I looked up. She was standing over me, straightening out her creaky knees.
“The wage of sin is desperation,” she said. There was no sermon that followed. Instead she taught me to pray, my face to the floor, facing toward Mecca because God’s house was there. She gave me the same prayer I had heard my soldier mumble. “Praise be to Allah, the Lord of creation, the compassionate, the merciful.” I was glad for that.
Halimah warned me that I must pray at exactly the appointed hours of the day when the muezzin called, and then one last time before I went to bed. I nodded, wrung the last drops of water from my scrubbing rag, and started to leave.
Halimah shook her head. “You haven’t asked why we pray.”
I blushed. I couldn’t tell her that I was praying for a soldier whose name I didn’t even know.
“We pray out of gratitude to God. He has given us everything. Remember that, child.” She caught a look in my eyes. “You don’t believe me. Because you think God hasn’t given you much.”
I didn’t dare speak or even nod. If she sent me away, I’d have no more work or bread.
“Let me tell you what you are,” she said.
My heart sank. “I thought that you, of all people, wouldn’t tell me.” I heard my voice shake.
Halimah took my hand. “Listen to me, my dear. You are not what you seem. You are God’s child. Fate has taken you far away from Him to show you what it is like to be lost. But it’s the will of God to bring you back, all the more to rejoice.”
Something inside me cracked. I trembled like a virgin stripped naked before a stranger. Halimah and I wept together, and that was the start. I learned what I must do to deserve God’s grace. I prayed, a reminder in thought and word that God is here. The world pulls us away; the voice of sin is never silent. But if we remember God throughout the day, our souls approach his glory.
I followed Halimah around and watched her. She wrapped up pieces of bread and thrust small coins into each one. These she gave to the street beggars. That’s how I learned to remember the poor, as the Koran tells us. It was autumn, and when Ramadan came, Halimah sat in her room for most of the day. I brought her a tray of food, but she barely touched it or the jug of water I put by her bed. She didn’t have to tell me that she was fasting, or that the Koran told her to, but I had to know why.
“For a month we remember who we are,” she said. “We are not this body that is nourished by food and water. We are made for God, and so it is right to repent of the flesh, and to abstain from the flesh’s craving.”
She smiled like a child. “Of course, there are cravings I gave up long ago. We won’t speak of that.”
Her simplicity moved me. Halimah trusted me. I was welcome in her house without suspicion or scorn. Nothing was locked away from me. So it was an easy step to accept her trust in God.
As for my soldier, he never returned. The mujahidin marched home. The calamity of the Byzantine attack was written on their faces. They dragged the corpses of the fallen behind them, wrapped in white winding sheets. I couldn’t look. If my soldier was one of them, it would be unbearable. Halimah noticed, of course, but she didn’t say anything when she found me weeping in a corner.
One day when I came to scrub the floors, she surprised me with a table spread out for a guest.
“Why didn’t you tell me I shouldn’t come?” I asked.
“Why should I? You are the guest.”
I had never seen lamb and apricots in her larder before, and the fresh oil she dripped over the soft warm bread smelled like an orchard in spring.
“What’s this for?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine where she found the money, and suddenly a pang of worry struck me. Perhaps this was her leave-taking. Was the old woman ready to die?
Instead of answering me, Halimah said, “Which is better, to dream of a feast or to eat it?”
“To eat it,” I replied mechanically.
Halimah passed me a platter of shredded lamb steamed in spiced rice. “It’s time you realized that.”
It took me time to understand her teaching. For that moment, I was just glad to be her guest. In the past hunger had been my constant companion during the month of Ramadan, which had just ended. Muslims led such quiet lives then that there were almost no calls for me. Halimah stopped eating long before I was full, but she was content to watch me. When I took my sleeve and wiped the last bit of lamb grease from my mouth, she smiled.
“Now the feast begins.”
Halimah looked amused at my puzzlement. “When the body has had enough, the mind still craves its own feast. So far, you have been satisfied with wishes. You dream of being as full here”—she touched her heart—“as you are here.” She moved her hand to her stomach. “But as you said, it’s better to eat a feast than to dream of one. Are you ready?”
“I don’t know.” Her words made me a little frightened.
She went on. “You are standing at the door for the first time. What lies ahead is dim. But the angel who came to the Prophet speaks to you. He speaks on the wind and among the stars. Who knows what the wind says? The space between the stars is silent. That is why we have the Koran. The angel’s message lives in the Book. Anyone can understand it.
“The world has unfolded according to God’s will. There have been many prophets and messengers. But men soon forget, and then God sends those who warn of danger. Men still turn their backs, and finally God sends the pure word of truth. When that happens, there is no excuse. This is the golden hour.”
She had memorized scraps of the Koran, and with a glowing face she murmured one now. “Call on Him with fear and longing in your heart, for the mercy of God is near to those who do good.”
A silence fell between us. “Fear?” I said. “Why must I call on God in fear?”
“Because your young soldier may be dead. I’m sure you have other fears. Who else will ease them for you?”
Halimah had never mentioned him before, and I had no idea how she knew. I pulled my veil over my face to spare her the stricken look that came over me. “Can God bring back the dead?” I whispered.
“If He wills it, yes. But that isn’t the point.” Halimah’s voice grew sharper, as if she was pulling me back to myself. “To be born is to suffer, and to sin. The Arabs take no notice of mercy. Life is harder here than anywhere else. There is no better place to forget God than the desert. What is the point of suffering, but to endure?
“Then one day God put Gabriel, his most trusted angel, in a small boat. He placed the Koran in his hands, and the little boat set sail. It arrived at the shores of Arabia, and you know what the angel said? ‘This hard land has made hard hearts. I will find one man who will heed God’s word. I will stand by him every day, giving him drops of truth the way a mother gives a squalling babe drops of milk. In time, these hard hearts will melt.’”
I will never forget that day, nor the teaching that came with it. Halimah taught me that the angel is near, and wherever he goes, a feast is spread.
I became devout and stopped longing for my soldier. After a while others noticed the change. I was given a place at the well, and eventually some asked me my name.
“Yasmin,” I said.
I smile now as the black clouds roll in from the hills. The wisps of rain that hang from their bellies tell my story before I let mercy into my heart.
Even so, I do run with the other women to the gates whenever the mujahidin return. They go farther and farther these days. The world is ready to fall to its knees. It’s time. And I confess it—I search the face of each soldier.
Last month I lay in bed and the door opened. Hearing the hinges creak, I shut my eyes tight. Fate is a guest who can never be turned away.
A man’s face brushed my cheek before his hands touched me. I imagined I felt curls in his beard.
“I’ve come back for the ruby,” he whispered. “Didn’t I promise?”
My heart beat so fast I thought I would die. “You promised to teach me about love. But I already know.”
&nb
sp; “There is always more to learn.”
I felt his hand plucking the ruby earring from my ear. He held it up, and although it was midnight, the stone began to glow like a spark from heaven. With a sudden plunge he brought the ruby down hard on my chest, and I felt it sink beneath the flesh. It sank as far as my heart. Amazingly, I could still see it. The red glow spread until every chamber of my heart was filled and grew still.
The hinges creaked again, and he was gone. Did I dream it? No one could ever make me believe that. I carry the jewel of redemption in my heart, and with every fiber of my being I know that my soldier had returned for me.
19
ABU SUFYAN, THE ENEMY
I call it canny politics. The superstitious call it magic. If you want, you can call it the hand of God. But before he suddenly died last year, Muhammad achieved total victory. He could no more be stopped by force than you can stop a sandstorm by holding up your fist.
Mecca had no choice but to surrender. I will tell you that part in a moment. Many said the Prophet was inviolate from harm. I half believed it myself. My whole body trembled when I was brought before him, like a captive ready for sentencing. Muhammad wasn’t the picture of a conqueror. He was subdued. His eyes barely saw me. Where were they fixed—on another world, another revelation? Quietly he said, “I am home again. I bear no ill will. If you wish to join us, the past is the past.”
“Wish” was a nice word, a gentle word. He could afford to be gentle with a thousand swords holding the streets of Mecca.
More than anything he had wanted Mecca. To an orphan boy it was still the center of the world. Without it, Muhammad’s conquests would have been like a necklace without the priceless pearl. After ten years of strife, though, how could he conquer Mecca when the Quraysh had sworn blood revenge? He would do it God’s way, the only way we couldn’t fight against.
It took him three years and began with a dream. Muhammad saw himself with his head shaved, the way pilgrims look after they perform the Hajj in Mecca. When he told about his dream, his advisers were shocked. The Hajj belonged to the old religion before Islam. Everyone knows that. How could their new God share the same rites as the old gods? For once Muhammad’s followers resisted him. The young jihadis who had grown strong in battle were stubborn. Muhammad could not convince them to bend, but finally he let the people in the streets know about his vision.
A clamor arose to return to Mecca. The desire had been sleeping in the exiles’ breasts all along. See what I mean about canny politics? A peaceful pilgrimage would bring the exiles home and at the same time reassure us in Mecca that our holy sites wouldn’t go bankrupt. They were our lifeblood. After all, each turn around the Kaaba by the pilgrims was like an ox drawing water from a well. We needed it to survive.
And so the Muslims came, wrapped in the white linen skirt and shawl of the devout, dragging hundreds of sacrificial animals and keeping their weapons out of sight. I paid for a band of cavalry led by our best fighter, Khalid, to intercept them. Unfortunately, they completely lost Muhammad’s train, which had purposely veered off onto a different, rockier route.
Sitting in council, half the Qurayshi elders wanted to concede. “Let them enter and worship. The Kaaba will still be ours. Doesn’t that signal that we have won?”
I stood up trying not to ridicule such feeble logic. “If you let them into Mecca, you are saying that Muhammad is your equal, each one of you. In place of the tribe, which has held us together from the time of Abraham, an upstart will unite the Arabs according to his revelations. Trust me, the first revelation will be to destroy the idols.”
Enough elders were persuaded by me that Muhammad had to stop outside the city. When forcibly stopped, he reached out to negotiate. No matter how different Islam is from the faith of our fathers, one thing is agreed upon. The sacred precincts of Mecca cannot be a place for violence. Pilgrims cannot fight holy wars. Holy grace depends upon it.
When his emissaries sued for peace, I didn’t relent easily. I forced the chiefs to demand that the Muslims go away for one year before attempting to worship in the city. In return, we would halt hostilities against them for ten years. I know the concession was too great. I was admitting military defeat. But the soldiers of Mecca—every citizen, in fact—believed that the Muslims fought with special magic to protect them. When that kind of belief takes hold, the enemy has won before the first blow has been struck.
After signing the treaty where he was camped, on the plain of Hudaybiyah, Muhammad’s camp buzzed with resentment. They had marched four days to visit the Holy House and make sacrifice. Why should they turn back when they were in sight of the city walls?
Umar, one of the angriest, stood up and challenged Muhammad to his face. “Are you not the prophet of God? Isn’t our cause right and the Quraysh’s wrong? Haven’t you promised us that we would make seven circles around the Kaaba?”
Meekly Muhammad nodded yes to each question, but when Umar got to the last, he replied, “I promised you worship at the Kaaba, but did I say it would be this year?”
A tricky answer, but Umar sat down, and there was no rebellion. Still, Muhammad needed a revelation. And one came. God told him that certain victory (Al-Fath) had been won. Therefore, Muhammad ordered that the sacrificial animals be sacrificed outside the city walls. He strode outside and made the first sacrifice of a prize camel. Some of his followers grumbled, but when he appeared before them to have his head shaved, as a sign that the holy rites had been successful, they complied. Their shorn hair was carried by the wind to the gates of Mecca. It slipped under and littered the holy sites themselves. The Prophet knew what he was about.
As I feared, the treaty was thin. A few night raids on one side, a few murders on the other. Arabs suckle on strife, and they are never weaned. What the desert makes us suffer, we make our enemies suffer. But I had lost the will to fight back. I became a negotiator hoping to extract a few bits of privilege, a little more breathing room before the final blow came.
We had turned the Muslims away the first time they came to worship, but the second time, a year later, couldn’t be finessed. I sent word that Muhammad and his followers could enter Mecca, but only after all the Quraysh had abandoned the city. We would sit up in the hills for three days and wait out their visit. This was offered as a gesture of peace, to ensure that the pilgrims wouldn’t run into violence. Muhammad knew that it was a mark of disdain as well.
Muhammad entered the gates of an abandoned city and drew within sight of the Kaaba. Walking up to it, he silently touched the Black Stone with his staff and gave thanks to Allah. The company of worshipers was deeply moved, thinking how many years it had been since he could do that. When Muhammad approached the door, however, it was locked. My doing, I’ll admit it. I was damned if he would defile the inner sanctum. His followers grew enraged. I imagine they would have torn the city apart. Looking down from the hilltop, I half expected to see Mecca engulfed in smoke. Remaining calm, Muhammad ordered Bilal, a former slave, to climb to the roof of the Holy House and call the faithful to their noon prayers. When Mecca heard a Muslim singing out over the rooftops, the followers were satisfied.
My disdain was pointless, anyway. The new faith spread like a fever into every household. You couldn’t see it, yet it overcame you even as you breathed. My own daughter, Ramlah, was lost to me. I renounced her when she ran off with a Muslim on the Hijra. One day soon after that I found my wife weeping.
“What is it?” I asked.
“There is no more Ramlah. She is now Umm Abibah.”
I shook my head. “Her husband died. He was a dolt and a traitor. And now she has a right to be a wife again.”
“You think so? Well you have your wish. She is now the wife of Muhammad.”
All the blood drained from my face, and I staggered to a chair. For the rest of the day and all that night I remained there, as if paralyzed. Nursing my grievances, my mind drifted back in time when I could walk past Muhammad in the street and not bestow a glance. But I’m a realis
t. The thin treaty turned worthless. I was sent to Medina in the hopes of fooling Muhammad into signing it again. No one was fooled. All the power was on his side now.
Maybe I was lonely in Medina. Something caused me to make a mistake. I went to my daughter, in the rooms she kept near Muhammad. What good did I think would come of it? She was nervous and stiff, barely bending to the floor to greet me. I saw a chair and began to sit down.
“Oh no!” she said timidly, snatching off the blanket that covered it.
I kept my temper. “You would deny respect to your father? It’s only a wool blanket, not embroidered silk from Cathay.”
“But the Prophet sits on it,” she stammered. I stared at her, then turned on my heels and left without a word.
It has been told that it took three years before Muhammad swallowed Mecca. In the end, the city fell without resistance. Before the Muslims marched in, they sent a declaration ahead of them. Any citizen who stayed in his house behind locked doors would be spared. So that’s what we did. I cowered by lamplight as the horses of the Muslims clanged their iron hoofs on the cobblestones. I didn’t trust these warriors for God completely. I ordered that the lamps be kept low, so that the invaders would think my house was empty. All I could see in the darkness was the glint of fear in my wife’s eyes. I never asked what she saw in mine.
There was no avoiding my fate. I had to face him.
“I will convert,” I said, offering no conditions. I licked my lips, preparing to kiss his sandals, but Muhammad stopped me with a small gesture.
“You only need to swear two things. The first is that there is no god but God.”
I repeated the words. If you have lived as long as I have, your allegiance is greasy. It shifts easily from one god to the next.
“And the second thing?” I asked.
“There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His prophet.”
The words fell simply from his lips. He didn’t puff himself up like an emperor. I knew that his struggles had humbled him. He had an infant son, Ibrahim, born in Medina. Muhammad doted on the babe, but one day he caught a fever and died. Then he sent a band of his best warriors to Syria, but they were ambushed by mercenaries from Byzantium. His foster son, Zayd, was killed, and with him a cousin, Jafar. Both were precious to Muhammad. An ordinary man wouldn’t love his God quite so dearly after that. Or trust him.