I wept as he told me all that I have told you. “God held my hand, and He struck the blow,” Ali said. The man he had slain was an avowed enemy of the faith and the son of Utba, whose hatred was even greater.
Can a single thrust decide an entire battle? Perhaps this one did, for all three Qurayshi champions were killed and only one Muslim, who sustained a wound that proved mortal. The two armies had to engage. Abu Jahl knew that he still had more than two fighters for every Muslim. But a powerful transformation had overcome my father. In the night God taught him how to be a warrior. It was revealed that the Muslims should form a tight band, raining arrows on the Quraysh as they stumbled down the hill, blinded and confused by the sun in their eyes. Only at the last second, when the enemy was close, should the Muslims drop their bows and charge with drawn swords.
Abu Jahl had no notion of such warfare. He had fought in desert skirmishes before. Even in the fiercest ones each fighter was on his own, and there were no tactics, just a melee as disorganized as boys having a mud fight. His men fell back under a hail of arrows. They tried to stagger forward, and another hail of arrows hit them. Still packed together, the Muslims charged. In panic the Quraysh dropped their arms and ran. The whole battle was over before the afternoon sun was halfway down the sky. When the enemy dead were counted, many were leading chieftains, and one was Abu Jahl himself.
Immediately the victors began to round up the wounded to slaughter them, but God sent Father a message that none were to be killed. It was enough to march them back to Medina and hold them for ransom. He stopped the wild looting of the enemy camels and weapons, decreeing that the spoils should be shared equally among all the clans who had fought so courageously.
“It was a day of joy,” I said quietly. At least my Ali had survived, which was joy enough. Until the next time.
He understood why I was solemn. “Dear wife, your father was not exulting. He knew that the Quraysh have reason for more revenge now and more attacks. No one could mistake the tears on his cheeks for tears of joy.”
The Prophet had foreseen the repercussions. Allah had tested him with anxiety, doubt, and bloodshed. Only then had He revealed who was cat and who was mouse. God, the all-powerful and all-knowing, planned every move on both sides. He alone knew what was needed for the faithful to win. Therefore, nothing less than total obedience to His will was acceptable. Without that, the enemy would never relent. This victory at Badr would be the end of the Muslims unless Father heeded every revelation to the letter.
“Have you heard about the angels?” Ali asked. In the ecstasy of winning, soldiers had spread the word that a host of angels had appeared overhead as they fought, indicating that Allah was on their side. When Father heard that Gabriel himself had joined them, he nodded and smiled.
“Do you believe that?” I asked Ali. I had no idea what his reply would be. I knew what the old Ali would have said before he marched off. He would have revealed his doubts. A new Ali returned, though, and something about him made him seem like a stranger.
“Angels are good for the troops,” he replied. “None of them ran, even when we were outnumbered. Only God can inspire a man to fight under those conditions. Allah has revealed how we’ll survive.”
My heart sank. “Through war?”
Ali shook his head. “Not just war. Holy war.”
He was using a peculiar word new to my ears. Jihad.
16
IBN UBAYY, THE HYPOCRITE
I walk through Medina, and the same thought torments me. I was born to rule here. No more. It’s all Muhammad now. I smile, and on every side they smile back. I am given respect, just as before. No one can see how my mind grinds and grinds.
Beside me is one of the last chiefs of the Khazraj tribe I can trust. I tell him, “The Prophet has created a paradise. Use your imagination. It’s all around us.”
He isn’t immune to irony. “Soon the camels will be dropping manna. Be careful not to step in it.”
How long did it take for me to lose everything? Four short years. The Muslims were hanging on by a thread back then. I was on the rise, because the warring tribes in the city looked to me to bring peace. The Jews were ready to forge an alliance with the Arabs. If I could stop the endless blood feuds, I would be the chief of chiefs. Some even whispered a daring word: Ubayy the king.
“The mosque,” my companion says, warily pointing up ahead. We are going to pray, the two of us. It’s not safe to speak ill of the Prophet this close to the mosque.
I hear you laughing. Ibn Ubayy a Muslim? You don’t understand. Conversion is about power. The God of Muhammad has cast down the gods of Arabia. They have crumbled to dust.
I remember the day the warriors came home from Badr, two years ago. We were waiting along the city walls, ready to behold a broken column bringing the dead and wounded. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we saw the corpse of Abu Jahl instead, dragged on a bloody litter behind a mule. The wind turned that day. I felt a shudder run through me. If their God could crush the Meccans with a handful of soldiers, anything was possible. Six months later, my forehead was touching the ground in the mosque.
As we near the door to pray, my companion looks around nervously. We’re lucky this morning. No one assaults us or spits on our feet. A few mutter an oath. Munafiq—“hypocrite.” When I overhear them, I lower my head humbly. Isn’t that what God commands the faithful to do, submit?
Kneeling in the cool dim space where the Prophet’s word is law, I feel lonely. I once wore my people like a cloak, wrapped tightly around me. I rose step by step, keeping careful watch. Ambition isn’t a banner you fly overhead as you march down the street. It’s a ladder just tall enough to steal all the fruit from the tree. Preferably at night. Muhammad understands this, and so do I.
Hundreds of men surround me at prayer. As we murmur to Allah, a ripple runs through the crowd. Eyes cautiously peer to the right and left. The Prophet himself has entered. No one has to say so. His presence is enough.
I’m bold and lift my head as he passes. Age has not bent him, nor care made him weary. Why should they? He’s the victor. His robe is gleaming white; he bestows a blessing with a wave of the hand. Half a dozen bodyguards form a shield around him, but through the cracks Muhammad spies me and frowns slightly. I’m not the only hypocrite in this paradise. We form a party, in fact. Arabs who jumped to the new religion because there was no other choice. I couldn’t change my ways to suit the Prophet. He calls me a thorn in his side.
Once when I challenged him, he became too angry to speak.
“Don’t turn your face from me,” I said. “Embrace me. I’m the one you must save.”
“First you must want to be saved,” he replied. “Your eyes must open to God.”
“Is that why so many lying in the street have their eyes closed?” I shot back. “Or is it because they’re dead?”
I went away holding back my anger, but my tongue betrayed me. I was overheard telling one of my cousins, “This is what comes of bringing strangers among us.”
So far no message from God has come to make me disappear, not the way so many others have disappeared. I mean the Jews. We had three tribes of Jews in Medina when Muhammad arrived. If they hadn’t planted the seed of one God, Muhammad would never have come here. The Jews made a garden in the desert for him. One day I was their champion, the judge who would bring peace to all the tribes. I woke up the next day, and their doors were shut against me. Muhammad would be their judge. Muhammad was the bringer of peace.
Then the tide turned against the Jews. The people tell a tale that could be true. One day a Muslim woman had come to market in the Jewish quarter. Sellers at their stalls called out, “Let’s see your face. What’s wrong, are you too ugly to behold?” They were used to ogling. Muslim women wear a veil.
On this day a goldsmith grabbed the woman and pinned back her clothes so that her face was revealed; he threw her to the ground, and when she arose, her clothes were snatched off, leaving her naked. A Muslim man heard the commot
ion, ran to the scene, and killed the goldsmith with his knife. In turn, the Jewish sellers killed him. A blood feud was ignited.
Muhammad laid siege to the Jewish quarter. And after fifteen days the dominant tribe, the Qaynuqa, surrendered. Having seen that seven hundred armed Jews could be summoned to fight against him, the Prophet felt the danger in his midst. He banished the Qaynuqa from Medina. How do the Jews feel now scraping for a living in the barren countryside and distant villages?
I went before him and pleaded their case. “We had fierce battles before you came to Medina,” I declared. “In one battle the leaders of both sides were slaughtered, and I was saved only because the Jews of the Qaynuqa defended me. They are strong. They will help defend you when the Meccan army marches on the city.”
Muhammad had just returned from Badr, and my timing was wrong. He was swollen with the arrogance of victory. Why did he need Jewish warriors? They were the real thorn in his side, not me. Their quarter of Medina became a ripe plum for the Prophet to pluck. He confiscated their property and divided it among the faithful.
From that day onward, I earned the name “hypocrite.” What name should I lay at the feet of the Prophet? In time the second tribe of Jews was banished. Those of the third tribe were called traitors for siding with the Arabs of Mecca. Was it true? They were traders. Their fortunes depended on going to Mecca, where the great market thrives. Perhaps the Jews only wanted for life to go on as it had in their fathers’ and grandfathers’ time. Perhaps they were unlucky, plotted against the Muslims, and lost. Suddenly there were beheadings in the street. Traitors were to die. Their women and children had to be sold into slavery. I was appalled.
No one could say whether the Prophet ordered this outrage. He simply turned his face the other way. At the very least that is what he did, and I am here to remind him.
“I am studying the Koran,” I tell him. “Does it not say that Islam confirms what came before?”
Muhammad nods.
“Does it not say that God sent down the Torah and after that the Gospels? I see here a sura that compares Jesus to Adam, since they were the only two men who had no earthly father.”
Muhammad nods again, giving no sign of how he feels toward me.
I go on, “And yet you drive out the Jews and call them enemies and traitors. Please clear up my confusion, dear master. Are they not also people of the Book?”
I’m saying all this in public, you see. The circle of those who constantly surround him are uncomfortable. For a second the Prophet’s eyes flicker in their direction. Is he saying, If you love me, pluck out this thorn?
But aloud he is calm and tolerant. “God is all-mighty. He sees all and knows all. He sees those who oppose Him, and they will pay the price. To oppose the faith must mean that someone’s heart is set against God, even if their lips pay service to the Book.”
His close circle murmurs at the wisdom of his reply. I consider myself lucky to have gotten off with a veiled threat.
Whatever anyone thinks of me, I am never asleep. The day I foresaw came. A year after Badr, the Quraysh mounted a new army and were marching on us. The enemy forces were larger this time and better armed. The gleam of their swords attracted birds from miles around. The enemy were thirsty for revenge. They hadn’t forgotten Abu Jahl and all their relatives who were killed alongside him. Muhammad called a council, and since all the chiefs attended, he couldn’t exclude me.
The Prophet had the first word. “We shouldn’t march out to meet the Quraysh. It is best that we defend the city from within its walls.” Knowing how outnumbered we were, I sided with him. This plan displeased the young, restless Muslims. They didn’t want to sit at home like women. Their voices cried out for war, which meant marching onto the field. They believed that Allah had given us victory before, and He would protect us now.
Muhammad waited for others to support him, and the older chiefs did. But the clamor for battle was too loud. Two days later, a force of seven hundred left the city. I rode beside the Prophet, and both of us could see in our mind’s eye the three thousand Quraysh we were about to meet.
The walls of Medina were still in sight behind us when Muhammad turned to me with a scowl. “Who are those?” he said, pointing to a small band of my soldiers. When I told him they were Jews, some of my truest allies, Muhammad exclaimed, “Back! All of you. We fight without you today.”
I was stunned, but my mind didn’t quit working. If the Prophet’s army won, I would be excluded from God’s miracle. If it fell, I would be branded as the reason.
“I want to be with you,” I said. Not so much because it was the truth as that I needed another sign of his real motives.
Muhammad’s voice softened. “No blame will fall to you. My wishes have been disobeyed already.”
Suddenly I read his mind. He wanted my forces to defend the city from within. We were the last resort he had to carry out his plan. I raised my hand and whistled. My lieutenants looked confused, but when I pointed to the city gates, they passed the order along, and we retreated back into Medina.
My men were seen leaving, but not all left. I heard from one of my spies that the two armies had come within sight of each other the first night. Muhammad seized the best ground by making camp on the face of a high hill known as Uhud. The steep rock face at his back protected the troops from being surrounded. Muhammad was in a strong position unless one of his flanks gave way. In that case, the men were both exposed and trapped.
Gazing down from the hillside, Muhammad saw that his soldiers were outnumbered three to one. This didn’t alarm him, as he knew the power of faith. In any other war the Muslims would lose; in holy war they would prevail.
The Quraysh were led by Sufyan, the wealthy merchant whose caravan was in peril before the battle at Badr. He was the wealthiest among the Quraysh, and his money bought them a huge cavalry. They outnumbered Muhammad’s cavalry in armored camels fifty to one. Muhammad now heard the songs of women. The Quraysh brought their families with them. They could not be routed without incurring shame. With this news, my spy had nothing more to report. Dawn would tell the tale.
A new spy came running at noon the next day, flush with excitement. “Allah has inspired the Prophet! Nothing can stop him!” Once he calmed down, I questioned him, and the news was stunning. Muhammad, knowing that he had to stop the cavalry from surrounding him, took fifty archers and posted them on a separate low hill. He commanded them to rain arrows down on the Quraysh. On no account were they to rush into battle, not to help their kin or to seize plunder if the enemy was losing.
The Meccan army charged first. Holding their ground on the side of Mount Uhud, the Muslims hurled stones while the archers on their flank shot volleys of arrows. The Quraysh fell back in confusion. In the onrush, their standard fell, and the standard bearer was killed. His brother rushed forward to raise the flag again. Out of the Muslim army Ali stepped forward. Everyone froze. This was the hero of Badr. Ali challenged the new standard bearer to a duel and killed him with the first blow.
Another brother of the standard bearer came out to retrieve the flag, and he too was killed in hand-to-hand combat, followed by his son. Their corpses made a piteous sight. The dueling had devastated Qurayshi morale. Sufyan couldn’t rouse them. The war songs of their women and the steely tinkling of bells were but a vain attempt to spur them on.
“And you saw the victory?” I asked my spy.
“No, sir. I ran to tell you, as victory is certain. Allah has inspired the Prophet.”
I sent him away. Enough of that. My men, the ones defending the city walls, were in place, tense and waiting. No women sang for them. Everyone was overcome with dread. I could have told them the good news. Instead, I took myself home to ponder fate. The first time Muhammad marched to Medina in triumph, he seized my power. This time, once he accused me of fleeing the battlefield, he’d take my life.
Exhausted, I fell into a troubled sleep. Pounding on the door woke me, and I heard one of my spies shouting for joy. Is this
it? Have all the gods abandoned me? I secretly thought. But I flung open the door and exclaimed, “Praise Allah!”
Only to see the man’s blanched face and the tracks of tears in the dirt on his cheeks.
“Lost!” he cried, sinking to his knees.
I didn’t wait for details. If Muhammad had been beaten, that meant three thousand Quraysh mad for vengeance would be laying siege to Medina. I ran to the ramparts to reinforce my men with boys and even women, who could throw stones and pour boiling water on any enemies who tried to climb the city walls.
It’s strange when you are about to die and don’t know who to pray to. My men were simple. They prayed to Allah with fervent hearts. A handful looked to the sky instead of bowing to earth. I imagined they were praying to the gods of their fathers. As for me, I wouldn’t pray until the moment a Qurayshi sword was about to plunge into my chest. I should have had a clear idea at that moment which god wanted me for his own.
And yet the attack never came. Before nightfall a rider appeared on the horizon. I gave permission for the gates to swing open. Once before me, he related a tale I could hardly believe. The battle of Uhud was won. The Muslims killed the enemy’s courage, and to save their fallen the Quraysh left camp. Seeing that the spoils of war were in their grasp, the archers couldn’t resist. Disobeying Muhammad’s orders, they left their post to loot the enemy tents and steal the camels.
A chief on the enemy side, Khalid, the son of Walid, was in charge of their cavalry. He immediately spotted the opening and ordered his troops to charge at the Muslims’ exposed flank. Suddenly the crushing weight of their numbers came down on the Muslims. They were surrounded, and their only escape was to retreat uphill on the side of Uhud. In the confusion, the Prophet was set upon and nearly killed before his men could pull him to safety, seriously wounded.