by Kamran Pasha
I could hear the rustle of robes as Umar gave the Messenger an embrace that would have crushed a lesser man. The two spoke more words, but I did care to listen further.
My heart pounded with jealousy. The Messenger loved me! How could he marry another woman, even as a political maneuver? Suddenly I had a vision of my beloved Muhammad entwined in passion with the beautiful Hafsa, and I felt rage burning inside my soul.
I turned and ran out of the courtyard to my mother’s house, where I spent the rest of the night crying in her arms.
17
I watched tight-lipped as a group of workers built another small stone apartment just north of my cell in the Masjid courtyard. They were working quickly, as the Prophet’s marriage to Hafsa was set for a week from that day, and they wanted to be finished in time for the mud cement to dry. No one wanted to be responsible for the Messenger of God spending his wedding night in a room that smelled like a tar pit after a flash flood.
I looked at that room and saw again an image of my husband in the arms of another woman and I could feel icy claws closing in on my throat. And then, as if she had read my thoughts, the proud Hafsa stepped inside the courtyard, taking off her dainty thong slippers and storming over to inspect her new home.
I stepped into the shadows of my doorway and hoped she didn’t see me. The last thing I wanted to do was exchange pleasantries with this pretty girl with the curly black hair who would soon be sharing the Messenger’s bed.
As it turned out, she was so focused on her own concerns that she was unlikely to have noticed me had I stood in front of her naked. Her eyes went wide when she saw the state of disarray around her future home, and she immediately began to berate the poor builders.
“What shoddy workmanship is this!” Hafsa shouted in a husky voice that sounded remarkably like her father’s. “No, I don’t want a window looking to the back wall! I am to be a Mother of the Believers! My window must face the courtyard!”
The harried workers endured her foot-stomping harangue with weary obsequiousness. Hafsa was not as tall as Umar, but she had broad, mannish shoulders that made her unmistakably his child. Her eyes were light brown, as was her unblemished skin. She had ample curves and wide hips and I felt a flash of terror as I realized that her body was better suited than my own thin frame for carrying a child. If she bore the Prophet a son before I did, then she would likely become his primary consort and my hold over his heart might become as brittle as a rusted lock that shatters under the heavy wind.
“Do not fear, Aisha,” a soft voice beside me intoned. “You will always be his favorite.”
It was my elderly sister-wife, Sawda, who had read my eyes with the wisdom of a woman who remembers the follies of youth. I smiled at her gratefully, but an ungenerous thought flashed across my mind. Her face was wrinkled and her breasts sagging, and her courses had long since dried up. It was easy for her to speak so confidently, since she shared the Messenger’s bed without passion and could never provide him a child. If Muhammad’s heart turned to Hafsa, it would make no difference to Sawda’s status in the household.
It was a nasty thought, cruel and mean-spirited, and I tried (without complete success) to banish it from my mind.
“What kind of wood is this?” Hafsa shouted, and my thoughts fled under the force of her cry. I looked up to see that she was yelling at the foreman of the workers, a burly man who was almost as tall as her father. “Do you want the roof to fall down on the Messenger when he is in bed?”
The heavily muscled foreman looked as if he wanted to say something unkind to this twenty-year-old girl who was acting like the queen of Arabia. But he bit his lip and restrained himself. At that moment, the Messenger entered the courtyard and the foreman gave him a pleading glance for intervention.
My husband walked up beside Hafsa. I saw him take a deep breath as if he were girding himself for battle. But before he could calm his bride-to-be, his eyes fell on me, standing in the threshold of my tiny room, and he smiled warmly. My heart felt as if it would burst, and I had to stop myself from running into his arms, telling him that I was the only one who could ever truly give him happiness. But something in the way his eyes lit up told me that I didn’t need to. That he already knew.
THE MESSENGER WAS MARRIED to Hafsa in a grand ceremony to which all the leaders of Medina were invited, including the Jewish chieftains, who sent presents of gold and spices but did not attend in person.
Watching the Messenger unite with Hafsa in front of a gathering of honored nobles, the bride dressed in a silk gown of scarlet, I felt a new pang of sadness. A sense of my own smallness came to me. My own wedding had been an exceedingly modest affair and I felt as if I had been cheated out of the pomp and circumstance that was being showered upon the daughter of Umar.
I murmured a complaint to my mother, who gave me a sharp look of reproach.
“This is a political marriage meant to keep Umar happy and the Muslims united,” Umm Ruman said in a hurried whisper. “But your wedding was ordained by God and reflected the Messenger’s heart, not his needs as a leader. Be grateful.”
Of course she was right. But at that moment I didn’t care. I got up and stormed off in indignation. I exited the colorful pavilion that had been erected in the marketplace, past a line of beggars who had come seeking alms from the Messenger on this momentous occasion. I hugged my scarf closer to my chest, hoping that it would warm the chill I felt despite the dry heat of the night.
I strode out of the bazaar, walking without purpose or direction. And then I stopped in my tracks as my eyes fell on a young woman leaning against a crumbling wall, staring quietly at the stars.
It was the Prophet’s daughter Fatima. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen her inside the pavilion with her sisters, Zaynab and Umm Kulthum, and wondered why she was not with her father celebrating his marriage. And then I thought that the fact that she was two years older than her father’s new bride, Hafsa, and yet had no suitors, must have weighed heavily on her.
Fatima seemed lost in a dream and did not react to the approach of my footsteps. I should have turned away and left her to her thoughts, but I felt drawn to her that night for reasons I could not voice. Fatima had always been so ethereal that she seemed like a spirit more than a creature of flesh and blood, and there was something about her that unnerved me. And yet she was my husband’s favorite child, and perhaps I felt a connection to her because I was his favorite wife—a status that I fervently hoped to retain after the Messenger spent the night with his new bride. Along with being older and possessing a more mature body, Hafsa had already been married once and was presumably experienced in the arts of love. My stomach curled at that thought and I forced it out of my heart as I slid in beside Fatima.
The girl looked at me with a ghostly smile, and then turned her attention back to the stars. The Milky Way ran like a vast caravan route through the heavens, and I saw that her attention was focused on the constellation of the al-Jabbar, the Giant, that hung low in the night sky. I stared up at the three stars that formed his belt and caught from the corner of my eye a glimmer of the tiny lights that formed his scabbard. But whenever I looked directly at them, they vanished, like djinn in the desert.
The silence between us grew uncomfortable and I groped for something that might spark a conversation.
“So…do you still think you’ll never marry?” I winced even as I said these words, but it was too late to take them back.
Fatima looked at me and I saw her black eyes suddenly focus as if she recognized me for the first time.
“No. I will actually be married soon, insha-Allah.”
This was news to me.
“You have chosen someone, then?” I tried unsuccessfully to keep the disbelief out of my voice.
Fatima shrugged and looked back up at the stars.
“No. He was chosen for me.”
Now, this was definitely surprising. My heart sank at the thought that the Messenger had not shared his plans for his beloved daught
er with me. I wondered if he had told Sawda. Or worse, Hafsa.
“By your father?” I asked, my voice sounding squeaky like a mouse.
“No. By God.”
And with those strange words, the mysterious girl smiled sadly and gazed back up to the heavens. I looked down at my hands and pondered her words for a moment. When I turned to ask her what she meant, the hair on my neck stood up. The street was empty. Fatima had vanished.
18
The Messenger consummated his marriage that night with Hafsa, to her quite vocal satisfaction. I covered my ears with a rough leather pillow, but her throaty cries wafted through the thin mud walls between our apartments, adding to my misery.
A few days later, while I was still raw from the addition of this spirited girl to the harem, a second wedding was held. Fatima, I learned, was to marry Ali, and somehow that felt right. They were both strange, otherworldly creatures and their union felt almost destined.
The ceremony was not as grandiose as Hafsa’s nuptials, but there was a great dignity to the event. I felt an inexplicable solemnity to the wedding, as if this were something momentous in the history of the world rather than the union of two poor misfits who were lucky to find each other.
The Messenger was solemn and quiet as Ali and Fatima sat before him. The groom was dressed in a simple robe of black, his green eyes sparkling in vivid contrast. Fatima wore a russet gown, her face completely covered by a thin veil. Only a few intimates were invited, the heart of Muhammad’s family—his wives and daughters, Uthman the widowed son-in-law, and the Messenger’s two fathers-in-law, Abu Bakr and Umar. I was delighted to see Talha there, and my sister, Asma’s, eyes never left Zubayr, who had finally emigrated to Medina with a promise to marry her and end her spinsterhood.
Ali and Fatima signed the wedding contract and we all raised our hands to pray the Fatiha, as was customary. Normally the ceremony was completed with the supplication, but the Prophet did something unusual that night that I never saw before or again.
The Messenger of God raised a small bowl of carved acacia wood and poured it full of clear water from an earthen jug. He then rinsed his mouth with the liquid and spit the water back into the bowl and it seemed to sparkle as if he had cast diamonds into the bowl. And then Muhammad took the water and sprinkled it on Ali and Fatima, and the strange shimmer seemed now to emanate from then. Finally, my husband reached for a small glass vial of olive oil and touched it to his fingers before anointing Ali’s forehead. He then reached inside his daughter’s veil and did the same to her. It felt as if he was anointing them king and queen, as the prophets of Israel were said to do with their regal charges in days long past.
“May God bless you and your descendants,” he said with a look that somehow managed to combine joy and sorrow at once.
The whole ceremony seemed appropriately ethereal for this enigmatic couple and I was glad when the Prophet rose and kissed them, signaling that we had returned to the world I knew and understood.
The women took hold of Fatima’s hand and with the usual giggles and knowing glances led her to the adjoining bedchamber, where a sheepskin mattress similar to my own was laid out on the stone floor.
As I adjusted Fatima’s veil, which had shifted awkwardly as we moved her, I saw that her eyes were filled with tears and her mouth was a solid line.
“Smile!” I said with a wide grin of my own, hoping to lift her inexplicable gloom. “This is the most important night of a woman’s life.”
Fatima looked at me as if seeing me, truly seeing me, for the first time. And then she said words that I would never have expected.
“I wish I could be like you, Aisha.”
“Why?” I asked, sincerely surprised.
“You live your life freely, embracing every moment,” she said softly. “You are not troubled by the past. Or the future.”
It was a strange comment from a strange girl, and I responded as best as I knew how.
“My father says that the past is like a dream from which one has awakened. Why look back on it? And the future is like a mirage in the desert. We keep racing after it, and it keeps running away from us.”
I was startled at my own words, which had a flourish of poetry that I had not realized was in me.
Fatima smiled sadly, and there was something so tragic in her look that I felt my heart break.
“And yet sometimes the mirage runs toward us,” she said. “And then we see it is made not of water but of fiery sand, sweeping away everything we love into the wind.”
I looked at her, confused, even frightened. And then the women ushered me out as Ali entered the room, his green eyes as distant and unreadable as ever.
19 Mountain of Uhud—March 23, AD 625
The day of reckoning came at last, and war was upon us. The Meccans had come to avenge the dead of Badr and destroy Medina. It was the first day of spring and the sparrows sang from the palm trees as our soldiers marched out to defend the oasis from the invaders. Abu Sufyan led a force of three thousand men and three hundred horses, while we were able to put together only seven hundred Muslims, along with three hundred tribesmen allied to the shadowy Ibn Ubayy. Despite the overwhelming superiority of our adversary’s numbers, the Muslims remained confident. After all, we had seen the miracle of Badr, where we had defeated an army three times our size.
And there had been a special sign of favor in the days just before the battle. The Messenger’s daughter Fatima had given birth to a son, a chubby and smiling little boy named Hasan. The Prophet’s own infant sons from his marriage with Khadija had died many years before and Hasan was now the only living male heir to the Messenger of God. His birth had come after a difficult pregnancy during which Fatima had spent weeks confined to her bed. The old women of Medina had begun to whisper sadly that the Prophet’s daughter was not strong enough to carry the child to term, and my husband’s face had become increasingly bleak and despairing in the days before her labor had set in.
But then, as if God had decided that the poor girl had suffered enough, Fatima’s pains vanished and she easily gave birth to the plump, curly-haired boy. The successful delivery of the Prophet’s heir represented a clear sign of hope for our Ummah. None of the Mothers had borne the Messenger any children, a fact that was the source of my greatest personal sorrow. But I took some comfort in the knowledge that if Hasan lived past the difficult weaning years, when most children succumbed to the cruelties of the desert, he would carry in him the sacred blood of the Messenger and ensure the survival of Muhammad’s family. The fact that Hasan was Ali’s son had instantly pushed the strange young man to even greater prominence in the community, a reality that was greeted with some bemusement by the elders among the Muslims.
But now all rivalries were set aside, for the enemy was at the gates of the oasis. The two hosts met on a valley just beyond a craggy volcanic mountain called Uhud, where the Messenger made camp and awaited Ibn Ubayy’s reinforcements. I sat beside my husband as he looked down from the heights to the plain below. The Meccan forces were like shiny beetles, their mail coats glinting up at us in defiance. With my falcon’s gaze, I could see the cavalry being led by a powerful, chiseled face man I recognized as the great Khalid ibn al-Waleed. He raised the visor of his helmet and scanned the battlefield, his eyes expertly following the curvature of the mountain, searching for any weak points in our defenses.
As I looked down at the Meccan camp, with its red, purple, and blue flags bringing color to the dead valley, I remembered how similar the scene was to the one I had witnessed a year before. Except that the enemy had tripled its forces and was motivated by vengeance rather than hubris.
If they succeeded, we all would be dead. And if they failed, they would be back again next year, with a larger force and a greater hunger for vengeance. It was as if every victory the Muslims secured only placed them on a new and more dangerous battlefield.
I sighed wearily and put a hand on my husband’s arm, more for my own comfort than his.
“
Will there ever be peace, my love?”
“Yes. In Paradise,” he responded wistfully. “This world was born in war, and will one day perish in it.”
His fingers tightened around mine and I could feel the calluses on his hand from the many months of manual labor that had been required to build walls and strengthen Medina’s defenses. Muhammad could have absented himself from bricklaying as the chieftain of the oasis, but my husband understood the power of a leader who joined his men in doing the most mundane tasks. It created a bond of trust and loyalty whose true value could be proven only on a day like this.
I heard the steady crunch of rocks as heavy boots struck on the mountainside. I glanced over to see Umar, his massive body covered in rings of armor, race up toward our position. His face was contorted in rage.
“We have been betrayed! Ibn Ubayy has taken his men and turned back!”
My husband nodded grimly. Perhaps he had expected this possibility. Ibn Ubayy had thought the idea of confronting the Meccan force to be suicide and had argued that we should hide in our homes. Medina, with its winding streets layered with palm trees, would not be easily taken unless the Meccans wished to fight alley by alley, house by house.
But the Messenger had decided that allowing Mecca to cross the borders of the city, where they could wreak long-term havoc by burning our crops and poisoning our wells, was too dangerous. The Muslims had to cut the Meccan advance here. Apparently Ibn Ubayy did not agree and had chosen to abandon us even as the wolf pounced on our doorstep.
“Allah will protect us as long as we remain united,” he said calmly, but I could hear the edge in his voice. Even if angels came to help us as they had done at Badr, seven hundred versus three thousand presented unfavorable odds. If we were to hold back the Meccan line, there was no room for the slightest deviation in our strategy.
