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The Messenger married Zaynab bint Khuzayma a fortnight later, and a fourth apartment was built, the newest, just north of Hafsa’s stone hut. Abu Bara, the head of Bani Amir, attended the wedding of his cousin and publicly proclaimed that the Bedouin tribe was now bound by blood to Medina. The alliance had been successfully formed, and the Messenger’s political marriage had closed the chinks in our armor after the humiliation of Uhud.

And it was an alliance that was tested almost immediately. Abu Bara’s ambitious nephew tried to disrupt the pact by leading a renegade group of his tribesmen to attack a Muslim hunting party that wandered into Bani Amir territory. The survivors of the attack hid in the wilderness and took their vengeance on a group of Bani Amir shepherds who were innocent of complicity in the plot.

The dangerous cycle of retaliation had begun and the Prophet wisely offered to ease tensions with the Bedouins by paying a hefty sum to settle the claims of the shepherds’ grieving families. The sum demanded-a thousand gold dirhams-was substantial and posed a significant strain on the Bayt al-Mal, the Muslim treasury. And so the Prophet sent Ali to seek financial support from the Jewish tribes in accordance with our old treaty.

When I heard this, I shook my head in disbelief.

“The Jews have long forgotten our treaty,” I said to him one day as we sat in my room eating roasted lamb from a wooden bowl.

The Messenger’s hand brushed against mine as he reached in for a shank, and I could feel the coolness of his fingers beside my own. He took the soft shoulder meat and bit down, savoring its delicate taste.

“If our friends have forgotten the pact, then perhaps it is time to remind them,” Muhammad said, as if he were discussing a small bill of goods to be paid in the bazaar.

But I knew that it was not as simple as that. Blood had been spilled and one of the Jewish tribes was now in exile. Pressuring the remaining Jews to pay for a blood feud between the Muslims and the Bedouins would place an even greater strain on relations between the two communities.

And then as I looked into the Messenger’s twinkling black eyes, I realized that he understood this. This was a test of Medina’s power in the aftermath of Uhud. If the Jews failed to honor the treaty, there would no longer be any question as to where their allegiance lay. And with Mecca now assuredly plotting to fan the brushfire that been ignited at Uhud, we could not afford to have neighbors whose intentions were hostile. The Jewish fortresses guarded the mountain passes into the city. Their disloyalty could prove disastrous should Abu Sufyan’s forces again march up the hills toward the heart of Medina.

There was no more time for guessing-the truth of our political situation had to be assessed now. And the blood settlement provided an innocuous means of testing the waters. If the Jewish tribes renounced their obligations under the treaty, the Messenger would have ample reason to expel them from the oasis.

It was an utterly ingenious stratagem. If the Jews paid the Bani Amir, they would be held accountable for any future treaty obligations by a well-armed third party. And if they refused to pay, the Bani Amir would join forces with the Muslims and remove their threat from the doorstep of Medina. I realized that the Messenger would win either way.

I saw the Prophet smile as if he read my thoughts. As he continued to eat heartily of the lamb, I felt a surge of relief that I was his wife and not his adversary.

THREE DAYS LATER, I was walking alone through the marketplace. My husband had been invited to a dinner at the home of Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the leader of the Jewish tribe of Bani Nadir. His request for their help in paying the blood money to the Bedouins had been received with surprising graciousness. Huyayy had sent word that he wished to begin a new era in relations between their peoples. They worshiped the same God, after all, and both communities had a vested interest in the security and prosperity of the oasis. And so he offered to host a feast of reconciliation at which the Messenger would be his honored guest.

The Prophet had departed to attend the gathering with a small band of his Companions. In his absence, I decided to make a trip to the bazaar and see what new goods had arrived on the morning caravan. As I walked through the paved alleys of the city, I marveled at how things had changed in the past few years. Medina had been a dirty and unkempt town, where the streets were littered with refuse and camel dung. Women could not step outside alone without fear of harassment or worse by drunken tribesmen. The heady smell of khamr had hung over the town like a drunken cloud.

But now the cobbled stones were whitewashed and crumbling walls had been rebuilt. Women and children now walked about freely, although the imposition of the Muslim head scarf was still the subject of grumbling by some of the prettier girls, who were accustomed to parading their luxurious locks as a means of enticing a husband.

But the most remarkable change was the ban on wine. Initially Muslims were permitted to drink alcohol, even though the Messenger himself would not touch any strong drink that befuddled the senses. But as the institution of communal prayers was formalized at the Masjid, incidents of believers showing up drunk and disrupting the services had become increasingly problematic. Finally, after a drunken brawl among youths almost erupted into a street battle between the old enemies of Aws and Khazraj, the Messenger received a Revelation prohibiting the consumption of alcohol altogether. Some of the Companions voiced concerns that such a ban would be hard to enforce, as wine and khamr were a traditional part of Arab culture. And yet when Ali recited the new verses in the marketplace, the streets were soon running with wine as the citizens emptied their flasks. It had been a remarkable testament to how deeply faith had transformed these people-although I guessed that there were still a few bottles of wine being consumed in secret every night among the less devout.

Still, law and order had been achieved, and the visiting traders who arrived from all over the peninsula departed Medina with a sense of new possibilities. Perhaps the people of Arabia did not have to live like wild animals, crudely struggling for survival in the wilderness. Perhaps they could build cities and roads and establish courts of law that would end disputes without bloodshed. Medina was becoming a model for a new Arabia, and the word that Muhammad’s way led to peace and security was already spreading like an unstoppable sandstorm through the lonely wastes beyond the hills.

I walked through the stalls that day feeling happier than I had in some time. The sky was crystal blue with nary a cloud in sight. The air was warm and buzzing with life. Despite the horrors I had witnessed at Uhud, life was moving forward. And now that the Jews had renewed our pact, Mecca was unlikely to attack again. The sweet smell of peace was in the air.

I stopped before a cloth dealer and saw a lovely roll of saffron-colored silk. I ran my fingers through the fabric, letting its softness send shocks of pleasure down my wrist. The merchant, a grizzled old man with one eye, leaned forward conspiratorially.

“The finest cloth from India,” he said in a whisper, referring to a mythic land that was said to be south of the even more magical China. A land of vibrant colors and spices that could be found nowhere else on earth. A land where tigers and monkeys roamed the streets and armies fought with the aid of elephants. A land that was said to have so many gods that the idols of the Kaaba were like tiny stars lost amid the glory of the Milky Way.

All rubbish, of course. I doubted that this fabled realm existed anywhere outside the fevered imaginings of campfire storytellers. And in any event, whenever a merchant mentioned India, you knew you were in trouble. Traders always claimed that their goods had been imported from there when they wanted to charge exorbitant prices.