The Sword and the Prophecy

Each life and death is foreseen. But when Rothaide takes a babe who was destined to perish on the killing fields of Carthage, her act threatens to unravel the divine design. Because a mortal saved the boy, the universe’s Celestial Guardians must find another of his kind who shares his soul to ensure that Rothaide’s deed will not hurl the world into eternal chaos. The child will grow into a famed Muslim warrior. But their choice for his soul mate falls on Luther Tyson, a hapless high school history teacher. Hating his job, mourning his failed academic ambitions, and too weak to end his loveless marriage, Luther now carries an additional burden  –  the eyes of the child haunting his days and nights makes him think he’s losing his mind. It’s the start of his story as told to Garret, his son.

Rothaide’s man, Asim, is a renowned swordsmith serving Hasan ibn al-Nu’man, the general besieging Carthage. Walking to their camp with the foundling, her thoughts turn to Jamal, their natural-born son, who died in infancy. About to reject him,  Asim sees a curved-sword-shaped birthmark on the babe’s left butt cheek. Their child, prophesied to achieve great things, had carried the same blemish. Crying in joy, they name the babe Jamal.

Asim kills an enemy soldier, saving a youthful Muslim warrior’s life. The youth, Abd al Rahman al-Ghafiqi, pledges his sword to Asim and his family. Luther wonders whether he is the Abd al Rahman al-Ghafiqi who will lead a force against the Franks in the Battle of Tours. He knows by now that faulting Audrey, his wife was wrong. But he tells Garrett that back then he blamed her for wrecking his dreams of a career in academia by getting pregnant, trapping him into a marriage bearing a child with ASD—Garrett.

Ibrahim, a mysterious sage, tells Rothaide and Asim Jamal’s birthmark is a sign that he is destined to change history. Ibrahim says he must take the child to his madrasa in Damascus to prepare for the great deeds awaiting him. At the madrasa, Jafar, an older boy, challenges Jamal. Ariella, a fellow pupil, comforts him. Jafar attacks Jamal and warns him to stay away from Ariella.

Luther hears whispers urging him to search for Jamal. His birthmark matches Jamal’s and takes on new significance when he reads that soulmates often share birthmarks. He consults books about parapsychology and reads about children remembering events decades before they were born. He flies to Cairo to search for Jamal In Egypt’s National Library.

Jamal and Ariella sleep with each other. It’s their first time.

Luther is denied access to the library archives. A strange man says he can help him. They descend through a hidden door to a chamber containing seventh-century manuscripts. Mihrabi tells Luther to look for iجمال, Jamal in Arabic script. He stumbles upon “Jamal. Changed the Course of History.”

Guards detain  Ibrahim for not teaching from the Koran. Jamal puts up a fight and is arrested. Freed, he hires on with Ubay, the captain who arrested him, after hearing a voice that his path to finding Ariella lies with Ubay. The two join a force aiming to conquer Hispania.

Luther admits to Garrett that he wished Jamal were his son for a time. He relates how he came upon him reading William Muir’s The Caliphate. Their shared love of that era is an opening. Luther talks for hours at his son’s beside about Jamal, Ariella, and the others in his alternate life. It’s the start of their closeness.   

The battle for Hispania begins with a duel won by the Muslim champion.  Ubay identifies him as Abd al Rahman al-Ghafiqi. Jamal kills Roderic as his troops flee, reveals himself to Abd al Rahman as the child of the man he swore his sword to, and is made a member of Tariq’s guard. Ubay’s death leaves him weeping. 

A decade has passed. Jamal returns home to Kairouan. He finds Asim unconscious. Revived, he points to a sword on his workbench. He says spirits guided him in its making and told him that though others might swing it, the blade was meant for the greatest Muslim warrior who is yet to come. Testing the blade, Jamal shatters Asim’s sword. A closer look reveals the inscription “First the Word; then the Sword.”

Luther is now running five days a week and working out in a gym. He credits Jamal for his transformation. Luther and Audrey divorce.

Now the caliph’s bodyguard, Jamal comes upon Ariella in the Jewish district of Damascus, where he recognizes Ariella. She is married with two children. In the caliph’s library, he finds a book that talks of his life and someone else’s who seems far away and yet tied to him. He doesn’t understand much, but “Jamal, changed the course of history,” jumps out at him.

Luther starts on How the Convergence of Islamic and Byzantine Cultures Shaped the Levant. He writes: “The history of the Maghreb underwent a pivotal development in the late seventh and early eighth centuries with the confluence of the Byzantine Empires and the Umayyad Caliphate yielding remarkable changes in the region’s political, military, and cultural landscape.”  Rereading, he sees: “Rothaide wondered at the weakness that drove her to her knees as she reached for the babe.”

Jafar, now the caliph’s chamberlain, rapes Ariella. Jamal kills him and is banished. 

Luther is appointed a lecturer at Columbia’s history department.

Jamal flees to Aquitania where he is captured and dragged by guards of the Lady of Xantes. She lets him live after he pleads for a chance to recover enough to fight the guard captain.

Luther awakes close to death from Jamal’s dragging. Mystified doctors cannot make a diagnosis. An analysis of his nose swabs finds traces of grass and soil endemic to southern France and Northern Spain.

A convalescent Jamal is being tended to by Gundrada, Lady Rotrude’s cook. As she tells him how Rotrude’s husband, Wulfram, was slain in the battle for Toulouse, Jamal realizes that he was Wulfram’s killer. He persuades Rotrude to let him strengthen by working her fields. He kills the captain of her guard, is beset by Rotrude, and defeats her. She makes him captain of her guard.

Unpacking a box years after his divorce, Luther discovers a letter from Audrey written the day he moved out. It puts much of the blame on him for their failed marriage.

Jamal and Rotrude become lovers. They are denounced by the monk Sigeric to the bishop of Toulouse, who demands from Odo, the Duke of Aquitaine, that Jamal be put to death. He is banished instead. While fleeing, kills one of Odo’s men maltreating some villagers. Detained by Odo, he tells the duke that he is a Frankish hire-sword called Nordbert.

Odo welcomes the duchess’s confessor to his manor. It is Sigeric. He unmasks Jamal, now the duke’s counselor. Odo sends him to fight the Franks. A Frankish captain bests him in a fight. Taking off his helmet, he is revealed as Idris.

Luther realizes he is privy to information about the era that no one else has. He feverishly writes the story of Jamal but despairs because he knows no one will believe what he wrote.

Jamal regains his sword from Idris, who now serves Charles the Hammer, Duke of the Franks.

Now a professor, Luther, is marking papers one evening in his office. A young woman enters. She identifies herself as Ibrahim and tells Luther that his task is approaching.

Questioned by Charles about his ring, Jamal tells him that his adoptive mother found it hanging around his neck. The Hammer realizes that Jamal is the mirror image of Count Hugobert, the ring’s owner, who died while fighting against the Caliph’s host besieging Carthage. He declares Jamal Hugobert’s son and heir and the Count of Herstal.

Learning that the caliph’s army about to invade France is led by Abd al Rahman al-Ghafiqi, Jamal leaves Charles and joins his friend.

Luther has finally accepted that he shares the blame for the breakup of his marriage. He reconciles with Audrey. Opening a history book, realizes that his time is near as he reads of a world in chaos, riven by eternal war between the West and the Muslim East.

The Franks and Muslims clash in the Battle of Tours. Abd al-Rahman’s forces are close to victory. It’s Luther’s moment. Suddenly Jamal is dragged down by a force he knows but cannot identify. His friend turns to him and is stabbed from behind. The Franks triumph.

Luther publishes his story as a best-selling novel.

Revived and learning what caused his momentary weakness, Jamal curses Ibrahim until he’s told that Ariela, now widowed is waiting for him. The two reunite.

Almost a century later, the Muslims have retaken Jerusalem from the Franks. The victorious emir muses upon the meaning of the writing on his sword:  First the Word, then the Sword.  It’s Saladin.