The first crisis of the post-Muhammad Islamic State came quickly. Ali and Fatimah had retired to their own house to complete their mourning for her father. But outside the house, Abu Bakr was seizing power as rapidly as he could. Nobody wanted to see the city fall into fitna, which means trouble or specifically the trouble of civil war. When Ubadah had recovered, he swore loyalty to Abu Bakr, and so did others. Then there were the outside tribes, and envoys from other cities. The best way to keep things on track was to have the news of Muhammad’s death arrive simultaneously with the news of Abu Bakr’s leadership, so that condolences and loyalty oaths could happen at once.
Ali didn’t come out of his house. Sunni sources pass over this period with as little said as possible. But Shi’ite sources say that days went by, perhaps weeks, and Ali, if asked, just sent word that he was still in mourning. While the small fry among Muslims may not have noticed, the leaders wondered if Ali was planning a challenge. Some tribal envoys may have hesitated to swear loyalty to Abu Bakr when it wasn’t clear what the Prophet’s son-in-law was going to do. Abu Bakr and the other leaders decided that it couldn’t go on, though we don’t know how much time had passed.
Umar went to the house of Ali and Fatimah, where the wooden door was closed and barred. His message was that it was time to swear loyalty, but as always, Umar found the most violent way to say it. When the house was silent to his knocking, he raised his voice and called to them: “If you don’t come out, I will burn down your house over your heads.” While Ali and his family were alone, Umar of course had men with him. Ali later said that if only he had had even 40 men at his back, he could have done something. But he just stayed quiet indoors, resisting passively.
Umar, waiting outside, may have set part of the house on fire, or set a fire near the house; accounts vary. He didn’t burn it down over their heads, which had been a foolish threat he couldn’t really carry out. But he lost his patience and he, or one of the larger, stronger men with him, decided to break down the door. You know what this looks like in old movies, where they get a running start and turn a shoulder to the door. That’s what he did. The door wasn’t that strong, and it gave way. What this looks like from the inside is that the door flies into the room with speed and force, carried by the momentum of a large man’s shoulder.
Fatimah was the unlucky person standing or crossing nearby, and she got hit by the door and man. She fell, of course. She was pregnant again, and the baby was injured in the fall. Umar wanted to make a grand entrance, but he didn’t have this in mind; he was dismayed to see that he had actually hurt her. He and his band left. A few weeks later, Fatimah went into labor but her baby boy was stillborn. She never really recovered from these stresses.
Fatimah had one more shock in store. She went to Abu Bakr and asked him to give her the share of the Khaybar date harvest that had belonged to her father, and thus should be hers. Most of the spoils he had received were clearly not his personal property, but apparently this was. Abu Bakr, though, told her that it was actually all property of the Islamic State. She was not going to have any inheritance at all.
Why did Abu Bakr do this? It was probably part of the ostracism that he was imposing on Ali’s family as long as Ali did not swear allegiance. Men stood away from Ali in the mosque. But there may have been years of other grudges leading up to it. As A’isha’s father, he cared about what she considered had been snubs that Fatimah gave her, and he must also have still resented Ali’s advice to Muhammad to divorce A’isha. He may also have been aware of carrying on Muhammad’s practice of disrupting the old sunnah and founding a new one. “In the new sunnah, all believers were equally Muhammad’s children! His widows were the mothers of all believers, so A’isha was Fatimah’s mother and any Bedouin tribesman was just as much his heir.” Did he think these things? I’m speculating, but it seems likely.
He also provided generous pensions for the widows, who were still officially known as the Mothers of the Believers. He may have rationalized that giving to widows is a sort of alms, whereas Fatimah was not a widow.
Fatimah died about three months after her father, making her the first one to follow him to Paradise, as he had predicted. Her bitterness and alienation were clear in her last instructions to Ali. She told him to bury her secretly, as he had buried Muhammad. Again, she did not want Abu Bakr to have the public honor of leading prayers over her shroud. We don’t know where Ali buried her, though it’s certainly inside the current mosque in Medina. They lived nearby, so if he buried her inside the house, the modern mosque is so large that it’s now inside. He may have dug a grave in the courtyard, but this seems harder to keep secret.
After Fatimah had died, Ali swore allegiance to Abu Bakr. His bitterness can only be imagined.
- After the Prophet, by Lesley Hazelton.