The words hit me in the pit of my stomach. The world spun around me and I suddenly felt as if I were about to faint.

My parents stared at the Prophet with wide eyes and then embraced each other with joy. I saw the relief on their faces, but I did not move. My legs felt dead beneath me, and my heart pounded so loudly that I could feel my bones shake.

My mother looked at me with a broad smile and then bent down to kiss my forehead. And yet even then I sat still, staring at the three of them without a single word.

“Rise and thank the Messenger of God!” my mother said, with both joy and a hint of reproach in her voice.

And then I felt my face turn hot red, and all the poison of the weeks before came rushing into my veins. I rose to my feet and threw my hair back in defiance.

“No!” I shouted in a deadly voice that even I did not recognize. “I will not rise and go to him, and I will not praise anyone except God!”

God had believed me even though the whole world had turned against me, including my own flesh and blood. Including the man I loved. Had it not been for the Creator of the heavens and the earth intervening in this sorry state of affairs, I would have lived my life and possibly met my death under the cloud of a lie.

I turned and stormed out of the room, wishing to escape all those who had not believed me and bow my head to the One who had. To the only one whom I could trust unconditionally, the only one who mattered. A Being whose Face was everywhere I looked and nowhere at the same time. A God whose words I read every day and yet whose voice I had never heard.

I realized that day that Muhammad was exactly what he claimed to be-a man and nothing more. I had loved him with such youthful ferocity that I had turned him into an idol, a pristine icon of perfection, when in truth he was of the same flesh and blood as the rest of us, with the same doubts and fears that plagued the hearts of other mortals. I knew that when the fire of my anger had faded, my love for my husband would return, as it always does between those whose souls are bonded. But it would be a healthy love, of two people learning to live together in an imperfect world, not of a trembling supplicant bowing before an angel.

It would be a human love from that day forward, without the taint of idolatry, a sin that had been cleansed from my heart through the fire of scandal and injustice. And though the mystique of girlish romance, of a union that was a rose free of thorns, was lost forever to me, it had been replaced with a steady and honest view of life and the difficulty of living and loving in a broken world.

As I look back upon my life in these final hours, I realize that at that moment, I truly changed from a girl into a woman.

I RETURNED TO MY apartment that afternoon, and word spread throughout Medina of my divine vindication. Not only had God cleared me of the false charge, He had commanded a new law in the holy Qur’an, which required that anyone accusing a woman of adultery must produce four eyewitnesses to the act itself. And if four witnesses do not step forward, then the accuser himself must be lashed eighty times for besmirching the honor of an innocent woman.

But in the immediate aftermath of my own rehabilitation, the Prophet urged me to forgive the gossipmongers and end the rift that had threatened to tear the nation apart. I agreed, and a parade of apologetic men and women came to my door, weeping and begging my forgiveness, which I readily gave. The matter was closed, and I had no desire to pour further poison onto the wounds of the community.

But when the final supplicant came, I found that my heart had run out of generosity. Ali arrived at the threshold of my apartment and gently sought my pardon.

I stared at my nemesis through the curtain of my thick veil. His humble gestures of regret were sincere. And yet his apology did nothing to lessen the rage burning inside me. Ali, alone of all people, had the power to sway my husband’s heart for good or ill, and he had chosen to use that power against me.

Staring at Ali, his head bowed before me in apology, I felt as if talons were closing around my neck, and the ugly taste of bile rose in my throat. And then, without responding to his repeated requests for forgiveness, I rose and closed the door in his face.

30

Khalid ibn al-Waleed, the general of Mecca’s forces, stared out at the approaching throngs of his enemies. But they were not garbed in steel armor or carrying mighty weapons of war. Instead they were clothed in the ihram, the simple white linen of pilgrims coming to visit the Sanctuary at the heart of Arabia. The men of Medina wore a two-piece costume, a sheet wrapped around their loins with a second draped across their shoulders, while the Muslim women wore flowing robes and head scarves.

Khalid sat on his mighty stallion, his eyes fixed on the sea of fourteen hundred Muslims marching unarmed and defenseless on the sacred city from which their leaders had been expelled almost a decade before. He heard their emotional cries of the ancient Pilgrimage evocation: Labayk, Allahumma, labayk! “I answer your call, O God, I answer!” And even his heart, which had little room for sentiment, was moved.

But though his emotions may have been softened by this remarkable sight, his duty as a warrior remained unchanged. Khalid clicked his tongue and spurred his horse forward and raced to the approaching throng of worshipers.

The leaders of Mecca had just received word of this incoming wave of Muslims and the city was in a frenzy. It was a sad testament to the fall of Mecca’s prestige since the failed Siege of the Trench that none of the allied Bedouin tribes had bothered to give Abu Sufyan and his cronies sufficient warning of the approaching pilgrim caravan from Medina. Perhaps their spies in the neighboring hills did not think the arrival of unarmed worshipers to Mecca posed any threat, but Khalid wondered whether the same silence would have greeted Muhammad’s arrival on a mission of war.

Muhammad. Khalid shook his head in admiration. The man had proven to be not only an inspiring teacher and political leader but also an apt general and a truly brilliant military strategist. This most recent surprise tactic, of sending his people out to join the Pilgrimage like the other Arab tribes, was a brilliant stroke, the play of a master at the top of his game. For even as Khalid rode out to meet his foes, he knew there was little he could do to stop them. Pilgrims were protected by the ancient taboos of his people, and he could not lay hands on them without inciting the wrath of Mecca’s few remaining allies.

Which, of course, Muhammad understood. He was sending to Mecca a force large enough to invade and occupy the city, but one that carried no weapons that could invite retaliation. Muhammad would in essence bind Mecca with a chain of peace and there was nothing that Abu Sufyan or the elders could do about it.

As Khalid rode over a hill, he heard the thunder of hooves behind him and could smell the sweat of his men who were riding out to support their commander. Two hundred of the finest cavalry of Mecca would be behind him in moments, and the dust of their approach was likely already visible on the horizon to the approaching pilgrims. And yet the crowd did not slow its advance, and the Muslims continued walking toward the sacred city from which they were banned.

As his legion of horsemen raced toward the peaceful invaders, Khalid rode forward until he was within shouting distance from the men at the front lines. He recognized Umar ibn al-Khattab, the fierce warrior who had abandoned his people for this new faith, and he spurred his horse toward the towering figure.

Umar must have seen him ride up from over the dunes, even as he must now see the oncoming wave of Meccan horses. But the grim man simply stared straight ahead, chanting the pilgrim’s call even louder as the rumble of hooves echoed closer.