Ali returns from the empty home of the Prophet to Fatima's...

Ali returns from the empty home of the Prophet to Fatima's home to begin 25 years of silence, full of pain, loneliness and blackness. And it is Fatima who must bear the weight and anger of this unmerciful blow along with her delicate soul. Her father, her refuge, her dearest beloved, has gone. Ali, her brother, husband, friend and only familiar family and sym­pathizer, sad and broken, remains at home and, like her, remains alone.

It seems like in a space of a few short hours, they all became strangers. Medina no longer recognizes them. And Islam? And Islam? This faith endows devotion in the soul of Fatima so that from her childhood onwards, in spite of her young years and delicateness, she can perform the jihad for the establishment of Islam during the lifetime of her father at the time of the first mujahids [warriors, those who fight to defend the faith].

The endowment also includes that she suffer difficulties, poverty, the barriers of life and sorrow throughout her childhood and her youth so that her soul may move upon the way. With her delicate and fragile feet, she steps along the way with the first mujahids and real pilgrims. She paves this difficult and bumpy way for those who follow her.

With all her faith, power and feelings, she helps so that the message of her father can find perma­nence amid this group, so that correctness, the worship of Truth, freedom, justice, piety, equality, the roots of brotherhood among all creatures cab become strong and so that this young community, which is without power and without awareness, where the germs of old diseases are hidden in the depths of corpses, can take root in the powerful way of knowledge, awareness, justice and human chastity.

She leads upon the way that the unlettered Pro­phet took her. She did the things that he had ordered be done and had made part of the Traditions. But now for Fatima we could say all things have be­come silent. All the walls, foundations, watch towers and ramparts which are built with all that effort, suddenly fall into ruins. The fate of Islam is decided in Saqifah without the presence of Ali, Salman, Abu Dharr, Ammar, Meghdad and others.

Now, these people have all gathered in Fatima's home, sad and angry. Why have they remained faithful to Ali. They are not from among the aristocrats of the Ous­sand Khazraj tribes. They have no family or hold no pres­tige in Medina.