23 Preface فَأَجاءَهَا المَخاضُ إِلىٰ جِذعِ النَّخلَةِ قالَت يا لَيتَني مِتُّ قَبلَ هٰذا وَكُنتُ نَسيًا مَنسِيًّاYusuf AliAnd the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree: She cried (in her anguish): “Ah! would that I had died before this! would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!”1She was but human, and suffered the pangs of an expectant mother, with no one to attend to her. The circumstances being peculiar, she had gotten far away from her people.