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Ali stared straight ahead, as if gazing into eternity with his otherworldly vision. He did not seem to notice Abu Bakr come up to him, and the elderly minister finally laid a hand on Ali’s shoulder and shook him as if awakening him from a reverie.

“Tell me,” Abu Bakr said simply.

Ali blinked several times, but his green eyes still flickered with confusion. And when he spoke, his voice sounded odd and distant.

“They say the Messenger-may God’s blessings and peace be upon him-has passed away,” Ali said, confirming Abu Bakr’s worst fears. And then he returned his gaze to the horizon. “But that is strange…because I can still see him…”

Abu Bakr felt a chill go down his spine. And then a loud shout caused him to turn his head and he saw that Umar was standing on the minbar, the small platform from where the Messenger had given his sermons. He brandished a terrifying sword above his head and called for the attention of the believers, who soon massed around the towering figure.

“It is a lie!” Umar bellowed, his eyes bulging with madness. “The Messenger lives! He has only gone to commune with his Lord! Even as he did when he rose to heaven on Lailat-ul-Mi’raj!”

The crowd rumbled at Umar’s words, and many cried out in support of his claim. The Messenger of God was not dead. His soul was traveling through the heavenly spheres as it had done before and would shortly return to revive his body.

It was a dream and a fantasy, and it was what they wanted to hear. And yet Abu Bakr had long ago learned the painful lesson that wishful thinking and reality were often desperately at odds.

He turned and stepped inside his daughter’s home to see the terrible truth for himself.

I SAT IN THE corner, shaking violently as the other Mothers gathered around me, their loud wails tearing the hole in my heart even wider. And then a shadow fell across the threshold and I saw my father enter, hunched and weary with age. His eyes immediately fell upon the figure of the Prophet, which lay on my bedspread covered in his favorite green cloak.

Somehow I managed to get to my feet and run into his arms. He held me tight as I wept like a little girl, patting my hair gently as he used to do when I would skin my knee racing down the streets of Mecca a lifetime ago.

And then he stepped back and let me go, his attention fully on the unmoving outline of the Messenger’s body. My father approached the shrouded corpse slowly, and then, with great reverence, he lifted the cloak from my husband’s face. I watched through blurred eyes as Abu Bakr leaned close and checked the vein in Muhammad’s neck for a pulse and then his chest for any fleeting heartbeat. Abu Bakr finally put his ear close to my husband’s lips in search of any sign of breath. My father finally sighed and lifted his head, gazing down at the body of the man who had changed his life and the world.

And then he leaned down and kissed the Messenger on the forehead.

“Dearer than my mother and my father, you have tasted the death that God has decreed for you,” he said as tears streamed down his wrinkled cheeks. “No death after this will ever befall you.”

My father placed the cloak back over the body and turned to walk out. Not knowing what else to do and not wishing to spend another moment in the grief-stricken company of the other wives, I wrapped my face behind my veil and followed him into the courtyard.

The first thing I saw was Umar, waving a sword from the pulpit and shouting like a madman, his voice became increasingly hoarse from his cries.

“Those who say the Messenger of God is dead are like the Children of Israel, who proclaimed Moses dead when he climbed the mountain to speak with his Lord! And like those faithless cowards at Sinai, those who spread the lie against their Prophet will be killed! We will cut off the hands and feet of the traitors!”

My father stepped forward and called out to his friend, who had by now clearly taken leave of his senses.

“Gently, Umar. Calm yourself.”

But Umar ignored him. He continued ranting and raving about the various creative tortures he would impose on any man who dared to say that Muhammad had died.

My father shook his head sadly and then raised his voice, his measured words booming with authority.

“Listen to me, my brothers,” Abu Bakr called out, and suddenly all attention was upon him. I saw the terrified and grief-stricken people of Medina look upon my father, the first adult man to embrace Islam and Muhammad’s childhood friend and closest adviser. Their eyes were pleading for him to end their pain, to show them light and lead them out of the darkness of uncertainty that covered them from all sides.

And then my father spoke the words by which he would be forever remembered, the words he had been born to say.

“If anyone worships Muhammad, know that Muhammad is dead. If anyone worships God, know that God lives and will never die.”

A deep silence fell upon the crowd as the awesome, undeniable Truth was said at last aloud.

And then my father recited a verse from the holy Qur’an that had been revealed years before, during the aftermath of Uhud, when the Messenger had nearly met his death on the battlefield. It was a verse that I knew by heart, but it had somehow been forgotten in the midst of the madness of the past few hours.

Muhammad is just a messenger

And messengers have passed away before him.

If he dies or is killed

Will you turn on your heels?

Whoso turns on his heels will not hurt God.

And God will reward the thankful.

The Muslims gazed at one another in wonder, as if they had never heard these verses before. I saw the desperation in their eyes fade away, replaced by deep sadness that was nonetheless buttressed by the indomitable power of faith. And then I heard a terrible cry like that of a cat being strangled and my eyes flew to Umar. The power of God’s Word had penetrated the cloud of his madness, and he was standing bereft and alone on the minbar. And then the sword slipped out of his grasp and landed on the earthen floor of the Masjid with a clang. Umar fell to his knees and buried his mighty face in his hands and wept like a child.

As the truth finally sank into our souls, the claws of panic released their grip on our hearts, and then the flow of tears began in earnest.

Tears of loss, but not of despair.

We knew now that the journey of Muhammad had come to an end.

But the journey of Islam was just beginning.

Book Four. Birth of an Empire

1

Muhammad was dead, but the Ummah was very much alive and in desperate need of leadership. The next several hours were chaotic, as word spread through the oasis of the Prophet’s passing and various factions attempted to assert their own agendas. And then word came to the Masjid that the tribal elders of the oasis were gathering in the ancient meeting hall of the Bani Sa’idah, where they had forged their ever-shifting allegiances in the days before Islam. The old clans of Medina were apparently planning to choose one of their own for the leadership of the community, and they had pointedly met without inviting any of the immigrants from Mecca, those who had stood by the Prophet from the beginning.

Upon hearing this, Umar flew into a new rage and grabbed my father by the arm, urging him to go and intervene before a decision was reached that would tear apart the Ummah. A Companion named Abu Ubayda, a respected Muslim from the tribe of Quraysh, joined them as they turned to face this new crisis. As my father and the other men hurried along to the old meeting hall, a thought flashed through my mind that Ali would likely have desired to attend as well. He had retired to grieve in his house with Fatima and their sons, and Talha and Zubayr were with him. For an instant, I wondered if I should send a messenger to Ali’s house to inform the others of the tribal conference under way. And then I felt that old flash of bitterness at Ali’s betrayal, and the thought quickly fled my mind.