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

by Kamran Pasha

  “Forgive me if I hesitate, but your people have shown little respect for mine before this day,” Huyayy said. “You have butchered us under the lie that we killed your Christ.”

  There was a murmur of surprise at Huyayy’s bluntness, but Safiya knew that her father was saying aloud what everyone was thinking in their hearts. The Jewish experience under Roman rule had been exceedingly painful, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Diaspora, which had sent her people out of Palestine and forced them to settle all over the world. Centuries of history could not be erased overnight, whatever the immediate political needs of the moment.

  If the Byzantine emissary was offended by Huyayy’s lack of diplomacy, he was too experienced in his profession to show it. Donatus made a face of practiced grief and bowed his head before the Jewish elders.

  “What you say is regrettably true,” he said, to the surprise of his audience. “There have been many injustices under the reign of our forefathers. Men blinded by faith or seeking an easy scapegoat to cast the troubles of the empire upon. But the great Heraclius is not like those men. He reveres the Jewish people, for is it not true that Christ himself shared your blood?”

  It was a perfectly worded response, and Safiya could see that the men of Khaybar had been put at ease by his feigned contrition. Of course no one believed for a moment that the Roman envoy felt any guilt for the crimes of his people, but he obviously needed their help enough to wear a mask of calculated humility.

  “What guarantees would we have if allied with your emperor?” Huyayy asked.

  “Once you have helped us clear Arabia of this madman, you will be appointed His Majesty’s viceroys to rule the new province in the emperor’s name.”

  Safiya saw her husband, Kinana’s, watery eyes light up at the offer of dominion over the Arabs, and her dislike for him only increased.

  There was a clear buzz of excitement at the envoy’s words, but if Huyayy shared the sentiment of his people, he was too masterly a statesman to show it. Safiya’s father stepped forward, his face stern, until he was uncomfortably close to the envoy. Donatus, to his credit, did not flinch under the old man’s withering stare but met it head-on.

  “Your emperor can find someone else to rule this desolate waste,” Huyayy said after a dramatic pause. “My people’s heart belongs elsewhere. In a land where we are not permitted to go.”

  Safiya knew that Huyayy was playing a dangerous game here, but it was a gamble that could change the history of her people if he won. For there was, in truth, only one thing that any Jew desired, and it was the one thing that had been denied her people for over five hundred years. The chance to return to their homeland from which they had been barred since the days of the Jewish revolt against the Romans under Simon Bar Kokhba, the false Messiah who had led their people to tragedy.

  The Byzantine envoy stood motionless, his face a controlled mask, impossible to read. Finally he spoke. “I have been authorized by the emperor himself to guarantee that if your people join forces with Byzantium, he will rescind the ban. Once this Arab king is defeated, your people will be free to emigrate to Palestine.”

  There were cries of disbelief and shouted prayers to God, who had shown their people a way at last to end the tragedy of exile. Safiya was torn by a confused upwelling of emotion. A deep longing to see her people return to the Holy Land, mixed with grief that the price would be to destroy a man whose only apparent desire was to bring the Gentiles to God and a better way of life.

  Though the excitement in the many-pillared hall was almost palpable, Huyayy remained calm and seemingly unimpressed.

  “And what of Jerusalem?” he said loudly, his simple question immediately silencing the agitated crowd.

  And for the first time, Donatus appeared taken aback, as if he had not expected the Jews to press their demands further. He hesitated and then shook his head.

  “I regret that I cannot offer you full access to the holy city,” he said, to the dismay of the crowd. “It is still a very sensitive matter for the Holy Church.”

  Huyayy shrugged and turned his back on the ambassador.

  “Then we have no arrangement,” he said, and began moving toward the carved bronze door of the chamber, as if the matter had been concluded. And then, to Safiya’s amazement, the other elders of Khaybar rose and moved to follow him. A mass exodus signaling the failure of Byzantine diplomacy.

  Donatus blanched, his eyes wide with surprise and a hint of fear. Safiya suddenly felt sorry for the feminine little man, who would likely face terrifying consequences if he returned to Heraclius empty-handed. But she knew her father was doing what he had to as a politician, using whatever leverage he felt he needed to achieve his objectives.

  As the leadership of Khaybar approached the exits, Donatus shouted for them to wait.

  “I believe that I can convince the emperor to make certain exceptions,” he said, his silky tone gone, replaced with agitation. “An annual pilgrimage to your holy sites. But that is the furthest I can go.”

  Huyayy stopped and turned to face the envoy, his eyes bright with renewed interest. Donatus took a deep breath and regained his composure.

  “If that is unacceptable to you, then I will return to His Majesty with your regrets,” he said coldly. “But please keep in mind—when the soldiers of Byzantium enter these lands, you will not be afforded the protection of an ally.”

  It was an open threat, and one that weighed heavily on everyone in the room. The legions of Constantinople were coming, whether the Jews eased their way or not. They could either help Heraclius eliminate the Muslim threat or face elimination in turn.

  Safiya watched her father, who moved back to stand before Donatus. He did not seem afraid of this man who regularly stood in the presence of kings, whose words could mean life or death for his people. Whatever she may have thought of her father’s politics, he could never be branded a coward.

  And then Huyayy held out his hand and grasped the palm of the Byzantine ambassador.

  “Tell your emperor—we have an arrangement.”

  THAT NIGHT SAFIYA HAD a troubling dream. As she tossed and turned beside Kinana on their wide bed made of carved pine, she dreamed that she was walking down the paved roads of Khaybar, the city that had become her home since her tribe’s expulsion from Medina. But instead of the brightly painted stone houses, she saw only smoking ruins, the mighty walls of the citadel shattered and crumbling. And instead of children running and laughing through the streets, she saw only corpses rotting in the alleyways.

  Safiya tried to run away, but wherever she turned, she saw only death and devastation. The stench of decay was overpowering and her stomach trembled with nausea. She finally fell to her knees in grief and raised her eyes to the heavens, pleading for help from a God who had chosen her people and then cruelly forgotten them.

  The full moon sparkled above her, and for a second Safiya stared at it in confusion. For the face she had always made out in its shadows had changed. It was no longer an indistinct outline, and the features were clear and recognizable.

  It was the face of Muhammad.

  As Safiya stared in shock, the moon fell from the sky, a sparkling ball of pure light that lowered itself into her lap. And as the ethereal light from the heavenly orb flooded her, the pain vanished and her grief became a distant memory.

  And then Safiya heard it. The sound of children’s laughter.

  She gazed up through the circle of ethereal light and saw that the city had come back to life. The walls stood strong and firm, and there were no corpses. Everywhere she looked, there was rebirth. The flowers bloomed and the gentle trickle of water from a nearby fountain gave her hope. And then she saw the hustle and bustle of crowds as her people walked through the marketplace, apparently unaware of the devastation that had been there only moments before.

  As the mysterious light around her grew brighter, her eyes fell on a group of children chasing one another gleefully. They stopped their games to stare at Safiya and then
waved to her with a smile.

  And then the magical moonlight became as bright as a thousand suns and the world dissolved into its warm bliss.

  33

  I watched from the Messenger’s battle tent set high in the hills of Khaybar as the Muslim army launched its surprise attack on the Jewish fortress. We had been warned by spies among the neighboring Bedouin tribes of the Byzantine army’s intention to use the oasis as a launching ground for an invasion of the peninsula and the Prophet had made immediate plans to take the city before the Romans could dispatch soldiers.

  I was accompanied by my sister-wife Umm Salama. Together we were charged with the duty of caring for the wounded, and we had already spent much of the morning bandaging wounds and applying ointments made from crushed belladonna leaves to ease the pain of the dying.

  The Muslim army was a small force of just over fifteen hundred soldiers and one hundred horses, but men and animals had been chosen specifically for their speed and agility. We knew that the fighting men of Khaybar numbered nearly ten thousand, so victory would come not by brute force but by craftiness and unpredictability. The Messenger intended to mount a series of raids on the oasis, which was guarded by three separate walled encampments, forcing the enemy to engage us on our terms. The hope was that our seemingly puny force would make the Jews overconfident and that our hit-and-run tactics would keep them confused as to our real plan of attack. My husband reasoned that the defenders of Khaybar would expend their energy fighting on several small fronts rather than concentrating on a single battlefield, disorienting them long enough for us to make a break in their defenses. It was the strategy of the bee, buzzing around its victim just long enough to confuse him before delivering the sting.

  And so far, it was working. Ali had been placed in charge of the army that laid siege to Khaybar, a controversial decision that had caused some discontent among the Muslims. Though no one could argue with his military prowess, many felt that placing a man who was not yet thirty in charge of older and more experienced fighters would damage morale. There were many rumblings that an elder statesman such as Abu Bakr should lead the battle, but my father had quickly silenced the talk as he had silenced Umar at Hudaybiyya. Abu Bakr unquestioningly accepted Ali’s leadership on the battlefield, and my husband, natural diplomat that he was, gave his house a special honor. The Messenger had taken one of my black cloaks and had it fashioned into the war standard for the army, giving both my father and myself a special distinction in the eyes of the soldiers. And yet the rumblings against Ali did not fully subside, a fact that gave me secret pleasure.

  But once the swords were unsheathed, all such idle talk ended and the blood rush of war replaced political posturing. Ali led the first wave on the surprised stronghold, and the Muslims advanced as far as the city walls before we were met with a shower of arrows. The archers of Khaybar were the finest in all of Arabia, and nearly fifty of our men were hit, forcing Ali to withdraw as thousands of defenders spilled out of the fortress of Natat on the outskirts of the settlement.

  After our initial advances on the field, we were pushed back into the hills. But the Prophet’s strategy was working. The Muslims would emerge from different locations every hour, first from the east, then north, then southwest, and hit the enemy’s forces with lightning speed before vanishing like ghosts into the wilderness. The Jewish fighters became increasingly frustrated at our unpredictability and they were forced to divide their forces to patrol the countryside, which was exactly what the Prophet had expected.

  The on-again, off-again battle had now been raging for six days, and we could tell that our adversaries were becoming exhausted by the intermittent raids followed by hours of wasted efforts chasing us into the shadows. We had enough food and water to keep up our pinprick attacks for at least another week, but I knew that we would not need that long. For last night, Umar ibn al-Khattab had captured one of the Jewish commanders in a surprise raid, and the man had saved his own life by betraying his people’s one military weakness. The castle of Naim was a small outpost at the western edge of the settlement that was not as well guarded as the other links in the defense chain. And it apparently contained stores of hidden weapons that would help us break through the walls into the heart of the oasis.

  And so Ali had led a surprise attack on Naim this morning while the rest of the Muslim army engaged the sons of Khaybar at the eastern wall as a diversion. The fighting had been brief but vicious. Ali had dueled the famed Jewish champion Marhab at the gates, and as was the usual outcome of any encounter with the glowing Dhul Fiqar, Ali had sliced his enemy’s head off in seconds. Zubayr had joined Ali on the field and dispatched Marhab’s equally well regarded brother Yasir, swinging a blade in each of his hands as only Zubayr could. The death of the Jewish heroes had led to disarray among the small band of protectors at the castle and the Muslims had managed to break through its fortified gates and storm the outpost.

  And then Ali emerged with a triumphant smile and returned to the Messenger’s base camp, where he advised my husband that the breach of Naim had provided the Muslims a back door into the oasis. But more important, the intelligence Umar’s captive had provided was accurate. Hidden inside storage rooms underground was an array of weapons that would facilitate our efforts to take the city, the most important being a ballista, a small Roman catapult that the Byzantines had apparently given as a gift to their new allies. And there were two testudos, covers of overlapping shields that the Romans wheeled up to walls to defend themselves from attackers. In a delicious twist of irony, these foreign contraptions that had been stockpiled for use against the Muslims would now be used against our enemies to break through the walls.

  My father rose to congratulate Ali on the victory that had changed the course of the battle, as did the other Companions. As the men embraced and clasped hands with the young hero, the Prophet beamed like a father who had finally seen a misunderstood son receive honor in the world.

  Ali’s sparkling eyes fell on me and in them I saw the desire for reconciliation, for an end to the rancor between the two of us who were beloved by the Messenger of God. But whatever grudging respect I could give him for his prowess as a warrior, I could not forgive him for his betrayal, which had nearly cost me my marriage and my life.

  I turned my back on Ali and went to help Umm Salama comfort a youth who had lost his hand in the siege.

  34

  Safiya gazed out in grief across the ranging maelstrom of death that had once been a city. The Muslims had breached the outer walls and had brought the battle to the heart of the oasis. Her people had been taken by surprise for a second time in the past week, and most of the Jewish army was scattered outside the fortified battlements in a fruitless hunt for an attacker that was hiding in plain sight.

  With the fall of the defensive outpost at Naim, the dam had been broken and the flood of Arab soldiers had reached the streets near the grand council chamber where, only days before, the elders had been celebrating the new alliance with Byzantium. Even as the elite soldiers led by Ali decimated the few Jewish defenders inside the beleaguered city, other Muslim troops were busy securing the wells and taking positions on the mighty walls, where their archers were busy raining death on the surprised warriors of Khaybar, who were now trapped outside their own walls. It was a humiliating turnaround, as Jews desperately attempted to get back inside the homes that were now occupied by the Arabs they had been pursuing.

  Safiya stood on the roof of the council chamber, staring down over the stone ramparts as her people emerged from their homes in surrender, begging Muhammad’s men for clemency. On the horizon she could see clouds of black smoke hovering over the mighty castles of Natat and Shiqq, and she knew the battle was over. The fortresses were the pride of the people of Khaybar, capable of resisting any attack from without. But no one had thought to protect them from within, and the Jewish defense was now overrun.

  She looked over to her father, who was staring in utter shock at the ruins of the city that was to
have been the capital of the new Byzantine province of Arabia. Huyayy’s gray eyes were brimming with tears, as the complete defeat of his people could no longer be denied. And she knew that he realized, at long last, that there was no one to blame for this tragic outcome but himself.

  Safiya should have felt sorry for him. She should have reached out and embraced him like a dutiful daughter, succored him as he faced the failure of his life’s work. But there was no sympathy left in her heart for Huyayy, a man who had stubbornly marched his nation over a precipice. Her father had deluded himself into imagining that he was capable of orchestrating the defeat of all their enemies, not only conquering Arabia but restoring the Jewish birthright to the Holy Land.

  Huyayy knelt down and began to pray fervently to God, asking for mercy on the Jewish people. And then her miserable husband, Kinana, knelt beside him and patted Huyayy’s hair like a woman comforting a child.

  “Do not despair,” Kinana said in his lisp that she found so repulsive. “There is still hope for victory.”

  Safiya finally exploded. “No!” she screamed, with such ferocity that Kinana recoiled in surprise. “There will be no victory! Have you men learned nothing? We were the last Jews of Arabia and you have brought doom upon us with your intrigues!”

  “None could have foreseen this,” Huyayy said, desperately trying to shirk responsibility for the disaster that he had wrought.

  Safiya had had enough. She grabbed her father by his robes and lifted to him to face her.

  “Only a fool could not have foreseen this!” she said, no patience for self-deception left in her heart.

  Kinana placed a cold hand on her wrist and pushed her away from the old man.

  “How dare you speak to your father this way!” he said, his lips curled into an ugly snarl.

  But Safiya no longer cared what he or anyone else thought. If she was to die today as Khaybar fell to the invading forces, she would die with truth on her lips. Consequences be damned.