Kamran Pasha - Mother Of the Believers

Her father had found the “holy man’s” naked body in her room the next day and had quietly buried him in their backyard. Utbah had never spoken about it with Hind, but no more kahins were invited to stay with them.

After that incident, she had never paid the gods or their self-appointed mouthpieces any attention.

Until Muhammad, the low-class merchant who had climbed into wealth by marrying a rich old woman, decided to enter the prophecy business. He spoke pretty words of poetry and the fools of Mecca were suddenly willing to give not only their wealth to him but also their very lives. Instead of embracing the only truth of life, the pursuit of pleasure, they adopted his austere teachings, denying themselves the good things and wandering around with empty stomachs and praises to an imaginary God on their lips.

This new religion was more sophisticated in its teaching than the nonsense her people believed, and that was exactly why it offended Hind even more. It was such a well-crafted tale that even intelligent men like Umar, men she had admired and exchanged pleasures with, had given up life in order to embrace its walking death. Islam was exactly the kind of delusion that men craved, with its promises of eternal life and cosmic justice, when neither state of affairs was true.

Hind hated Muhammad for giving false hope to people-a hope that made the strong weak and ensured that men would trade the pleasures of the moment for an illusory promise of reward beyond the grave. Hind had made it her mission in life to shatter this illusion, to take away the lie so that men and women could be free to embrace the world as it was, not as they wished it to be.

Since her father’s death at Badr, Hind had been consumed with vengeance. She often accompanied her husband to military training exercises in the desert outside Mecca. Her eyes swept across the field in search of a champion, someone who could strike a blow for truth and reveal Muhammad for the sham he was.

She watched her husband calling out to the men, encouraging them as they practiced sparring with swords and thrusting with their spears.

“Train hard, O sons of Mecca! The day of retribution is coming.”

The men responded to Abu Sufyan’s cries by accelerating their moves, hoping to please the man who was for all intents and purposes their king. Hind had considered discarding her husband after the disaster of Badr, make his death appear to be an accident. But she realized now that she had been wise to restrain herself. She could see that Abu Sufyan held the soldiers’ respect and was still useful to her. Still, she knew that he was old and she would need a more youthful body to advance her cause and please her body.

And then, quite unexpectedly, she saw him.

Hind’s eyes fell upon a tall Abyssinian slave. He was as black as night and moved like a panther. In his hand, the slave held a powerful javelin, carved in accordance with the traditions of his people, who were masters of the art of spear throwing. He darted through a crowd of defenders, slipping between men like a snake winding through the rushes.

His eyes fell upon a target, a wooden pole that had been erected in the midst of the rocky field. The slave held the javelin to his shoulder and gracefully threw the weapon a hundred feet across the field. It landed straight in the heart of the pole and tore through to the other side.

Hind felt a swelling in her heart as well as in her loins. She walked over to the slave, and felt her desire growing as his skin shone with sweat and his musky odor flooded her senses.

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Wahsi,” he said, panting for breath. “I belong to Jubayr ibn Mutim.”

Hind smiled. Jubayr was her cousin and she knew him well. There had been a time when Hind had worried that he would defect to the Muslims after she learned that Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s chief sycophant, had proposed engaging his daughter Aisha to Jubayr. But the lustful Muhammad had decided to take the child for his own bed, and Jubayr had remained loyal to Mecca.

She stepped closer to Wahsi, put a hand on his powerful arm that was almost as thick as a tree.

“Do you know Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib?”

She spoke the name of her father’s murderer with difficulty.

Wahsi looked uncomfortable, but he nodded.

“I know him,” he said, then hesitated. “He was always kind to Bilal and myself.”

Hind frowned. Bilal, the slave who had become Muhammad’s chief singer, had killed his former owner, Umayya, at Badr. The bond between slaves in the city was as tight as brothers, and it was certainly possible that Wahsi’s loyalty had been corrupted by the connection. She would have to gauge where his affinities truly lay.

“Would you consider Hamza a friend?”

Wahsi paused, measuring his words.

“To the extent that a slave and a free man can be friends, yes, I would.”

That was disappointing, but not an insurmountable obstacle.

“Tell me, Wahsi, what is your freedom worth to you?”

Wahsi stepped back, his eyes looking over Hind carefully.

“I don’t understand.”

Hind moved again to his side. This time she let her hand touch his bare chest. She closed her eyes and felt the steady, powerful rhythm of his heart beating against her fingers.

“Is earning your freedom something you would risk your life for?”

“Yes,” he said, without any hesitation.

She opened her eyes and looked deeply into his black pupils.

“Is it something you would kill for?”

His eyes narrowed but he did not look away.

“Yes.”

Hind smiled and caressed his flesh. The muscles of his abdomen were hard and well defined. She could feel her thighs growing wet, and the salty aroma of her arousal filled the air between them.

“No doubt. But is your freedom so precious that you would kill a friend to secure it?”

Wahsi hesitated for a moment. And then he lifted his shoulders proudly.

“If that is the price for the key to my chains, then yes.”

Hind squeezed his forearm, let the tip of her fingernail nick his skin, drawing blood. Wahsi stood impassive as she brought her finger to her lips and sucked the tiny drop of his life fluid into her mouth.

“I will speak to my cousin Jubayr,” she said in a husky voice. “He will give you a furlough for the evening. Come to my house tonight. There is much to discuss.”

AND SO HIND FOUND at last a champion for her revenge. A vengeance that would prove far uglier than any of us could ever have imagined.

You may wonder, dear Abdallah, why I take the time to detail her role in these events. She was a monster, you say, unworthy of being recorded in the annals of our faith. And perhaps you are right. Her crimes have justly earned her the condemnation of history. Hind was indeed cruel, vindictive, and manipulative. And yet she was also more than that. Strong. Proud. Passionate. A woman who refused to let the world conquer her. A woman who could have done so much good had the wound in her heart been healed with the balm of love. And despite my hatred for her memory, I sorrow for the child that still lived within her. A little girl on her knees, crying out to the heavens for her mother. A cry that was met with silence.

I rested my thighs on our lambskin mattress as the Messenger placed his head in my lap, as he often did when he was having difficulty relaxing after a long day. I ran my fingers through his mass of black curls that had begun to gray in a few patches. He looked up at me with a familiar twinkle in his eye and I sensed that he wanted me. The Messenger had been so exhausted in recent weeks that we rarely made love. The crushing burden of his daily life as prophet and statesman had made him too tired to meet even his personal needs as a man. Every minute of his waking hours was spent either teaching, judging disputes, enforcing new laws that God revealed in the Qur’an, or leading raids against Meccan caravans. The Messenger would come home tired and fall asleep in my arms almost instantly.