hers. Soon after her miscarriage, she sent a message to
Abu Bakr asking for her share of her father’s estate—
date palm orchards in the huge oases of Khaybar and
Fadak to the north of Medina. His response left her
dumbfounded. The Prophet’s estate belonged to the
community, not to any individual, Abu Bakr replied. It
was part of the Muslim charitable trust, to be
administered by him as Caliph. He was not at liberty to
give it away to individuals. “We do not have heirs,” he
said Muhammad had told him. “Whatever we leave is
alms.”
Fatima had no alternative but to accept his word for
it. Abu Bakr’s reputation for probity was beyond
question, whatever her suspicions. Sunnis would later
hail his stand as aɽrming the supremacy of the
community over individual hereditary rights. “You are
not the People of the House,” Abu Bakr seemed to be
saying. “We are all the People of the House.” But the
Shia would be convinced that Muhammad’s closest
family had now been doubly disinherited, or cheated, as
the poet would have it: Ali out of his inheritance of
leadership, and Fatima out of her inheritance of
property.
There was no denying the populist appeal of the
message Abu Bakr sent by denying Fatima’s claim: the
House of Muhammad was the House of Islam, and all
were equal within it. But as ever, some were more equal
than others. Even as he turned down Fatima, Abu Bakr