“And my father?” Asma insisted.

“Your father is not here,” Ali said gently. “Abu Bakr went to see Talha and tell him the news.”

“What news?”

The light in Ali’s eyes seemed to brighten.

“It has begun,” he said simply. And with that, Ali nodded a farewell to the perplexed girl and closed the gate.

Asma stood frozen for a moment. There was perfect silence all about her, and the air felt heavier, as if a mysterious blanket had covered the street. It felt as if time had somehow stopped during her brief talk with Ali and that the world itself had been holding its breath.

And then the crickets chirped again in a steady, flowing cadence. Asma shook off the uncomfortable sensation of having just returned from a strange and distant land and focused her mind on what she had to do. She turned and ran away from the Prophet’s house toward the main streets of Mecca and her cousin Talha’s home.

ABU BAKR WARMED HIS hands by the fire as Talha poured him some goat’s milk in an old wooden bowl. The young man, recently turned eighteen, was one of the most recent converts to the new faith. The Prophet’s teachings of charity and justice for the poor had ignited Talha’s youthful idealism and had given him a cause more worthy of dedicating his life to than simply driving camels for his wealthy cousin. He was eager to share the Revelation with his young friends, to recruit them to the cause, but he had sworn a vow of secrecy. Talha had passionately counseled the Messenger to let him spread the word among the stable boys and shepherds of God’s Word. He argued that the new way would be resisted by Abu Bakr’s generation, long trapped in the rites of their fathers, but that it was among the shabab of Mecca, those too young to be subdued by the overpowering weight of tradition, that they would find their strongest supporters. The Prophet had smiled and gently admonished him to be patient. Allah had a plan and none could rush the Divine into action. They day would come, Talha had been assured, when they would emerge from the shadows and proclaim the One God openly in Mecca, and eventually the world.

And now, at last, that day had come.

“So he told the tribal chiefs tonight?” Talha’s eyes glittered with excitement as he handed his elder cousin the bowl of milk.

“Yes.” Abu Bakr held the bowl to his lips, softly whispering the invocation Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem-“In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.” It was the sacred formula that the Prophet had been taught by Gabriel, the words by which believers began the recitation of their prayers. It was the blessing that they uttered every time they started something anew, whether it be as simple as eating or drinking or tying their shoes, or as meaningful and profound as making love. The bismillah sanctified even the smallest moments of life, elevating the mundane to the holy with every breath.

Abu Bakr sipped the milk, let its soft curds flow down his throat and cool the fire he had felt growing inside his belly through the night.

“What happened?” Talha leaned forward, his hands gripping the edge of the old cypress table that Abu Bakr had given him as a gift the day he embraced Islam.

Abu Bakr sighed and put down the bowl.

“The Prophet received a revelation from Gabriel that he must now openly proclaim the Message, beginning first with his own family members,” Abu Bakr said, looking into the flames as he recounted the tale. “And so he asked Ali to gather the heads of Quraysh for dinner tonight.”

The Quraysh were the Prophet’s tribe, who had long administered the city of Mecca and organized the annual pilgrimage that brought Arabs from all over the desert to worship their gods at the Kaaba, the holy temple at the center of the city. They were the de facto rulers of the most important religious site in all of Arabia, and their support would have given Muhammad’s new movement the prestige to win over the hearts of their countrymen.

“It was a sparse meal,” Abu Bakr said softly, remembering the strange events of the evening with a hint of wonder in his voice. “Just a leg of mutton, the meat of which barely filled the bowl the Prophet gave to Ali. And one cup of milk that I saw him fill from an earthen jug. I asked the Messenger if I should go and bring more food from my house, for there was barely enough to feed one man, much less the gathered dignitaries of the Quraysh. He simply smiled and reached into the bowl, taking a small strip of meat. He chewed a morsel and then threw it back into the bowl. And then I saw him turn to Ali and tell the boy to take it in the name of Allah.”

Talha clasped his hands eagerly as Abu Bakr recited the inexplicable events that had followed.

“Ali passed the bowl from man to man, thirty in all, and each reached in and took his fill. Yet the meat did not diminish and the bowl remained always full. Ali poured them milk from the goblet, filling each man’s glass, and yet I never saw him refill his own.”

Talha gasped at the remarkable tale.

“And you saw this? With your own eyes?”

Abu Bakr nodded. “It was like the tale the Messenger once told me when we were boys, a story passed along to him by a Christian monk he met on the caravan to Syria. A tale of the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, who multiplied many fish and loaves as a sign from God.”

Talha felt a chill go down his spine, and his heart began to thud in his chest. The Prophet had never claimed to perform any miracles, saying that the fact that God was speaking through an illiterate Arab was enough of a miracle in itself. Talha had accepted the truth of the Prophet’s words because they touched his heart. He had never needed any such signs or proofs of his divine mission. But now, listening to Abu Bakr’s tale, he fervently wished that he had been there tonight. But Talha was not a tribal chief. Far from it. He had little wealth or influence of his own and often regretted that he could offer little to the Prophet in terms of material support. But if what Abu Bakr was saying was true, perhaps their little community no longer needed material help. If food could rain down from heaven as it had in the days of Jesus, then the age of miracles had been reborn. Their new faith would triumph, shining a light on what was true and pushing away the darkness.

“Surely the Quraysh must have seen what was happening,” Talha said excitedly. “Surely their hearts must have been moved by the miracle.”

Abu Bakr looked down sadly. “Their hearts were indeed moved, but in the wrong direction. They hardened, like the heart of Pharaoh when confronted by Moses and his miraculous rod.”

Talha was stunned. “They denied the sign?”

“When murmurs of surprise spread through the hall at the miracle, Abu Lahab, the Prophet’s uncle, rose and proclaimed that their host had bewitched them.” Abu Bakr shook his head at the memory of the old man’s fury. “The tribal chiefs rose to leave, but the Prophet begged them to stay, to hear his message. He told them at long last the truth. That he was the Messenger of Allah, and that he had been sent to destroy the idols and false gods that had corrupted the religion of the Arabs. They were shocked and outraged, and for a moment I thought their fury would lead to a riot there in the very home of the Prophet.”

Talha sat back, his heart sinking. “What did the Prophet do?”

“He called out to his clansmen and asked who among them would help him in his mission and thus become his brother, his executor and successor among them.” Abu Bakr looked into Talha’s eyes. “None spoke in his favor. And then Ali stood up before all the lords of Mecca and proclaimed that he would be the Prophet’s helper.”

Talha was perplexed. “Ali? He is just a boy.”

Abu Bakr nodded. “A boy, perhaps, but with the heart of a lion. He showed more courage in that moment, standing firm before the jeering chieftains, than most men show in a lifetime. The Prophet touched Ali’s neck and commanded the tribal chiefs to hearken to Ali and obey him.”