This episode does something different: instead of tracing one life, it traces one name across a thousand years. Amina is a loose transcription of two distinct Arabic roots, one meaning "safe, protected," the other "devoted, trustworthy," and the tension between those two meanings runs through every woman who has carried it. Two figures launched it across the globe: Amina bint Wahb, mother of the Prophet Muhammad, whose name traveled the trade routes with Islam itself, and Amina of Zazzau, the 16th-century Hausa warrior queen who led cavalry campaigns for 34 years, expanded her territory to its largest borders in history, and left earthen fortifications still known today as Amina's walls.

From there the name ripples outward: a sultana who ruled the Maldives in her own right in the 1750s, a biodiversity scientist who became president of Mauri ...