I realized with a sick heart that Zayd was the Prophet’s son for all intents and purposes. If there were rumors of impropriety between Muhammad and his adopted son’s wife, it would be deemed by the people as vile a crime as incest. My husband’s standing as the Messenger of God and the moral exemplar of the community would be brought into question, and the foundation of our faith would collapse.

The Prophet must have been thinking similar thoughts, because he looked away, unable to face Zayd. But his adopted son leaned forward and took the Messenger’s hands in his, until the Prophet finally met his pleading gaze.

“If it be your desire, then I will divorce her today and you are free to marry her,” he said, making yet another sacrifice for the man whom he loved more than his own flesh and blood.

But this was madness. I felt my heart racing and I stood up, facing Zayd with balled fists

“What are you saying?! The Prophet is your father! It is forbidden for a father to marry a woman his son has lain with!”

My voice was shaking and I was unsure as to whether my rage came from horror at the violation of a taboo or from the thought of my husband in the arms of the radiant Zaynab.

Zayd looked at me indignantly.

“Those are the customs of the ignorant,” he said sharply. “The Messenger and I share no blood tie.”

I felt the bile in my stomach rise.

“That is not how the Bedouins will see it. They will accuse the Messenger of incest and our alliance will be broken.”

I looked at my husband, who managed to meet my gaze. I had never seen such shame in his eyes, and I felt suddenly lost.

“Keep to your wife, Zayd,” my husband said in a soft voice. “And be careful of your duty to God.”

Zayd rose and shook his head.

“Zaynab does not love me,” he said, and I could hear the deep pain in his voice. “Every time I lie with her, I will know that she wishes it was you there beside her. That I cannot bear.”

He looked at me for a moment and then turned his attention back to the Prophet.

“I will divorce her,” he said, with a tone of finality in his voice. “Her fate will be in the hands of God and his Messenger.”

The Prophet rose to his feet, alarm on his features. He moved to stop Zayd from leaving. But the tall man simply took the Messenger’s hand and kissed it with great love, tears flowing down his pockmarked cheeks. And then he turned and walked out.

The Messenger stood frozen for a long moment. I had never seen him look so confused. He finally turned to me, an abject apology on his face. He looked like a little child seeking absolution from his mother. But I could not bear to meet his gaze and I quickly stepped out and stormed over to Hafsa’s house to unburden the rage and jealousy that was threatening to drive me mad.

7

A few days later, my husband called for a gathering of his followers to address the wild rumors that were spreading in Medina over the state of affairs in his household. A crowd of hundreds gathered in the courtyard of the Masjid, and dozens more stood outside, eager to hear what was happening in the strange drama between the Messenger of God, his son, and his daughter-in-law.

While the other wives of the Prophet stood near him as a sign of their support, I stayed by the threshold of my house, watching the proceedings with sullen intensity.

The Prophet looked at me eagerly and I could tell that he was hoping I would come to take my place beside Sawda and Hafsa, but I crossed my arms and held my chin up defiantly. He turned away and brought his attention to the jumbled gathering of believers. There was a crackling in the air like the coming hint of a thunderstorm, and I realized that this incident with Zaynab was the biggest threat to my husband’s credibility since the day that the Jewish chieftain Huyayy had tried to mock his knowledge of the ancient scriptures. Whispers abounded about the Prophet’s infatuation with his daughter-in-law and the terrible implications for the truth of the Revelation. How could God send a man capable of transgressing one of the most ancient of Arab taboos?

The Messenger raised his hand and the tense murmur of gossip abruptly ended, blanketing the courtyard with a silence so thick that all I could hear was the dull thud of my own heart.

“Today I received a Revelation from my Lord,” the Messenger said in a voice that seemed to echo past the mud walls and into the paved streets of the oasis. He hesitated, the first time I had ever seen him having difficulty relaying the Word of God. I saw the color rise in his pallid face and I realized he was blushing like a bride on her wedding night.

And then Muhammad took a deep breath and recited the Divine command:

And when you said to him to whom God had shown favor And to whom you had shown favor

Keep your wife to yourself

And be careful of your duty to God

And you concealed in your soul what God would bring to light

And you feared men

And God had a greater right that you should fear Him.

But when Zayd had divorced her

We gave her to you as a wife

So that there should be no difficulty for the believers

In respect of the wives of their adopted sons

When they have divorced them

And God’s command shall be performed.

I listened to the newly revealed words of the holy Qur’an. And then I stepped back as if I had been struck in the gut. Allah had nullified the oldest of Arab taboos that had made the sons of the flesh and the sons of oath equal in the eyes of men. I looked at the crowd, uncertain how they would react. If the people rejected the commandment, the Prophet’s standing in the oasis would disappear. He would be proclaimed a self-serving impostor, legislating away ancient values to satisfy the desires of his own flesh. If the people of Medina denounced this remarkable shift in the definition of family, everything we had worked for over the past decade would instantly dissolve. Abu Sufyan would not need to attack the oasis to kill Muhammad. The people of the oasis would do it for him.

There was a murmur of disbelief from some of the crowd. All eyes fell on Zayd, who stood quietly to the side, looking at his feet. For years he had prided himself on being Muhammad’s only lawful son. And now his inheritance had been invalidated by God Himself. If Zayd accepted this, he would no longer be the “son of the Messenger.” He would just be another ordinary freedman, a former slave with no money or standing in society. And he would no longer have a wife and family as well. My heart went out to the poor, ugly, unfortunate man. In this one moment, everything that Zayd had, everything that he could have laid claim to in this world, had been taken away.

And then Zayd raised his head and I was stunned to see a wide, genuine smile on his battered face. He fell to his knees and tears of joy were streaming down his cheeks and making the black tufts of his beard glisten.

He raised his hands in supplication and his voice boomed through the courtyard.

“Praise be to God, who honors this unworthy slave with mention in his Holy Book!”

And then Zayd fell prostrate on the ground, his forehead pressed hard against the stone floor of the Masjid. And then I realized that Zayd was right. Allah had mentioned him by name in the holy Qur’an, an honor given to no other Muslim. Even my father was called by his title “The Second in the Cave”-no mention of the name Abu Bakr was anywhere in the text. And as I looked down at the kneeling man, who was crying praises to his Creator even as his face was pressed to the earth in humility, I realized that the former slave had been given something far greater than everything that had been taken away from him.

Zayd ibn Haritha had been given immortality. Long after he died, after his bones had crumbled into dust, his name would be recited by millions of believers with awe and reverence every time they read the holy Qur’an.