“For islam!” Talha rode up on his horse, stirring the troops with his impressive entrance. “For islam and al-Lah!”
“For islam and al-Lah!” someone else cried, and a few others followed suit. But as our men turned to follow their leaders onto the battlefield, I noticed that many of them shuffled in the dust, their footsteps reluctant. I pressed my hands to my breast. Help us, al-Lah, I prayed, and stepped down from the date-palm stump with legs that trembled so violently, I could barely walk.
My nephew Abdallah stood nearby, ready to escort me to my vantage on the knoll in front of our camp. His eyes were as dark as eclipsed moons, and he chewed his lower lip. We walked without speaking to the top of the ridge. Wanting to give him some comfort—for this son of my sister’s was like a son to me—I kissed his cheek and smiled into his eyes.
“Farewell, nephew, and don’t lose heart,” I said, somehow managing to keep my voice calm. “We’ll see each other again in victory, or in Paradise. Either way, the reunion will be joyful.”
As he turned and walked away, his bent head revealing the soft down at the back of his neck, I realized what I’d just said. Within hours—or minutes, by al-Lah!—Abdallah, who’d curled in my lap so many times as a boy, who’d been my faithful companion as a young man, might lie broken and dead on the battlefield. Tears ran in long, hot fingers down my face. Abdallah, dead! Talha, gone! Everyone I loved would fight for me today, would risk, and possibly lose, his life in part because of the grudge I’d harbored all these years against Ali.
As I walked to and fro along the ridge, willing myself to be brave, gripping the hilt of my sword and refusing to let any more tears fall, I remembered Talha’s hissing words like the bite of a serpent stinging my ear. You came for revenge, A’isha. Revenge and nothing more.
I’d shrugged him away, not bothering to honor his accusations with a denial. Now, in the glare of impending death, I could deny nothing. Talha had spoken truly. I’d hated Ali ever since he’d urged Muhammad to divorce me. Yet he had been correct to urge divorce. I’d deliberately gotten stranded in the desert with Safwan, thinking I might run away with him and join the Bedouins. My disloyal act could have destroyed Muhammad’s credibility in the eyes of the umma. Only God, by sending him a revelation of my innocence, had saved me, and islam. Without that miracle, divorcing me would have been the only way my husband could retain his honor and his position.
Perhaps that was why Ali had changed his mind about giving up the khalifa. He’d probably gone back to his tent and remembered the past, how I’d stood in his way at every turn ever since Muhammad’s death. Why should he trust me? I’d been pretending all these years to be righteous, when actually my reasons for keeping Ali from the khalifa were more shameful than his reasons for pursuing it.
And now, my lust for revenge and my craving for power would send men on both sides to their deaths. I covered my face with my hands, hiding from the piercing gaze of Muhammad on high. What would he think as their souls entered Paradise and they told him what I’d done? What was he thinking now?
Ali
The wild eyes of al-Ashtar, so enlarged that they seemed to engulf his lean face, hovered above me as I surfaced from the first restful slumber I had experienced in many nights.
“You must awaken, yaa imam. The world is at an end!” His shout jolted me out of the last peace I would ever know in this world. He threw open the tent flap, revealing a sky bleeding and raw. I struggled to my feet and stumbled over to stand beside him.
When I looked across the field where I and A’isha had agreed not to do battle, I beheld lines of men in chain mail crossing the ground like an iron barrier, battle formations of men facing our camp, poised to attack—men from the camp of A’isha, with whom I had sealed a peace agreement only hours ago.
“By al-Lah, what has occurred while I slept?” I cried. I hastened to remove my gown and don my trousers and shirt, my chain mail suit, my leather jerkin and helmet, and scabbards for my sword and dagger. “I told you last night, al-Ashtar, there was to be no war. How has everything changed so completely?”
“I do not know, imam,” he said. “I only beheld this treachery moments ago. I sounded the call to battle to alert our men, then came to find you.”
“You—what?” I hated the whine in my voice, but in truth dismay wrapped its hands around my throat. Even as I had watched A’isha’s troops lining up against us, I had calmed myself with a promise to correct any misunderstanding, to avoid the fight that seemed, suddenly, imminent. But once the call to battle was sounded, the fighting must commence. To stop now would cast us all into dishonor. Al-Ashtar’s hasty response had sealed our fates, and that of islam.
I rushed out into our bustling camp with al-Ashtar following, my eyes taking note of the cheerful dispositions of the men who had grumbled these past days about inaction while I negotiated peace: Did we abandon our women in order to sit on our bottoms and sharpen our swords? Even al-Ashtar was restless; his eyes had lost their light the night before when I had told him that there would be no battle.
“We have reached an agreement,” I had said. The droop of his mustache caused me to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Al-Ashtar, this is for the best. All will be lost if Muslim brothers fight one another. We must put our own interests aside for the sake of islam.”
There were no shadows on his face now, by al-Lah, only bright enthusiasm as we walked through the camp and greeted our warriors and chiefs. Sa’id ibn Ubayd al-Ta’i, chief of the Bedouin clan Banu Tayyi, with his gray-flecked beard extending to his navel like a batt of carded wool, lifted his sword and recited an extemporaneous poem declaring me as Muhammad’s “legatee,” prompting cheers from his fellow clansmen. ‘Amr ibn Marjum, chief of the Basran clan the Banu al-Qays, who had defected from A’isha’s side to join mine, bowed so low I thought he might embrace my ankles. Ammar ibn Yasir, the white-haired shaykh who had fought alongside me in Muhammad’s army, seized my beard and admonished me to lift my head and add swagger to my step.
“By al-Lah, are you walking to your funeral?” he said, his dark blue eyes snapping so fiercely that I thought he might strike me. “I have never seen a military leader appear so forlorn. Yaa Ali, where is the spirit I witnessed in you at Badr, at Uhud, at the Battle of the Trench?”
Where, in truth? I heeded Ammar’s advice and changed my shuffle to a strut, feigning excitement over this fight while inventing verses of my own—one of my talents of which I was most proud—to chastise the Mother of the Believers for ignoring the will of al-Lah. As I shouted my exhortations, I began to sense the truth in my words: By calling this battle, A’isha had committed a host of sins, beginning with the breaking of her contract with me. As deceptive as a black widow spider, she had ensnared me with her promises of cooperation and support, luring me into a sense of security and then, while I slept complacently, organizing her forces to attack me. My face burned as I remembered her tears during our talk, shed with seeming sincerity, and my naive willingness to believe that her heart had changed so dramatically, so suddenly, and so completely to favor me after all these years of hatred.
I had been a fool. And vain, also: Why else had I bargained with A’isha, and agreed to gamble my birthright, the khalifa, which I had hoped for since Muhammad’s death? Although I had told myself I wished only to avoid spilling the blood of my fellow Muslims, my motives for the agreement had been, in truth, far less noble. The expression of gratitude and admiration in the eyes of A’isha, whom I had come to esteem above all other women, had puffed my chest full of satisfaction and, yes, pride. Once I had experienced her good will, I wanted only to increase it—and so I agreed to step down as khalifa and allow a shura to select Uthman’s successor.
Yet now I saw her tactics clearly: a ruse to weaken me so that she, with her meager force, might gain the advantage of a surprise attack. Why else would she rally her troops without even notifying me? Although, only moments before, the presence of al-Ashtar by my side had prickled like a burr, I slapped h
is back in camaraderie as we walked back to my tent. How valuable his vigilance had been! Had he not spotted the movements in the enemy camp, we might all be slain in our beds now, victims of A’isha’s treachery.
My outrage bubbling like the molten brimstone in Mount Layla’s belly, I glowered at the sight of my foolish cousin al-Zubayr walking in agitated circles before my tent entrance. Why had he come here, risking his life before the battle had even begun? When I approached, he merely inclined his head as though he suffered from a sore neck. “Thanks be to al-Lah for returning you to your tent,” he said. “It is most urgent that I speak with you. God willing, we can avoid spilling Muslim blood.”
I looked askance at him, wondering if this was part of A’isha’s manipulative plot. “The time for avoiding war is past, yaa al-Zubayr,” I said. “As you see, the battle lines are drawn and the men are forming. The outcome is in al-Lah’s hands now.”
“But you can avoid the killing of the innocent by surrendering the guilty!” He frowned at al-Ashtar, who hovered beside me. “Do so now, Ali, I urge you! Is this Bedouin hothead worth thousands of virtuous lives?”
Al-Ashtar lunged forward but I grasped his sleeve and held him back. “I had nothing to do with Uthman’s death,” al-Ashtar snarled. “I stood at his front door trying to prevent violence, while you and Talha sent your sons with swords to inflame the crowd.”
“We sent our sons to guard the khalifa’s door,” al-Zubayr said. “While your henchmen sneaked into his house and murdered him.”
“They were not acting under my command, I swear it before God. And”—al-Ashtar yanked his sword form the sheath on his belt—“I challenge anyone who asserts otherwise!”
“Your disavowal of violence is most impressive.” Al-Zubayr turned his attention to me. “Yaa Ali, surely you will not continue to shield this man at the expense of Muhammad’s Companions, many of whom are fighting on our side. What would the Prophet say of this sacrilege? Did he not say, ‘Never should a Believer kill another Believer’? Did he not say, ‘You who believe, do not kill each other, for God is merciful to you’?”
I did not know whether to laugh at my cousin’s audacity or run him through with my sword.
“Your invocations of God’s word are most convenient, and no doubt suit your purposes well,” I said. “But Muhammad also said, ‘Hold fast to God’s rope all together; do not split into factions.’ And he said, ‘Do not be like those who, after they have been given clear revelations, split into factions and fall into disputes: A terrible punishment awaits such people.’ You, Talha, and A’isha have broken this commandment by forming an army against me, and you have multiplied the sin, al-Zubayr, by soliciting the aid of that traitor Mu’awiyya.”
At that moment, the shaykh Ammar strode up as youthfully as if he were twenty, instead of ninety-three. “The boy Jabar is prepared to begin,” he said. I had ordered the youth to preface the battle by holding up the qur’an, then calling for unity, not discord. This departure from the traditional method of beginning warfare, which entailed hand-to-hand combat among men selected from each side, would be my final effort at peace. For, despite my arguments with al-Zubayr, I was well aware of al-Lah’s admonishments against fitna.
Calm descended upon me, and supreme clarity, as it had in days of yore when I had fought for Muhammad. “Let us begin.” I turned to take my leave of al-Zubayr—and noted how his face drained of blood as he stared at Ammar.
“By al-Lah, did not the Prophet predict that Ammar would be killed while fighting on the side of the righteous?” he rasped.
“That is the legend,” I told my cousin. “I recall his making a similar comment about me and you. Do you remember? We were only boys, yet I have never forgotten his words.” His eyes widened.
“Muhammad’s wife Khadija, may peace be upon her, remarked on the closeness of our friendship, and said, ‘May it always be so,’” I told him. “Then Muhammad responded, ‘Days of strife will plague these two someday, to my sorrow. I have seen it in a dream. Al-Zubayr will challenge Ali in an unjust fight.’”
Al-Zubayr’s face colored so quickly, I wondered if he were choking. “By al-Lah, I do recall that incident,” he said. “I had forgotten it until this moment.”
He turned and began walking away from me.
“Yaa al-Zubayr, where are you going?” my cousin Ibn al-Abbas, who had just joined us, called out to him. “The battle is the other way.”
He turned and regarded the three of us. “I will not fight against you, cousin,” he said. “Muhammad spoke truly: This battle is not just.”
I would have embraced my long-lost cousin, now returned to me, except that he yet belonged to the ranks of the enemy. “Then join us,” I urged, for not only did I love al-Zubayr, but he was a first-rate warrior and a shrewd commander.
“I cannot, by al-Lah,” he said. “My son is fighting with A’isha. He is one of many Muslim men whose blood I would dread spilling—on either side.
Then, with his head down and his hands dangling by his sides, al-Zubayr, my cousin and lifelong friend, turned and left our camp, and the battlefield, and his dreams of Muslim unity. As he walked away, into the desert, I felt a hole open in my chest as though his love, along with A’isha’s, were now lost to me forever.
A’isha
For a moment, I knew hope. Standing on a knoll that overlooked the battlefield, I watched a boy ride into the center of the field with a sheaf of parchment held high in his gloved hands. Fear dilated the pupils of his eyes. His chain mail clanked. His hair lifted in the breeze like an angel’s wing, then lay on his head. He should be wearing a helmet, I remember thinking. As if armor could truly guard us from death.
“Yaa warriors for Ali and for the Mother of the Believers, take heed of this, the holy qur’an!” The boy waved the sheaf. “Our blessed imam, Ali ibn Abi Talib, sends me here with an admonishment: Remember al-Lah and His Prophet, may peace be upon him, and remember the prohibition against Muslims fighting Muslims. Al-Lah watches us today!”
As he spoke, hope surged in my breast. Did this appeal to the qur’an mean that Ali wanted to call off this battle? The qur’an warned Believers repeatedly about fitna as though al-Lah had seen this day coming. If Ali and his men followed the qur’an, they would stop this fight before it started.
I held my breath as I waited to hear the boy’s next words. Then, to my horror, an arrow struck him in the forehead and he toppled from his horse. A huge roar arose as each army blamed the other for the attack, and then men and horses rushed in a torrent onto the field while arrows darkened the sky.
I heard my name and turned to see Talha standing beside me. His chestnut steed stood behind him, pawing the ground. “That arrow was launched by al-Ashtar,” he said. “I saw him crouching behind the great rock on the field’s edge.”
I narrowed my eyes, searching, suspecting who really wanted this war. Al-Ashtar, the instigator behind Uthman’s assassination, would have had the most to fear from mine and Ali’s agreement. Everyone, including the powerful Mu’awiyya, was demanding al-Ashtar’s head. If Ali had resigned the khalifa, would he still be able to protect his friend?
I turned to Talha, unable to speak. Had al-Ashtar been carrying out Ali’s command in attacking our camp this morning? Or had Ali slept, as I had, while al-Ashtar and his Bedouin friends had broken dishes, dumped out our water skins, toppled tents, and stabbed men—without their imam’s blessing?
“By al-Lah!” I cried, staring at Talha while the morning’s events raced through my mind. “We must stop this battle. Talha, can you call a truce?”
Talha shook his head. “Men are already killing each other. The Bedouins wouldn’t stop fighting now if Gabriel himself descended onto the field.” He paused, watching the swords and spears, screaming horses, and falling bodies. “I came to ask if you have seen al-Zubayr. One of our men saw him talking with Ali.”
I scowled. Had Ali convinced al-Zubayr to abandon our army and join his force, as several Bedouin clans had done this mornin
g? But—no. Al-Zubayr was no allegiance shifter. He was a seasoned general who had vowed many times to knock Ali from his horse and from the khalifa.
“He must be out on the field.” I lifted my eyebrows. “Which is where you’re supposed to be.”
Talha grinned—able, somehow, to keep his sense of humor even in the face of death. “Hearing is obeying, Mother,” he said. His gaze locked with mine. “I came to pay my respects to you, A’isha. We are vastly outnumbered and outspirited, I fear, and destined to lose this fight. But—”
Panic swept through me, for if al-Zubayr had deserted us in body, Talha seemed to be doing so in spirit. “Lose? Never, by al-Lah! Get out there and show us all how a real khalifa wages war. We can do it, Talha! I feel victory in my soul. You don’t need al-Zubayr; you don’t need anyone.”
He stepped forward. I saw his intentions. and moved out of reach an instant before he tried to embrace me. His face reddened and, with a wry glint in his eyes, he winked. “I need you, A’isha,” he said “Knowing you are watching and praying for me gives me all the confidence in the world. And there is something I want you to know: Before we left Mecca, Umm Kulthum told me she is pregnant. If the child is a girl, we will name her A’isha.”
Tears pushed against my eyes but I willed them away, wanting him to see only courage on my face. Their child, named for me! My sister must have known of Talha’s love for me. With this act, Talha had made our friendship a cherished gift, and Umm Kulthum had given it her blessing. If I died today, I would do so with a conscience free of guilt and a heart brimming with love.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “May al-Lah be with you, cousin.” He mounted his horse and rode down the hillside, galloping into battle with his spear pointed before him.
From my vantage, I watched the fighting with my heart slamming against my throat. That was my brother Mohammad clashing swords with my nephew Abdallah. Whom was I supposed to encourage in that duel? Please, God, protect them both from harm. What kind of prayer was that to offer during battle? How could al-Lah answer my prayers if I didn’t know what I wanted?
The Sword Of Medina Page 26
