and the hollow of Mecca. Had he not wrestled with death for his son, wrestled indeed? Had he not bought his son back from fate, bought him outright? What a struggle that was, with the divining arrows, between him and the sovereign decree! He offers camels to ransom his son, and fate presses harder upon him and is not satisfied until the number reaches a hundred. And what did his triumph amount to? What was the rejoicing of Banu Hashim? What was the rejoicing of Quraysh at the victory of life over death, and the youth's escape from the sacrificer's blade...
And the old man would laugh within himself a sorrowful laugh that came near to being a deadly despair and a sweeping revolt, had he not had a heart schooled to accept events, to bow to calamities, and to bear misfortunes with patience. The old man would laugh within himself a sorrowful, aching laugh when he thought of the vanity of Quraysh, and their reckoning that God had turned back the tyrant of Abyssinia and sent against him and his army those flights of birds He sent, in their honor and out of preference for them; and when he thought of his own vanity, when he had reckoned that God had saved his son from his knife and ransomed him with a hundred camels out of preference for him with well-being, singling him out for honor. No! No! The Elephant and the men of the Elephant were not defeated in honor of Quraysh; it was a sign God wrought for a purpose that He knows, of which men know nothing. Nor did God save Abdullah from death and ransom him with a hundred camels in honor of him or in honor of his father; He saved him from death and ransomed him with the camels for a purpose of His own, of which men know
nothing. Else why did this young man escape death only to die a little while after? Is it not strange that he should escape death, then take a wife with whom he abides only a short time; then part from her as men part from their wives, to return to her as men return to their wives — but his companions return and he does not return; he stays behind in Yathrib to die among his mother's kin of Banu al-Najjar. And his wife learned, after he had journeyed away from her, that he had charged her with a trust which she went on carrying within her breast, until, when God's command came, she delivered that trust. And who knows! Perhaps Abdullah existed only to deposit this trust with his wife! And who knows! Perhaps Amina existed only to deliver this trust to mankind!
And when the old man thought of all this, he could not keep himself from seeing his son — full of vigor, great in strength, splendid in youth, surpassing in beauty, setting out on his journey with boundless hope — and then seeing him thin, gaunt, pale, worn out, sorrowful, lying sick on his bed among Banu al-Najjar; and then seeing him as death drew near him, haughty and overbearing, and drew him out of life, or drew life out of him, as though avenging itself for that defeat which had befallen it on the day of the ransom. And the old man would surrender to a deep sorrow, from which nothing drew him out but the stir of the people around him and their importuning him — his sons and daughters among them — over the affairs that occupied them.
And Amina saw the women of Quraysh and the women of Banu Hashim around her, smiling upon the days and delighting in life, and it pleased her in them, and
no envy of them entered her, nor any inclination to join them. She felt, strongly but obscurely, that the days had already paid her in full her portion of gladness and her share of bliss in that short time she had spent with her husband, from her meeting with him after the ransom until his departure. She would have liked to find happiness in thinking of this unborn child she felt stirring within her; but no sooner did she remember her husband, and that he had been denied the happiness of this blessing, than she was loath to keep this good for herself apart from him, and she told herself that the enjoyment of sons and daughters is a pleasure no single person may claim alone; it is shared between two, and when one of the two is gone it weighs heavily upon the other and is hard to bear, and becomes a source of pain and grief. And yet, for all that, she did not feel that gnawing pain which she had reckoned on and awaited — as though her soul had been created submissive, as though her heart had been fashioned for acceptance, as though she had grown certain that the life of the living is a burden that must be borne, whether men are content or wroth, and that to bear it with contentment and peace of mind is better than a wrath that avails nothing and a revolt that profits nothing.
Yet the days did not carry Amina forward toward that appointed day without there stealing over her something like self-forgetfulness, a withdrawal from any clear sense of life and any plain thought upon it. She passed her days dazed, or as one dazed, and passed her nights in a calm sleep, sweet with dreams. How many a dream visited her! How many a phantom came to her! How many a word was cast to her! Until, one night, as she was making ready to pass out of the daze of
