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needed time with a mother who would be real such a short time. Aminah was like a shadow passing through his life.
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    W HEN HE WAS sure that I had regained my strength, Muhammad led me from my sickroom to the edge of town. Mecca is too green to see the desert from, even atop the highest watchtower. He fussed over my bags when the small train of donkeys and camels arrived to take me home. I let him. Why not? A hundred cousins aren’t the same as a milk-mother. My few things were packed into saddlebags. The Banu Sa’d men who came for me were old ones who could be spared, and they hated the city. The circling hills shut out too much of the sky. In haste I was laid on a stretcher behind the last camel, since I was too weak to make the journey on foot. The last thing I felt wasn’t love for Muhammad, but a twinge of curiosity.
    â€œDo you remember one day in the desert, when you were very young and got lost?” I asked.
    He nodded. “But I wasn’t lost. I had a feeling where I should go. Two men were waiting for me when I got there.”
    I was amazed. “They attacked you, and you never told me? After we got you home, you wouldn’t say a word.”
    â€œI couldn’t. I knew you thought the jinns had captured me.”
    â€œIt had to be jinns. They left no footprints. They were seen ripping open your chest.”
    â€œI wondered why everyone whispered behind my back. But it wasn’t jinns. Other beings live in the desert. You should know that.”
    If it had been anyone else putting me in my place, my nails would have been at his face. But with him I felt a mixture of meekness and wonder. “What kind of beings?” I asked in a small voice.
    A strange smile crossed Muhammad’s face. “I’ve never stopped asking that question. You came running in such a panic, you scared them off.” He put a finger lightly on his heart. “Don’t worry. Whatever they wanted to do, it’s done.”

4
WARAQAH, THE BELIEVER
    T he best hiding place is inside your own heart. I’ve tried all the others. Even when I dug a hole by the open latrines and covered it with thatch, they dragged me out and beat me. I was young then, and they were thugs. A hideous idol with a serpent’s tail had been found smashed to bits outside the Kaaba. It was probably one of them, getting drunk and daring one another. But I was easier to blame.
    I only wanted to be alone so I could think about God. How did that hurt anyone? But loneliness is the seeker’s affliction. It drove me to wander in the marketplace. I was overheard muttering to myself. Allah, endow my heart with wings, so that I may fly to the garden of eternity . I meant it as a prayer, but they took it as sacrilege.
    One time a scrap of writing fell out of my pocket. Some Qurayshi roughs picked it up, and a wandering scribe recited it aloud: “The veil between God and his servant does not exist in heaven or on earth. It exists in himself.” I couldn’t dig a hole deep enough to hide that kind of blasphemy.
    Eventually I saved my skin by getting rich. Money is protection against persecution. Not perfect protection. If lookscould kill, the Qurayshi youth who prowl the streets would send me to a shallow grave every day of the week and twice on feast days.
    I straighten my spine and walk past them eyes ahead. Once I reach the inns by the Kaaba, my identity changes. I’m no longer “the believer” who cannot enter a house for dinner without the rooms being disinfected with musk after he leaves. I turn into a well-padded merchant whose shameful ideas are insignificant, once you hear the clink of gold in his purse.
    â€œWaraqah ibn Nawfal, you are most welcome.”
    â€œWaraqah, my brother, sit here next to me.”
    â€œWaraqah, blessed by the gods, make me happy by sharing this wine.”
    I never trusted any of them, and yet one time I let my guard down. My only excuse is gathering age. I