I saw the men staring at the girl, who had flowing brown hair, flecked with gold, and olive skin that matched the color of her eyes. She was quite attractive, and I realized that the Muslim warriors would soon be competing to lay claim to her as a captive of war.

The girl sensed their eyes on her and stood tall, throwing her head back in defiance.

“I am Juwayriya, daughter of al-Harith, whom you have slain,” she said without any hint of fear. “This is my mother and the mother of my entire clan. Treat her and her kin with dignity if you fear Allah.”

Her words were brilliantly chosen and had the desired effect. The lustful men turned their heads away, embarrassed at their own crassness, and I grinned inside my armored howdah. The girl had spirit.

And then I saw my husband watching her intently with a smile, and my own quickly vanished.

WE CAMPED NEAR THE tents of the Bani Mustaliq for two days, during which the booty was divided among the troops. The tribe had been successfully raiding caravans for years, and their robbery had brought them considerable wealth that would soon be apportioned among their conquerors. A fifth of the spoils would go to the Messenger, including the tribe’s store of rare gems-opals, emeralds, and sapphires that made my heart stop with their glittering beauty. I touched the jewels with a wistful sigh, knowing that they would soon be redistributed to the needy and the Prophet’s own household would remain as impoverished as ever.

The thorniest issue remained the fate of the captives from the tribe, especially the proud Juwayriya. Arguments erupted over who had the best claim to the daughter of the chieftain, who had shown the greatest bravery and prowess on the battlefield to merit a slave girl of such rare beauty. The rivals turned to Umar, who had been designated by the Messenger as the judge over all disputes regarding division of spoils. The grim-faced giant listened impatiently to each man, cutting him off when he had heard enough of his case, and then made his decision without hesitation. The girl belonged to Thabit, the man who had personally killed the chieftain of the Bani Mustaliq, her father.

While the other claimants were disappointed, none had the courage to grumble about the judgment before the mighty Umar, and the matter was resolved in everyone’s eyes.

Everyone except Juwayriya herself. When informed of her fate, she loudly demanded to speak with the Messenger of God himself. Her furious and stubborn insistence made even her captors cower, and shortly thereafter I accompanied the Prophet to the slave tent where she and the other women were being housed.

The moment we entered, Juwayriya was transformed from a haughty and demanding princess into a humble slave girl, her head lowered, tears instantly flooding her cheeks as if by command. She begged the Messenger to save her from her ignominious fate. She was the daughter of one of Arabia’s chieftains, a princess of her people. It was the height of degradation and shame for her family that she should now become the property and sexual plaything of a lowly soldier in the Muslim army.

I watched her through the heavy cloth of my veil, grudgingly impressed with her performance. Juwayriya alternated between sorrowful dignity and emotional hysteria as she made her case, and I could see my husband was moved by her pleas. I could feel the familiar sting of jealousy as the Messenger agreed to free her from her bondage-on the condition that she marry him and serve as a voice of conciliation that would bring the remainder of her tribe into a treaty with Medina.

Juwayriya readily assented to the proposal, and I shook my head in wonder at what a strange day this girl had experienced. She had risen with the dawn as a Bedouin princess. By midday, she was a captive and a slave. And by sundown, she had become a Mother of the Believers, one of the queens of Arabia.

That night, as I slept alone in my tent and the Prophet enjoyed the charms of his beguiling new wife, I fingered the onyx necklace, letting all the fury and envy in my heart flow into the dark beads. No matter how hard I tried, I could never be the center of Muhammad’s life. He was too vast for any one woman, and his life’s mission was greater than the call of any marital union.

I wanted desperately to be the most important of his wives, the one who would even replace Khadija in his memories, but I knew this would never happen. I would have to settle for being the first of an ever-expanding circle of consorts, one name lost among many in the annals of history.

I felt my angry heart scream at the injustice of my life. The most shining star in the firmament of Arabian women, I was nonetheless being buried like a diamond in a sand dune, my delicate beauty hidden from the world, my sharp mind unable to sparkle in the open light of the sun. I was more than this fifteen-year-old girl wrapped in a black veil and sleeping on a rough mat in the desert. But the world would never see me as such. I was a queen who could never claim her crown.

I made a silent oath that of all the Messenger’s wives, I would be the one whom the world would still talk about a thousand years from now. The one whose name would play on the lips of men and women when all the others had been forgotten.

It was a terrible vow, and one that should never have been made. For the Lord heard my dark prayer that night and granted it, but not in any way that I could have hoped or desired.

24

The morning that changed my life, as well as the history of the world, was unremarkable. I woke at first light to the haunting sound of Bilal’s voice calling the believers to prayer. I had slept fitfully and had been troubled by dreams that immediately fled as I rose from the straw mat. I performed my ablutions from a pail of water that had been left discreetly outside the entrance to my tent by a soldier.

I let the soothingly cold water flow through my hands and then washed the sleep out of my eyes and dabbed my hair and feet according to the proper ritual of wudhu-the lesser ablution that one normally performed before any prayer. Only after sexual intercourse was one required to take a ghusl, a full bath in which every part of the body had to be cleansed before one could stand in worship of the Lord of the Worlds. The thought flashed through my mind that the Messenger would, of course, have to perform the ghusl after spending the night with his new bride, and I felt the pangs of jealousy tighten my chest.

When I emerged, fully veiled and covered head to toe, as was now required of me, I saw the Prophet was gathering the men in single lines facing south toward the Holy Kaaba. He smiled when he saw the black bundle that was me, but I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. I saw from the corner of my vision that his smile widened just slightly, as if he were amused by my clear annoyance at his marriage to Juwayriya, and I had to bite my tongue before I said something out loud that would be unworthy of a Mother of the Believers.

After we had performed the Fajr ritual, before the disk of the sun had yet emerged on the horizon, the men began to break down our camp for the journey home. I went off to brood by myself, staying aloof from Juwayriya despite her glances in my direction. She was now wearing a purple veil that matched her flowing robes, and even in her modest dress she seemed to exude great sensuality. She was taller than me and her bosom was round and firm, her thighs shapely-a girl who was clearly capable of bearing the Prophet children.

I seethed as I realized that Juwayriya would now become the new hope of the community, since I had failed to give the Prophet a son despite the six years we had shared a bed. The tongues of cruel gossips wagged that I was infertile, and yet my courses came every month without fail. It was true that the Prophet now spent only one night a week with me, so the chances of conception were accordingly lowered. There was, of course, still hope that my womb would bear fruit in the years to come. Yet some part of me had begun to believe that it was not the will of Allah that I should carry my husband’s son. The only thought that caused me more grief was that God might choose one of my rivals for that honor.