The man, who was conscious of being the richest person in the room, had never been spoken to in this way. To the most tolerant Quraysh, Allah was the first god among many. To most of them, he was just one more way to squeeze coins out of pilgrims. I could see the man’s cheeks start to burn. Before he could respond, Muhammad added, “God sustains us even as He sustains the birds, which go forth in the morning hungry and return filled in the evening.”
The rich man had regained his composure and smiled tolerantly. “Pearls of wisdom,” he murmured.
Muhammad’s eyes widened innocently. “My words will mean nothing to a glutton, whose bloated belly makes him believe he will never need God.”
And that was that. The rich man went pale. “Extraordinary.” With one word he sprang up and ran from the room. His hard soles clattering down the hall sounded like a panicked kid goat scrambling to escape from a pack of wild dogs. You will not collapse in shock to hear that he became Muhammad’s sworn enemy.
We few who believed in the new prophet began to write down his messages. Each sura came in a distinct way. If Muhammad was about to speak at God’s command, his face became shining and full of light. His voice grew higher and more intense. I swear on my soul that one could not mistake this voice for any but the holy Being reaching down from Paradise to this world of clay.
The first time I beheld him in such a trance, my heart was touched. We are not all ignorant in Mecca. On a caravan north to Yathrib, I saw Jews and Christians openly walking the streets and selling in the markets. When I was a child, to see a Jew was the same as seeing a six-legged calf. I asked someone, who told me that these were followers of a priest who had come to Arabia on the orders of God. I asked why. To prepare the way for a prophet. Then I asked how many believed. The man I was speaking with opened his arms and said, “As many as will be received, even some Arabs.” So you see, God was not foolish enough to throw seed on fallow ground.
I asked Muhammad if he heard the words he spoke when he was transported. “I hear them, and I am as touched as you. I feel the same awe.”
“Then you are a prophet who can share in the joy he brings,” I said enthusiastically.
He gave me a look. It wasn’t a chastisement. His eyes lowered, and he said, “Not the same joy. I must carry the shame that God speaks through such a cracked vessel.”
The messages grew thicker, and some days they descended like locusts in swarming season. There were days when you could catch a dozen with one sweep of your hand in the air. God never spoke unless there was someone in the room to hear and remember. I sat as if hypnotized for precious hours. The world has never been changed from inside a room. I knew that well enough. But it was hard to show my face without a mask, until one day I went to the worst side of town and knocked on a door.
The door was answered by Halimah, Muhammad’s old wet nurse. She had moved from the desert a few years earlier. A proud woman in a black shawl mended with a dozen patches. She had outlived most of Muhammad’s family with such steel in her spine that she threatened to outlive the rest of us too.
“Come with me,” I said.
“I don’t see money in your hand. What work do you want me to do?” she replied. Suspicion of the rich was second nature to her.
“The work of a crutch,” I said.
Halimah was still quick. She liked riddles. “What kind of crutch does a man need when he has two legs? A loan? I’m not the right one for that. An hour of love to boost his self-esteem? I don’t sell my nieces.”
I held up my hand. “I need your voice, because mine is too weak.” Halimah had heard Muhammad speak and was most moved. Her face lit up almost to match his.
As we walked through the streets Halimah asked no more questions. She followed me to the sacred well in the center of town. As always, women were gathered there filling their water jars and gossiping. They quieted when they saw me. Some stared at my velvet slippers, covered with mud from trudging through Halimah’s filthy street, which ran like a sewer.
“Talk to them,” I ordered.
Halimah hung back. “What should I say?”
“Repeat what Master Muhammad told us yesterday.” I knew she had it memorized.
The old nurse with her missing teeth and lowly station had no reason to believe she had a right to speak. But I’ve learned that when they repeat a prophet’s words, humble people breathe some of his fire. Halimah took all the women in with a slow gaze, and then she recited:
Allah promises a garden to all believers, men and women alike.
Beneath this garden rivers flow, and therein they will abide—
blessed dwellings in Gardens of Eden.
But acceptance from Allah is greater than this. It is the supreme triumph.
I won’t say she didn’t stumble over a word here and there. Wind whistled through gaps in her teeth. The women at the well were stunned. They stared at each other in amazement. Half of them wouldn’t have let Halimah sweep the dust under their feet. Yet no Arab wife or daughter had ever uttered such words. And so many! Halimah didn’t know how to react, but she was proud of herself. The angel commanded Muhammad to recite, and now his followers would recite too, over and over.
I ran and told Muhammad what had happened. “Is this how we will change the world?” I asked. “One believer at a time?”
Muhammad replied, “Has there ever been any other way?”
12
ZAYD, THE ADOPTED SON
I see more than they know. I’m not just a boy to be sent away to fly a kite. I sneak through the shadows and peek through cracks in the door of my father’s bedroom. My new father, I mean, the one who gets tears in his eyes when I touch his feet.
I saw him sitting up in bed. His wife—my new mother—was sitting beside him holding out a tumbler. He took a sip. In a low voice she asked, “Do you see him now?”
Father nodded. “He is before my eyes.”
Mother looked around. “I see nothing.”
“The angel is here. He appeared just as you came in,” Father said. “He has come a few times now.”
“But he’s invisible to everyone else,” said Mother, not quite asking a question and not quite making a statement. She was like a bather testing the water to make sure it’s not too hot or too cold.
Don’t ask me what happened next. I heard little Fatimah running down the hall. She was whimpering, which meant that the next sound out of her mouth would be “Ummi, Ummi,” and Mother would come out to answer her. When Fatimah saw me in the shadows leaning against the door, her eyes grew wide. I couldn’t be caught there. I said “Ssh” and promised to take her out to play. Fatimah looked at me with a moment’s suspicion, but she likes to play better than she likes to tattle.
When I was in bed that night, my mind went back to what Mother was asking. “Do you see him now?” That’s what you ask crazy people. If Father is crazy, then I will be alone again. That was the first thought that came to me, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Believe me, I tried. I knew I had to be the perfect little boy. That way, even if they drove all the servants away and tied Father to the bed so he couldn’t kick and scream the way crazy beggars do in the street, they’d keep me.
This is a house full of chatter and kitchen sounds, clanking pots and maids scolding the nomad who brings milk because it’s not fresh. But when my father ran down from the mountain, a strangeness descended over us—the sound of silence. Why is it so frightening? Because it’s like the silence before a man is hanged or beheaded. Those things happen to murderers in this city. Murderers and enemies caught on a raid if nobody sends ransom for them. I almost saw a beheading once, before Jafar caught me and dragged me home. Jafar is the cousin I like the best on most days.
The thought that Father had gone crazy was driving me crazy. Then I hit on something. What would a perfect boy do? I ran to the cook, who was rolling little balls of dates with honey and almonds. When I asked to help, she looked surprised and said they had girls to do that kind of work. I sat myself next to
her and dipped my fingers into the bowl of sticky brown dough. Cook sighed and showed me how to roll the little balls properly, until they were as smooth as marbles.
“Just don’t eat any. Master gets them first,” she warned. I knew why too. Mother thinks that the candy will sweeten his thoughts. That’s another thing I heard. I begged to be allowed to carry the sweets to Father’s room. Cook looked over her shoulder.
“You don’t want to go in there,” she whispered. But I whined, and when she let me trot off with the silver tray covered by a bright red cloth, I think the cook was relieved. At least it wasn’t her.
So that’s how I got inside Father’s room. He looked very tired. His beard was all tangled, and sweat had matted his hair. I tiptoed in and put the tray by his pillow. Then I asked him very low if he wanted some water.
“You can speak up. I’m not dying,” he said. “It’s not that simple.” Who knows what that meant. I fetched the water. He didn’t touch it, and he didn’t reach for the date sweets. When he caught me staring at the tray, Father pushed it my way.
“Go ahead. It will make them happy to think I’ve started eating again.”
I ate five. You can be a perfect boy and still eat candied dates, right? I’m not sure they made my thoughts sweeter, but I was less afraid. And braver.
“Do you see it now?” I asked.
Father gave me a look. “How do you know about that?”
I shrugged and waited. Either he would jump on me for sneaking around listening at doors or he’d tell me what he saw. I guess he wasn’t in a jumping mood, because he sighed and said, “I can’t choose to see or not see. He comes when God sends him.”
“Sends who?” I asked, with the knowledge that my father always had a special gift.
Pause there. First, I have a riddle. What three-letter word makes a boy invisible if you take it away and makes him visible again if you give it back? I go around asking people this riddle, but nobody ever gets it. When they give up, I walk away.
“Hey, the point of a riddle is that you tell the answer,” they all cry after me.
I just smile. “If I tell you the answer, you’ll be able to make me invisible.” Nobody gets to do that to me again.
The answer is ibn, which even strangers know means “son.” When you’re nobody’s son, you’re invisible. I never expected it to happen to me. I was tied to my father, Haritha, the way he was tied to his father, as tight as a goat tethered to the back of a wagon. But Allah had other plans and decided to make me as invisible as Himself.
One night I was sleeping under a warm blanket, and then in a moment it was snatched away. A raiding band had invaded our town. Two rough hands bound me hand and foot. They didn’t bother with a gag but threw me over the back of a saddle.
This is a dream, I thought.
I heard the horse’s hooves clanging over rocks, and its iron shoes threw sparks. The rider who towered over me started to lash his mount to go faster. The tip of his whip caught me in the face. The pain made me wince, and I tasted blood as it rolled down my cheek. This was no dream. The lanterns of the town faded into the night behind us. I had turned invisible.
No one needs to hear the details of what happened next. Allah wanted me to survive, and I did. One day my new father spied me standing in a dirty shift on the slave block in Mecca. I didn’t squeeze my eyes shut when they lifted the shift to show that I would be able to breed. Shame doesn’t exist when a boy is invisible.
You see why I interrupted my story with a riddle. Muhammad could see me. And if my new father could see me, then I am not surprised that he could see other invisible beings now.
“Who has God sent?” I repeated.
“An angel. Angels are His messengers,” Father said.
“And Mother can’t see it?”
He shook his head. “She has to ask. And if the angel is there, I tell her where he’s standing. She believes me. She says that I have a reputation for telling the truth. Why would I start lying now? Especially with a lie that will make me look crazy.”
Now my father’s face wore a small, crooked smile. He was making me feel better. Once when I was walking with Jafar, he gave a coin to a beggar who was crouched on all fours, barking like a dog.
“Do you know what makes him a madman?” asked Jafar as we walked away. He was always dropping coins like that, and you never knew who he’d pick to drop one on.
“Because he barks like a dog?” I said.
“No. He’s a madman because he doesn’t know he’s mad.”
I kept that in mind, because people do all kinds of crazy things, and it’s useful to pick out the ones who have lost their minds. Father was worried that he might be crazy, so that meant he wasn’t. I told him so, but he didn’t look very comforted.
The worst time for him came soon after that. He kept seeing the angel—he never knew what corner it might be hiding around—but God had nothing to say. There were only two messages. First, when he was afraid and lying in bed, covered with his cloak. God saw Father hiding there, and why not? He can see through walls and hearts and the lies men tell. The angel appeared saying:
You who are wrapped in your cloak, Arise and spread the warning.
Glorify the Lord’s greatness. Purify your garments, avoid all that is unclean.
Do not be weak and overcome. Be steadfast in the work of your Lord.
Father immediately told the message to Mother. His heart was torn. Every day made him realize that he was chosen, but who should he warn? Who would listen to him if he did? In her way, Mother had also received a message. Her cousin was old Waraqah, who was blind now and confined to his house. I saw his face only once, and his eyes were clouded over with a white film. Yet the old man’s head turned in my direction, even though I hadn’t said a word. In secret he became a Christian, Mother said. I don’t know that word, but she told me that Christ was as great a prophet as Moses.
“Then why does the tribe hate him?” I asked, meaning the old man, although it was no different with Christ.
As an answer, she quoted a saying: “Blind eyes see more than a blind heart.”
I wasn’t with her when she ran into Waraqah when he was near the Kaaba. He demanded that his relatives take him there to pray, no matter what threats hung over his head. When he heard that the angel had come to Father, the old man trembled and said, “Khadijah, the holy spirit has come to him. He will be called a liar; they will persecute him. He must hold fast.” Mother could see how overjoyed Waraqah was, but she was afraid for him as his voice grew louder. “Holy, holy, holy! He will be the prophet to this nation. But he’ll have to fight. If God gives me life, I will be by his side.”
Mother tried to calm him. In her heart she was overjoyed and ran home to tell Father everything. Despite this omen the angel brought no more messages. Days passed like weeks. The silence in the house became more anxious.
“If God has something to tell you, why doesn’t He do it all at once?” I asked.
“He wants to be sure I’m strong enough. All at once might destroy me,” Father replied.
People outside don’t know what it did to him to be at God’s mercy. We’re all at God’s mercy. I know that better than most. But for my father it was worse.
I was exhausted being perfect. Nothing I or anyone else did lifted the look on Father’s face. Until one day he filled the house with a shout. We all came running. It was a hot morning, and he had woken in a sweat. At that moment a second message had come from the angel. Father recited it quickly, almost out of breath, word for word.
You, wrapped in your cloak. Stay awake through the night,
leaving half or a little more for sleep.
Recite the Koran, slowly and distinctly.
We are going to send a great message down to you.
When you pray at night, your words will be sharper.
The day’s long hours are filled with activity,
so by night devote yourself wholeheartedly to the Lord.
He is the Lord of east an
d west; there is no God but Him.
Mother and Father looked relieved. They told me and the girls to sit down to a meal together, like a real family. No one felt crazy that night. Father was smiling the way he did before God arrived. It was like the sun coming out again.
Only to fade in the coming weeks. The great message never came through. We all waited. Father acted the best, even though he had the most reason to be restless and nervous.
“God has told me how to live,” he said. “My duty is to obey.”
He stayed up half the night praying. My room is close to his, and if I opened my door I could hear him reciting in a strong voice the messages he had already received, over and over. I didn’t understand the words, but it brought him peace of mind. This meant we could all stop worrying. I ran out to play again. Mecca is like Paradise to a boy who likes catching rats, chasing dogs, and flying a kite. The months passed, and I almost forgot about the angel. They told me in hushed tones one day that Father had started to receive more messages. He had waited six months. He had started to visit people again, and everyone assumed the crazy times were over. They all breathed easier.
I was pretty sure that it was good for him to hear from God again. In the house Mother said it was good, but I should not talk about it. She saw the worry in my eyes.
“Be happy. God is keeping His promise,” she said.
I smiled, acting reassured. On the inside I remembered a saying: “A promise is a cloud. Fulfillment is the rain.” I ran outside when I heard my cousins shouting for me. It wasn’t raining yet. But I didn’t care. When a stranger asks my name, I tell them what Father told me to say: I am Zayd ibn Muhammad.
I’m not invisible anymore.
13
ALI, THE FIRST CONVERT
The battle waged against the Prophet is fierce and grows worse every day. It’s been seven years now. To protect some of his followers, he sends them across the sea to Abyssinia, where the Christians recognize us as brothers under the same God. A bitter irony, this. Our own blood brothers, the Quraysh, persecute us without mercy. I remain patient, as the Prophet commands. I carry a dagger with me at all times and wait for the day when God will choose the real sons of Abraham.