Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam Read Online Free PDF Page A

not here,” Ali said gently. “Abu Bakr went to see Talha and tell him the news.”
    “What news?”
    The light in Ali’s eyes seemed to brighten.
    “It has begun,” he said simply. And with that, Ali nodded a farewell to the perplexed girl and closed the gate.
    Asma stood frozen for a moment. There was perfect silence all about her, and the air felt heavier, as if a mysterious blanket had covered the street. It felt as if time had somehow stopped during her brief talk with Ali and that the world itself had been holding its breath.
    And then the crickets chirped again in a steady, flowing cadence. Asma shook off the uncomfortable sensation of having just returned from a strange and distant land and focused her mind on what she had to do. She turned and ran away from the Prophet’s house toward the main streets of Mecca and her cousin Talha’s home.
     
    A BU B AKR WARMED HIS hands by the fire as Talha poured him some goat’s milk in an old wooden bowl. The young man, recently turned eighteen, was one of the most recent converts to the new faith. The Prophet’s teachings of charity and justice for the poor had ignited Talha’s youthful idealism and had given him a cause more worthy of dedicating his life to than simply driving camels for his wealthy cousin. He was eager to share the Revelation with his young friends, to recruit them to the cause, but he had sworn a vow of secrecy. Talha had passionately counseled the Messenger to let him spread the word among the stable boys and shepherds of God’s Word. He argued that the new way would be resisted by Abu Bakr’s generation, long trapped in the rites of their fathers, but that it was among the shabab of Mecca, those too young to be subdued by the overpowering weight of tradition, that they would find their strongest supporters. The Prophet had smiled and gently admonished him to be patient. Allah had a plan and none could rush the Divine into action. They day would come, Talha had been assured, when they would emerge from the shadows and proclaim the One God openly in Mecca, and eventually the world.
    And now, at last, that day had come.
    “So he told the tribal chiefs tonight?” Talha’s eyes glittered with excitement as he handed his elder cousin the bowl of milk.
    “Yes.” Abu Bakr held the bowl to his lips, softly whispering the invocation Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem —“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” It was the sacred formula that the Prophet had been taught by Gabriel, the words by which believers began the recitation of their prayers. It was the blessing that they uttered every time they started something anew, whether it be as simple as eating or drinking or tying their shoes, or as meaningful and profound as making love. The bismillah sanctified even the smallest moments of life, elevating the mundane to the holy with every breath.
    Abu Bakr sipped the milk, let its soft curds flow down his throat and cool the fire he had felt growing inside his belly through the night.
    “What happened?” Talha leaned forward, his hands gripping the edge of the old cypress table that Abu Bakr had given him as a gift the day he embraced Islam.
    Abu Bakr sighed and put down the bowl.
    “The Prophet received a revelation from Gabriel that he must now openly proclaim the Message, beginning first with his own family members,” Abu Bakr said, looking into the flames as he recounted the tale. “And so he asked Ali to gather the heads of Quraysh for dinner tonight.”
    The Quraysh were the Prophet’s tribe, who had long administered the city of Mecca and organized the annual pilgrimage that brought Arabs from all over the desert to worship their gods at the Kaaba, the holy temple at the center of the city. They were the de facto rulers of the most important religious site in all of Arabia, and their support would have given Muhammad’s new movement the prestige to win over the hearts of their countrymen.
    “It was a sparse meal,” Abu