Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam by Kamran Pasha Page B

curled into a cruel grimace. A dead silence fell over the crowd. For an instant, I thought he would draw his dagger and plunge it into Abbas’s chest to avenge this open attack on his honor.
    And then Hind stepped between the men, her long elegant fingers positioned on the chests of the adversaries as she separated them gracefully.
    “Enough! Save your rage for our common enemy, Muhammad.”
    Amr ibn al-As, the Meccan envoy with the honeyed tongue who had unsuccessfully sought to repatriate the Muslim refugees from Abyssinia, politely raised his hand. I saw that it was covered in silver rings with expensive stones—garnets, carnelian, and amber.
    “But alas, what can we do against Muhammad? He is protected by the clan of Hashim.”
    Even as he spoke, all eyes fell on another member of the Messenger’s tribe, his uncle Abu Lahab. Fat, bald, and perpetually sweating, he always reminded me of a garden slug, although with a less appealing personality.
    Abu Lahab snorted in contempt at the thought of his wayward nephew. Unlike his half brothers Abu Talib and Abbas, Abu Lahab despised Muhammad, may God’s blessings and peace be upon him, and had made no secret of his belief that the Messenger was simply creating a new religion to monopolize the city’s lucrative Pilgrimage trade.
    “The sanctuary of our clan will not last forever,” Abu Lahab said. “My brother Abu Talib is old. When he dies, I will lead the Bani Hashim and will revoke his protection.”
    Abbas gave his brother a contemptuous stare, which Abu Lahab met with studied indifference.
    Abu Jahl shook his head.
    “We cannot wait that long,” he said bluntly. “The tribes will grow weary of his disruption of the Pilgrimage. They will take their pilgrims—and their gold—to Taif and the temple of the goddess Allat.”
    Abu Jahl had chosen his words well. Taif was a prosperous trading center to the southeast, on the caravan route to Yemen. The denizens of that settlement had long envied Mecca’s preeminence and had built a sprawling shrine to the “daughter of Allah” to rival and, they hoped, one day eclipse the Kaaba. If Muhammad’s preaching against their gods made the annual Pilgrimage an inconvenience and source of turmoil for the desert tribes, it made sense that many would switch their allegiance to the goddess. And take their trade with them.
    Seeing that he had hit he proper nerve with the other chiefs, Abu Jahl smiled.
    “We must make a decisive move now,” he said forcefully. “Muhammad must die.”
    There was an immediate uproar as various members of the Assembly shouted their opinions on this extremely controversial suggestion. I could see Hind smiling, her eyes glowing. She stood motionless in the middle of the loud debate, like the heart of a whirlwind. There was something both terrifying and mesmerizing about her at that moment, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.
    Finally Abu Sufyan raised both his hands and spoke loudly, asserting his authority over the tumult.
    “No,” he said firmly. “If we attack Muhammad, his clan will be forced to avenge him against the murderer. It will start a blood feud that will consume Mecca.”
    He glanced at Abbas, who nodded coldly. Abu Lahab looked to his feet, knowing that no matter how much he wished it were otherwise, what Abu Sufyan said was true. His cousins in the Bani Hashim would slaughter anyone who attacked Muhammad.
    Abu Sufyan’s calm voice served to quell the passion of the crowd, to Abu Jahl’s clear annoyance. But the weight of his words had put an end to this dangerous line of talk. Abu Sufyan, perhaps better than any of them, understood the threat posed by Muhammad’s movement, but he also knew that killing him would be like using oil to put out a kitchen fire.
    Satisfied that he had cut off Abu Jahl’s provocations before they could grow like weeds in a garden, killing the fruits of wisdom that kept the peace in Mecca, he stepped back.
    And then Hind spoke, and