After the Prophet: the Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam
by Lesley Hazelton
book review by Tamam Kahn
To read any book by Lesley Hazelton is to be carried off by horse, by camel, or a caravan headed for parts unknown. After the Prophet follows her two excellent books on Biblical women, Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother and Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible’s Harlot Queen. This new book, written with journalistic clarity, has a quality of intimacy mixed with careful detailing. It is a sad and disturbing story.
Ms. Hazelton’s sentences carry you along: “Yet as Hussain’s caravan threaded its way out of the mountains and onto the high desert, a dispassionate observer might have taken one look and thought he was almost destined to fail” (p 158).
Sometimes her writing becomes almost painful to follow, because — be warned! You are there, with the villainous Muawiyya as he plots to “…steal ‘Ali’s sense of honor and adapt it to fit himself instead.” You watch as he brings about psychological combat with Ali. He enlists the poets who shout their message (this hadith is from from Walid):
Muawiya, you have wasted time like a stallion camel in lust, confined and bellowing in Damascus but unable to move…. By God, if another day passes without revenge for Othman, I would that your mother had been barren. Do not let the snakes come at you. Do not be faint with withered forearms. Present Ali with a war to turn his hair grey! (pp 134, 135)
Propaganda: “The more cutting the verses and the sharper the barbs, the more popular and irresistibly repeatable they were,” and “When they are the first weapon in war, words draw blood” (pp 133, 134). This strategy — as it continues to do today — makes people feel foolish and wish to change sides. Many abandoned ‘Ali, while caught in the strategy’s thrall.
You follow Hussain, dressed in white, as he rides toward his death on Lahik, his Arab stallion. It seems Hazleton is there. After all, she is a journalist first, and brings that immediacy to the unfolding facts.
An arrow struck home in Husssain’s shoulder, the force of it throwing him to the ground, and they finally crowded in on him. By the time they were done, there were thirty-three knife and sword wounds on his body. Even that was not enough.” (p 191).
There was the head on the spear, the women and children in chains… Then the author intertwines this death with today’s Iranian Shia commemorative play. It is Asura, the anniversary of Hussain’s death:
…the most intense point comes not when Hussein is actually killed but the moment he dons his white shroud. For all the terrible pathos of what has already happened, this moment — one of the least dramatic to Western eyes — is the most unbearable for the audience. It is the moment of calm in the face of death, the willing acceptance of the call to self-sacrifice ( p 189).
To the Shia Muslims “…this is the man who embodies all the values that have been destroyed, the symbol of all the ideals that have been abandoned” (p 182).
Hazelton’s source is primarily Al-Tabari, the great historian from the early period. In fact, there is a chapter called “Sources” after the endnotes, which I found clear and useful. She mentions that the accounts sometimes offer conflicting versions, and choices need to be made as to how to represent that historical moment. In the story of Aisha at the small town of Hawab (where the dogs were said to bark and remind her of Muhammad’s earlier warning), I would have liked to see a reference to this story as possible later propaganda — added to discredit Aisha. Hazelton takes us with certainty into Aisha’s thoughts: “What had she done? What had she set in motion? For the first time in months, doubt crept into her mind, and once there it settled in, paralyzing her” (pp 101,102).
Fatima is described as “meek,” “frail” and helpless, shut out by Aisha (pp 38, 39). It seems strange; this is Sunni language speaking of the woman the Shia see as powerful, the Holy Mother of Islam who birthed six children and was married to ‘Ali. Fatima gave the speech at the Mosque following the death of the Prophet, or so they say. But none of this is mentioned here. Hazelton focuses on her ill-treatment by Abu Bakr and Omar.
Also, the information on Fatima and the wives does not always match my research findings: “…all (the wives) except Aisha had children” (p 12). Zaynab, Rayhanna, Safiyya, and possibly Maymuna were childless. Fatima is described as “Khadija’s eldest daughter” when she was the youngest (p 38).
But Hazelton has done a beautiful job showing the reader, step by step, how history marches to the cliff of irreconcilable differences — and jumps. After ‘Ali is denied the position of Caliph three times, after he is diminished by Muawiya and dies, after Hasan is bullied in turn, and after Muawiya’s son Yazid has Hussain brutally murdered, then comes forth the enormous legend of the three dishonored men closely related to the Prophet, and centuries of deep pain.
She shows how this story was taken up by Khomeni and today by Ahmadinejad, and that,
Westerners finally need to stand back, to acknowledge the emotive depth of the Sunni-Shia split and to accord it the respect it demands… [N]obody in the West should forget that what united the two branches of Islam is far greater than what divides them, and that the vast majority of all Muslims still cherish the ideal of unity preached by Muhammad himself – an ideal more deeply held for being so deeply broken (p 211).
Lesley Hazelton is a former psychologist and political journalist with deep roots in both Judaism and Catholicism. As she writes in the introduction to her biography of Mary, “a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion.”
Born in England, she reported from Israel for Time magazine, specializing in religious, social and cultural issues, and has since written feature articles on Middle East politics for, among others, The New York Times, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The Nation, The New Republic, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books.
Her books include After the Prophet: the Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam; Jerusalem, Jerusalem; Jezebel; and Where Mountains Roar — all widely praised for their blend of insight, in-depth reporting, and fine writing.
