And our policy of religious tolerance was soon to have a proactive effect in generating support for our expansion. After the fall of Palestine, the Meccan emissary Amr ibn al-As led a small force of a few thousand horsemen into the Sinai and invaded Egypt, which had been traded back and forth by Persians and Byzantines during their all-consuming war over the past century. Neither side had shown much compassion to the people of Egypt, who were merely pawns in the great game of empire. The Persians were fire worshipers and had no love for the Christianity of Egypt, which missionaries and warriors had been trying to impose on their ancient people for centuries. And the Byzantines looked upon the Coptic Christians of Egypt as heretics who had been misled from the true teachings of Rome and Constantinople. Both nations had brutally persecuted the Egyptians and tried to erase their religious identity. And so it was that when Amr’s forces appeared on the horizon, the local populace rose up against the last of their Byzantine rulers and helped the Muslims take control of the land beyond the Nile. The Muslims did not understand, nor did we care for, the minute differences of theology that divided the Copts from their fellow Christians. They were all People of the Book as far as we were concerned, and as long as they paid their taxes, we didn’t bother with what they believed or how they performed their church services. Thus it was that the Holy Qur’an’s commandment Let there be no compulsion in religion became the rallying cry that brought the oppressed peoples of North Africa into our fold. And it was the great irony of God’s purpose that the Muslim prayer call of No god but God was at last heard to echo at the Pyramids, where Moses himself had sought to convince Pharaoh of this truth in a world long gone.

And even as the west fell to the forces of Islam, the east opened to our armies like the petals of a flower in the springtime. The defeat of the Persians in Iraq had rumbled through the Sassanid provinces like a landslide, and under Umar’s command, the Muslims tore through the heart of Persia. We crushed the last of the Sassanid troops at the Battle of Qadisiya and soon Ctesiphon, the mighty capital of Persia, fell to Islam and the ancient empire of the shahs vanished into the annals of history.

As nations fell before us with stunning ease, the coffers of Medina began to overflow with gold and jewels, tribute coming in from all over the world to the new empire that had slain the old. I heard one account that said that the storehouses of the Bayt al-Mal held tens of millions of gold dirhams, more wealth than had ever physically existed inside all of Arabia. It was a bounty beyond comprehension, and Umar was rightly concerned that such a concentration of wealth would corrupt the hearts of the Muslims. He ordered wide distributions from the treasury to the poor and placed the elderly and the sick on regular pensions to ensure that they were provided for. But no matter how much Umar gave away, more kept flowing into our coffers, as the borders of Islam expanded from the deserts of Africa to the mountains of the Caucasus.

It was an exciting time to be alive, and every day news came to Medina of some stunning victory of the Muslim armies. And yet I can only write of those battles as others have relayed them to me, for in all those years, I did not cross the borders of Arabia. With my husband’s death and then my father’s, I found that my role in the life of the Muslim Ummah was becoming circumscribed to Medina. During the Prophet’s life, I had traveled with him on his battles and had been his constant companion on diplomatic journeys to unite the Arab tribes. But after his passing, I rarely left the confines of the oasis except to go to Pilgrimage in Mecca, and then only under a heavy honor guard of the Caliph’s soldiers. The freedom that I had loved as a child was gone, and for all intents and purposes, I had become a prisoner to my honored status as Mother of the Believers.

Since there was nothing I could do to change things, I decided to make the most of the role that was given me. I became a teacher to both men and women, and every day prominent Muslims would come to my apartment and speak to me through the curtain, asking for spiritual and practical advice. My prodigious memory proved to be a valuable asset to the believers, as I could easily recite word for word conversations that I had had with my husband years before. I became one of the most trusted narrators of hadith, oral traditions about the life and teachings of Muhammad, which were soon being passed by word of mouth over the vast distances of the Muslim empire. Whenever the people wished to know what my husband had said regarding anything from how to properly cleanse themselves after defecation to the appropriate inheritance shares for their grandchildren, they came to me and I told them what I knew.

My reputation as a scholar had led Umar to rely on me heavily for advice during his reign, and I felt great pride that a young girl in her twenties had become an influential voice in the court of the Caliph, who was fast becoming the most powerful man on earth. Yet despite his unquestioned authority, Umar remained a deeply humble and austere man, wearing patched clothes and sleeping on the floor in his tiny hut. When envoys from conquered nations arrived in Medina, they were invariably shocked to find that their “emperor” lived like a beggar, without even the security of personal bodyguards.

But even as my prestige in the community rose, my loneliness increased. I and the other Mothers had been forbidden by God to marry again after the Messenger’s death, and so we lived alone in our apartments, the old jealousies fading away under the bond of shared boredom. In truth, even if God had permitted us to remarry, none of us would have done so. It was impossible to love any man other than the Messenger.

It would have been an easier life had we been blessed with children, but that was not to be for any of us. And so I contented myself with the company of the children of my loved ones. You, Abdallah, my sister’s son, became the closest thing I would ever know to a child of my own, and I loved you accordingly. I took great pride in watching you grow from a carefree child into a mature and responsible young man, and I know that as long as Islam is led by men like you, our nation will be safe from the temptations of power.

I also spent a great deal of time with my younger brother, Muhammad, who had been born during the Prophet’s final Pilgrimage to Mecca. After my father died, his mother, Asma bint Umais, married Ali, and Muhammad was raised beside Hasan and Husayn, who were also like children to me. Though I had no affection for their father, the grandsons of the Prophet were innocent and sweet, and whenever I saw them, I was reminded of my gentle husband. Hasan was a fun-loving youth who was always climbing trees and racing with the other boys, and his handsome face, so much like his grandfather’s, was always bright with a smile. Husayn was the more serious of the two, shy and reserved, his eyes exuding a deep compassion and sadness that reminded me of his ghostly mother. My little brother, Muhammad, was their constant companion and protector. If any of the naughty boys ever acted up or played rough with the Prophet’s grandsons, Muhammad was there to teach them a hard lesson in playground manners. He had always possessed a passionate sense of justice, a quality that would sadly lead to tragedy for him and the whole Ummah one day.

Though I loved the children of Ali’s house, my relationship with the Prophet’s cousin was still strained. We were always formally cordial in each other’s presence, but the chasm between us continued to grow over the years. My refusal to forgive Ali for his suggestion that the Messenger divorce me had become a matter of stubborn habit now, a fault of my pride that would be the cause of much sorrow.