Read Online After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam by Lesley Hazleton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lesley Hazleton
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oratory and ghastly massacres to come, the enduring irony is that “absolute” truth is the one thing that can never be established. It does not exist even in science; how much less so in history.
All we know for sure is that in the grip of fever, blinded by those agonizing headaches that made every sound seem as if it were piercing into his skull, Muhammad was no longer in any condition to impose his will. The pen and paper never arrived, and by dawn the next morning he was so weak he could barely move.
He knew then that the end was near because he made one last request, and this one was granted. He was to be washed with seven pails of water from seven different wells, he said, and though he did not explain it, all his wives were certainly aware that this was part of the ritual for washing a corpse. They washed him, and once he was in a state of ritual purity, he asked to be taken across the courtyard to morning prayers in the mosque.
It took two men, Ali and his uncle Abbas, to support him, one on either side of him, his arms around their necks. The few yards from Aisha’s chamber to the mosque itself must have seemed an infinite distance, and the shade of the mosque an exquisite relief from the blinding sun. When they reached it, Muhammad gestured to be seated beside the pulpit, where he could watch as his old friend Abu Bakr led the prayers in his place.
Those who were there remembered the Prophet smiling as the voice of his loyal companion sounded through the building. They saidhis face was radiant, though there is no knowing if it was the radiance of faith or the radiance of fever and impending death. Perhaps it was the radiance of their own faith, of their gratitude at seeing him there. They watched as he sat and listened to the chanting of the words he had first heard from the angel Gabriel, and persuaded themselves that it was not the last time. But once the prayers were over and Ali and Abbas had carried him back to Aisha’s chamber, Muhammad had only a few hours left.
Some were more clearsighted than others. “I swear by God that I saw death in the Prophet’s face,” Ali’s uncle told him after they had settled the sick man back onto his pallet and left Aisha’s chamber. Now was the last chance to clarify the matter of succession. “Let us go back and ask. If authority be with us, we shall know it, and if it be with others, we will ask him to direct them to treat us well.”
But Ali would hear nothing of it. “By God I will not,” he said. “If it is withheld from us, none after him will give it to us.” Not even Ali, it seemed, was ready for too much clarity.
By then, in any case, it was too late. Even as the two men were talking, Muhammad lapsed into unconsciousness, and this time he did not recover. By noon of that Monday, June 8 in the year 632, he was dead.
He died, Aisha would say, with his head on her breast—or, as the original Arabic has it with vivid delicacy, “between my lungs and my lips.” That is the Sunni version. But the Shia say that Muhammad’s head lay not on Aisha’s breast but on Ali’s. It was Ali’s arms that cradled the dying prophet in his last moments, they say, and Ali who heard the Prophet, with his dying breath, repeat his chilling last words three times: “Oh God, have pity on those who will succeed me.”
Who held the dying prophet matters. Whose ears heard that final breath, whose skin it touched, whose arms supported him as he passed from life to death matter with particular intensity. It is as though his last breath had carried his spirit, leaping from his body at the precise moment of death to enter the soul of the one who held him. That was the person who held not only the past but the future of Islam in his arms. Or hers.
chapter 5
N O WORDS WERE NEEDED TO CARRY THE NEWS. T HE WAILING did that. First Aisha, then all the other wives broke into a terrible, piercing howl that sounded for all the world like a wounded animal hiding in the bush to die.
All we know for sure is that in the grip of fever, blinded by those agonizing headaches that made every sound seem as if it were piercing into his skull, Muhammad was no longer in any condition to impose his will. The pen and paper never arrived, and by dawn the next morning he was so weak he could barely move.
He knew then that the end was near because he made one last request, and this one was granted. He was to be washed with seven pails of water from seven different wells, he said, and though he did not explain it, all his wives were certainly aware that this was part of the ritual for washing a corpse. They washed him, and once he was in a state of ritual purity, he asked to be taken across the courtyard to morning prayers in the mosque.
It took two men, Ali and his uncle Abbas, to support him, one on either side of him, his arms around their necks. The few yards from Aisha’s chamber to the mosque itself must have seemed an infinite distance, and the shade of the mosque an exquisite relief from the blinding sun. When they reached it, Muhammad gestured to be seated beside the pulpit, where he could watch as his old friend Abu Bakr led the prayers in his place.
Those who were there remembered the Prophet smiling as the voice of his loyal companion sounded through the building. They saidhis face was radiant, though there is no knowing if it was the radiance of faith or the radiance of fever and impending death. Perhaps it was the radiance of their own faith, of their gratitude at seeing him there. They watched as he sat and listened to the chanting of the words he had first heard from the angel Gabriel, and persuaded themselves that it was not the last time. But once the prayers were over and Ali and Abbas had carried him back to Aisha’s chamber, Muhammad had only a few hours left.
Some were more clearsighted than others. “I swear by God that I saw death in the Prophet’s face,” Ali’s uncle told him after they had settled the sick man back onto his pallet and left Aisha’s chamber. Now was the last chance to clarify the matter of succession. “Let us go back and ask. If authority be with us, we shall know it, and if it be with others, we will ask him to direct them to treat us well.”
But Ali would hear nothing of it. “By God I will not,” he said. “If it is withheld from us, none after him will give it to us.” Not even Ali, it seemed, was ready for too much clarity.
By then, in any case, it was too late. Even as the two men were talking, Muhammad lapsed into unconsciousness, and this time he did not recover. By noon of that Monday, June 8 in the year 632, he was dead.
He died, Aisha would say, with his head on her breast—or, as the original Arabic has it with vivid delicacy, “between my lungs and my lips.” That is the Sunni version. But the Shia say that Muhammad’s head lay not on Aisha’s breast but on Ali’s. It was Ali’s arms that cradled the dying prophet in his last moments, they say, and Ali who heard the Prophet, with his dying breath, repeat his chilling last words three times: “Oh God, have pity on those who will succeed me.”
Who held the dying prophet matters. Whose ears heard that final breath, whose skin it touched, whose arms supported him as he passed from life to death matter with particular intensity. It is as though his last breath had carried his spirit, leaping from his body at the precise moment of death to enter the soul of the one who held him. That was the person who held not only the past but the future of Islam in his arms. Or hers.
chapter 5
N O WORDS WERE NEEDED TO CARRY THE NEWS. T HE WAILING did that. First Aisha, then all the other wives broke into a terrible, piercing howl that sounded for all the world like a wounded animal hiding in the bush to die.
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