The Sword Of Medina

by Jones, Sherry

  While Asma clutched my father’s hand and wept, my mother poured water from the gourd into a large basin, then dampened a rag and held it to abi’s brow. She loosened his clothing and removed his sandals, then washed his feet. Throughout her ministrations he continued to gaze into Asma’s beautiful face. I gave my mother a fierce, sympathetic look, but she shook her head as if to say, It doesn’t matter now.

  Around us, my father’s Companions stood in silence, waiting for his commands, or, in Ali’s case, waiting for his death. I watched Ali closely, noting the careful way he hooded his eyes and the neutral set of his mouth, hiding his mistaken hopes. Beside him, the soft-hearted Uthman blinked and wiped his tears with a red silk handkerchief, and Umar grimaced and wrung his hands. Both of them stood with bowed heads, praying. But Talha gazed directly at me.

  Tenderness filled his eyes. Furrows as deep as riverbeds lined his forehead and the sides of his face, and his lips parted as if he were on the verge of speaking. His sympathy invited me like open arms to rest against him. Then a rough cough jolted me back to the room, where Ali pursed his mouth at me and Talha as though we were misbehaving children.

  Blood rushed to my cheeks. “Are you comfortable, abi?” I stood to open curtains, and took a date-palm fan from my mother to wave over my father’s sweating face. As I passed the fronds to and fro, cooling him, I fought back the tears that, after my exhausting walk through the desert, threatened to flood my eyes. I focused on the palm leaves waving like rushes in a stream, not daring to look at abi and not caring, now, about Talha’s beckoning or Ali’s accusations. Lust, jealousy, greed, judgment: These emotions, causing so much struggle and strife in our daily lives, now seemed as insignificant as the whine of a gnat.

  Umar cleared his throat. “Yaa Abu Bakr, now that you are in your home again you appear much improved.”

  My father turned his face to give his friend a wan smile. “By al-Lah, I have never known a warrior so reluctant to acknowledge death.”

  Umar’s eyes flickered a smile of his own. I knew both men were remembering how, hours after Muhammad’s death, Umar had refused to accept the loss, insisting that he and the Prophet had plans to walk in the moonlight. In spite of Umar’s harshness, especially toward women, my wariness softened as I watched him struggle to accept the demise of his old friend Abu Bakr. Abi had always been as strong as the Ka’ba’s cornerstone. In times of direst distress, Muhammad had turned to my father for help. Now, in abi’s own hour of need, we stood helplessly by, Umar dangling his ever-present whip as if it were a dead serpent and I rummaging frantically through my medicine pouch for a cure that I might have missed.

  A clattering sound came from the doorway, where the curtain fell to the floor, too roughly shunted aside. Al-Abbas, Ali’s uncle, swept into the room, his belly thrusting, his eyes squinting at my father as if peering through a fog. Umar and Uthman stepped aside—that’s how commanding was al-Abbas’ presence—but Ali moved his gaze to the floor.

  Shunting Asma aside, al-Abbas clasped one of my father’s hands. “Your skin is on fire, yaa khalifa. I will summon a physician.”

  How I longed to pummel his fat face, all false concern! He’d opposed my father since before Muhammad had died. But the sharp retort on my lips deflated under the weight of my terrible grief.

  My father didn’t rebuke him. Instead, abi sighed and closed his eyes.

  “I have already spoken with the best of physicians—al-Lah,” my father said, slipping his hand out of al-Abbas’s grip. “He said to me, ‘I will do with you whatever suits My purpose.’”

  His words were sharp stones chipping at my heart. God had visited abi? For what other purpose than to prepare him for death? I couldn’t stop the tears that poured over my cheeks.

  “By al-Lah, the Prophet had this fever also.” Umar lifted his whip as if to frighten the illness away. “After his death, I heard a physician claim that he could have saved Muhammad. Allow me to summon this man, Abu Bakr. He may have a remedy for you.”

  My hopes jumped, but my father pressed his lips together. A tear quivered in his lashes. He took a violent, wheezing breath. “I am not worthy to die in the same manner as Muhammad,” he said when he had finished gasping. “But may God’s will be done.”

  He turned in his bed until he faced the wall, shunning us with his hunched shoulders and broad back. “Go,” my mother said, standing to shoo us with her hands and the palm frond, which she had taken from me. “My husband needs to rest.” Behind her, while ummi protected the man she had loved for so long, Asma had already moved to my father’s side and lain in his enfolding arms.

  We filed out to the courtyard and separated into groups. Umar and Uthman stood under the trees, where they murmured and embraced each another in grief over their dying friend. Outside the entryway to the house, al-Abbas made adamant gestures as he spoke to a downcast Ali. I hid indoors, on the other side of the doorway, unseen by them. Talha, who had lingered in my father’s room for a moment, came up from behind me with concern on his face, but I shook my head. He lifted his eyebrows, questioning, as I pressed a finger to my lips and listened to our enemies talk.“Once again you have forsaken your opportunity,” al-Abbas was saying in a hissing tone. “When will you stand up and claim what is yours?”

  “Would you have me request the khalifa while Abu Bakr’s family weeps over his impending death?” Ali said. “Surely not even you would be so heartless.”

  “All your sensitivity will be for naught if he dies now before naming a successor. Every man in that room—plus one woman—covets the title. Each of them schemes to snatch the khalifa. You and I must devise our plan.”

  A whisper in my ear and warm breath on my skin made me shudder. “What’s your plan, A’isha?” Talha murmured. “You should take Abu Bakr’s place.”

  I turned to him, grimacing. “It would be easier to place a camel on the roof than to put a woman in that position.”

  Talha squeezed my hand. I drew in my breath, disapproving. His touch, skin to skin, was highly improper. But when I lifted my reproachful gaze to his face, I beheld sympathy and friendship. I relaxed, returned the affectionate squeeze, and slipped my hand away from his.

  “You should be the one to rule.” Talha led me away from the doorway so we couldn’t be heard. “Everyone knows it, even your father. It’s ridiculous that being a woman should stop you. Even the Persians are more advanced in this respect. I’ve heard that their queen, Buran, leads troops on the battlefield.”

  I imagined a strong, armor-clad woman racing into battle on the back of a sleek horse, hefting her sword high. Hadn’t that once been my fantasy? As a child, I’d yearned to ride with the Bedouins, as free as the wind, wild and fierce. Then I’d become engaged to Muhammad, and my parents had placed me in confinement for nearly six years. By the time I moved to Muhammad’s home, my dreams had become like the toys on my shelf, increasingly forgotten amid the demands of married life. Yet now I felt again within my breast the beating of that distant drum. What I’d yearned for might be possible if I’d been born in another place. But in my world, men ruled—and women submitted.

  “Men like Umar and al-Abbas would never bow to a woman—not even a queen like Buran,” I told Talha.

  “Not knowingly. But—tell me, A’isha. You’re Abu Bakr’s chief adviser, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “We meet several times a day to discuss the affairs of islam.”

  “Do you have any influence upon him?” he pressed, although he knew the answer.

  “More than abi realizes. I even convinced him to appoint more generals, in order to dilute Khalid ibn al-Walid’s power. But I’m not as powerful as you think, cousin. I couldn’t get Khalid demoted, not even after that ‘river of blood’ massacre.”

  “You would have that power and more if I were khalifa.” Talha’s eyes darkened as he gazed into mine. “A’isha, I told Abu Bakr as much when we were in Mecca. He seized my beard and kissed me.” A strange light filled his eyes, so cold it made me shiver. “I belie
ve he may appoint me, A’isha. He knows that he would be appointing you, also.”

  I heard the clap of sandals on the courtyard flagstones. Ali charged into the house, the picture of confusion, his face set in determination to request the khalifa from my father but his eyes shifting with doubt. I stepped out of the intimate circle I’d made with Talha, my face burning. Ali’s sneer said all, and of course he couldn’t resist making a snide remark.

  “How unfortunate that Muhammad is not here with us,” he said. “I am certain he would enjoy seeing his wife situated so cozily with another man.”

  “Yaa Ali, Muhammad sees everything from Paradise.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “He hears everything, also. Including secret conversations about coaxing the khalifa from a dying man.”

  Ali blanched, making me want to laugh with satisfaction. A cry from my father’s bedroom, however, sent me running down the hall to him.

  Inside the bedroom, my father struggled against the efforts of both my mother and Asma to keep him in his bed. “Help us, A’isha!” ummi called when she saw me in the entryway. “A djinni has possessed him.”

  I hurried over to wrap my arms around abi in a fierce hug. Heat leapt from his skin as if he’d swallowed one thousand and one suns. Uttering a silent prayer—Please ease his pain—I pulled back to look into his face. Fear lashed in his eyes but as I continued to gaze at him, recognition crossed his face and he relaxed, slumping against our arms.

  “How sick are you, yaa abi, if you can fight against three strong women?” I teased gently as we laid him back down.

  “I must be close to death, if I cannot win,” he said, panting. “Yaa A’isha, call the others back into the room. I want to name a successor before it is too late.”

  I stood—but there was no need to call anyone. Umar, Uthman, Ali, and Talha stood in the doorway, watching and listening. Umar and Uthman’s faces sagged with sorrow. Ali’s eyes stared straight ahead and his jaw clenched. Talha’s expression held more triumph than I would have wished. As for me, I wanted only for them and their petty ambitions to disappear. Standing in death’s shadow, even the fate of islam seemed trivial. I buried my face in my hands.

  As a child, I’d had little comfort or consolation from my mother, whose life had held too many difficulties for her to sympathize with mine. And so I had clung to my father, a gentle man with a soft lap and an even softer beard that smelled of cardamom and apple. He, not my mother, had taken pity on me in my confinement and spent long hours playing with me, teaching me to read and recite all the great poems of old and also Muhammad’s qur’an, his revelations from God. He’d bought me Scimitar, my first horse, and taught me to ride, then taken me out late at night to gallop across the desert, where we knew we wouldn’t be seen. I’d lived for his approval, which he gave so readily that I rarely doubted my abilities. So much of the woman I’d become was because of my father. When he died, what would happen to that woman?

  “Yaa A’isha,” ummi’s voice yanked me back to the moment. “We are waiting for you.”

  I looked over at my mother, who perched at my father’s feet while Asma sat beside him on the bed, cradling his head in her arms. The men had gathered around expectantly, gazing down on him as if he were already in the grave. In a trance I stepped to my mother’s side and knelt there, submitting completely to my father, to God, to life—and, alas, to death.

  “I have prayed for al-Lah’s guidance in naming a successor,” my father said. “I praise Him that He has allowed me enough breath, and enough presence of mind, to announce His choice. It will be better for islam if things are settled before I leave you.”

  At that moment, my mother did a strange thing: She lifted up her voice and began to wail. I turned toward her—my mother, who had rarely displayed any emotion except anger—and stared as though she were a djinni. Her gray-red hair, like iron that has begun to rust, frowsed about her head, and her face contorted as though invisible hands pulled her skin in different directions. I was taken aback, but then I felt the shock of recognition as I looked into that face so like my own, a face that held my own sorrow up to me as if reflected in the blade of a dagger. I would not be alone. I opened my arms and pulled my mother close, and let my tears mingle with hers.

  Then my father began to speak. His hands lay in Asma’s and his eyes seemed to gaze far away, as if he were already leaving this world. I could see the resignation on Ali’s face, the downward slide of Talha’s mouth, the approval in Uthman’s eyes, and the blush on Umar’s neck.

  “He has been harsh only in response to my mildness,” abi was saying. “And when I was harsh, he urged me to be mild. He will make an excellent khalifa, and will follow in the steps of Muhammad as I have tried to do. You must all pledge your allegiance to Umar ibn al-Khattab.”

  THE SECOND RIGHTLY GUIDED CALIPH

  UMAR

  634–644 A.D.

  Ali

  Like a jackal leading a lion to its prey, my uncle al-Abbas persisted in encouraging me to pursue the khalifa even as, standing in A’isha’s hut, we witnessed the prayer services over Abu Bakr’s grave.

  “Behold the charming goddess with the painted arms,” he murmured, pulling me into the crowd of mourners for a better view of our dead khalifa’s young widow. Asma bint Umas, whom I’d always found as delectable as mouthful of honey, wept graciously in the arms of A’isha, for whom I suddenly felt an appreciation. How valiantly she comforted poor Asma, in spite of her own tremors of grief. My eyes grew moist as I watched them cling to each other as though resisting the buffets of a raging samoom.

  I and my uncle and more than one hundred other mourners had crowded into the hut to watch Abu Bakr laid into the floor according to his wishes, with his head at Muhammad’s shoulders. Outside, in the courtyard, thousands of men and women and children pressed against the walls like sea waters lapping at the shore. Inside, the crush of mourners made it difficult for me to view anything except turbans and beards. As I stretched my neck for a glimpse of Asma’s face, I bristled at my uncle’s “goddess” comparison, for it evoked idolatry. Yet when I beheld her, I could not argue against the characterization. Even with tear-swollen eyes and a nose like a fully blown rose, Asma held my gaze with her beauty as though she were an enchantress.

  “Marry her, and you will position yourself perfectly for the khalifa,” my uncle whispered. “But do it now, while Umar is distracted by mourning. Soon he will discern the advantages and claim her for himself.”

  I had no difficulty discerning the advantages of marriage to the delightful Asma, but positioning myself for the khalifa was not among them. Unbeknownst to my uncle, I had ceased to covet the position. As I had stood at Abu Bakr’s deathbed and listened to him appoint Umar, I realized that I would never succeed Muhammad until his elder Companions had died. In their eyes, I was too young and inexperienced to lead them, and too controversial, also, for my uncle al-Abbas had created dissension among the Medina tribes by trying to convince them that I was Muhammad’s rightful heir. Of course, Umar, Uthman, and their companions assumed that I supported my uncle’s divisive actions. At times I had, for al-Abbas was a smooth and constant persuader. Now, however, I wanted only to forget any foolish notions of leadership, and strive for the happiness I had once known, before those crushing six months when both Muhammad and Fatima died.

  Umar was not nearly as advanced in years as Abu Bakr had been. A vigorous man, he would rule for a long time. When the khalifa hearkened again, many of those aged Companions would have departed this life, and I might be granted the opportunity to claim my heritage at last. In the meantime, I saw no reason why I should not enjoy myself to the best of my ability, beginning with the widow Asma’s plump, perfumed body in my bed.

  Umar began his sermon. “Yaa Abu Bakr, may al-Lah bless you,” he said quietly, with tears wetting his face. “You have made the task of succeeding you most difficult.”

  Asma’s weeping increased and so did my desire to comfort her. My heart felt so full that it pushed my emotions out of
my chest and into my mouth. In the next moment, although I had not planned it, I was speaking words that I would never have imagined uttering—words of praise for Abu Bakr. The crowd turned around to view me, and I stepped through their midst to utter my own lamentations over this man who, despite our differences, had richly deserved Muhammad’s love.

  “May al-Lah have mercy on you, Abu Bakr,” I prayed. “You were an affectionate companion and friend of the Prophet of al-Lah, a source of joy to him, and one who knew his secrets.”

  As I spoke, all my dislike for the man seemed to melt away, replaced by memories of his goodness. Lifting my voice as though in song, I told of the time he had saved Muhammad from starvation. Mecca’s merchants, rejecting Muhammad’s religion of one-God, had refused to do business with him, so Abu Bakr had donated food and other provisions to the Believers. I told how he had rescued the Prophet from Quraysh’s swords by hiding with him in a cave while assassins combed the sands for him. When, after three days, the killers abandoned their quest, Abu Bakr and Muhammad slipped away to Medina with a guide paid by Abu Bakr. Their safe arrival was due in part, at least, to Abu Bakr’s intelligence, courage, and willingness to use his wealth to aid his friend. I spoke of his devotion to Muhammad and to islam, for although he had made mistakes—of course, I did not allude to these in my speech—he had tried to his utmost to govern the umma as Muhammad would have done. He had failed, but I withheld this opinion.

  My homage completed, I stepped back into the crowd so that others could pay their tributes. Across the grave, A’isha stared as if I had grown a new head while Asma gazed at me with gratitude—not for the last time, I hoped.

  I longed to say to her: Yaa Asma, I adored you from afar years ago, even while you were married to my brother, Ja’far. Now a yawning grave separates our bodies, but our hearts, I pray, will soon be as one.