The way of the nomad.

I would hear the Bedouins boast of their superior endurance, their strength, their unwavering determination and fearlessness in the face of any foe; but, no matter how many stories you hear, you would never truly grasp their meaning until you got a taste of the desert life.

It was so for me during my time with Tulayha's tribe. This was a dwelling of a Banu Asad clan, mobilized now into that of an army camp.

At that point, the Muslims had subjugated much of Arabia – from Tabuk far to the north, all the way to the coasts of Yemen where the ocean began and the world ended. But we managed to settle down some place barren to the north of the peninsula.

The dwelling was a poor substitute to even the commodities the life of a slave in Yathrib provided. The sun never relented in its pursuit of our brains, threatening to drop us all dead. The baking sands threatened to peel the skin off my bare feet; rations were scarce, the tents were so cramped I could not stand inside without bending over, and they provided scant shelter to the harsh bite of the night's winds. Even though they were sealed off from the direction of the gales.

Within a week, my lips were parched, my belly empty and my throat ached. Yet, for all the inconveniences, the hard life lifted my spirits and strengthened me in mind and spirit. Never had I felt so powerful in my life, never so free, never a man.

No man called me slave, nor was I anyone's inferior. The chieftain chafed in suffering alongside the shepherd, the woman labored as did the man. There was no concept of elitism, and the only respect a man afforded was earned through reputation of courage, benevolence and honesty.

This was how life was meant to be; this was what the gods intended for us when they created man. Some sedentary Arabs maintained the tradition of loaning their children to one nomadic tribe or the other so they would not grow soft and sheltered, surrounded by unnecessary luxuries and the vices borne of opulence and plenty.

The men of Banu Asad were a tightly knit bunch; they were close as men could be. Tied by flesh and blood – illustrious lineage. Theirs was a bond forged through dozens of skirmishes fighting at one another's side, a bond forged by fire, sweat and blood.

They formed the majority of the camp, and by extension Tulayha's followers. Only a handful of the latter were from without the Banu Asad tribe.

The tribesmen did not take kindly to us foreigners. In the desert, a man earned his reputation with arms and nature rather than coin.

And that is what I set forth to do. The challenge of the nomadic life invigorated me, the prospect of having to prove myself to man, god, and above all, to myself.

It awakened a bottled up hunger inside me, a longing for acceptance, a yearning to form bonds of brotherhood, to remedy all that I had lost. I never enjoyed the fruits that came with family or tribe; and those I considered brothers were torn from me. For the better part of my short life, I was forced to fend for myself. With no one to look after me or have my back.

Now, I had the opportunity to form true bonds; a chance to exact vengeance on those who wronged me and would do me further harm. The nomads of Asad treated us raw recruits with flippant scorn and disgust, but I weathered their cold behavior.

Every day from dawn to dusk, I would spar with them, and learn from my mistakes or those of others. Time and again, I would be bested in combat by one Bedouin or another, and I would leap at whatever instruction guised itself in the victor's gleeful insults that usually followed the introduction of my ass to sand.

I took great pains never to repeat the same mistake twice, and though I would be bested again and again, I never tired from my path to perfection. I would wield the sword with as much prowess as I did my bow, I vowed to myself, and to keep my frustration at bay, I would imagine my opponents with the faces of Muhammad ibn Maslamah, Yazid ibn Mas'oud and any person I could think of.

I imagined the dead – Habib, Ezra, Zaid ibn Haritha, Mas'oud.

My hatred and my pain mingled together, consuming my heart, cultivating the venomous child within, its flames burning my heart and fueling my ferocity and determination.

I doubted I was making any considerable progress, but my fiery spirit and determined soul was enough for the nomads of Banu Asad to ease their hostilities bit by bit as time passed by. And I could have sworn I saw a glimmer of fondness in one man's eyes.

I remembered, in my youth, how the warriors spoke of war and its glories. They spoke high tales of triumph and pride, glory and reputation, defeated foes and satisfied gods.

But they spoke not of the entrails littering the ground, or the trails of blood; the haunting look of men dead or dying, the shrieks of the living, the brains dripping down the scalps of the wounded.

They dared not confide in us the crippling fear they needed to suppress or else risk shaking knees, a wavering arm and a trip to the afterworld.

I was yet a boy of three and ten, but Uhud seemed a lifetime ago. The sight of death no longer fazed me nor did the crawling of maggots feasting on the flesh of the dead or the pecking of the crows appall me.

I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b. A free man at last.

June 632 AD, Rabi' al-Awwal 11 AH       

I ducked beneath my opponent's blow and raised my shield to block the rebound. Panting, I maneuvered to lunge at his legs, but it was intended as a mere feint; as he lowered his shield, I raised my own blade and struck at his throat.

However, the old man pounced back with extraordinary speed, and as I staggered in his general direction, he swept his shield sideways, striking me across my cheek in a mind-jarring collision that sent me sprawling on the windswept sands.

The blow knocked the wind out of me and my sword skidded away from my grasp. All I could do was struggle for breath as the morning sun pounded overhead, livid and unrelenting.

'Abd al-Ka'aba, however, was in a more festive mood, as he removed his helmet, revealing a wrinkled, leathery face that was twisted in a smile.

"Once again, the boy's ass meets sand," he exclaimed, his arms wide and his voice raspy.

"I'll best you yet, old man," I replied.

'Abd al-Ka'aba roared with laughter. "When Hubal's cock shrivels and Tulayha names himself king."

"The latter is likelier than you would think."

'Abd al-Ka'aba shook the camp with his booming laughter once again as he dropped his wooden sword and extended an arm toward me, helping me to my feet.

'Abd al-Ka'aba was a seasoned warrior, a Bedouin of the Banu Asad hardened by years in fire and blood and battle.

"Hard circumstances breed hard men," he always said.

And those difficult experiences had taken their toll on the old man's face. His physique was impressive for a man his age, and his agility and grace were surprising.

His face, on the other hand, was something out of a horror tale spoken in whispers around a campfire. Every inch of it was marred by wrinkle, the years' worry leaving their mark on distinctly brown skin; his was a grotesque appearance. His cheeks and forehead were distorted with scars left behind by dozens of foes that stood against 'Abd al-Ka'aba and never lived to tell the tale.

All what remained of them were these scars that crisscrossed every inch of his body. His face was burned to one side and the other featured a prominent scar that stretched from ear to chin.

Most disconcerting of all? His nose was gone entirely.

"'Abd al-Ka'aba!" I exclaimed when first I heard the name. "What a wonderful name. One fitting for a man of the gods."

It meant the slave of the Ka'aba. At the advent of Islam, a number of names had been banned. Because why would they ever let anything proper and true flourish in this world?

Names that glorified polytheistic deities or objects – basically anything other than Allah, were banned.

His name in and of itself was a slight to Tulayha's claim to prophethood. Tulayha preached of the same god as Muhammad – Allah – and the name 'Abd al-Ka'aba was a pagan one, etched in the glory days when all tribes were united under one faith.

But one needed only glance at 'Abd al-Ka'aba's scowl in order to know why Tulayha dared not ask him to adopt another.

It was nigh three years since I escaped slavery following the Muslims' success in reaching heights unprecedented. I started off in this camp of Bedouins an outcast, ostracized as a soft city boy, and the gods only knew the torment I would have been subjected to had they been aware of my Jewish origins.

The nomads of Arabia were renowned for their caution and wariness for all things foreign to their ancient lifestyle. It proved a cumbersome task to earn their trust.

But earn their trust I finally did; a trust earned through sheer grit and determination. My fiery spirit and sheer force of willpower convinced them that I was worthy of their affection, and the daily struggles we sustained alongside one another in the desolate plains, was enough for them to treat me as though I were a clansman of close kin.

That bond was further nourished when they surprised me and I them with our common faith. I had assumed these Asadi tribesmen would have taken Tulayha's faith as their own, and they assumed the same of me.

But it turned out that they clung to the religion of their forefathers, and I could not have been more pleased with the notion.

My progress in sword skill was undeniable, and my determination to train for hours on end played a crucial role in the elevation of my status at camp.

The bow remained my preferred weapon, but no man could call himself a man if he did not boast of the sharpness of his sword and the strength of his arms.

Reclining with 'Abd al-Ka'aba one day after sparring, I basked in the distinct scents of manure, dust, sweat and animal dung. The invigorating smells of a Bedouin dwelling. As life ought to be. As men should live.

"Why do you follow Tulayha if you don't believe in his teachings?" I inquired.

"Men like Muhammad and his lot would have us all rounded up and beaten to submission like tamed beasts," 'Abd al-Ka'aba had once said. "They'd rob us of our gods-given right to do whatever the fuck we want. They'd have us abide by one ridiculous law or another every half a heartbeat and scrape on our knees begging their god for forgiveness if we so much as cough the wrong way."

He spat on the ground.

"Men like Tulayha as well?" I asked.

"Men like Tulayhah lack the competence to know which side of a sword to grip."

"Yet you still follow him."

"Men like Tulayha and the prancing Muhammadans may have forgotten the true Arab ways, but my heart has not changed nor will it ever. Always aid a brother, a man of my clan, whether he's an ass or not. I am a Bedouin as were my forefathers, and I intend to follow in their footsteps. It is a matter of honor. If we forsake our links of blood and flesh, what separates us from the common animal?"

"You would die for this moron? Despite all his ramblings and his impiety."

"Yet again you question our ways, boy. I fuck and fight, fight and fuck, and should I be satisfied with either endeavor, maybe then I'll spare a sacrifice for the gods. I don't run away from a fight, no matter the cause. I support my flesh and blood, even if they're wrong."

He took a gulp of beer from a skin and passed it to me.

"What of you, boy? What is your purpose to remain in the company of men destined for death, and the foul bite of parasites? You've earned your freedom. And don't talk about keeping your word and all that crap. You're a bastard and we both know it!"

He chuckled wryly.

I let the beer wash down my throat and wiped the droplets from my lips with a sleeve. I pondered his question for a long while, the horrid events of my youth marring my mind's eye as they had for many a year.

"My mother," I replied. "She is yet a slave."

I remembered the haunted look in Ruqayya's eyes, when Mas'oud was yet our master. When he would tire of his wives, he would seek out Ruqayya as concubine. I remembered the march to Mu'tah...and shivered. The gods only knew what my mother was being subjected to as a concubine to some filthy nomadic chieftain, as though she were a prize to be handed from one beast to another.

"I'll kill any man that dares lay a hand on her."

I felt my rage swelling and took another gulp.

"Hand over the bloody skin, you turd, you'll drain what's left," 'Abd al- Ka'aba snatched it away from me and settled down.

"I lost my mother as well," his tone was deprived of any mirth now. "Was fever that took her. After some worthless bandits raided us. They slaughtered my father in cold blood and snatched her off. I was about your age. Five and ten?

Anyway, they took her to some bedraggled hideout. A cave of sorts."

I paused, considering whether to prod him further. "What did you do?"

'Abd al-Ka'aba swung his head back, took another long gulp, and favored me with a misshapen smile, his tangled grey beard dripping liquid.

"Tracked the bastards down, cut their cocks off and chained them to one another in a circle. Draped them with some thatch and set the shits alight. When the fires died down, I...soiled their corpses, let's keep it at that.

It was too late for the woman, though, for she was struck by fever, and died within the fortnight."

I nodded solemnly, snatching the skin and taking another gulp.

But now was not the time for tall tales and reminiscing of past slights. War was upon us. How I yearned for the screams of men sent to their gods, the frantic whinnying of animals frenzied by blood. A good slaughter was long overdue.

Three years had passed according to the lunar calendar of the Arabs.

Three years I had fretted over the future that would inevitably lead me to cross swords with my brothers 'Amr and Mundhir and would see me at odds with Ruqayya. As well as the slavers of my mother.

Yet, life in the sands among scarab, serpent and nomad was proving a valuable experience and then some. A way to reconnect with the gods and stay in touch with my manhood.

Three years had passed, yet my body sprouted like never before and my arms were thick and heavy laden with muscle mass. Standing taller than most even at a young age; proud, arrogant and with a fearsome temper, I was a man grown. I would be of need for a wife soon.

It was a humid day in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal when Tulayha interrupted my morning spar with 'Abd al-Ka'aba. He was clad in a simple white gown and a turban.

"Peace, 'Abd al-Ka'aba," he called out. He shifted his gaze toward me and nodded. "Hanthalah."

'Abd al-Ka'aba spat at his feet. "What peace can there be when your homely face clouds the sun? Fuck off and let me pound the paste out of the boy."

Tulayha pursed his lips and kicked the sands at his feet idly. "No, my purpose here is one that will put all my men at peace. I bring tidings that swell the heavens with satisfaction."

'Abd al-Ka'aba spat again, the yellow phlegm mixing with the muck and mire. "Speak, then, damn you, and cease your riddles."

Tulayha looked up, his hands clasped behind his back. He struggled to keep his face plain, yet the mischievous sparkle in his eyes betrayed emotion.

"The pretender is dead."