mud walls that I had despised as a prison now my only protection from the crowds that gathered daily in the courtyard to mock my honor. My mother sat beside me, holding my hand and brushing my hair as she had when I was a little girl a lifetime before. I was grateful for her soothing presence and yet troubled by her inability to look into my eyes. The thought that she, too, might quietly doubt my integrity was more painful than I could bear.

The door opened and I looked up to see my father enter. He appeared to have aged a dozen years in the past few days, and his graying hair was now almost completely white.

I wanted to get up, to run into his arms, but there was a terrible cloud over his face. And then I realized with dread that he was looking at me less in sympathy than in anger, as if I were somehow to blame for this calumny, and I felt the sting of new tears in my eyes.

"What has happened?" he said softly, looking at my mother rather than me. But I spoke up quickly, refusing to let others talk of my situation as if I were not present.

"The Messenger bade me stay with you until he decides what to do," I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking under grief.

My mother patted my hand and stared up at the ceiling.

"Do not fear. This will all pa.s.s soon," she said, her voice sounding distant, as if she were talking aloud to herself rather than to me. And then she looked over at my father, who was still avoiding my eyes. "You are a beautiful woman and the wife of a powerful man. Those who speak against you are filled with envy."

Her words were meant to comfort, but I could hear the hint of doubt in her voice and could see her looking at Abu Bakr as if for rea.s.surance. But he simply stared at his feet without responding.

"But what am I to do?" I cried out in agony, begging for them to set aside their hesitation, to save their daughter from this cauldron of sorrow. "What if the Messenger divorces me? Or I am put on trial for adultery? The punishment is death!"

The horror of my words seemed to break through the ice between us and I saw the first hint of compa.s.sion on my father's tired face.

"Do not fear, my daughter," he said, finally moving from the doorway to sit by my side. "He is the Prophet of G.o.d. If you are innocent-"

All the color drained from my face and then came flooding back in a rush of anger that made my skin burn.

"If I am innocent?" I am innocent?"

"I only meant..."

I rose to my feet and moved away from him.

"I know what you meant! You don't believe me!"

My father tried to take my hand, but I pulled it away as if he were a leper.

"I didn't say that," he said meekly, trying to undo the damage of his careless words. But it was too late.

"You don't have to!" I raged at him. "I see it in your eyes!"

My mother tried to intervene. She took a deep breath and then finally looked at me directly.

"Aisha, you are a young girl who has been through so much," she said softly, and I could see that she was struggling with the words. "You are such a vivacious child with a love for life, and you have been burdened with more responsibility than any girl should bear at your age." She hesitated and then said the words that would tear my heart in two. "I know the veil has left you feeling lonely and trapped. It's perfectly understandable to seek an escape, even for one night..."

I felt my heart miss a beat, and for a second the world spun around me. I was drowning and there was no one to save me. Not even my mother, who was intent on pushing my head farther into the rancid waters of shame and scandal.

And then I heard myself speaking, but it was not me. A voice unlike any that had emerged from my throat echoed in that room. It was deep and harsh, like a man's, resounding with power and terror.

"Get out!"

Umm Ruman's mouth dropped open in disbelief, and her eyes bulged from her lined but still elegant face.

"Don't talk to me that way! I am your mother!" There was more fear than anger in her voice, as if she did not recognize this strange djinn that had taken possession of her precious daughter.

And yet the voice I could not control would not be silenced.

"No! I am yours!" I could hear it say. "I am the Mother of the Believers! I am the Chosen One, brought by Gabriel himself to the Messenger of G.o.d! You must obey me as you would obey my husband! Now get out!"

Tears welled in my mother's luminous eyes and yet I felt no sorrow for her. I felt nothing but outrage and righteous indignation.

My mother looked as if she were about to retort. I saw her hand trembling as if it took every last thread of willpower to refrain from slapping me across the face.

And then my father rose and touched her on the shoulder, shaking his head. My mother's fury collapsed like a dam and the flood of grief that was inside her was released. She wept violently, her face buried in her hands, her body shaking with such violence that I thought her delicate bones would shatter.

I gazed down on her grief and turned my back, preferring the sight of the dull brick wall to that of my own flesh and blood who had betrayed me. I heard the rustle of cotton robes as Abu Bakr rose and helped my crying mother to her feet. Their footsteps echoed coldly on the stone floor and then I heard the door slam behind them.

I was alone now. More alone than I had ever been. Even though sunlight streamed in through the tiny cracks in the sheepskin covers over my window, I could feel a curtain of darkness falling over my life. A blackness so thick that even the shadows of the grave seemed to burn like torches of hope.

And then, with nothing else left to do, I fell to my knees and prayed.

And then, in that lonely silence where the only sound was the sullen tremor of my heart, I heard a voice inside my mind. It was gentle and soft, like the whisper of a spring breeze, and it recited the words of the holy Qur'an.

G.o.d is the Protector of those who have faith. From the depths of darkness, He will lead them forth into light...

28.

I sat close as my maid Burayra whispered to me what she had heard outside the door of Zaynab's apartment. She was one of the few members of the household who had stood by my side as the scandal had spread and I counted her as my one true friend in what was becoming the darkest hour of my life. Her plump arms were soft as cushions and I would lean into them and weep every night as I awaited news of my fate. I had come to rely on Burayra's persistent cheer to keep me from surrendering to despair. But tonight her chubby face was downturned with the weight of the words she carried. sat close as my maid Burayra whispered to me what she had heard outside the door of Zaynab's apartment. She was one of the few members of the household who had stood by my side as the scandal had spread and I counted her as my one true friend in what was becoming the darkest hour of my life. Her plump arms were soft as cushions and I would lean into them and weep every night as I awaited news of my fate. I had come to rely on Burayra's persistent cheer to keep me from surrendering to despair. But tonight her chubby face was downturned with the weight of the words she carried.

"Zaynab bint Jahsh spoke in your favor with the Messenger," she said, to my sincere surprise.

"Zaynab?" It was hard to believe that my greatest rival had spoke in my defense. And I suddenly felt exceedingly cheap and small for all the dark thoughts and bitterness I had harbored about her over the years. "Then I have been wrong about her. May Allah bless her."

I would later learn that as the whispers of infidelity had grown louder, as the whiff of scandal had become a cloud of stench over the sacred household, some of Zaynab's friends had told her to rejoice. The daughter of Abu Bakr, her chief rival in the harem, would soon be undone by the sword of shame, and Zaynab would become the princ.i.p.al wife, the most revered of the Mothers in the eyes of the community. My downfall would be the catalyst that would raise Zaynab's sun in the eyes of G.o.d and man, and she would quickly fill the void in her husband's betrayed and broken heart.

Such was the excited chattering of the other women of standing in Medina, women from powerful and n.o.ble families who had welcomed the wealthy Zaynab as one of their own even as they scorned me as an ambitious upstart. To these ladies, I had finally received my long- overdue comeuppance, and they were eagerly awaiting the final act in this sordid drama, a denouement that would end in my disgrace and divorce from the House of the Messenger. The fact that my end could be met under a pile of stones in the desert, the ancient punishment for adulterers, did not seem to concern these catty gossips. They were too busy savoring the spice of scandal to consider that a young girl's life was at stake.

Perhaps not too long ago, Zaynab would have happily done the same, delighting in my fall. The humiliation of a woman whose childish games had brought the curtain of the veil down on all of them, cutting Zaynab and her sister-wives off from the world forever. She should have taken justified pleasure in my predicament as the proper retribution for a life of ent.i.tlement and unearned distinction as the Messenger's only virgin wife.

And yet now that her rival was in the center of a maelstrom that would in all likelihood consume me, Zaynab felt no joy. She had never liked me, that was true, and my hold on Muhammad's heart would always be a source of jealousy for her. But in her heart, she knew that I was innocent of the slander. For all my faults, my arrogance and quick temper, Zaynab knew that I was utterly besotted with the Messenger of G.o.d and would not willingly submit to the charms of any man, even one as dashing and virile as Safwan. No, in Zaynab's eyes, I was not guilty of adultery. Idiocy, yes. Immaturity, yes. But she knew that I would not, could not, be unfaithful to Muhammad, any more than the moon could refuse to follow the sun.

And so it was that Zaynab bint Jahsh, my chief compet.i.tor for the heart of G.o.d's Messenger, made a decision, one that would perplex her friends but one that was made because it was the right thing to do.

I listened intently as Burayra shared with me what she had heard.

"O MESSENGER OF G G.o.d, may I speak?" Zaynab had been sitting by the Prophet's side for some time before summoning up the courage to raise her voice.

The Prophet looked up at her, his eyes weary. He had sat by Ali for nearly half an hour without either man speaking. Zaynab had watched the two, more like father and son than cousins, as they gazed at each other as if communicating without words. To anyone outside the confines of the sacred household, the persistent silence would have seemed awkward. Yet those in the inner circle of the family had come to understand that the relationship between Muhammad and Ali was special. The normal rules of social propriety did not seem to exist between them, as if they were one person rather than two, part of each other in some mysterious way that was beyond the understanding of mere mortals.