From Khadija's House to the Cave of Hira

She saw him musing, gazing toward the far-off goal, into the hoped-for tomorrow...
Bewildered eyelids over restless phantoms...
Transparent clouds upon glistening, dreaming brows...

Deep stirrings within deep, winged hopes..
She turned wherever his soul turned...
She fluttered, a feeling upon the waves of his feeling...
He was hers...

Tell her, O Maysara, "the tale of Syria."
Recount to her the divining of Bahira the foreteller, and whisper the whisperings of the hermits' cells in the shade of the tree of Bosra, that lofty one...

A sweet evening's talk upon a fortunate, profitable, blessed return — like the return of light to its place, like the return of spring to its plain.

Ah, Maysara! Speak the tale of Muhammad.
Your voice in the ear of Umm Hind is a melody pouring forth into a soul aching and overflowing. Call out his name, the name of Muhammad, as Bosra called it out. How sweet is his name!!..

Did you not see the flush of prophethood in his eyes?
The daughter of Khuwaylid, O Maysara — your tidings have made her yearn for Abu al-Qasim, and the refrain grew sweet to her, so it came again.. and upon the messenger rests the trust.
The paths of life have grown narrow upon her breast, though the paths of wealth have opened in her hand. Who, do you think, will rescue her hope? Who, do you think, will fulfill her wish? Who, do you think, will say to Muhammad that she loves Muhammad?
She wishes, and the threads of wishing slip from her fingers. She loves, and the difference of age bars before her heart the passages of attainment.

Be silent now, Maysara; the word this hour belongs to Nafisa bint Umayya. And Nafisa speaks to the son of Abdullah son of Abd al-Muttalib, and the young Qurayshite excuses himself.. he is a poor orphan with neither trade nor caravan, and the Mother of Cities preens itself upon its pampered rich and its usurious grandees — but poverty of hand, in Khadija's eyes, is no poverty.
And Nafisa returns to her friend, her face brimming with glad tidings of joy, and Hamza goes forth to ask for the hand on behalf of his brother's son...

Then time turns its round, and Khadija sees Muhammad enfolding her with his self and his tenderness, while his eye hangs far away, where she does not know, and his soul stretches out to where she does not aspire; and with something wondrous their love trembles in the folds of the unseen, and dreaming whispers rise from the sides of the Ancient House, and a sweet murmuring throbs in the depths of the mouths of Zamzam, and a mysterious stillness ripples over the litters of the caravans...
As if the mountains of Mecca were awaiting news from beyond the leafy oases...

Unrest and perplexity, dreams and swift musings; a melody breathing into the spirit of a melody, and a holy stillness stretching over a holy tranquility. And a valley without cultivation dreaming of a greenness before which the banks of the Tigris, the slopes of Yemen, and the seasons of Syria fall short.. and mounts urged on toward acquaintance and fellow-feeling from every deep ravine..

That distant dream never left Muhammad's eye for a single moment... And Khadija was a wakeful star, giving of her spirit all that giving can give, while his spirit searched for something beyond this giving. She lavished on him the loftiness of her character and the abundance of her fortune, and his nature searched for a fortune other than this fortune — for a fortune that time does not consume and fate does not destroy..
Ah, Khadija! What is this that is being born within my soul?

What is this thirsting longing that flames in my breast? And she tries to fill his heart and his mind with devotion, but his heart remains fastened upon the pages of the sky, and his thought remains wandering over the far reaches of the horizons, and desolation keeps gripping the two sides of his breast with its hard hands...

And he sees the vision!! — like the break of dawn — then he withdraws from the world and communes afar, and his soul spreads out between Mina and Hira; and behold, a voice descends into the cave from the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary, and his heart quakes and he fears for himself, and he hurries to the shelter of his house; and Khadija wipes the sweat of his brow with the pages of her heart and binds him fast within her ribs against the terror of what has befallen him, and with her devotion she nourishes the innermost grains of his heart: do not fear, O Muhammad — "No, by God: God will never disgrace you." Everything in him had weakened except the heart.
Everything had slipped from him except his faith...

And into this heart and this faith descended the voice of his wife, all tenderness and gentleness and sweetness: "No, by God: God will never disgrace you."

Khadija was the first who loved him. Khadija was the first who believed in him, and she held the tidings true. And the age of the doorkeeping and the custodianship of the Kaaba passed away — the time of divining-arrows and idols, of stones that neither create nor provide, of standing images that neither whisper nor heal nor speak. Where is the Truth? And to Muhammad one thing alone became plain: the Truth.

Read, O warner... Read in the name of your Lord who created...

And he reads, and his wife reads with him, and the voice of Khadija melts into the depths of Muhammad's heart:
"No, by God: God will never disgrace you!"