Kamran Pasha - Mother Of the Believers

It was the face of your father, my sister’s husband, Zubayr ibn al-Awwam.

My eyes went wide in horror and I could not move. Zubayr lay on the ground and I saw that his head had been severed from his body. In each of his hands he held a sword, even as he had that fateful day he had protected our lives at Uhud.

I wanted to scream, but it was as if my tongue had been ripped from my throat.

And then I saw a figure lying beside him, pierced with a dozen arrows shot through his breast, his eyes looking up at me accusingly.

It was my sweet cousin Talha, the one man who loved me more than himself and had nearly died fighting those who sought to sully my honor.

Tears exploded from my eyes and I felt myself swooning. And then, in that terrible moment, Hind appeared, standing above the bodies of two of my dearest and closest friends, laughing in contempt. I threw myself at her, clawing at her veiled face with my fingers. She appeared startled by my onslaught and raised her sword to strike me. Somehow I found the strength to kick her in the womb, and she doubled over in pain, letting the blade fall from her grasp. I immediately took up the weapon, which felt surprisingly light and natural in my hand, and in an instant I was standing atop the fallen Meccan queen, the blade at her neck.

The terrible image of Talha and Zubayr dead before me consumed my eyes and I raised the weapon, ready to strike.

“You did this to them!” I screamed.

And then Hind spoke words that have never left me and haunt me to this day.

“No. You did.”

I did not understand what she meant and I did not care to. Screaming with animal rage, my heart crying out for vengeance, I sliced the blade down and cut Hind’s head from her sensuous body.

As her decapitated skull rolled away, the veil fell off.

And I dropped my sword in horror.

For I was looking at my own face.

I screamed with such intensity that I woke myself from the nightmare, the cry still echoing from my lips even as my eyes blinked in confusion. There was no battlefield, no sea of corpses. My beloved Talha and your father, Zubayr, were nowhere to be seen, nor was the ghastly demon image of Hind-or was it myself?

I was alone where I had collapsed hours before, in the middle of the empty desert, with only scorpions and lizards to keep me company. For a moment, a wave of relief ran through my veins and I said a silent prayer thanking Allah that what I had seen was just a dream, a delusion arising from the terror of my predicament.

And then my relief faded and the stark realization of my situation came back to me like a kick to the stomach. I was alone and lost in the wilderness, and had not had a sip of water since noon the day before. My head was pounding and the world swam before me as I tried to rise to my feet. I would not able to survive another day out here like this, and by the time the search parties reached me from Medina, I would be a desiccated corpse, partially consumed by the sands and the ferocious insects that hid in the shadows of the wastes.

And then I turned my head and saw the red glow on the eastern horizon. At least the sun would be up shortly and the icy air would give way to its unrelenting fury. I held myself tight, trying to warm my bones as the winds slapped at me from all sides, like an angry mother chiding a troublesome child. I had no choice but to keep moving toward the sun, hoping against hope that the caravan had returned for me during the darkness, that soon I would be home again in my small but comfortable little chamber in the courtyard of the Masjid. How I had longed to escape that tiny room as if it were a prison! And now I would have traded my soul for a chance to sleep inside its sturdy walls, free of wind and rain and the raging furnace of the sun. During the worst moments of my confinement, I had dreamed of running off into the open desert, letting the sands caress my bare feet and the air wash freely over my uncovered tresses. But now I hated this vast openness, this stark emptiness that was a dungeon far worse than any designed by man.

As I stumbled forward, memories of my family came back to me. My beautiful mother, softly whispering a lullaby to me as I fell into safe slumber in her arms. My father, hunched and careworn, yet always smiling at me with sparkling eyes that knew only kindness. My sister, Asma, whose plainness and strength and quiet dignity gave her more beauty than all the flighty girls whose glitter faded with time. As I coughed up dust from my battered lungs, I said a silent prayer that they would not grieve for me for long. Their lives were difficult enough without the weight of heartache and the bitter poison of loss.

And then the crimson disk of the sun broke over the horizon and I blinked in surprise. A figure was silhouetted against the heavenly fire, a man on a camel, riding steadily in my direction. No caravan, no contingent of soldiers that would have normally made up a search party for so august a person as a Mother of the Believers. Just one man, moving inexorably toward me.

I looked around, but there was nowhere to hide in the vast nothingness. And then I moved out of pure instinct. I grabbed a sharp rock whose cruel edges looked as if they could tear open flesh down to the bone. And then I pulled up the veil that I had tied around my waist and hastily covered my face.

And then the sun rose higher and I saw the man’s face and recognized him. He was a youth of twenty years named Safwan who had often come by the Masjid to help the Prophet’s daughter Fatima feed the People of the Bench. He had no wealth or social position, but his darkly handsome features always set my girlfriends giggling in his presence. Safwan was the source of many unspoken fantasies among the women of Medina, although he was remarkably pious and seemed utterly unaware of the heated thoughts he inspired in others.

And now he was here in the desert, and we were alone.

As the climbing sun illuminated the world about us, Safwan stopped his camel and stared down at the tiny figure standing inexplicably on the desert plain. I saw him blink several times as if he was trying to convince himself that I was not some sort of mirage or twisted vision of his mind.

And then I saw his dark eyes fall upon my onyx necklace, the accursed object that had brought me to this wretched place between life and death. And then I saw the color drain from his face.

“Inna lillahi wan inna ilayhi rajioon,” he said, reciting the prayer in the Qur’an that is said when man faces adversity or a situation beyond his ability to handle. “Truly we belong to God and truly we are returning to Him.”

I stared up at him, unblinking, utterly unable to speak. And then Safwan climbed off his camel and approached me slowly, one hand on the hilt of his dagger.

“Are you…are you the Messenger’s wife? Or a djinn sent to lead me astray?” There was fear and wonder in his voice, and I realized that he had not been sent to look for me. Somehow, by the strange hand of fate, this lone warrior had been wandering through the desert wastes and had come upon me at my moment of dire need. If ever there had been any small part of my heart that had questioned or doubted the existence of God, it vanished forever in that remarkable moment in the desolate wilderness.

My vision blurred as tears of joy and disbelief flooded my eyes.

“I am no djinn,” I managed to croak out. “Please…help me.”

I had awakened from one nightmare and found myself in another. Within hours of my miraculous return to Medina, the daggers of envy were bared against me. The Messenger had dispatched search parties when he learned that I was missing from my howdah. But when the people of Medina saw me returning in the company of Safwan, salacious talk of my time alone with the attractive soldier began to spread like a brushfire. Nervous whispers fanned into open word in the marketplace that I had arranged to fall behind the caravan so that I could tryst with my young lover. Even though I was secluded again inside my tiny apartment, the rumors were so prevalent that they quickly reached my shocked ears.