“It carries off a host of infants every year,” said Umm ed-Dahak. “But be not downcast, O beloved. God is great! Many survive, and those who do recover are free from its malignancy forevermore.”

The malady was typhoid fever, or so like it that Barakah could not detect the slightest difference. She had been often told that it did not attack the natives of the land, but only Europeans, who were thought more delicate. Here, then, was the reason. The natives who grew up were all inoculated, having been through the disease in infancy.

Muhammad lived, for which his mother gave wild thanks to Allah, and performed a hundred alms-deeds she had vowed in her suspense. But a year later her small daughter died of the same scourge, and in the after years she lost five children by it.