Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam

by Kamran Pasha

“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 God 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 God, 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 God, 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 God.”

  “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 God. 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 God 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 gods 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 God 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 amusement, 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 God 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 God,” but it is not from God.

  It is they who tell a lie against God, 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.

  “God 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—Glory be to God.

  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 God’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 God’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 God.

  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, 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, the small prayer niche of palm wood that indicated the direction of Jerusalem, was boarded up. A new 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.

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

  Mecca had so kindly brought war to our doorstep, and perhaps the time had come to return the favor.

  9

  Umm al-Fadl, the wife of Abbas, bent down to lift a bucket of water from the sacred well of Zamzam. She passed along the wooden casket to Abu Rafi, a freed slave who had been quietly teaching her about Islam. After the defeat of Badr, more and more people in Mecca were interested in learning about this strange faith that could give three hundred men victory over a thousand. Like her husband, who was an uncle to Muhammad, she had been slow to give up on the traditions of her ancestors, but the deaths of Mecca’s ruling elite at Badr had shaken her stubborn respect for the old ways.

  As Umm al-Fadl dropped another bucket into the dark waters below, she heard familiar voices approaching. Abu Sufyan, who was now the unchallenged ruler of Mecca, was conversing in an urgent tone with her hated brother-in-law Abu Lahab.

  “Our caravans are no longer safe to travel north, even along the coast,” Abu Lahab said grimly. “Muhammad’s forces control the passes and they have vowed to seize any Meccan goods heading for Syria.”

  “Then we must take the eastern path through the Najd,” Abu Sufyan responded, reaching for a copper jug to lower into the well.

  “The Najd is a barren waste with few wells!” Abu Lahab hissed. “Even our sturdiest camels risk death in that terrain.”

  Abu Sufyan filled his jug and then took a long drink.

  “It seems your nephew has us trapped,” he said after a pause. “As long as Medina blocks the northern passes, our trade with the Byzantines and the Persians is at a standstill.”

  Abu Lahab leaned close to him, lowering his voice conspiratorially.

  “Your wife is right. We must avenge Badr. We must destroy Muhammad once and for all.”

  Abu Sufyan’s jaw flinched at the mention of Hind, but he nodded.

  “I agree. Once the winter has passed, we will launch an attack on Medina,” he said, knowing that he really did not have any other choice. “We will gather our finest men and marshal all of our allies. I hope it will be enough.”

  Abu Lahab snorted contemptuously.

  “What do you mean, ‘you hope’?”

  Abu Sufyan shrugged.

  “Muhammad is a survivor. For almost fifteen years we have sought to defeat him. Yet he only grows stronger with time.”

  Abu Lahab’s tiny eyes narrowed further.

  “Well, his reign is at an end. Our men will destroy him!”

  Abu Sufyan looked at the fat slug of a man who had never held a weapon his life and shook his head. Abu Lahab was exactly the kind of chieftain he despised. Unwilling to risk his own life but perfectly content to send young men to their deaths.

  “Our people fear him,” he said. “Whatever happened at Badr, it has left a dark impression on their minds. The men believe Muhammad is a sorcerer who can control the wind. That he has armies of djinn at his command.”

  Abu Lahab laughed, an ugly sound that lacked any humor.

  “Don’t tell me you believe that nonsense?”

  Abu Sufyan turned his head to face the Kaaba. For so many years, he had felt as if he were trapped in a bad dream, and some voice inside him was saying that it was time to wake up and face the world.

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he said with a sigh. “Men whom I have always considered to be sober-minded came back from Badr weeping in terror over the djinn who they say fought alongside the Muslims. Warriors on white horses who emerged from the wind.”

  Umm al-Fadl had been listening unobtrusively to their conversation, pretending to be absorbed in the work of filling her water cans. But her ears pricked up at this. She looked at Abu Rafi, who had silently stood at her side, ignored by these noblemen like all low-class workers. But his eyes went wide at the strange story and he spoke before Umm al-Fadl could stop him.

  “Those were not djinn! They were angels!”

  The chieftains turned and saw the tiny man with the pockmarked face for the first time. Abu Sufyan smirked and turned his back. It was beneath him to address this freed slave who was worth less than the mule droppings that littered the streets of Mecca.

  But Abu Lahab was outraged at the stranger’s audacity.

  “You! You’re one of them!”

  Umm al-Fadl put a restraining arm on Abu Rafi, trying to lead him away from the confrontation. But he shook her off.

  “Yes! I am a Muslim, and I no longer fear to reveal it. Not when the angels themselves descend to the Prophet’s aid.”

  Abu Lahab’s face turned purple and he looked like an overstuffed grape, ready to burst.

  “Let’s see if the angels will descend to your aid!”

  And then he grabbed a sharp stone and slammed it into Abu Rafi’s face, knocking out his front teeth. Abu Rafi fell to the ground in pain, but Abu Lahab was not finished. He continued to pummel him until his features had devolved into a mass of blood.

  Umm al-Fadl watched the unbridled cruelty with mounting rage.

  “Stop it! You’ll kill him!”

  Abu Lahab cast an amused look at his sister-in-law. His eyes locked on the curve of her breasts as they always did.

  “So what? I am the chief of the clan! I determine who lives and who dies among the Bani Hashim.”

  Umm al-Fadl turned to Abu Sufyan, the plea written on her face. But the lord of Quraysh merely turned away with distaste. Abu Lahab kicked Abu Rafi in the crotch, and she could see the poor man crying like a baby.

  And then something broke inside of her, like a rusty latch that has kept an old door closed. And like the waters of Zamzam, something bubbled up inside of her that was very cold, very ancient.

  She grabbed a tent pole that lay fallen on the ground.

  “Abu Lahab!” she cried out in a voice she did not recognize. “Remind me. When you die, who will be the head of the clan?”

  Her brother-in-law looked up at her, startled.

  “What?”

  And then the force that was raging within her took hold of her arm. Umm al-Fadl raised the tent pole and brought it crashing down with terrifying fury on Abu Lahab’s head.

  There was a sound like a melon falling off a merchant’s cart and splattering on the cobbled street. Abu Lahab’s skull cracked and a burst of gore erupted from an exposed sliver of brain.

  Abu Lahab fell back against the well, his tiny eyes now wide open in shock, as blood and gray tissue streamed out of the wound and down the side of his fat face.

  He managed to turn his head and look at Umm al-Fadl, who still held the tent pole in her grasp. Her hand was shaking, but when she spoke, her voice was as clear as the spring waters of Yemen.

  “Our debt has been repaid.”

  Umm al-Fadl dropped the pole and turned away from the dying man. She wanted to run away, but a crowd was forming around her, staring at her in shock. And then a horrible scream pierced the open plaza around the Sanctuary.

  A woman with dirty white hair and a face lined like a shriveled pear burst through the crowd and ran to Abu Lahab’s side.

  This was Umm Jamil, his wife, who had a reputation for petty cruelty that made Abu Lahab seem like a diplomat in comparison. She wailed over her bleeding husband, beating her sagging breasts in fury.

  “Who did this?” she screeched.

  Umm al-Fadl saw her husband, Abbas, push his way toward them. He looked at his injured brother, the head of their clan, and then at his wife. There was no escaping responsibility for what she had done.

  “I did,” she said with quiet dignity.

  And then Umm Jamil was upon her like a bat, the old woman’s clawlike nails trying to tear her eyes from her skull.

  Um
m Jamil’s brother, Abu Sufyan, pulled her off Umm al-Fadl and held her forcefully as she screamed vile curses that even drunken men would hesitate to utter.

  “If my husband dies, I will have your head!”

  Umm al-Fadl turned to Abbas.

  “If your husband dies, I believe the question of my fate will reside with the new chieftain of Bani Hashim.”

  Abbas was shaken by her words. But she persisted, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it softly.

  “What say you, husband? Will you kill me? Or will a blood payment suffice the clan’s honor?”

  Abbas dropped her hand as if it were made of live coals.

  “You women are all mad.”

  He shook his head and walked away, looking very much as if he wanted to wash his hands of the entire affair.

  Umm al-Fadl smiled at the elderly witch triumphantly.

  “I believe a hundred camels will settle our debt. Don’t you agree?”

  Umm Jamil spit in her face.

  “I curse you and all the children of your loins!”

  Umm al-Fadl wiped off the mucus with her sleeve. She looked one last time at the dying Abu Lahab and his wife, her eyes cold with contempt.

  And then she remembered something Muhammad had said years before. At that moment, her resistance was gone and she accepted the truth of the new religion that her nephew had brought.

  “There is none more accursed than those who are cursed by God Himself,” Umm al-Fadl said.

  And then she recited a verse from the Qur’an that had been revealed years before when Abu Lahab had led the persecution of Muhammad. A verse that she had first heard her nephew recite when Umm Jamil had carried a bundle of thorns and had flung them upon him during prayers. A verse that somehow came back to her memory as if it had been branded into her heart.

  The power of Abu Lahab will perish, and he will perish.

  His wealth and gains will not exempt him.

  He will be plunged in flaming Fire

  And his wife, the wood carrier,

  Will have upon her neck a halter of palm fiber.