Hind’s apparent cessation of aging

Hind’s apparent cessation of aging marks her withdrawal from a city and a history she can no longer control. After Jahilia falls to Mahound and the Al-Lat temple and its statues are destroyed, she isolates herself in a tower for two years and two months. When she reappears, her husband sees no sign that time has passed; she seems younger than before. The narrative leaves the cause uncertain, allowing rumor and Hind’s later declaration of revenge to gather around the change without confirming a supernatural explanation.

Retreat into the Tower

After Abu Simbel’s surrender gives Jahilia to Mahound, Hind recites the declaration associated with the new faith and withdraws to a high tower in her palace. News reaches her there that the Al-Lat temple at Taif has been destroyed, along with the goddess’s known statues. The sequence places her retreat amid the defeat of the old city and the destruction of its religious symbols. Hind shuts herself in with ancient books written in scripts no one in Jahilia can decipher. For two years and two months, servants leave a plate of simple food outside her door once each day and remove her chamberpot; throughout that period, she sees no other living person. The tower becomes a sharply bounded space of isolation, while the long interval makes her later unaltered appearance seem to contradict ordinary time.

The Unchanged Appearance

At dawn, Hind enters her husband’s bedroom dressed in finery, with jewels on her wrists, ankles, toes, ears, and throat. He observes that she has not aged by even a day since he last saw her and appears younger than ever. This is an observation within the scene, not an explanation of what has happened to her. Rumors had already suggested that her witchcraft made time run backward inside the tower. The narrative reports those rumors but does not establish that Hind has literally reversed time, nor does it disclose what she studies in the undecipherable books. Her apparent youth therefore remains suspended between an observed change and a supernatural account attributed to public speculation.

Revenge and Historical Time

Hind tells Abu Simbel that although she cannot reverse history, revenge remains available to her. Her claim distinguishes the unchanged appearance associated with the tower from the larger political reversal she cannot achieve: Mahound’s victory stands, and the city’s former greatness has been displaced. Her return from seclusion coincides with news that Mahound has fallen fatally ill, giving her personal revenge a brief opening within the new order. She prepares a banquet, but no guests arrive. In the evening she sits alone among elaborate dishes and golden plates, eating only a simple plate of couscous. Abu Simbel rejects the meal as obscene, and Hind dismisses the weeping servants before continuing alone. The episode connects her extraordinary appearance to a private, isolated celebration: time may seem not to have marked her body, but the political loss that prompted her retreat remains in force.