Free Muhammad by Deepak Chopra Page B

outside the Kaaba during the spring rites. He took my money and an hour later came racing back.
    â€œWhich god is it for?” the boy asked. “They want to know.”
    â€œThe one whose only name is ‘the One,’” I said. The boy looked confused, so I said, “The choice is theirs. Just make a good show of it.” He ran away still confused. No matter. I was used to being unfathomable.
    Muhammad was balm to my soul. I had someone to hold in a spiritual embrace. The affliction of loneliness was lifted. But what good was I doing for him? I could always leave him my money. Mecca would have a second rich outcast. There had to be something else.
    â€œAre there other hanif ?” he asked me one day.
    â€œYou mean others who know better how to keep their mouths shut?”
    He smiled. “I was thinking of those who might have a taste for wisdom.”
    â€œWisdom is like hot coals,” I said. “People enjoy the glow, but they’re not stupid enough to step in.”
    It was the most cynical thing I’d ever said, and his face fell.
    â€œYou make me talk like a whore,” I murmured, and Muhammad knew it was an apology. We both knew I wasn’t ashamed to be a believer. But I never took him to meet another hanif. It was contradictory. Two hanif make a congregation, three a tribe, and four a faith to be defended against other faiths with arrows and spears. Each hanif travels alone, I told him, and it seemed that Muhammad was satisfied with that explanation.
    Something gnawed at me, though. I pondered a long time, until I convinced myself that he needed to know about the verse my finger had lighted upon. And he shall be called Emmanuel. If I didn’t tell him, I would be hiding a great secret from him. The only way to bring up the subject was indirectly. One blazing afternoon we were lying in the courtyard on straw pallets that had been soaked down with water.
    Muhammad raised himself up on his elbows. “What is it?”
    I faced him. “What do you know about how your father died?”
    For once the cautious youth looked startled. “I know he went on a journey and never returned.”
    â€œThere’s more,” I said. “Much more.”
    Muhammad hesitated. He didn’t want his memories disturbed, I could tell.
    â€œThey aren’t your memories,” I said. “You never met him. He’s like water that someone else has drunk.”
    â€œBut he was loved,” said Muhammad.
    That much was undeniable. From the day he was born, Abdullah had led a charmed life. Everyone said so, and that made it so. He was never insulted in the street by a reckless young tough or called out to a fight. He basked in the illusion that he was the first person ever to be loved.
    â€œHe wanted to be a hero,” I began. “A man who spoke like thunder and laughed like the sunrise. I knew him and saw what his imagination was like. He loved the Bedouin, and he envisioned himself in one of their legends.” I eyed Muhammad sharply. “Do you know why your father failed?”
    â€œBecause he died.”
    â€œNo. Because it was not God’s will.”
    Then and there I unfolded the twisted whole story of Abdullah’s death, which had been carefully kept from his son.
    Everything revolved around Zamzam. The joy that Abdul Muttalib felt when he rediscovered the well was short-lived. He became entangled in Qurayshi intrigues. He was resented for grabbing the rights to the sacred water, and in time Muttalib felt that his enemies would prevail. What he needed was ten strong sons, or so he convinced himself. But the gods had favored him so far with only one.
    He spent his days and nights chewing over his obsession, until the situation took a desperate turn. Muttalib went to the Kaaba and gazed at the hundreds of idols that lined the chamber. All at once he believed in none of them. In despair he called on God instead. Deep inside every Arab is an