Now he is silent. He is settled inside Fatima"s house, His dearest friends are left out as well, they who had lived a classless existence and who had found a high place in the eyes and the heart of the Prophet. They who had earned their nobility and respect through their faith, sincerity, awareness and resistance had fallen from the eyes of the new political leaders. Those who are clever and eye catch¬ing, move forward.
Ears are so busy with talk of power, leadership and self protection that one can no longer hear the softness of emotions, friendship and sincerity. The personality of Abu Bakr, harshness of Omar and the sword of Khaled and the genius of Amr al Aas suddenly build a high wall around Medina, and the people, frightened and/or attracted, and the Companions aware and/or unaware, are taken into the middle of the wall. But Fatima"s house is left out of it. Fa¬tima"s voice reaches no one!
The enemies of Fatima are much stronger than those whom they resisted and fought against in Mecca. Her father fought alone in Mecca with only his young daughter as his companion and support. In the Masjid al Haram, the place of the power of the enemy before Islam, the Prophet and his daughter faced the Qoraish senate together. The Prophet has been calling the 300 idols, the worshipped and intercessors of the Qoraish, and all Arabs, dumb, idiots. Without hesitation and weakness, he cries out that he will break all of them with God"s help. He compares their ancestors to fools and that which they hold sacred as being superstition.
But we see that the Prophet, at the height of his power, when he was more loved, more powerful and more influential than ever before, during the last days of his life, can not move Osameh"s army. Even though he gives strict commands, prays and curses, tired and sick with fever, on the verge of death, he cannot move the army standing in Jazaf, near Medina.
What can I say? Even in his own house, among his nearest companions, he could not write a letter, he could not announce his testimony. If he were to simply say it, it would not be safe from alteration and deviation.
Her husband, Ali, the hero of the day, the man who in the battle of Khandaq where all of the enemy tribes had joined together to attack Medina, where both profane and religious groups had gathered to attack, that is, Arabs and Jews, joined in a single unit to destroy the young Is¬lamic movement entirely, to crush Mohammad"s support and the revolution upon the heads of its warriors, and, as they said, "to take Medina"s soil with the feed bags of their horses", while Ali, a young man, twenty or so years old, with one blow, changed the whole fate of the battle.
The man, who at the Battle of Ohud when the Qoraish occupy the valley and the Moslems are dispersed and. fleeing, when the great Companions are hidden, having lost hope and the Prophet is wounded and defenseless in his position, circles around the Prophet like a whirlwind, returns to the battlefield and scatters the front of the enemy which is pressing forward, progressing towards the Prophet over the bodies of the martyrs. He returns to Mo¬hammad to circle around him once again. As he goes back to the battlefield, closing the way of escape, shouting to the scattered forces to form a new front, he regroups the defeated, hopeless, deserters and forms a resistance group which forces the Qoraish, full of joy at hearing the news of the death of the Prophet, seeing the mass of martyrs, the defeat of the warriors and drinking the blood of Hamzeh, the Prophet"s uncle, to retreat from the battlefield.
The men who guaranteed the victory of Khaybar, the man who upon the battlefield uses his sword like a sickle which moves through the wheat fields at harvest time, harvesting heads and blood and amasses the army of the enemy and lays them in front of his horse, now sits in the corner of a house.
What has happened to the famous sword of her hus¬band, Ali? Whenever he returned from battle, it was full of blood and was given to her along with the sword of the Prophet. Ali would say to her in a voice full of honor, glory and pride, "Fatima, wash these!" Now, he is becoming lifeless and after ten years of constant struggle, he is laying down in bed.
She also sees that they are attacking Ali"s house, but he does not leave his silent corner. Thus, in the battlefield where the Prophet could not succeed, Ali, the warrior, the champion who gave glory to the field of battle, has been defeated and Fatima is alone. What can she do?
Always fighting in the battle front, he is more severe and causes more misery than the front in which the external enemy is standing opposite him. Now a battle has begun where Abu Lahab, Abu Jahl, Abu Sufiyan, Hind and Otbeh Omiyeh ibn Khalaf and Akarmeh are not op¬posite him. These visages are well known as lacking any respect or human desires. It is obvious that they fight only to protect their power, interests, force, strength, business caravans, slave markets and not because of poverty, spiri¬tual meaning, faith and human wishes. It is a battle be¬tween despotism and revolution, slavery and freedom, captivity and salvation, humiliation and lordship, purity and filth. Finally, it is a war against the guardians of ignorance and darkness in human disguise by the messen¬gers of awareness and enlightment.
What is it? On one side is Ali and Fatima as it was in Mecca, Badr, Ohud Khaybar, Fath and Honein. But, on the other side is Abu Bakr, the first person who, outside the Prophet"s home, joins him, his friend, his companion on the migration, and father of his wife. A person who gives him friendship when the Prophet has no one and is alone who spends all of his wealth in the way of the Pro¬phet, and, as a result, in Medina, he is so poor that it is said that he had to work for Jews and strange and despised people. He was a person whom people had seen for 23 years, that is, from the first year of the mission of the Pro¬phet until his death of the Prophet, beside the Prophet.
And Omar, the 40th person who, in the hidden Shel¬ter of the Prophet, accepted Islam. With his joining and that of Hamzeh, the first few weak friends gained power and appeared among the people to announce Islam. From that time on, he gave all of his power towards the progress of the movement. He is from among the closest friends and most distinguished of the Emigrants of the Prophet. He was the father of Hafaseh, one of the other wives of the Prophet and people accept him as one of the leaders and great Companions of the Prophet of God.
Othman, an Emigrant who had made two emigrations in the way of Islam was the son in law of the Prophet who had married two daughters of the Prophet. He had an eye¬catching, sacred personality and he belonged to two of the great families of the Qoraish. He had a great wealth which he distributed among the poor friends of the Prophet and had actively participated in social services and helped the people a great deal. The masses of the people call upon him as one of the Companions, great Emigrants, friend and family of the Prophet.
And Khalid ibn Walid, who is a hero in the religious struggles against the enemies of Islam. At the Battle of Mu¬teh, where he is a simple soldier, he breaks nine swords over the heads of Romans. He is known as "the sword of God". Amr al Aas is one of the four famous Arab geniuses who had become a Moslem many years before. He showed the power of Islam to the Emperor of Rome at the Nort¬hern borders. Saied ibn Vaqas , the first person who in Islam fires an arrow at an enemy, takes Moslems from the position of defense and shows them how to attack. He shows the enemies what attack is all about and at the Battle of Ohud he carefully released several arrows and saved the life of the Prophet who was in great danger. He had defended himself so bravely that the Prophet praised him.
There were many, many more including great Emi¬grants, Helpers, all the army, leaders and builders of the foundation of Islam and closest friends and pioneers of the Prophet among them.
And their slogan? Not idol worship, disbelief, poly¬theism, myths, protection of the business of the Qoraish nor the nobility of the tribe, but establishment of unity and the spread of Islam, the gathering and propagation of the Qoran, piety, the negating of the gathering of wealth and gold, helping people,. seeking of the satisfaction of God, the implementation of religious law and finally, the putting of the Prophet"s Traditions into effect and most important of all, promoting Unity and the uniting of Mos¬lems.
In the middle of this, a right is easily and quietly ais¬carded. The rights of Ali. How? Very easily and with a very understandable logic because of sympathy towards the community and because of the fate of Islam and the danger of internal rebellion, pressure of the foreign ene¬mies and the fear of separation among the Moslems and... in short, it is. because it is advisible for the moment.
A young man, thirty some years old, often harsh, whose background does not stand well with the majority they are jealous of him. His behaviour is of a type that causes the influential, effective personalities and groups to not be optimistic towards him.
`It is still too soon for Ali. It is not advisable for Islam at the moment." Yes. Advisability! The inauspicious blow which is always used against the Truth. Advisability, a sword used by clever people to sacrifice the Truth. It is done in accordance with the Divine Law:face the giblah and say, `In the Name of God", a clean and pure sacri¬fice, a permissible meat.
How simple! Without any noise. Without anyone understanding. Without any who are asleep, awakening: Without the people rebelling. Without anyone to bring awareness to the people. Without anyone being able to distinguish the rights which are asleep under the blows of advisability, they silently die and are forgotten. Finally, without any effort, or protest, to be able to save the Truth and stand against the power which is armed with `advise¬ability", the struggles, cries, protests, moanings anti: even objections of Fatima go unheeded. When, a society is covered under advisability, nothing can be done. The greatest tradegy in human history takes place. It. is a silent and defenseless tragedy which sacrifices Ali and Fatima and later on we see their successors and one by one all of their posterity. Fatima sensed it had begun and she could do nothing about it.
Suddenly she felt the exhaustion of a whole lifetime of resistance, bearing of miseries patiently, tortures, pover¬ty, difficulties and the bitterness of her life. She becomes convinced that all has been lost. She senses that she can do nothing to keep what the Prophet could not keep and what Ali could not protect.
All of the nights become blurred in her eyes, nights which come successively. Her father, during the last days of his life, gave news of it to her. The time has come. What will happen tomorrow? What will become of the great efforts of her father in the cold winds of policy and ad¬visability which have now begun? What is the future of this young community? Into whose hands will the future of these people fall whose fate is to be sacrificed because of policy? The smell of aristocracy, nobility and tribal ties once again has arisen. Allegiance replaces the com¬mandment. How can the votes of the tribes who elect their leader or the Qoraish who elect their elders be more acceptable than the vote of the Prophet?
What kind of people are these who at Saqifeh first give their allegiance to Saied and then with one word from Abu Bakr, give their allegiance to him? Do they have sufficient growth and awareness so that the Prophet does not need to interfere in their politics? These people are the people of the Prophet"s city who have lived near him and next to him.
Fear for the Future of Islam
They have performed the jihad together. They have learned of Islam from the Prophet but they have chosen Abu Bakr. Tomorrow when Islam spreads beyond Medina and this generation passes, what fate will this allegiance bring to the leader of the people? Who will vote and who will be chosen?
"Now that the most sacrificed visages of the Emi¬grants and Helpers of the Propeht of the first generation of Islam and the pioneers of faith have put Ali aside because of policy and he is forced to sit in his home, what will tomorrow"s generation do to my children? What will tomorrow"s policies be when people have not grown up in the atmosphere of faith, piety and jihad?" Even now the future of Hasan, Hosein and Zainab can be seen and one can be certain what their future will be.
The beginning of Ali staying at home is the beginning of a frightening and bloody history. The allegiance of Saqi¬feh, which began quietly and cleverly will be followed by bloody allegiances and the problem of Fadak will be the beginning of extortions and the oppressions of tomorrow. Tomorrow is black, frightening and bloody. Successive tomorrows will bring plunder, murders and torture.
The Caliphate of tomorrow will be a great tragedy to Islam and a serious tragedy to humanity. But now what can be done? Fatima does everything her strength will allow to try and see that the first stone which is laid is not laid crooked. She can do nothing. She sense that the ears of the Medina of the Prophet are deaf to her cries. Her heart is made heavy by the silence of Ali, a silence which would cause any heart which has any feeling, who under¬stands Ali and knows the times, to heat up and burn .
How difficult and merciless is selfishness to be able to express itself with faith, particularly when it is armed with policy. It causes the faithful and devoted Companions to sacrifice the rights of the people and to kill Ali"s rights.
Fatima is exhausted after a lifetime of bearing patiently the weight of the mission of her father and the difficulty of resistance when faced with the ignorance of her tribe, with a life from beginning to end full of torture, danger, poverty and efforts because the wishes are far from the despots of the time. In the misery of mourning for the death of her father whose life had been mixed with hers and saddened by the unbearable fate of Ali, who after a lifetime of jihad with the enemy, is forced to sit at home by the hand of a friend, not that of an enemy. He is the sacrifice of a force which has come into existence with the power of his faith, sword, sacrifice and sincerity. She is defeated and without hope. She falls to her knees as her last efforts put forth to get back Ali"s rights proves fruit¬less.
It is not only further effort which is difficult, but she finds the bearing of it patiently to be impossible, not for that which was going on outside but rather, patiently bear¬ing what she sees within her home and finally, the bearing patiently of the frightening silence which is taking over the house neighboring hers the house of the Prophet.
Now the window is also closed, the window from which every day would open onto hers, where they would smile at each other, where kindness and faith would fall upon the simple house of Fatima. Now one of those win¬dows is closed. Death closed it forever upon Fatima. Poli¬tics closed the one in her own home. And she is now im¬prisoned in this house, next to Ali, who sits like a moun¬tain of sorrow and is silent. It is a silence which holds the fire of a volcano within itself. He reads in the innocent and sorrowful faces of the children of the Prophet, the frighte¬ning fate of the tomorrow of each one of them.
To remain alive is too painful and unbearable for her.
"To remain" is a heavy load. It is a load which is too heavy for the tired shoulders of Fatima to bear. Heavy time slow¬ly moves upon her wounded heart and passes by her. Every moment, every minute, and every step is heavy and slow.
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