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Most ancient history was written by men, so perhaps it was inevitable that it would be a woman, a poet and teacher from San Rafael, who would trace the history of the wives of the Prophet Muhammad.
Tamam Kahn's interest in the wives of Muhhammad was heightened after an encounter with a household of contemporary Muslim women in Morocco in 1998. But when it came to putting a book together, she recounts it was the poetry that came first.
Having immersed herself in the stories of these "first women of Islam," Kahn came away impressed with all of them as a group, but she admits being especially drawn to two of them.
Between all his his wives, Muhammad fathered only a handful of children and, KLahn explains, he outlived all but one of them.
Tamam Kahn will read from Untold at Copperfield's Books in Sebastopol on Thursday, Sept. 9.
