Fury is Born (Book 1 of Hanthalah)

Chapter 13

          "Clean my toes, peasants," Mundhir waved at us with the golden chalice he'd nicked off the Qurayshi baggage train. He was reclined atop a bale of hay, as though it were a throne. He had been acting high and mighty since he recovered the spoil from the battlefield. "Witness the trappings of my wealth and weep."

        "What was that sound?" I asked 'Amr, feigning surprise. "Oh, it's Mundhir. Couldn't see you over that grain of rice."

        'Amr smirked grimly, continuing to fletch his arrows.

        "Don't speak to your king in that manner, peasant," Mundhir boomed in his most authoritative tone. "Or I'll shove this cup up your – "

         "There is no king but Allah," 'Amr chided with genuine zeal. He looked up from his work to shoot Mundhir a glare of reprove. 

         "Allah sent me in his place," Mundhir sniffed inside of the chalice and recoiled.

          "I don't remember sending anyone," I retorted.

          It had been three or so months since the fateful day of Uhud. None of us had fully recovered from our harrowing experience of the battle. The reserved, haunted look in our eyes was testimony to that. But we were not eager to admit weakness. Instead of letting our minds wander off to the mortifying images of blood on sand and hills of corpses, we filled in the awkward silences with uneasy humor and forced banter.

         The entire community had not yet recovered from Uhud. It had been a disaster in which many had lost their lives, and many more their loved ones and dearest of friends.

          I remember our sullen return to the city days afterward, many of us limping or clutching gushing wounds. Some had gone to battle with all their limbs intact but returned with one or two of them missing. Others lost their eyes or wore fresh scars on foreheads and cheeks.

         The most heart wrenching scene of all was that of little children and skittish women hurrying out of their homes in order to inquire over the fates of fathers and brothers and sons.

          "Where is Mos'ab?" one woman demanded, her eyes skimming through the ranks of the survivors.

         No one dared meet her eyes.

        "Where is Mos'ab?" she repeated, more frantic this time.

       One man limped to her; his head was lowered.

       "Your uncle and brother have earned martyrdom," he informed her in a sympathetic voice.

       "To Allah we belong and to him we will return," she greeted the news with concern. "Where is Mos'ab?"

       The man wiped tears from his eyes and stuttered.

        "He...he didn't..."

        The woman began shaking her head vigorously and took several steps backward. Her face twisted in agony and her lips quivered, forming the word 'no' over and over. Finally, she opened her mouth and let out a horrible howl of torment that I felt in my very bones. She dug her nails into her cheeks, clawing and raking as her awful wailing stilled us all, filling our hearts with more dread and affliction.

        Even Muhammad did not return unscathed by the horror of war. There was a piece of cloth wrapped around his forehead where he was wounded, crusted with blood. The same haunted look was apparent in his eyes when burying his fallen uncle. Hamza's corpse looked as though savaged by a pack of wild dogs, torn and tattered.

      When he was laid to rest beneath Yathribi soil, Muhammad reverently patted the wood of the coffin and spoke of his uncle's great deeds.

       "I saw angels washing Hamza in paradise," he said stooped over the coffin, restrained tears glistening in his eyes, his husky voice heavy, deep with sorrow.

       For days, we were not summoned to Bilal's shed nor to the practice yard with Zaid. We would not dare venture out of our stable, lest we risk interacting with a doubtless ashamed 'Umar. I did not know what to tell him in the inevitable event of our crossing paths.

        The community languished in grief. And I felt more than a pang of guilt that I had contributed to a great deal of this misery and anguish. If I hadn't been so weak...if I hadn't been such a coward, perhaps all these people would still live. How could I ever dream of pounding Habib and Ezra to their knees when I was but a petulant boy? How could I ever exact bloody vengeance on Muhammad ibn Maslamah when I was but a weakling?

         What troubled me even more was the girl. So sweet, so serene, so lovely. I was responsible for the deaths of dozens, and all I could think about was a girl. The guilt gnawed at me irritably, keeping me awake at night, as the image of her silky skin, full lips and wide, laughing eyes hung in my mind's eye.

         On the rare occasions I wandered off to sleep, in between the appalling nightmares of sprawled and screaming horses, strewn corpses of camels and disemboweled warriors, it was her image that calmed my beating heart and stilled my distress. It was the memory of her sweet giggle that kept me tethered to reality. I would often wake sweating and puffing from my nightmares or smiling and sighing pleasantly from less than appropriate dreams.

          Al-'Uzza was the goddess of all matters concerning the heart. I prayed to her daily to reunite me with this mysterious girl. Every day, to no avail.

          But as the fate weaved by al-Manat would have it, her giggle would grace my ears again.

          The humbling defeat at Uhud had emboldened the more outspoken Jews opposed to the Muslim hegemony of Yathrib. Scuffles were sparked in every marketplace or road. Many a poet rose up and riled the masses against the regime, seeking to capitalize on what seemed like a moment of weakness for Muslims, muhajir and Ansari alike.

         But, in hindsight, the Battle of Uhud had done more to forge a bond of brotherhood, a sense of kinship, between Muslims of different backgrounds than years of neighborhood and shared belief.

          Long have I lived and much I have seen. And one of the most valuable of lessons I will depart this life with is that there is no bond on earth stronger than that of two men who have fought and bled at one another's side. It is a complex relationship difficult to explain to those who have not experienced it. It is an attachment of sorts cemented in blood and the memory of unspoken horrors. A link stronger than, dare I say, even that of flesh and blood.

         The defeat did not crush morale, nor did it turn Muslim against Muslim. It did not hasten the collapse of society. On the contrary. It strengthened it.

          And so, scuffles evolved into brawls. Brawls eventually culminated in tribal disputes and armed skirmishes. The most prominent of which was masterminded by a group of Banu Nadir tribesmen who murdered three Ansari Muslims.

         As was the custom, the families of the fallen were entitled to justice. Either through the pursuit of the feud, or through the demand of a blood tithe. A blood tithe was a sum of coins or riches or cattle that the family or the chieftain of the fallen tribesman would demand from the murderer.

         It was in a matter concerning the payment of the blood tithe of the Banu Nadir to the fallen Muslims that al-Manat presented me with an opportunity to meet the girl again.

          "I was waiting outside of Huyayy ibn al-Akhtab's house to collect the blood tithe," Muhammad told us in the packed mosque. Huyayy ibn al-Akhtab was the most influential chieftain of the Banu Nadir. "It was then that the angel Gabriel informed me of the Nadir's betrayal! They are in league with the Quraysh!"