Kamran Pasha - Mother Of the Believers

“If only your clansmen had your vision, my friend,” Abu Jahl said pointedly. Clearly the campaign to replace the head of the Bani Hashim had begun in earnest.

Abu Lahab wrung his hands in mock despair.

“They have been blinded by my nephew’s magic. But the ban will wake them from their dream.”

“I hope so,” Abu Jahl said. “And then perhaps they will choose someone who can lead the clan of Hashim back to its hallowed seat at the table of Quraysh.”

Clucking like old women who have been scandalized by the foolishness of the young, they walked away together, leaving us to the jeers of Abu Sufyan’s hired demonstrators.

Abu Talib watched sadly as his estranged brother departed. Having swallowed the worst humiliation of his years as a chieftain, the old man turned to leave the Sanctuary. Hamza and Abbas helped Abu Talib cross the courtyard slowly, his head held high in dignity even as the drunken crowd flung insults upon him.

I watched as Abu Sufyan emerged from the Kaaba and closed the glittering doors with reverence. He turned to join the gathered chieftains and thank them for their unified support of his plan to expel the Bani Hashim from Mecca. And then he saw me, a thin little girl who would soon be denied food and medicine under his orders, and I thought I saw a flash of shame and regret on his face before he turned his back on me.

I was young, but I understood enough of what had happened to know that the world had changed and that we were in an extremely precarious situation. I tugged on my father’s sleeves.

“If no one will buy or sell to us, how will we eat?”

Abu Bakr bent down and put a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“When the Children of Israel fled Pharaoh and wandered in the wilderness, God gave them food. Even so, He will feed us.”

His face was calm and composed as always. But in his eyes, I saw fear.

The boycott by the Quraysh forced the Muslims to evacuate the city. Forbidden to buy food or the basic necessities of life within the boundaries of Mecca, we sought refuge in the blackened hills beyond its precincts. But as we quickly learned, the borders of a city are determined not by walls, rivers, or mountains but by the sphere of influence dictated by the might of its armies, by the network of its merchants. And Mecca’s circle of power extended well beyond arbitrary lines drawn in the sands of Arabia.

With neighboring Bedouin herders and passing caravans refusing to take our money or accept our services in trade, the believers were forced to forage in the wilderness like jackals or vultures. We pitched camp by a small wadi owned by my father. A tent city sprang up by the muddy stream that provided our only source of water in the midst of a gray wasteland.

I was only six years old, but whatever innocence of childhood I possessed had died. My pale face had become the shade of burned copper and my small hands were chafed from carrying pails of water that were almost as tall as I was. My knees were perennially scratched and scarred, the tender flesh torn from climbing through the rocky hills looking for precious eggs at the first sight of a hovering pigeon that might have built a nest nearby.

I rarely laughed anymore and had adopted the grim stoicism that I saw carved on my mother’s worn face. Her soft skin had lost its luster and had taken on the hardness of dry leather. At night, I could hear her crying in the small weather-beaten tent next to the one where Asma and I slept. Our mattresses were nothing more than a collection of rags that served many purposes in the camp of the exiles. At night we would spread them on the ground and lie upon them. In the morning, they would be rolled up and used to clean any pots that had been fortunate enough to be filled with food the night before. And once they had been washed in the questionably potable water of the spring, they would serve as our change of clothes for the day.

Childhood should be a time of play, of running through the streets with joy in one’s heart, of flying kites and letting the soul soar with them beyond the dome of the sky into a world of dreams and possibilities. In my old age, I look back and remember the countless crimes our enemies subjected us to in the early days of Islam. I have forgiven most of these transgressions, as the Messenger enjoined us. But the pain of those childhood years, spent hovering under the shadow of starvation, pestilence, and death, has been so deeply imprinted in my heart that I cannot let it go. Whenever I think back on those dark days, I feel anew the rage and despair that come with being small and powerless in a world that rewards only cruelty and strength.

It was the memory of that deprivation and fear that would drive me in years to come to seek power when I should have sought wisdom. And my grief is that many men would die because of a child’s terror of the scorpions that crawled past her as she lay on hard desert ground in the night.

Eventually the end came, as it always does. If I have learned one thing in the years of my existence, one nugget of wisdom from having lived in the midst of disputations over faith and the nature of the world, it is that everything ends. This is both the blessing and the punishment of God upon the foolish tribe that calls itself man. We can embrace the end or we can weep, but the ghost of time closes all doors with a finality that can never be gainsaid.

So it was that one night, I emerged from a torn green tent and looked out at the dozens of believers, dressed in dirty rags, sitting by makeshift campfires along the tiny riverbed. The sparks crackled and flew into heaven, like desperate prayers. I felt a terrible weight in my heart, for I carried news that would extinguish many hopes tonight.

I saw my father at the edge of the camp, gathering acacia leaves from a scattered copse of trees. We had been reduced to rationing these prickly green sprouts that even our animals were dubious of as our supply of dried meat dwindled. Some of the refugees would eat them raw, while others, especially the children, could stomach them only if they were cooked into a thin broth.

Abu Bakr saw the look on my face as I ran over, and he stopped in his tracks, dropping the basket of leaves.

“How is Khadija?” he said, a hint of dread in his voice, as if he already knew the answer.

I had spent the last two days at the side of the Mother of the Believers. She had been struck by the potentially deadly camp fever and had been fading in and out of consciousness for the past hour.

“She is still feverish,” I said, panting to catch my breath. I paused, fearful to say what my father already suspected. “Mother worries for her life.”

I saw the color drain from his tired face.

“I seek refuge in Allah! Without Khadija, I do not know how he will go on.”

Abu Bakr looked across the camp and I saw that he was gazing at the Messenger, who stood alone at the top of the hill, his head bowed in prayer or sadness. Or both.

And then I felt the ground shudder as Umar stormed over. His dark face was contorted in rage as usual. He stared at the emaciated faces of the refugees kneeling by the wadi and then turned to my father with a now-familiar rant.

“It’s been two years! When will this end? Where is God’s help?”

My father was the only one besides the Messenger who seemed to have a soothing effect on Umar’s volatile emotions. Abu Bakr was as much of a doctor as a friend to this volcano of a man, whose fire easily consumed lesser souls.

“Calm yourself, Umar,” my father said patiently. “The people need you to be strong.” He did not add what I knew he was thinking-especially if the Mother of the Believers died. The Muslims would need men who were made of granite rather than flesh to guide them through the madness and despair that would follow.