Mother Of the Believers by Kamran Pasha

Author:Kamran Pasha [Pasha, Kamran]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prose_contemporary

Book Three. Birth of a Nation

1 Medina-AD 625

We buried the mutilated dead on the slopes of Uhud and returned to Medina, where news of our loss sent waves of grief and panic among the people. Suddenly small voices could be heard wondering why God had abandoned us on the battlefield, unlike at Badr, where He had sent angels to our aid. Soon the voices become louder and some began to question whether our first victory had been merely the product of dumb luck and there had not been any divine intervention in the first place.

The grumbling was silenced by the revelation of verses in the Qur’an that placed the blame for our defeat squarely on our own shoulders. Had the archers not been overcome with greed and fled their posts, victory would have been certain. We could not blame God for our own failings. It was an important lesson, and the people began to see Uhud as a sign from God that His favor was bestowed on the Muslims not because of who they were but because of how they acted. And this point soon became another way to differentiate us from our increasingly antagonistic Jewish neighbors. The Prophet warned that some of the Jews-although, he stressed, not all-had come to see themselves as deserving of God’s blessings as a birthright, without any corresponding moral obligations on their own end, and this had led to their downfall throughout history. Islam had come to erase that sense of tribal entitlement and replace it with individual moral responsibility.

The Jews did not deign to respond to this new charge against them, but their leaders made it clear that Muhammad’s humiliation at Uhud should serve as a reminder that the future of the oasis was not as clear as the Muslims would like to believe. And they were right.

It was the realization of our precarious position in the aftermath of defeat that forced the Messenger to hold a secret a council of his closest Companions. A handful of the most influential members of our community met inside my tiny apartment, with guards placed in the courtyard of the Masjid to ward off any eavesdroppers.

My father pulled his beard, which had begun to turn from gray to cloudy white.

“Now that the Meccans have tasted victory, they think we are weak,” he said grimly. “It will not be long before they attack Medina again with a stronger force.”

Umar grunted in assent.

“We must make new allies among the Arab tribes if we wish to mount a defense,” he said, leaving unspoken the obvious fact that our Jewish neighbors could not be relied upon to uphold their end of the treaty if Abu Sufyan invaded.

Ali leaned forward.

“The Bedouin tribe of Bani Amir is well armed, and they have no love for Mecca.”

I wrinkled my forehead at the mention of the unfamiliar tribe, and then I remembered that the Bani Amir were shepherds who brought their flocks to pasture in Medina every spring. Their wool was actually quite decent,

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