28

I sat close as my maid Burayra whispered to me what she had heard outside the door of Zaynab’s apartment. She was one of the few members of the household who had stood by my side as the scandal had spread and I counted her as my one true friend in what was becoming the darkest hour of my life. Her plump arms were soft as cushions and I would lean into them and weep every night as I awaited news of my fate. I had come to rely on Burayra’s persistent cheer to keep me from surrendering to despair. But tonight her chubby face was downturned with the weight of the words she carried.

“Zaynab bint Jahsh spoke in your favor with the Messenger,” she said, to my sincere surprise.

“Zaynab?” It was hard to believe that my greatest rival had spoke in my defense. And I suddenly felt exceedingly cheap and small for all the dark thoughts and bitterness I had harbored about her over the years. “Then I have been wrong about her. May Allah bless her.”

I would later learn that as the whispers of infidelity had grown louder, as the whiff of scandal had become a cloud of stench over the sacred household, some of Zaynab’s friends had told her to rejoice. The daughter of Abu Bakr, her chief rival in the harem, would soon be undone by the sword of shame, and Zaynab would become the principal wife, the most revered of the Mothers in the eyes of the community. My downfall would be the catalyst that would raise Zaynab’s sun in the eyes of God and man, and she would quickly fill the void in her husband’s betrayed and broken heart.

Such was the excited chattering of the other women of standing in Medina, women from powerful and noble families who had welcomed the wealthy Zaynab as one of their own even as they scorned me as an ambitious upstart. To these ladies, I had finally received my long- overdue comeuppance, and they were eagerly awaiting the final act in this sordid drama, a denouement that would end in my disgrace and divorce from the House of the Messenger. The fact that my end could be met under a pile of stones in the desert, the ancient punishment for adulterers, did not seem to concern these catty gossips. They were too busy savoring the spice of scandal to consider that a young girl’s life was at stake.

Perhaps not too long ago, Zaynab would have happily done the same, delighting in my fall. The humiliation of a woman whose childish games had brought the curtain of the veil down on all of them, cutting Zaynab and her sister-wives off from the world forever. She should have taken justified pleasure in my predicament as the proper retribution for a life of entitlement and unearned distinction as the Messenger’s only virgin wife.

And yet now that her rival was in the center of a maelstrom that would in all likelihood consume me, Zaynab felt no joy. She had never liked me, that was true, and my hold on Muhammad’s heart would always be a source of jealousy for her. But in her heart, she knew that I was innocent of the slander. For all my faults, my arrogance and quick temper, Zaynab knew that I was utterly besotted with the Messenger of God and would not willingly submit to the charms of any man, even one as dashing and virile as Safwan. No, in Zaynab’s eyes, I was not guilty of adultery. Idiocy, yes. Immaturity, yes. But she knew that I would not, could not, be unfaithful to Muhammad, any more than the moon could refuse to follow the sun.

And so it was that Zaynab bint Jahsh, my chief competitor for the heart of God’s Messenger, made a decision, one that would perplex her friends but one that was made because it was the right thing to do.

I listened intently as Burayra shared with me what she had heard.

“O MESSENGER OF GOD, may I speak?” Zaynab had been sitting by the Prophet’s side for some time before summoning up the courage to raise her voice.

The Prophet looked up at her, his eyes weary. He had sat by Ali for nearly half an hour without either man speaking. Zaynab had watched the two, more like father and son than cousins, as they gazed at each other as if communicating without words. To anyone outside the confines of the sacred household, the persistent silence would have seemed awkward. Yet those in the inner circle of the family had come to understand that the relationship between Muhammad and Ali was special. The normal rules of social propriety did not seem to exist between them, as if they were one person rather than two, part of each other in some mysterious way that was beyond the understanding of mere mortals.

“Speak, daughter of Jahsh, for I would hear your counsel,” the Prophet said softly.

Zaynab hesitated, afraid that she was inserting herself into matters that were dangerously outside her purview. But as she looked at the pain in her husband’s eyes, she knew what she had to do.

“Aisha and I have never been close, for many reasons that do not matter anymore,” she said, cautiously at first, as if every word were a step onto a deadly battlefield. And then the words came rushing from her lips, as if something greater than herself had taken control of Zaynab’s soul and was speaking through her. “But I can say this. She loves you and you alone. It is a passion that is so fiery that it consumes her with jealousy at times, to the grief of your other wives. But it is that very same passion that makes it impossible for her to have done the things she has been accused of.”

She stopped, almost afraid to breathe. The Prophet looked at her and she saw the flicker of gratitude in his eyes.

“Thank you, Zaynab.”

He spoke like a patient thanking a doctor for a desperately needed salve. Her words had lessened his pain, his isolation. But she could see that the torment of doubt still raged in his heart.

“Even if I believe Aisha, the scandal threatens to consume the Ummah like a wildfire,” the Messenger of God said with a sigh, “I don’t know what to do.”

Zaynab’s eyes fell on Ali, who looked down at his hands for a long moment before finally raising his head to speak.

“There are many women besides her,” Ali said gently.

Zaynab saw the Prophet stiffen as if he had been stung, and then tears welled in his black eyes. The Messenger looked at his younger cousin, who shrank back slightly from his gaze, as if in apology. And yet Ali did not retract his words.

In the years to come, Zaynab would remember this simple exchange between two men. A few words between family members dealing with an embarrassing scandal, words that would have had little impact beyond the moment had they been said by other men with more modest destinies.

Ali’s advice was well intentioned, she knew. His suggestion that Muhammad should divorce Aisha was likely being whispered by many other Companions. They were words that were said out of love for Muhammad and a desire to protect the honor of his household. But words are like sparks, and these would kindle a flame that would forever change the course of history.

I WAS STUNNED WHEN Burayra told me of Ali’s advice to divorce me. The Prophet’s cousin had betrayed me. The man who was closest to my husband’s heart had tried to use his powerful influence to have me expelled from the People of the House, have me cast out like a leper into the wilderness. He had judged me guilty without evidence and had cast his lot with the evil men and women who were spreading lies to destroy me.

I felt my heart begin to pound, and the blood rushed so quickly to my head that I reeled as if I had been slapped. In that one moment, every complex feeling I ever had toward this strange and unearthly young man coalesced into one emotion.

Hatred.

“Ali…” I said his name out loud with difficulty, my voice shaking with anger so hot that it burned my tongue white. And then I made an oath that would change everything. The course of my life and the destiny of Islam itself turned on the words that exploded from my lips like a raging flood, destroying everything in their path.