“The angel Gabriel game to him carrying a bundle of green silk,” Abu Bakr said slowly. “When the Prophet asked what was in the bundle, the angel said: ‘Your wife.’ And then he unrolled the silk and the Prophet saw a girl.”

Abu Bakr stopped. For a moment, I saw an image of Ramla wrapped in Gabriel’s silk, and I wanted to vomit. This beautiful and cunning daughter of Abu Sufyan would soon be in the bed of the Messenger of God. My heart beat fast with indignation.

But when my father spoke next, my heart stopped

“He saw Aisha.”

For the next several minutes, I heard nothing more. It was as if I had been struck deaf and even the torment of the damned in hell would have passed by my ears unnoticed.

When the world started again, the sounds came rushing at me faster than I could comprehend.

“What do we do?” My mother’s voice was shrill, like a lamb bleating at the first sight of the sacrificial knife.

“We obey God,” he said simply.

I heard my mother slam something down on the table and the door shook with its vibrations.

“But Aisha…she is promised to Jubayr ibn Mutim!”

This was news to me.

I had met Jubayr a few times, but I could barely remember what he looked like. I was aware that he was a cousin of the hated Hind, and I had heard rumors that he had been considering converting after Ramla had joined the new faith. Apparently, I was being used as a negotiating chip by my father to entice this powerful lord of Quraysh to embrace our faith. My heart, which had soared moments before to know that I was chosen to be the Messenger’s wife, now sank into rage and despair at the thought that my own family could bargain my life away so casually.

“Jubayr’s father has always opposed the marriage and will be relieved when we rescind the proposal,” he said matter-of-factly, as if discussing the proper value of onions in the marketplace. “If Jubayr is destined to come to Islam, God will find him a virtuous wife, I’m sure.”

I felt rage building in my young veins. Nowhere in this discussion had anyone mentioned or cared what I might have thought of any of this.

I heard my mother’s skirts rustling as she paced across the room, a habit whenever she was nervous or unsure.

“She is so young-” Umm Ruman objected, but my father cut her off.

“No younger than most brides these days,” Abu Bakr said simply. “The marriage will not be consummated until her cycles begin.”

There was a long silence in which the only thing I could hear was the pounding of my heart.

When my mother spoke again, I could hear deep concern in her voice.

“She will become the Mother of the Believers, a role only held by Khadija. How can a child take her place?”

“The Messenger understands the delicacy of her youth,” Abu Bakr said. “He will also marry an older, more mature woman who can run the household.”

I saw Ramla in my mind’s eye and felt my stomach sink. How could I be a cowife to the daughter of Abu Sufyan? She was so much prettier than me and was older, would know how to please a man. The Messenger would grow bored with me and toss me aside for a woman who was more his equal.

“Who?” my mother asked, with the excited curiosity of a gossipmonger.

My father paused, and I prayed to God: Please, don’t let it be Ramla.

“Sawda bint Zama,” he said at last.

I fell back with a thud and for a moment I was convinced that my parents had heard and knew I was listening. But they did not come into my room, and I sat in shock, absorbing this information.

And then I bit down on my hand to keep from laughing.

God had answered my prayer.

Sawda bint Zama was a sweet but elderly woman, a widow of considerable wealth, as Khadija had been. She was an excellent cook and would be a valuable addition to the Messenger’s household. But she was old and her body worn. If I were indeed meant to marry the Prophet, at least I would not have to compete with her in the bedroom. And even at that tender age, I knew that men valued young and beautiful women who could give them pleasure and bear them sons. Muhammad was the Messenger of God, but he was a man like any other in that respect, and I almost clapped with glee knowing that I could give him joys that Sawda would be incapable of providing.

When I crawled back to the crack of he door and listened, I heard my father speaking.

“I knew the night Aisha was born that she was special,” he said wistfully. “When the Prophet told me of his vision, I knew that the moment of her destiny had come.”

My mother sighed loudly

“Everything will change.” There was resignation in her voice and I knew that she had accepted the will of Allah.

“Everything must change,” my father responded. “With Khadija gone, the Muslims are in despair, walking like dead men. Aisha is a fountain of life. She will resurrect them.”

My mother was silent for a moment, lost in reflection.

“The midwife said our daughter would bring death.”

“Life and death are bound by a power beyond understanding. The power of transformation,” Abu Bakr waxed philosophical. “Aisha wields that power. She is the sword of transformation. Some things must die so that others may be born. That is her birthright.”

In later years, when my hand held that sword and rained death upon the Ummah, I wondered if my father had had some prophetic insight of his own.

“I am afraid,” my mother said simply.

And then I heard my father, the bastion of strength in our household, admit something that I could not have imagined.

“So am I, my love. So am I.”

I closed the door and crawled into bed. My mind was racing almost as fast as my heart.

God had chosen me to marry His Messenger.

It sounded laughable, but somehow it felt right. As if some part of my soul had always known that was my purpose. I took my dolls and put them aside with a pang of loss that comes when one period of life ends and another begins.

Yet I did not know where I was in the journey of life, or who I was to be, walking the path that I had been set upon.

I felt trapped between two worlds. I was no longer a child, but I was not yet a woman.

And yet, soon, I would be the Mother of the Believers.

22

One night, several months after I learned that I was betrothed to the Messenger of God, my father pulled me out of bed and told me to dress quickly. My mother and sister were still asleep and Abu Bakr told me to move quietly so as not to wake them up. We had an appointment tonight that it was best not to let them know about.

Confused and a little intrigued, I threw on a woolen robe over my cotton tunic. I tied my hair in a yellow scarf, but my father made me take it off and replace it with a black one that would not reflect the moonlight and draw attention to my presence. We tiptoed through the house, past my mother’s bedroom, where I could hear her snoring steadily.

I felt a sudden rush of excitement as we stepped out into the cold night. I knew that all this secrecy had something to do with my new status, and I was eager to unravel the mystery.

My father, wrapped in dark blue robes, his mouth covered by a strand of loose cloth from his brown turban, led me through the abandoned streets of Mecca. Normally there would be at least a few citizens sleeping in bunks outside their doors, as was the custom during the summer months when the cooling winds helped ease the raging heat that made sleeping indoors unbearable. But tonight was unusually cold and everyone was indoors.

I could see the air steam from my breath, and the chill only worsened as we left the city behind and crossed into the moonlit hills. I began to feel a tug of fear. What was this all about? Where was my father taking me in the dead of the night? For a moment, I had a terrible vision of Abraham leading his son into the wilderness in order to sacrifice him to God. I loved Allah and I loved my father, but I did not think that I could surrender willingly to the knife as the boy had.