grandchild, and Muhammad was clearly as doting and
proud a grandfather as ever lived. He would bounce the
young boys on his lap for hours at a time, kissing and
hugging them. Would even happily abandon all the
decorum and dignity of his position as the Messenger of
God to get down on all fours and let them ride him like a
horse, kicking his sides with their heels and shrieking in
delight. These two boys were his future—the future of
Islam, as the Shia would see it—and by fathering them,
Ali, the one man after Muhammad most loyal to Khadija,
had made that future possible.
When Khadija died, two years before that fateful night
of Muhammad’s ɻight to Medina, Ali had grieved as
deeply as Muhammad himself. This was the woman who
had raised him as the son she never had, and then
became his mother-in-law. Devoted as he was to
Muhammad, he had been equally devoted to her. It was
clear to him that no matter how many wives the Prophet
might take after Khadija’s death, none could possibly
compare, and least of all the one who seemed the most
determined to prove herself superior.
Long before the Aʃair of the Necklace, then, before
those beads went rolling in the desert to set oʃ scandal,
Ali remained impervious to Aisha’s sassiness and charm.
In his eyes, Muhammad’s youngest wife must have
seemed an unworthy successor to Khadija. And the
antipathy was mutual. To her, Ali’s devotion to
Khadija’s memory was a constant reminder of the one