“My brothers, please, lower your voices,” Abu Bakr said, glancing at the Messenger, who was struggling to speak but was unable to form the words.
And then Talha rose and took Ali’s side.
“Do as the Messenger says,” he said quietly, but there was an edge I had never heard before in my gentle cousin’s voice.
Your father, Zubayr, who was Talha’s closest friend, inserted himself into the debate, taking the opposing position.
“Umar has a point. If the fever sways his words, the people will be misguided,” he said grimly.
As the argument grew heated and voices rose in fury, I glanced at my husband, who was now fully awake and aware of the rapidly deteriorating situation. And I saw that his face had become hard and angry, and his black eyes blazed with a fury that frightened me.
“Enough!” the Messenger said, his voice echoing like a blast of thunder in the small room. The men immediately fell silent, but I saw that their tempers were still smoldering. Muawiya, ever quick to gravitate toward authority, was at my husband’s side in an instant, pen and paper in hand to record whatever commands his master issued.
There was a tense moment of silence as we waited for what we assumed would be his instructions about the succession of leadership. Would he order the Muslims to obey Ali, even though many would do so halfheartedly? Would he appoint my father or Umar to take charge and risk forever denying his own bloodline a claim to authority? Or would he devise another solution that satisfied all parties in the Muslim Ummah, an answer that only a visionary statesman like Muhammad could find amidst the chaos of competing interests?
After a long moment spent looking at the men he had led to victory, men whom he loved like children and who had now been behaving like children, Muhammad finally shook his head and sighed wearily. Muawiya leaned closer, but my husband waved him away.
“Leave me. All of you,” he said with a trace of bitterness. And then the Messenger of God rolled over in bed and closed his eyes, refusing to divulge his final testament to a people who had proven unworthy.
I saw the fire of contention go out in the Companions’ eyes and they all looked ashamed. One by one, the men who held the future of the Ummah in their hands walked out with their heads bowed, leaving the wives alone with their sick husband.
I have often wondered what the Messenger of God would have said that night and whether his words could have spared us the horror and the bloodshed that was to come. Looking back, I realize that of all the mistakes the Muslims made in the course of our history, none was graver than the pain we caused an old man that night, a man who loved his people and who wanted for them only peace.
45 June 8, AD 632
On the seventh day of his illness, the Messenger awoke in the middle of the morning and looked around at the Mothers in confusion.
“Whose day is it?” he asked softly, his voice barely audible.
Zaynab bint Jahsh took his hand in hers and smiled. Even in the midst of his raging fever, he remained concerned that each of his wives be treated equally.
“Mine, O Messenger of God,” she said.
The Prophet looked at her for a long moment as if trying to remember her name. And then he gazed around at us again.
“And tomorrow?”
Ramla stepped forward.
“Mine, my husband.”
The Prophet’s eyes fell on me and I saw the confusion in his face fade.
“And the day after?”
And then I and the other women understood. Even as his mind burned with fever, even as the Angel of Death hovered in terrifying proximity, the one thing Muhammad cared about was when he would be able to spend the day with me, the most beloved of his wives.
I felt tears pouring down my cheeks and I could not speak. And then the elderly Sawda put a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“The next day is mine. But I give my day freely to my sister Aisha.”
And then one by one, each of the other wives said the same thing. I looked at them in shock, and my tears now flowed in gratitude.
My husband tried to rise to his feet, but he could not.
“Help me…go to Aisha…” he said, his voice cracked and trembling.
Ali and Abbas, the Prophet’s closest living kinsmen, were the only men with us that day. They stepped forward and helped the Prophet to his feet, holding him up by the shoulders as they gently guided him out of Maymuna’s house.
There was an immediate roar from the Masjid courtyard, where hundreds of believers had held a vigil since the news of the Prophet’s illness. The faithful cried out to him like babies calling out for their mother. The Messenger smiled weakly at them but did not have even the strength to raise his hands to wave in acknowledgment. And then a terrible silence fell over the crowd as they watched the Messenger limp toward my house. It was a shocking and tragic sight, and I saw many grown men weep openly at the Prophet’s deterioration.
The Messenger looked at his people and tried to smile encouragingly, but I could see the sadness in his eyes. This was not how he wished them to remember him, and yet he was a mortal man and no more immune to the ravages of time than the least of his followers.
Ali and Abbas led the Prophet into my room and helped him lie down on the soft lambskin mattress where we had spent so many nights wrapped in love. The moment his back touched the soft, familiar fur lining, I saw him breathe deeper and the muscles in his face relax.
Whatever else happened now, he was home.
I sat down beside him and brushed his hair. He looked at me with deep love and then ran his fingers across my cheek. And then he stirred, as if finally remembering something he had long forgotten.
“Is there any money left in the house?” he asked, and I heard a strange urgency in his voice.
“A few gold coins. Nothing more,” I said, surprised by his question. The Prophet did not need money to purchase anything. He was the master and lord of the Arab nation, and whatever he desired his followers would have gladly given him without recompense.
But he was, as usual, not thinking about himself.
“Give them to the poor,” he said, and I saw in his eyes that he wished his request to be carried out immediately.
I rose and went to a corner of my apartment. Under a loose stone I had buried a handful of coins that were the sum total of the wealth my husband, the king of Arabia, possessed.
I took the gold and saw Ali step forward, ready to take the coins from me and fulfill the Messenger’s wishes. But I turned away from him and placed the coins in the hands of Abbas, who nodded and left to hand them out to the poor souls who still gathered at the Bench seeking alms.
I could feel Ali’s intense green eyes on me, and then he turned and followed Abbas out without a word.
A FEW HOURS LATER, I heard the melodious voice of Bilal echoing in the courtyard as he summoned the believers to noon prayers. At the lyrical calls of the Azan, my husband’s eyes opened and he rose from the bed. I looked at him in surprise and saw that his face was bathed in sweat and his graying hair shimmered with perspiration. And then I clapped my hands in joy and praised God.
The fever had broken. The Messenger of God had recovered.
I went to his side and wiped his brow with the hem of my skirt. I urged him to lie back down and rest. But he ignored me and changed into a clean white robe and reached for a stone pitcher from which he performed his ritual ablutions.
And then my husband stepped outside, standing tall and erect like the man he had always been. The worshipers had already gathered in straight lines behind Abu Bakr, who had led the prayers at the Masjid in the Prophet’s absence. But at the surprising sight of the Prophet emerging from my room, looking refreshed and recuperated, there was a tumult of shouts as the believers broke ranks and hurried to surround the man who had become the center of their whole world.