About the Author:

A professional journalist since 1979, Sherry Jones has won numerous awards and has been published in magazines including Newsweek, CMJ, Southwest Art, and Rider. She is currently the Montana and Idaho correspondent for the Bureau of National Affairs, an international news agency in the Washington, D.C. area, and a correspondent for Women's e-News. The Jewel of Medina is her first novel.

Q&A With Sherry Jones

Q: How did you become interested in the subject of women and Islam? 

A: In spring of 2002, when the U.S. had sent troops into Afghanistan, I began hearing news about the reversals for women there under the Taliban, how girls no longer were allowed to go to school and women were required to wear burqas, how the windows of their homes had to be painted black so they could not be seen from the outdoors, etc. As a feminist, I was disturbed by these reports and I wanted to learn more. 

I knew very little about Middle Eastern culture or Islam at the time, so I went to the library and got a couple of books about women in the Middle East by American journalists Geraldine Brooks and Jan Goodwin. In these books I first read that Muhammad had multiple wives and concubines. Being unable to find very much information about any of them made me want to tell their stories to the world. 
 

Q: With twelve women to choose from, why did you settle on A’isha as the protagonist?

A: I didn’t choose A’isha; she chose me! Both the books I mentioned told a similar tale, of a young girl playing outside on the swing or teeter-totter and her mother calling her inside, washing her face, combing her hair, putting her in a new gown, and taking her into the bedroom to marry a man nearly six times her age. That scene played itself in my mind over and over again until, while working out in the gym one day, I realized that, if I couldn’t stop thinking about A’isha, I should probably write about her. 

Originally I thought to give each of the wives a segment of the book in which to tell her own story. Then I settled on Muhammad’s favorites: Umm Salama, an aristocrat who stood up for women’s rights and saved Muhammad from mutiny with some excellent advice;  Zaynab, the cousin who married Muhammad’s adopted son but went on to capture Muhammad’s fancy with a flimsy nightgown and a breeze-blown curtain; and A’isha, the quick-witted child bride who was always getting in trouble but who, nevertheless, was the Prophet’s favorite.  

Ultimately, A’isha pushed the other wives aside with the sheer force of her personality. She was a quick-witted, sharp-tongued,  politically astute survivor. And what a love affair she had with her husband! Even a charge of adultery couldn’t come between them. She was a unique young woman who, despite her tender age, managed to hold the love of one of the most influential men of all time. According to historians, when Muhammad was 62 and dying, he asked for A’isha. She was ninteen. He breathed his last breath in her arms, with his head on her chest. Theirs, I realized, was a love story for all time. 

My agent, Natasha Kern, has suggested that maybe I WAS A’isha in a former life. I’m not a believer in reincarnation, but I can’t completely discount the theory.

[More Q&A]  

Page 1