The Jewel Of Medina by Sherry Jones Read Free Book Online

force me to denounce the Prophet,” she told my mother on our balcony a few nights later, her soft voice quavering, as I listened from the ladder below. “I wanted to curse them, but my mouth would not form the words.”
    Umar and Abu Sufyan had taken turns at the whip, threatening to kill her if she wouldn’t obey them. When she’d passed out, unable to bear the pain anymore, they’d left her, assuming she was dead or would be soon.
    Ummi
sucked in her breath, then spoke in a hushed, urgent voice. “Did they—are you—”
    “My honor is intact, thank al-Lah,” Raha said. She paused. When she spoke again, she sounded tiny and far away. “But to my shame, I had to be examined by a midwife before I could return home. My husband’s family demanded it. If I had been raped, they would have insisted he divorce me.”
    I gasped in outrage at her words—why should she be punished for others’ evil deeds?—then clamped my hand over my mouth. But it was toolate: My mother’s head snapped around before I could duck out of sight and in a moment she was leaping up from her seat and shooing me down the ladder, following close behind.
    “You are supposed to be in bed, not listening to tales for adult ears,” she muttered as she pushed me along to my bedroom. “But I am glad you heard Raha’s story. Maybe now you will be thankful that we keep you inside. Raha is fortunate, but those men would have ruined you.”
    Like the lavender plant she loved so much, the delicate Raha was a hardy survivor. One week after her abduction she loaded up all her household goods and led her husband to Yathrib, the Jewish city to the north where Muhammad’s distant relations had agreed to harbor him and his followers. As I watched their slow retreat from my window I swallowed my sorrow by the mouthful, reminding myself that I was a warrior now. Yet as her little caravan moved away from me, diminishing with each step, my chest tightened as though my heart were shrinking also. May al-Lah curse that villain Abu Sufyan for chasing my Raha away! Yet, as it turned out, we would join her very soon.
    The next evening Ali pounded on our door, yelling for Muhammad. When I arrived at the entryway, my mother was holding the door open and pressing a hand to her throat. Ali burst past her with eyes like shooting stars, waving his arms at Muhammad, who had just come in from my father’s mosque.
    “
Yaa
cousin, Abu Sufyan and his friends are sending their sons to murder you tonight,” he said between gasps. “One youth from each tribe in Mecca, so no tribe will bear the blame for your death.”
    My mother cried out, causing my heart to miss a beat. I ran to her side, but she shook her head and told me to go to my room. Instead I turned to Muhammad, whose face was as pale as if he were already dead, but he only nodded to Ali and headed with the men toward the
majlis
. I made sure my mother wasn’t watching me, then followed them. After more than two years’
purdah,
I knew no one would bother to tell me what was happening. But I had become a very stealthy spy.
    I listened in silence, crouching outside the
majlis
curtain, while the men devised their plan. Since the assassins would strike tonight, they’d have to work quickly. Muhammad needed to get out of Mecca as soon as possible, and he’d have to stay away a long time—forever, perhaps.
    “Al-Lah has made His intentions clear,” Muhammad said to
abi
. “I will leave for Yathrib as soon as it is safe.”
    “And I will escort you,” my father said. “Not a single hair on your head will be harmed, al-Lah willing.”
    “
Yaa
Abu Bakr, I am more capable of protecting him than you are,” Ali said. “Wouldn’t it be better, cousin, if I escorted you to Yathrib?”
    “God has other work in mind for you, Ali,” Muhammad said.
    My father borrowed some clothing from one of his servants and cloaked Muhammad in it, disguising him, then hurried him away to a cave outside town. Meanwhile, Ali wrapped