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CHAPTER ONE

YAZID GOES TO CHURCH

The sea is a boundless expanse whereon great ships look like minute specks; naught but the heavens above and the waters beneath. Trust it little. Fear it much.

‘Amru bin al-’As, the Arab conqueror of Egypt

It is a cold, winter’s afternoon in the Eastern Mediterranean. The low-angled sun catches the broad lateen sails of a mighty fleet of dhows sailing north-west of the Island of Cyprus from Syria towards the coast of Asia Minor, driven across a heavy sea by a spirited southeast wind. The year is 52 in the New Calendar. The landfall of this gargantuan armada will signal plunder, destruction and death.

Half a century earlier, way to the south among the deserts of Arabia, Islam had made its first appearance at the time-honoured polytheistic cult centre of Mecca which was focussed on an ancient Nabatean temple known as the Ka’ba. One thousand Arab gods were said to inhabit the life-giving waters of the nearby sacred spring of Zamzam, among them the great mother goddess Allat. The well at Mecca had been administered from time immemorial by the Quraysh tribe, yet it was from the clan of these cultic guardians that a theological luminary was to emerge who was to transform not just Mecca but the whole World. His name was Muhammad, The Praiseworthy One, of the family of Hashim.

Muhammad’s visions of the One God Allah caused consternation among the Quraysh, in particular those who profited from administering the Ka’ban faction at Mecca. They forced Muhammad and his followers to flee in fear of their lives from Mecca to the small northern town of Yathrib, later to be named Medinat un-Nabi, the City of the Prophet, in honour of Mohammad.

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