The Silence of Mohammed by Salim Bachi

Author:Salim Bachi [Salim Bachi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782270485
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2013-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Say:

O unbelievers!

I do not serve that which you serve,

Nor do you serve Him Whom I serve:

Nor am I going to serve that which you serve,

Nor are you going to serve Him Whom I serve:

You shall have your religion

And I shall have my religion.

MY FATHER, al-Walid, thought highly of Mohammed, whom he’d watched grow up and who’d built the Ka’aba with him when the other Qurayshites refused to go near the enclosure because of the basking snake, cast there by the Devil. He regarded Mohammed as the equal of those often fearful, superstitious men, except that he wasn’t as wealthy and arrogant as them. Sometimes when he confided in me, he asked me why God hadn’t favoured him with the Message rather than Mohammed; after all, he was richer, older and wiser; and he had more descendants, like Abraham! I replied, and this infuriated him, that he was probably not as wise as he thought, if he had so many children.

My father hated men who were addicted to wine and women; one day, he attacked Hicham and was about to strike him in front of everyone because he’d dared to show his face drunk. My elder brother swallowed his anger and went home.

Al-Walid often went to the Ka’aba to listen to Mohammed recite the verses given to him by God.

He listened to him chanting the Qur’an and the people of Quraysh feared that he would fall into Mohammed’s hands;

Even Abu Jahl dreaded this happening. It would have sealed his defeat at the hands of his enemy.

So he paid him a visit.

“The people of Quraysh are collecting money for you.”

“I don’t need any money, Abu Jahl!”

“They think you don’t have enough to live on and that’s why you spend so much time with Abu al-Qasim.”

“Son of a she-dog! You …”

My father almost lost his temper.

“I have more money than Mohammed,” he said to calm his anger.

“Then you don’t need to listen to him spouting his yarns.”

Abu Jahl wasn’t a handsome man, far from it; desiccated by hatred, he was all bones; his hands were hard and his ears drooped like those of a donkey; his face was swarthy and coarse and his nose was hooked. When he spoke, he grinned unpleasantly; when he laughed, his teeth stuck out making him look like a braying she-camel. One extraordinary thing about this man of great nobility was that he painted his buttocks with a saffron concoction. Some people put forward the theory that he daubed his backside yellow out of a love for young boys, while others maintained that he was suffering from a disease and this was how he was treating it.

“Al-Walid, people say that you cling to Mohammed’s caftan and that you’re about to embrace his religion.”

My father detested Abu Jahl, even though they belonged to the same clan.

“You must speak out against Mohammed. That will reassure the Qurayshites. You cannot go on seeing him. Already our dear Abu Sofian is making an example of you all over Mecca.”

“What is he saying?”

“That you’re about to join Mohammed.

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