Two men approached our camp, carrying the flag of heralds. Unlike the Byzantines, Muslims respected the immunity of envoys and these men did not need any protective force. As the tall figures clambered down the hill toward the Messenger’s simple green tent, my eyes went wide with recognition. These were not simple ambassadors. They were the lords of Mecca itself.

Abu Sufyan had come, along with his son Muawiya, who had been a secret convert for several years. From the smile on Muawiya’s face and the tired and defeated look on Abu Sufyan’s, it was clear that there was no more need for pretense. Mecca had been defeated, and all that was left was to settle the terms of its surrender.

The Messenger stepped forward with a warm smile and extended his hand to the man who had been his enemy for twenty years. Abu Sufyan looked at him wearily and then shook the Prophet’s hand with dignity.

OVER THE NEXT HOUR, the Messenger and Abu Sufyan negotiated a permanent end to hostilities between our peoples. The Muslim army would enter the city in the morning with the guarantee of a general amnesty for its populace. This was a remarkably magnanimous gesture on my husband’s part. He had defeated the people who had persecuted him for two decades, the people who had killed his family members and loved ones and had nearly exterminated the entire Muslim population at the Battle of the Trench. And he would forgive them and grant them privileged membership in the Muslim Ummah. The Quraysh, the tribe that had expelled Muhammad from its bosom, would retain control of Mecca and their traditional right to administer the Sanctuary and the Holy Kaaba in the name of Islam.

All of this the Messenger offered with a smile and an open hand. Abu Sufyan sighed, shaking his head at his enemy’s generosity, which he himself had failed to show over the years.

“Perhaps I always knew this day would come,” he said after a long moment of silence. His hair was now as white as the clouds, and his once-handsome faced was lined heavily with creases, the shrewd eyes weighed down by dark circles. He looked more like an old beggar than the would-be king of the Arab nation.

The Prophet leaned closer to him, took his hand in his as if they were old friends and not mortal enemies.

“Then why did you resist for so long?”

Abu Sufyan looked at his son Muawiya, his hope and pride, who had betrayed him and joined forces with his adversary. The dignified young man met his gaze and I could seen in them a glint of triumph, as if he had finally been proven right in an old family argument.

“Pride,” Abu Sufyan admitted at last. And then he turned his eyes on the Messenger. “And perhaps jealousy. That Allah had chosen you over me.”

The Messenger smiled.

“You said Allah, and not ‘the gods.’”

Abu Sufyan shrugged and rose to his feet.

“If my gods were real, they would have helped me over the years.”

The old man turned to leave, and then, almost as an afterthought, he turned to look back at my husband, an ironic smile on his lips.

“I testify that there is no god but God, and that you, Muhammad, are the Messenger of God.”

And with that, the last of Muhammad’s old enemies became his follower. Muawiya rose to help the old man limp out, when the Prophet called after them.

“Tell your people to stay indoors and abandon their weapons,” he said slowly, making sure that every word was understood. “No man will be harmed who does not resist.”

Abu Sufyan nodded. He was about to step out into the desert air, heated to frenzy by the thousands of campfires, when he looked one last time at the Messenger of God.

“Congratulations, Muhammad. You have defeated Quraysh at last.”

And then I saw the Prophet turn his gaze to Muawiya and for a second there was that strange and chilling flash of premonition in his black eyes. And then the Messenger smiled, and I was surprised to see a hint of sadness on his face.

“No. I have given the Quraysh victory.”

40

The next morning, Muhammad entered as a conqueror the holy city from which he had been expelled. Khalid ibn al-Waleed had led an advance guard to secure the city, but there was little resistance. The exhausted citizens of Mecca stayed inside their homes, quietly praying to their gods that the man whom they had persecuted would show them the graciousness that had escaped them when they held the reins of power. And their prayers would be answered, but not by the idols that they had fought and died for. The days of Allat, Uzza, and Manat were over, and Allah had emerged triumphant. The many had been defeated by the One.

My husband rode his favorite camel, Qaswa, back into the city that had been his home until he had questioned its ancient taboos and challenged its powerful elite. My father, Abu Bakr, rode at his side, followed by the ranks of the Muslim army, marching forward with dignity and discipline down the paved streets toward the Sanctuary.

I was on my own camel, riding in the covered howdah that been the source of so much trouble when I had been left behind in the desert. The Muslims had a policy now that they would not break camp until the Mothers had all been safely tucked away in their honored carriages and accounted for. Normal decorum required that I sit behind the heavy curtains of the howdah until the company had come to a halt, but the excitement of the day won out and no one objected when I peered through the woolen covers at the glorious sight of the Sanctuary, which I had not seen since I was a little girl.

The Kaaba was as I remembered it, the towering cubical temple covered in rich curtains of multicolored silks. The circular plaza around this holiest site of the Arab people was still littered with the three hundred and sixty idols that represented the different gods of the tribes, but this abomination would soon be at an end.

The Messenger rode ahead of us and circled the holy house seven times while proclaiming God’s glory. He then stopped his camel and climbed down, approaching the Black Stone that was placed inside the eastern corner of the building. The Stone was said to have been lodged there by Abraham himself when our forefather had built the original temple with his son Ishmael. According to the Messenger, the Black Stone had fallen from heaven and was the only remnant of the celestial paradise from which Adam had been expelled.

The Messenger kissed the Stone of Heaven with reverence. And then he signaled to Ali, who strode forth with his mighty sword and began to slash away at the idols that had polluted the House of God from time immemorial. He tore down the ancient statues of the Daughters of Allah, followed by the grinning carved faces of the Syrian and Iraqi gods who had been imported into the Sanctuary when their images were no longer welcome in the Christian world. As the idols fell, a tremendous chorus of chants rose from the Muslim ranks, cries of Allahu akbar and La ilaha illallah. “God is great. There is no god but God.” From this day forward the Arabs were no longer a disparate group of competing tribes, each with its own customs and beliefs. They were a single nation, united under one God.

And then, when the plaza was covered in rubble and the last of the idols had been smashed to dust, the Messenger of God opened the doors of the Kaaba and gestured toward us, his family and closest followers. My father and Ali came to his side, as did Umar, Uthman, Talha, and Zubayr. Fatima joined them, holding the hands of her little sons, Hasan and Husayn. And then Prophet looked at me and nodded. I hesitated, feeling my heart pounding with anticipation, and then I led my sister-wives to the entrance of the Holy of Holies, where the Spirit of God dwelled for eternity.

The Messenger stepped inside and we climbed the stone steps, following him into the darkness. There were no torches inside the Kaaba and for a moment I was blind and lost. And then my eyes adjusted to the gloom and I could see the three marble pillars that held up the stone roof of the temple. And on the far wall towered a mighty carnelian statue of Hubal, the god of Mecca.