the least expected—one of Hasan’s wives, Jaada. She had
married the man she thought would inherit the
caliphate after his father, Ali, and hoped to be the
mother of his sons, the heirs to power. But though Hasan
had many sons by other wives, the sons Jaada hoped for
never materialized. Neither did the status of marriage to
the leader of an empire. After Hasan’s abdication, Jaada
had found herself part of the household of a revered but
powerless scholar in what had become the backwater of
Medina. So perhaps she thought that if this husband
would not be Caliph, another one could be. Perhaps that
was why she had been open to Muawiya’s offer.
He had promised lavish payment for her trouble—not
only cash but marriage to Yazid, the man he would
declare the heir to the caliphate once Hasan was out of
the way. And since Muawiya always paid his debts, she
did indeed receive the money. But not the son. When the
newly self-made widow tried to claim the second part of
her reward, Muawiya rebuʃed her. “How,” he said, “can
I marry my son to a woman who poisons her husband?”
Hasan, the second Imam of Shia Islam, was buried in
the main cemetery of Medina, though that was not
where he had wished his grave to be. He had asked that
he lie alongside his grandfather under the ɻoor of
Aisha’s former chamber in the courtyard of the mosque,
but as the funeral procession approached the compound,