For in the midst of all this madness, I faced my own painful tragedy at the hands of the Bani Umayya. My fugitive brother, Muhammad, was finally captured by Muawiya’s men. The lord of Damascus wanted my brother sent to him so that he could face trial for his involvement in the events leading to Uthman’s death. But my proud and fiery brother taunted his captors with such intensity that they disobeyed Muawiya and killed him on the spot. Even as I write this, my hand shakes in horror at their vile actions. For the Umayyad commander added desecration to the crime of murder. The odious man took Muhammad’s corpse and threw it into the carcass of a dead mule, and then set it on fire.
I wept for many days when I heard the terrible news. And then, in the midst of my grief, Ramla, the daughter of Abu Sufyan who had married my husband, made a vicious gesture to rub salt in the wound. She ordered her servants to cook a lamb and then deliver the meat to my door, with a note saying that it had been roasted just like my brother.
I have not touched meat to this day. And I have never forgiven the heartless Ramla, nor will I look upon her again, even if we are reunited as Mothers of the Believers on Judgment Day.
LAST NIGHT THE MESSENGER of God came to me in a dream. He was clothed in green and surrounded by a golden light. I bowed my head, too ashamed to look at him. But then he took my face in his hands and raised my eyes to meet his.
“What will happen to me, my love?” I asked. “For I fear that when my time comes, my sins will grab hold of my soul and pull me into darkness.”
Muhammad smiled at me, his eyes twinkling with an ethereal radiance.
And then he said to me the words of the holy Qur’an that I had heard before, at a time when hope had been clouded by fear of death.
God is the Protector of those who have faith. From the depths of darkness, He will lead them forth into light.
And then he vanished and I awoke knowing that the day of my death was fast approaching.
AND SO WE COME to this moment at long last, beloved Abdallah, son of my sister.
What is faith?
It is a memory. Of a time when all was perfect in the world. When there was no fear and no judgment and no death.
It is a memory of a time before we were born, a beacon to guide us back from the end to the beginning, to the memory of where we came from.
It is a memory of a promise made before the earth was formed, before the stars glittered in the primordial sea.
A promise that says that we will remember what we have learned on this journey so that we may return full circle, the same and yet different.
Older. Wiser. Filled with compassion for others. And for ourselves.
What is faith?
It is the memory of love.
Afterword
I, Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr, add these closing words to my beloved aunt’s account of her life. It has been over a decade since the death of Aisha bint Abu Bakr, but I still remember her final moments as if they were yesterday. As her kinsman, I was one of the few men living who could look upon her face, which was still remarkably beautiful and largely untouched by the ravages of time. Her skin was still pale and soft like a baby’s, with only a few lines to mar her statuesque features. Even though she was nearly seventy years of age, her golden eyes were still vibrant and filled with life, as well as a hint of the sorrow that she had carried with her since the Battle of the Camel.
The final illness had been hard on her, her fingers cracking with pain, and yet she somehow managed to finish this record, driven by some need within her to tell her tale before others told it for her. When she finished the book, she gave it to me and then retired to her apartment, from which she would never emerge again. As her illness took hold of her, my mother, Asma, and I spent the final hours at her side, even as thousands of believers, both men and women, gathered outside the Masjid to pray for her recovery.
I remember how frightened she looked as the moment of death approached, and it was deeply painful for me to see a woman who had always been so strong curled up in terror like a child. I reminded her that she had nothing to fear, that she was the beloved of the Beloved of God, and that whatever mistakes she had made would be forgiven. And yet she seemed oblivious to my words, and she muttered over and over again, “Astaghfirullah”-“I seek the pardon of God.”
And then, as the sun began to set and the sky turned the crimson hue that had once been the color of her hair, I saw Aisha’s breath slow and I knew that the time had come. My mother, Asma, her elder sister, took Aisha’s hand in hers and squeezed reassuringly.
And then I heard the wind rise outside and the heavy curtains that hung on my aunt’s door began to rustle. And for an instant, I could have sworn that I heard a voice tinkling through the veil. A gentle voice that called out the name given to Aisha by the Messenger of God.
Humayra.
It was a name that had not been spoken aloud since Muhammad’s death, may God’s blessings and peace be upon him. Perhaps I imagined it, but if I did so, I was not alone. My aunt stirred upon hearing the voice in the wind. And it was as if the memory of joy returned to her, for Aisha’s fearful prayers stopped. She looked across the room, to the curtained section of her apartment where the Prophet, my grandfather, Abu Bakr, and the Caliph Umar were buried.
And then I saw her smile, her face as radiant as that of a girl on her wedding night, and she spoke to someone whom neither my mother nor I could see.
“My love…” Aisha said.
And she was gone.
We buried her in Jannat al-Baqi, the cemetery that is now the resting place of most of those who knew and lived beside the Messenger of God. With Aisha’s passing, there were few left on earth who had seen and spoken with our beloved Prophet, and all that was left were the accounts of his life, the hadith, they had so meticulously related for future generations.
Over the past ten years much has changed, and not for the better. By the grace of God, the Muslim empire continues to grow and now stretches from Kairouan in North Africa to the Indus River. Constantinople still stands, but the Muslims remain committed to taking the seat of Christendom. For now, we are content to control the islands of Rhodes and Crete, from where the believers will expand into the northern realms of the Romans, insha-Allah, if God wills.
Yet even as our empire eclipses those of Alexander and Caesar, there is a growing sickness at its heart. For since the death of Ali, whom, I am ashamed to say, I fought against in my youth, the spiritual core of the Muslim leadership has been replaced by men of cunning and zeal but questionable morals. The Caliph Muawiya succeeded in bringing order and prosperity after years of civil war, and his rule was for the most part benign and wise. And yet under his command, practicality and expediency became the primary motivators in dealing with affairs of state, and the ideals of our Holy Prophet degenerated into mere platitudes on the lips of corrupt governors. I grieve to say that the Muslims now fight for wealth and glory rather than in pursuit of justice and a better world for mankind.
I did not object to the rule of Muawiya in his lifetime, and I prayed for him upon his death. And yet he, who was famed as the great uniter of the Muslim nation, made one terrible mistake that would plunge our Ummah into its second civil war. In the final years of Muawiya’s life, the love of fatherhood overcame his wisdom. The Caliph appointed his hated son Yazid to succeed him, a youth who was better known for drinking and carousing than for statesmanship, and many among the Muslims were horrified. Muawiya had taken great pains as a leader to publicly uphold the laws of Islam and respect for the Prophet, but his worthless son now openly used his inherited throne to engage in debauchery and composed blasphemous poems denying the truth of the holy Qur’an.