Muhammad Read Free

gasped as he ran. He would jump from the cliffs and dash his body against the rocks below. He couldn’t even pray for rescue, since the same God who might save him was the God who was torturing him.
    I didn’t ask for this. Let me go. I am nothing, a man among men.
    Panting and stumbling, Muhammad clutched his robe tight against the gathering chill of Ramadan, the ninth month of the calendar. An evil month, a blessed month, a month of omens and signs. Arabs had argued over it as long as he could remember. After a few minutes the glaze of panic decreased. His mind was suddenly very clear. Muhammadlooked down at his feet pounding over the ground as if they belonged to someone else. How curious—he had lost a sandal but didn’t feel the jagged stones that cut his foot and caused it to stream blood. The decision to commit suicide brought a kind of comfort.
    Muhammad gained the summit of the mountain. He spied Mecca in the distance. Why had he pursued God like a falcon after a desert hare? Mecca had hundreds of gods already. They lined the Kaaba, the sacred place, inside and out. One god for every worshiper; one idol for every sacrifice. What right did he have to meddle? There were countless sacrifices, day after day, that lined the town’s pockets. Muhammad could almost smell the smoke from this great height.
    Peering down at the rocks below, he trembled. In that moment of his destruction, Muhammad found a prayer that might save him.
    Dear God, in your infinite mercy, make me who I was before. Make me ordinary again.
    It was the one prayer God could not grant, for in that moment a man’s existence was shattered like a wine cup carelessly trampled in a tavern. He would never be ordinary again. The only thing that mattered from now on would be Muhammad’s words. The Arabs, as lovers of words, were poised. Would they love God’s messenger or revile him?
    Muhammad smiled faintly. A Bedouin saying had come to him: “A thousand curses never tore a shirt.” So why should I tear it myself? And my flesh and bones with it? he thought. The image of his body crumpled and broken on the rocks below repelled him.
    Muhammad turned away from the brink. If I’m your vessel, handle me with care. Balance me lightly. Don’t let me crack.
    I whispered yes. Who was I to deny him? I didn’t even ask God first.
    The merchant of Mecca limped with one sandal back down the slope. His tongue was thick and clumsy. Muhammad would recite as I commanded. He would never stop reciting, even if it meant his death.

1
ABDUL MUTTALIB, “THE SLAVE”
    C an God’s love be so intense that it feels like hate?” I asked.
    â€œDon’t speak of God,” my son grumbled. “He isn’t thinking about us right now.”
    We were dragging a sledge loaded with water jugs to town. The water, which was brackish and warm, sloshed out whenever we struck rocky ground.
    â€œGod thinks about everything, and he does it all at once. That’s what makes him God,” I replied mildly. I looked over at my son, Abdullah, who was yoked to the sledge with a band of rope around his bare chest. It was backbreaking work, and he was in a temper.
    We had drawn the worst lot when the water carriers gathered at dawn. Forty young men were sent by the tribes every morning to bring water into Mecca. There were no wells in town, and so water had to be hauled from the small wells that lay on the outskirts. Abdullah and I drew the farthest one, more than a mile away. Yoked like animals, bent lowenough to eat the dust beneath our feet, we would be dragging the sledge until after sundown.
    No one had pity for me, the old man. They all knew me as “the Slave,” and the name made them treat me with veiled contempt.
    â€œI used to think God hated me,” I said, ignoring Abdullah’s sour temper. “My childhood was full of poverty and woe.”
    â€œIt’s a curse to be here now.”
    I stopped