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

“Paradise is at the feet of the mothers.”

—Prophet Muhammad

Author’s Note

Prologue—The Beginning of the End

Book One—Birth of a Faith

Book Two—Birth of a City

Book Three—Birth of a Nation

Book Four—Birth of an Empire

Epilogue—The End of the Beginning

Afterword

Acknowledgments

T
his book is a work of fiction. Though based on historical events, it is not a history of those events. Readers who are interested in learning more about the history of Islam and the lives of Prophet Muhammad and his wife Aisha are encouraged to read some of the wonderful reference works that I have relied on to write this tale. These books include the brilliantly crafted biography by Martin Lings entitled
Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources,
as well as the excellent works by Barnaby Rogerson, including
The Prophet Muhammad: A Biography
and
Heirs of Muhammad
.

Those interested in seeking a Western scholarly perspective on Muhammad’s life and legacy are referred to Montgomery Watt’s seminal work
Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman,
as well as Karen Armstrong’s influential book
Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet
.

Readers seeking more knowledge about Aisha will find a wealth of information on her and other prominent Muslim women in Jennifer Heath’s
The Scimitar and the Veil: Extraordinary Women of Islam
. For those fascinated by the military history surrounding the rise of Islam, a wonderfully readable analysis can be found in Richard A. Gabriel’s
Muhammad, Islam’s First General
. Hugh Kennedy’s
The Great Arab Conquests
is also a fine resource for those seeking insight into how a small band of desert warriors improbably created a vast empire and a civilization that remains vibrant and influential in the world today.

Readers interested in a general introduction to the faith and practices of Islam are referred to
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Islam
by Yahiya Emerick and
No god but God
by Reza Aslan. Those who wish to gain deeper insight into the spiritual values of Islam and what the religion offers the world today are referred to
Islam and the Destiny of Man
by Charles Le Gai Eaton and
The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity
by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. A deeper look at the spiritual heart of Islam can be found in
The Vision of Islam
by Sachicko Murata and William Chittick and in the classic text
Understanding Islam
by Frithjof Schuon.

There are many translations of the holy Qur’an on the market today, but I have found three to be particularly helpful to Western readers. Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s
The Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary
is one of the most beloved of English translations and is helpful to those who are new to studying the Muslim faith. Muhammad Asad’s monumental translation
The Message of the Holy Qur’an
is both scholarly and written from the point of a view of a European convert who understands how to explain the scripture to the Western mind. For those seeking a simple translation that is not bogged down with commentary, I recommend
The Qur’an,
translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem and published by Oxford University Press. An older but still popular translation is
The Glorious Qur’an
by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, a British convert.

Writing a novel about the birth of Islam and the remarkable personalities of the Prophet Muhammad, Aisha, and the rest of the early Muslim community has been an extremely challenging and rewarding process. Compared to the limited historical data available on Jesus, the origins of Islam and the life of the Prophet have been documented with a degree of historical detail that is mind-boggling to many Westerners. It has been said that we know more about Muhammad than we do about any other man in history, as his followers meticulously recorded everything they could about their beloved teacher, from how he looked, to his daily mannerisms and eating habits, to surprisingly intimate details about his personal life with his wives. Much of this can be credited to the remarkable memory of Aisha, who was responsible for transmitting over two thousand individual hadiths, or oral accounts of her life with the Prophet and his teachings.

The corpus of historical data about the Prophet Muhammad is staggering in its depth and detail, but his life remains a matter of controversy. Believers and nonbelievers will obviously interpret the tales about Muhammad in accordance with their own perspective about the truth of his spiritual mission. And within the Muslim community itself, interpretation of historical events is often hotly debated among the different sects of Sunni and Shia Islam.

For the record, I am a believing and practicing Muslim. Theologically I consider myself a Sunni, and spiritually I am drawn to Sufism, the mystical heart of Islam. By lineage, I am a sayyid, a direct descendant of the Prophet through his daughter Fatima and his grandson Husayn. For me, this novel has been both a rewarding journey into the heart of my religious tradition and an eye-opening study of the passionate and complex people who were my ancestors. They were simple men and women, living in a remote desert, who should have been forgotten by history. And yet through the sheer power of faith, they managed to turn the world upside down.

I would like to take a moment to comment on one of the most controversial aspects of my story, at least for many modern readers. In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion regarding Aisha’s age when she married Prophet Muhammad. Estimates of her age have ranged from early teens to early twenties. The most controversial account is that she was nine years old at the time of her wedding, which some modern critics have attempted to use to smear the Prophet with the inflammatory charge of pedophilia. In response to these charges, many Muslims are now performing all kinds of historical analysis to attempt to clear his name and reputation. What is evident is that Aisha was a young woman at the time of the wedding, but that her marriage was not in any way controversial and was never used by the enemies of the Prophet as a critique in his lifetime, unlike his marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh. So clearly whatever Aisha’s age was, it was irrelevant to her contemporaries and considered mainstream in the social context of seventh-century Arabia.

In my novel, I have chosen to directly face the controversy over Aisha’s age by using the most contentious account, that she was nine at the time she consummated her wedding. The reason I have done this is to show that it is foolish to project modern values on another time and world. In a desert environment where life expectancy was extremely low, early marriage was not a social issue—it was a matter of survival. Modern Christian historians have no problem suggesting that Mary was around twelve years old when she became pregnant with Jesus, as that was the normal age for marriage and childbearing in first-century Palestine. Yet no one claims Mary’s youthful pregnancy was somehow perverse because it is easy to understand that life expectancy was so low in that world that reproduction took place immediately upon menstruation.

An interesting anthropological analysis of the onset of puberty in ancient and modern times can be found in
Mismatch
by Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson. Their study shows that modern social norms have evolved in ways that conflict with evolutionary pressures for girls to menstruate and bear children at a young age. These conflicts were less apparent in ancient times, when survival trumped other concerns. Girls in many ancient cultures were considered adult women immediately upon the onset of their cycles. To project modern social norms backward into that environment is disingenuous and reflects a failure to understand history and human nature.

It is for that reason that I have chosen to use the most controversial account as a framework for my story.

In closing, I should note that not all Muslims would agree with my interpretation of Islam in these pages or with my portrayal of the Prophet’s life and of Aisha’s role in Muslim history. And that is fine. I encourage those who disagree with my presentation to write books that reflect the truth as their hearts see it. In fact, I hope a day comes when novels about Prophet Muhammad, Aisha, and Ali become as commonplace in Western literature as the diverse and beloved books on historical figures such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, and Queen Elizabeth I.

My intention in writing this novel has been to give Westerners a glimpse of the richness that exists within the Muslim historical tradition and to invite all my readers to learn more about Islam and draw their own conclusions. To the extent that I have succeeded, the credit belongs to God alone. The failures, however, are all mine.

The Beginning of the End

W
hat is faith?

It is a question I have asked myself over the years, dear nephew, and I am no closer to the answer now than I was when my hair was still crimson like the rising dawn, not the pale silver of moonlight as it is today.

I write this for you, because I know I am dying. I do not complain, for there are times I wished I had died many years ago or, better yet, had never been born. My heart looks at the trees, whose life consists of no more than dreams of the sun and memories of the rain, and I envy them. There are times when I wish I were one of the rocks that line the hills beyond Medina, ignored and forgotten by those who tread upon them.

You will protest, I am sure. How could I, Aisha the daughter of Abu Bakr, the most famed woman of her time, wish to trade in my glorious memories for the sleep of the deaf and the dumb of the earth? That is the tricky thing with memories, dear Abdallah, son of my sister. They are like the wind. They come when they wish and carry with them both the hope of life and the danger of death. We cannot master them. Nay, they are our masters and rejoice in their capriciousness, carrying our hearts with them wherever they wish.

And now they have taken me, against my will, to this moment, where I sit in my tiny bedroom made of mud brick, only a few feet away from the grave of my beloved, writing this tale. There is much I do not want to recall, but my memories cry out to be recorded, so that they can live in the memories of others when I am gone.

So I shall start at the beginning. At a time when one world was dying and another was about to be born. There is much glory in my tale, much wonder, and a great deal of sorrow. It is a story that I hope you will preserve and take with you to the farthest reaches of the empire, so that the daughters and granddaughters of those who are still being suckled today will remember. Much of what I shall relate, I witnessed with my own eyes. The rest I recount as it was recounted to me by those who were present.

It is a tale of great portent, and the bearer of my words must shoulder a weighty burden before God and man. And of all those who dwell on earth, there is none whom I can trust more than you, Abdallah, to carry my tale. In my days of honor and of disgrace, you have stood by my side, more loyal than any son of my flesh could have been. I look upon your smiling face and see all that I have gained and lost as the price of my destiny. A fate that was written in the ink of dreams when I was still a child.

I was six years old when I married the Messenger of God, although our union was not consummated until I began my cycles at the age of nine. Over the years, I became aware that my youthful marriage was considered shocking, even barbaric, by the haughty noblewomen of Persia and Byzantium, although none would have dared to say so to my face. Of course I am used to the cruel whispers of the gossipmongers. More so than most women of my time, I have been subjected to the hidden daggers of jealousy and rumor. Perhaps that is to be expected. A price I must pay as the favorite wife of the most revered and hated man the world has ever known.

Tell them, Abdallah, that I loved Muhammad, may God’s blessings and peace be upon him, and that he loved me, for all that I proved unworthy of it. Of the many twists and turns that have guided the caravan of my life, there are none that I treasure more than my ten years with him as his wife. Indeed, there are many days that I wished I had died with him, that Gabriel would have taken my spirit with his and I could have left this valley of tears for others to conquer. I torment myself with the knowledge that many thousands would have lived had I simply died that day. An army of believers who followed me to their doom. Good men, who believed that I acted out of idealism rather than pride and a hidden lust for revenge. Good men like your father. Had my soul departed along with the Messenger, he and so many others would have lived.

But that was not my destiny.

My fate was to be the mother of a nation, even though my womb has never borne a child of its own. A nation that was chosen by God to change the world, to destroy iniquity, even as it is forever tempted to succumb to it. A nation that defeated every adversary, despite all the forces of Earth marshaled against it, and then became doomed to fight itself until the Day of Resurrection. A nation whose soul, like mine, is filled with God and yet consumed with earthly passion. A nation that stands for victory and justice, yet can never hide its own failures and cruelties against the terrible judgment of the One.

This is my
Ummah,
my nation, and I am its face, even though no man outside my family has looked upon my face since I was a little girl.

I am the harbinger of joy and anger. The queen of love and jealousy. The bearer of knowledge and the ultimate fool.

I am the Mother of the Believers, and this is my tale.