To the rhythm of the camel’s footfalls, I recalled every face and beard that came out to greet the wedding procession and shower us with Medinan roses. Every last fortress we passed on our journey came out to congratulate and bless us. And with every step we took, the caravan — with the camel of my father Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf at the head, and the howdah of my Ghatafani servant bringing up the rear — grew bigger. We crossed the plains, passing the citadels of the tribes of Qurayza, Qayniqa, and Waqif, who all blessed my marriage to Khaybar’s spiritual leader. Throughout the journey, I was haunted with doubts about the sudden change in my life and my dreams: I’d been plucked from the plains that were my home and sent to live in my husband’s fort, the all-powerful nucleus of the rural Hijaz where, my nanny assured me, I would not be treated merely as mistress of the fort, but as a prophetess. As a fifteen-year-old, the thought terrified me and my terror came to a head when a horseman with a short robe and long beard appeared, cutting through the ranks of the caravan, and headed straight for my howdah as our men did nothing to stop him. He snatched me from my howdah in his strong arms and put me in front of him on his saddle; we made it to Khaybar in the blink of an eye, my heart thumping wildly. There, he lay me back on the white cotton sheets of his bed and crushed roses on my neck, drinking me through their petals. His breath smelled of grease and firewood, and he roused whirlpools in my body to receive him; I opened and contracted with unflagging violence, until it was night and the cotton sheets around us began to unravel. It wasn’t until the following morning that I became sure of his identity — he was my husband, the man who would plant the seed of you inside me — up until the moment you were born, I wasn’t sure whether you came from his loins or from the sandstorms that would later receive me in my flight.
It was he who sent me on this path; I had no choice but to obey and depart with this Ghatafani, who’d served in the temples of the Persians and Byzantines and learned the secrets of Petra and the Valley of the Kings in his search for immortality, and ended up an ascetic among the sand dunes.
“The mosque closes at ten,” the eunuch said, interrupting Nasser as he was reading.
Nasser looked up at the large green-belted body and effeminate face; he could hear the thin voice but he couldn’t understand. “On your way, please, the doors of the mosque will now be closing.”
Nasser folded the parchment into the amulet and got up stiffly. Seeing the distress in Nasser’s face, the eunuch added sympathetically, “Starting tomorrow, they’re going to break the tradition of closing the mosque, even though it’s been this way for fourteen centuries. They plan to keep the doors open all night.” He searched Nasser’s eyes for a reaction, then went on, “At the end of the day, this mosque is the Prophet’s house, and we eunuchs have sacrificed our bodies to guard the tranquility of this honored site so that the dead, peace be upon them, may sleep in peace until the dawn prayers are called and the doors are opened to worshippers who may stay until the night prayers are over.”
The eunuch contemplated the iron fence and the many barriers between them and the Prophet’s grave. He thought about his Ottoman-era predecessor, who would hurry, with due reverence, to open the door leading to the grave when the dawn prayer was called. He would place a pitcher full of water and a bowl polished with perfume and the Surah of Prostration on the edge of the stone so the Prophet and his companions could perform their ablutions. The young eunuch sighed, and Nasser echoed him, saluting and praying for the Prophet and his companions, and sensing the Prophet’s soul, which was resurrected to return his greeting, just as when any worshipper, be they at the very end of the earth, greeted the Prophet and said a prayer for him; a million thousand thousand thousand thousand resurrections took place inside that grave every second, not allowing the buried Prophet’s eyes to close for a moment’s death, even though he lay in his grave. The eunuch hid a shiver deep in the folds of his jubbah, beneath his wide belt, so that the reason for it wouldn’t offend the beloved Prophet to whom he’d devoted his life, and whose Rawdah, the area between his grave in Aisha’s house to his pulpit, he served. The eunuch gazed tenderly down at his palms, and then spread them out to show Nasser. They were yellowed with perfume.
“They exude a never-ending perfume. The more I wipe the grave, the more they perspire. I’ve grown lighter, too. I was a child in 1971, when I snuck in behind my father one morning before dawn, my teeth chattering from the cold, and hid behind the curtains to watch the workers replace the cloth hangings in the sacred burial room. As long as I live, dawn for me will always be associated with those layers of pure green silk lined with heavy cotton and crowned with a band of dark red embroidered with bright cotton threads and gold and silver wire, Quranic verses covering a quarter of the surface. Just from looking at it, you could hear the Surah of the Conquest being recited in the dim light of the noble chamber, where yellow decorated weavings showed the locations of the three graves. It was the first time I’d snuck into the burial room, among the scent of ancient prayers. I did it again on several consecutive nights to watch the workers who’d been chosen to carry out the renovations in secret.”
“They change the cloth on the sixth of Dhu l-Hijja every year, don’t they?” Nasser asked, but the young eunuch was too lost in his memories to reply. It was as though he could only hear and see what was before his mind’s eye.
“The cloth they took down was seventy-five years old, according to the date woven into the fabric — unchanged for three quarters of a century. I trembled in the dawn twilight when I looked toward the fourth, empty, grave. My father told me afterward that the prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, was to be buried in it when he descended to earth in his second coming. My father, the head eunuch, stood reverently under the shimmering star that appeared on the wall of the room that faced the Kaaba, above the head of the noble Prophet. He replaced the silver nail with a diamond the size of a pigeon egg, and beneath it another gem larger still; both were set in gold and silver. I seem to remember — whether I was awake or dreaming — a skinny young architect approaching the cloth that lined the room. He went round folding up the heavy, embroidered, perfumed fabric, then threw the bundle onto his shoulder and left the venerable chamber, placing it on the ground of the Rawdah outside, just a few steps from where I’m standing now. As I watched, the workers gathered around it to carry it to the truck; it was so heavy they couldn’t even lift it!” The eunuch sighed, looking Nasser in the face, then went on.
“The chamber stands over one of the rivulets that water the gardens of Paradise. The inside of the chamber belongs to a different time, bodies exist with a different energy, and whoever enters that chamber over the rivulet and pool is relieved of all infirmity and stripped of everything but their true nature, becoming a new species formed of all the prayers and salutations ever said over the noble grave of the beloved Prophet. As children, my predecessors slept on pillows that their parents had covered with a piece of that cloth, breathing in the scent of all those prayers, so our souls are connected with that immortal inner soul.”
The eunuch turned to leave, and Nasser followed him silently. He was thinking about Sarah, the Jewish woman, and her wedding, and how she had lain with her husband on those cotton sheets but had never eaten with him or approached him, how she’d been hidden away from strangers, fasting from everything but the food of her people. In his mind, he could see a long reel of images of extremists from the histories of the many religions: those who call anything that they don’t believe in “heresy,” those who declare themselves God’s chosen people, those who worship gold and accumulate vast wealth, who corner the market and determine people’s livelihoods, all so that they can take over the world some day and make everyone else their slave.