Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam by Kamran Pasha Read Free Book Online Page A

arms. The drama of the midwife appeared to be forgotten amid the family’s joy at her safe delivery.
    He went up to his kinsman and smiled.
    “The madwoman is gone,” he said.
    Abu Bakr looked up at him and shook his head.
    “She was not mad,” he said softly. “This little girl will bring death.”
    Talha was stunned by these words.
    “I don’t understand” was all he could say.
    Abu Bakr stroked his newborn daughter’s soft cheek gently.
    “She will bring death to ignorance, which will allow the light of knowledge to be born,” he said simply.
    Abu Bakr took the girl from Umm Ruman and held her close.
    “In a world of idolatry, she is the first to be born a believer,” he said softly. “She has already conquered death and has brought life.” He gazed into the child’s golden eyes, which were alert and seemed to exhibit an ancient intelligence.
    “I will name her Aisha,” Abu Bakr said.
    A name that Talha knew in the old language meant “She Lives.”

2 Mecca—AD 617
    M y first real memory is the day I witnessed death.
    Ever since that day, I have been blessed—and cursed—with perfect memory. I can recall words said forty years ago as if they had been uttered this morning. The scent of a moment is forever impressed on my heart, as if I live outside time, and every moment of my life is now. The Messenger, may God’s blessings and peace be upon him, used to say that I was chosen for that reason. That his words and deeds would be remembered for all time through me, the one he loved the most.
    But there is a darkness behind every gift, like the veil of night that remains hidden behind the sun, waiting patiently for its moment to cast the world in gloom. My gift of memory is like that. For even as I can remember every moment of joy, every instant of laughter in my life, I can also remember the pain with absolute clarity. There are those who say time heals all wounds, but that is not so for me. Every wound I have suffered, I relive with terrifying precision, as if the knife, once embedded in my heart, leaves behind a shard of crystal sharpness ready to cut me again should I turn my thoughts in its direction.
    It is that perfect memory that has made me the most prized recounter of hadith, the tales of the Prophet’s life and teaching to be recorded for future generations of believers.
    And it is that perfect memory that brought war upon my people and splintered our nation forever.
    But every memory, even one as pristine as my own, must begin in earnest one day. Mine begins the day of the great Pilgrimage. My father had decided that I was old enough to attend the annual ritual, where tribes from all over Arabia descended on the arid valley of Mecca to worship at the House of God.
    I ran shoeless out of the house when Abu Bakr called, and my father sternly sent me back, telling me that I could not accompany him unless I wore the tiny blue sandals he had bought from Yemeni traders earlier that summer. I pouted and stamped my feet, but Abu Bakr simply raised his eyebrows and refused to open the gate until I hung my head and sullenly went back inside in search of them.
    I hunted through the house, trying to remember where I had thrown them in one of my tantrums earlier that morning. I searched in my small bedroom, beneath the tiny cot with its knotted rope fibers supporting the soft Egyptian cotton mattress. I looked through the mountain of dolls and toys that were piled in a corner, throwing the little wooden and rag figures everywhere and making a mess that my mother would assuredly chide me for later that day. But that inevitable reckoning did not concern me, a young girl who only cared for the moment. The future, as every child knows, is little more than make-believe. All that ever exists, all that ever matters, is now.
    Frowning, I ran out of her bedchamber and looked in the main sitting room, underneath the emerald brocaded couches from Persia that were among the few luxuries that still remained inside