“Will we be safe there? Yathrib, I mean,” I asked my cousin who rode beside me.

Talha shrugged.

“As safe as any can be in this changing world.”

His words opened a strange thought in my heart. The question that I was too young to understand was the oldest question of the human race, perhaps first asked by our parents Adam and Eve when they were expelled from the Garden.

“Why do things have to change?”

A thoughtful look crossed Talha’s thinly bearded face.

“I don’t know, Aisha. But sometimes change is for the best.”

I did not know if I believed that, and I could not tell if Talha believed it himself.

“I miss our home,” I said simply.

Talha looked away sadly.

“I do, too. But we will build a new home in Yathrib.”

“Will we have to stay there long?”

“Yes, in all likelihood,” Talha said firmly. “But it is a beautiful city with abundant water and tall trees. You will get to play in the shade. And one day, your children will do the same.”

I made a face.

“I’m never going to have children,” I said provocatively, knowing full well that my parents were hoping that I would quickly give the Messenger a son once we were married.

Talha gave me a strange look, more intrigued than reproachful.

“Why would you say that?”

I shuddered, remembering the babies that I had assisted my mother in delivering. The screams of the women were terrifying, and the blood and gore of childbirth disgusted me.

“It’s too painful. And children are a bother. How can you run free if you have little ones clinging to your skirts? I’m never going to have any children if I can help it,” I said, speaking with childish impudence. I have often wondered whether God heard my words that day and decided to grant me my impulsive wish, which I would grow to regret as my years increased and my womb remained barren.

Talha smiled at me gently.

“Your husband might have something to say about that.”

I knew that my engagement to the Messenger was widely suspected, but it was supposed to be secret for the time being, and I chose not to acknowledge what Talha obviously knew.

“Then I’m never going to get married,” I said with a toss of my head, letting my crimson hair fly in the wind.

“I see,” Talha said, playing along with my game. “And what will you do with yourself as a spinster?”

I spread my hands wide as I laid out a dream that even then I knew was impossible.

“I will travel the world. I want to fly like a bird and see every nation under the stars. The gardens of Syria. The rivers of Iraq. The streets of Persia, lined with gold and rubies. And maybe even go to China, where they say the sun is born.”

When I looked at Talha, I saw his eyes glistening with a sadness that I did not understand. I could see Asma riding to my left, unsmiling, her eyes watching us carefully. I suddenly felt the nagging tug of guilt, as if I had done something wrong, but I could not understand why.

Talha saw Asma’s stern glance and he blushed.

“I hope your wish comes true, little one,” he said simply, and then rode ahead over a hill and vanished.

I wanted to ride after him, to ask what I had done wrong, when I heard Asma’s voice cut like a dagger through the dead air.

“Stop it,” she said with a hiss.

“Stop what?” I turned to look defiantly into her eyes.

“Stop torturing him. You are promised to the Messenger. Never forget that.”

I was about to retort in anger, when I heard a shout. It was Talha, racing back toward us, pointing to the horizon excitedly.

We spurred our camels up the flowing expanse until we reached the summit of the dunes and could see what lay beyond.

My heart soared as I saw it for the first time. An emerald valley lovingly planted between a circle of volcanic hills, blackened by sun and lava, the majestic palm trees swaying in the wind as if waving to greet us.

There was the sheen of water that I had seen many times in the past few days, but for once it was not a mirage. The flowing wastes gave way to a paved road that wound past the yellow stone walls of a stern fortress, an imposing edifice I would later learn belonged to the Jews of Bani Qurayza.

A crowd of men and women, dressed in flowing white abaya s, was moving down the road toward us, bearing baskets of dates and pitchers of cold water. Tears welled in my eyes when I saw the Messenger of God leading the welcoming party, my father at his right hand.

After days of wandering through a hellish wasteland that was home only to snakes and scorpions, we had emerged from the fire and found paradise. My heart filled with glee, I spurred my camel down the hill and raced toward Yathrib, my new home.

28 Yathrib-AD 622

The day my courses began was also the day that Yathrib received a new name-Madinat-un-Nabi, City of the Prophet, or Medina for short. Over the past several months, the Messenger had proven to be a just arbitrator and had settled the daily disputes between the tribesmen in a manner that left both parties feeling respected. His growing reputation as a man of honor had opened more and more people to his message of the Unity of God and the brotherhood of man, and the majority of the town had embraced Islam before that first winter. The Prophet had further earned the people’s respect by living with modesty, in contrast with their chieftains like Abdallah ibn Ubayy, who always made a deliberate show of his wealth and power to keep the crowds awed and docile.

When the Muslims decided to build a Masjid-a house of worship-the Messenger joined in with the poorest of workers, regardless of their tribes or ancestry, and laid the foundation blocks with the sweat of his own hands. This rejection of class differences and tribal affiliation moved the hearts of the citizens of Yathrib, who saw in Muhammad a chance to end the centuries of division that had led only to bloodshed and grief. And when the Masjid was finished, the Messenger declined the offers of his ardent followers to build a palace for himself, carving out only a one-room stone cottage in the courtyard of the Masjid, where he lived with the elderly Sawda, the only furnishing a straw mat on the ground for sleep.

His personal example of austerity and humility had done more to spread Islam than a hundred preachers, and that day, when the city was renamed in his honor by a council of its citizens, it was clear to all that the Messenger was not just the arbitrator but for all intents and purposes the unquestioned leader of the oasis. I was too young to understand that Ibn Ubayy, lord of the Khazraj, and other rivals were not pleased with this course of events, but it would soon become evident even to those who had no understanding of politics.

In those early days, I lived with my father in a small hut that was nothing like the grand home we had abandoned in Mecca. But that palatial estate had long felt like a prison to me, and I was delighted to be able to run and play openly in our tiny yard without fear of being harassed by an angry Meccan who bore a grudge against my faith.

And so it was that the afternoon my life changed, I was chasing my new friend Leila through the tiny garden my mother had planted in our yard. Leila was the daughter of a widow whose inheritance the Messenger had restored after her father’s relatives sought to deny her a claim to a well on the outskirts of the city. Without access to the well, which they rented out to trading caravans that passed through the city, her mother would have had no source of income and would likely have been forced to turn to prostitution, an exploitative (and prevalent) profession that the Messenger was working diligently to eliminate.

In the distance, I could hear the sweet, melodious voice of Bilal, the African slave my father had freed after he had been tortured by his master, Umayya, for renouncing the pagan gods. He was standing on the roof of the Masjid calling out the beautiful, haunting words of the Azan, the Muslim call to prayer: