Author's Preface
The days of the holy month stretched on, one after another, and Halima started to adjust.
The hunger under the blazing sun didn't feel as unbearable as it had those first few days — her body was learning patience, and something inside her was shifting along with it. She noticed how, during this month, their people — and, from what she picked up in the messengers' talk, the neighboring tribes too — seemed to be quietly competing in acts of kindness. Who could feed more people in need. Who could give more generously to a struggling neighbor. Who could forgive an old grudge more completely. There was no malice in any of it, and something about that competition moved her deeply. What a beautiful month this is, she kept thinking — a time when people's hearts seemed to soften and open wide, competing not in wealth or strength but in mercy.
Then her period started.
She already knew, from Zoraida's lessons, that women didn't have to fast during those days — the missed days were simply made up later in the year, whenever the body was ready again. The relief was real. Still, every morning she forced herself up alongside Yahya, just to share suhoor with him, even without any obligation to.
Getting up for the dawn prayer was the hardest part — her body fought her every time, her eyes refused to stay open, and every morning felt like a small test of will. But Yahya always coaxed her up, endlessly patient.
"Prayer at dawn is a conversation with God while the rest of the world is still asleep," he'd say, sitting beside her on the bed. "It's the only minutes of the whole day when the soul meets the Creator in complete silence, before the noise of the day gets to it. Whoever rises for that meeting gets a blessing no amount of sleep could match."
And she'd get up — groggy, grumbling, but up.
Sometimes, catching herself from the outside, Halima noticed with a small laugh how spoiled she'd become these past few months. She blamed her husband for it, of course — he was the one who indulged her at every turn, coaxed her, wrapped her in a kind of care she'd never known before. Living with her parents, she had never allowed herself to show vulnerability. She'd learned young to keep everything locked away — tears, exhaustion, pain — never showing weakness to anyone, because in her father's house, weakness only gave him more to criticize.
Here, everything was different.
Every day, falling asleep beside her husband or rising for dawn prayer, Halima thanked Allah — for the family she'd found so unexpectedly, so far from anything she'd known before; for her husband and the love he gave her without conditions, without holding anything back, simply because she existed.
The last ten days of the holy month arrived — a stretch of time the tribe awaited with a particular kind of reverence, because somewhere among those nights, on one of the odd-numbered ones, hid Laylat al-Qadr — the Night of Decree.
A night, as the Prophet had taught, worth more than a thousand months. A night when the heavens, tradition held, opened wider than usual, when angels descended to earth wing to wing, when a person's fate for the coming year was written anew. A night when a prayer spoken from a sincere heart flew straight to the Throne of God—the highest realm above the seven heavens—past every obstacle in its way.
On these nights the whole family gathered longer than usual — praying, reciting dhikr, the repeated remembrance of God's names and praises meant to still the mind and turn it wholly toward Him, on into the small hours, until the candles burned down to nothing and their eyes started closing on their own. No one complained of being tired. The reward was too great to let laziness win out during these chosen nights.
Faris prayed alongside everyone else — but these past few days, one thought had settled into his chest that had never visited him before.
He had everything. Parents who loved him, a brother he was genuinely close to, a high standing, good health. He'd never wanted anything for himself before, simply because he'd never needed anything beyond what he already had.
But now one persistent thought wouldn't leave him alone: he wanted to find someone. Wanted to share his life with someone, the way his brother had.
At first the thought scared him, and he wrote it off as some kind of madness — or maybe, he thought with a wry smile, just his sister-in-law's romantic mood rubbing off on him after living under the same roof for so long. But the longer he sat with the feeling, the clearer it became: it was real. He actually wanted to know what it meant to truly love someone, and to be loved in return.
He spread his hands in prayer, bowed his head, and whispered, "O Allah, if You've written a companion for me, help me find her. Help me understand this love I've spent so long calling foolishness."
At the same time, in their own tent, Yahya and Halima were finishing suhoor before dawn. Setting the empty bowls aside, both of them raised their hands for private prayer, without a word between them, each carrying a wish held deep and close.
Something had been living in Halima's heart for a while now — it had taken root that evening at the hot springs, the first time she'd talked about having children someday, and it hadn't let go of her since. The dream of a child was tangled up with something even deeper: the wish to finally build the real, whole family she'd never had growing up.
"O Allah," she whispered, palms open, "give me a child. Let me give them the love and warmth I never had myself."
Yahya spent a long while first thanking the Creator for everything he'd been given — his wife, the gift of visions returned to him, his health, the peace in his home. Then, after a pause, he turned to something more personal.
"O Allah, let my wife love me one day as fully, as truly, as I love her."
He remembered something the Prophet, peace be upon him, had said: "This world is nothing but temporary provision, and the best of its provisions is a righteous wife." Before, those words had just been wisdom passed down from the elders, something he'd heard and accepted without really feeling it. Now, having tasted the real joy of marriage, he understood it in his bones — agreed with every word of it, completely. He had never been happier in his entire life than he was right now.
The month slipped by faster than either of them could track, so fast it felt like it had barely begun.
When the time came to say goodbye to Ramadan, Halima let it go reluctantly. She'd grown genuinely attached to the month — to the quiet of its dawns, the taste of that first date after a long day, the particular closeness that settled over the table every evening at iftar. Saying goodbye to it felt almost like saying goodbye to a close friend.