The crowd murmured its assent and I saw Hind smile. And then I noticed that there was a friend among the gathered nobles.
The Messenger’s uncle Abbas rose. While he had not embraced our faith, he was always kind to Muslims and we counted on him to be a voice of reason among the lords. A role that he was clearly alone in tonight.
“It is time for patience, not hasty deeds,’” Abbas said, his silky voice seeking to quench the fire that had been ignited by Abu Jahl.
But his sympathies were an open secret among the chiefs, and Abu Jahl turned to face Abbas with a cold eye.
“Is it patience that stays your hand, or cowardice?”
Abbas bristled with the pride of his clan, the Bani Hashim. He walked right up to Abu Jahl until their beards were almost touching.
“You dare call me a coward? How much courage does it take to kill an old woman tied to a tree?”
Abu Jahl’s handsome smile suddenly curled into a cruel grimace. A dead silence fell over the crowd. For an instant, I thought he would draw his dagger and plunge it into Abbas’s chest to avenge this open attack on his honor.
And then Hind stepped between the men, her long elegant fingers positioned on the chests of the adversaries as she separated them gracefully.
“Enough! Save your rage for our common enemy, Muhammad.”
Amr ibn al-As, the Meccan envoy with the honeyed tongue who had unsuccessfully sought to repatriate the Muslim refugees from Abyssinia, politely raised his hand. I saw that it was covered in silver rings with expensive stones-garnets, carnelian, and amber.
“But alas, what can we do against Muhammad? He is protected by the clan of Hashim.”
Even as he spoke, all eyes fell on another member of the Messenger’s tribe, his uncle Abu Lahab. Fat, bald, and perpetually sweating, he always reminded me of a garden slug, although with a less appealing personality.
Abu Lahab snorted in contempt at the thought of his wayward nephew. Unlike his half brothers Abu Talib and Abbas, Abu Lahab despised Muhammad, may God’s blessings and peace be upon him, and had made no secret of his belief that the Messenger was simply creating a new religion to monopolize the city’s lucrative Pilgrimage trade.
“The sanctuary of our clan will not last forever,” Abu Lahab said. “My brother Abu Talib is old. When he dies, I will lead the Bani Hashim and will revoke his protection.”
Abbas gave his brother a contemptuous stare, which Abu Lahab met with studied indifference.
Abu Jahl shook his head.
“We cannot wait that long,” he said bluntly. “The tribes will grow weary of his disruption of the Pilgrimage. They will take their pilgrims-and their gold-to Taif and the temple of the goddess Allat.”
Abu Jahl had chosen his words well. Taif was a prosperous trading center to the southeast, on the caravan route to Yemen. The denizens of that settlement had long envied Mecca’s preeminence and had built a sprawling shrine to the “daughter of Allah” to rival and, they hoped, one day eclipse the Kaaba. If Muhammad’s preaching against their gods made the annual Pilgrimage an inconvenience and source of turmoil for the desert tribes, it made sense that many would switch their allegiance to the goddess. And take their trade with them.
Seeing that he had hit he proper nerve with the other chiefs, Abu Jahl smiled.
“We must make a decisive move now,” he said forcefully. “Muhammad must die.”
There was an immediate uproar as various members of the Assembly shouted their opinions on this extremely controversial suggestion. I could see Hind smiling, her eyes glowing. She stood motionless in the middle of the loud debate, like the heart of a whirlwind. There was something both terrifying and mesmerizing about her at that moment, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.
Finally Abu Sufyan raised both his hands and spoke loudly, asserting his authority over the tumult.
“No,” he said firmly. “If we attack Muhammad, his clan will be forced to avenge him against the murderer. It will start a blood feud that will consume Mecca.”
He glanced at Abbas, who nodded coldly. Abu Lahab looked to his feet, knowing that no matter how much he wished it were otherwise, what Abu Sufyan said was true. His cousins in the Bani Hashim would slaughter anyone who attacked Muhammad.
Abu Sufyan’s calm voice served to quell the passion of the crowd, to Abu Jahl’s clear annoyance. But the weight of his words had put an end to this dangerous line of talk. Abu Sufyan, perhaps better than any of them, understood the threat posed by Muhammad’s movement, but he also knew that killing him would be like using oil to put out a kitchen fire.
Satisfied that he had cut off Abu Jahl’s provocations before they could grow like weeds in a garden, killing the fruits of wisdom that kept the peace in Mecca, he stepped back.
And then Hind spoke, and everything changed.
8
Why do you fear the spilling of a little blood, my husband?” Hind said in a husky voice. “No nation can stand that will not pay the price of order.”
All eyes were on her as she moved toward her husband. Abu Sufyan saw the hungry yet terrified gaze of the crowd on his beautiful wife and his face reddened at her blatant defiance of his authority.
“A wise merchant always weighs the price with a cold heart,” he said, an edge entering his voice. “He does not allow himself to be swayed by the emotions of a woman.”
Hind turned to face her husband and I saw a dangerous look in her eyes. I saw her right hand move back as if to slap him, and my eyes fell on a golden armlet that wrapped around her olive-colored forearm. It looked Egyptian in design, two snakes curling around her wrist, their jaws meeting behind her hand, a glittering ruby held between their savage fangs. It was beautiful and terrifying, much like Hind herself.
But if she had desired to strike her husband in public for his de-meaning words, Hind thought the better of it, and she merely turned her back on him in open contempt.
Seeing the spell her sultry voice had cast on the men and their looks of despairing desire as she moved, Abbas walked to the center of the room to regain their attention.
“Abu Sufyan is right,” he said loudly. “Killing Muhammad will prove too costly. Even if the blood feud were settled, his followers would proclaim him a martyr. A ghost is the most dangerous adversary, for it can never be killed.”
Abu Sufyan nodded in assent, although he could not completely hide his irritation that his wife’s gambit had allowed one of his rivals to state his primary case. But before he could add a word in support of Abbas, Abu Jahl clapped loudly, his hands coming together in slow, mocking strokes.
“Spoken like a true advocate for your nephew.” he sneered. “I think it is safe to say that your loyalties lie with your kinsman and not with the people of Mecca. And it is the people of Mecca who are suffering under the lies of this sorcerer. Our city cries for a hero, a man who stands tall and does what needs to be done, without fear of consequences.”
This high-flown but calculated appeal to idealism struck an immediate chord with the Arabs, a people who prided themselves on their epic stories of heroes who risked their lives for the honor of the tribe. Abu Sufyan watched in frustration as the fire of aggression he had extinguished began to blaze brightly again.
It was a shift in sentiment that Hind sensed as well. She raised her hands above her head, posing like the alluring idol of Astarte, the Phoenician fertility goddess, which stood in the Sanctuary.
“Who among you is a real man? A man who does not fear retribution? A man who will stand for Mecca and the religion of our fathers, even if it means his own death? A man who prefers the honored sleep of eternity to the shameful comfort of a coward’s bed? Is there no such man among you?”