An-Nur

ʿĀʾishah tells it herself. On the way back from a campaign the army halted for the night near Madinah. When the order to march was given she walked out beyond the camp, and on returning found that her necklace of Ẓafār beads had broken and fallen. She went back to look for it. The men who saddled her camel lifted her litter onto it thinking she was inside — she was a young girl and weighed little — and the army moved off. She found the necklace, came back to an empty camp where there was “no one to call and no one to answer”, and sat down where she had been, sure that they would miss her and return. There she fell asleep.

Ṣafwān ibn al-Muʿaṭṭal was travelling behind the army. He reached the place at dawn, saw the shape of someone sleeping, and knew her, for he had seen her before the screen was prescribed. She woke to his saying, “To Allah we belong and to Him we return,” and drew her garment over her face. “By Allah, he did not speak a word to me, and I heard no word from him but that.” He made his camel kneel, she mounted, and he walked leading it until they came up with the army at its midday halt. “And then those who were to be ruined were ruined.” The one who took the greater part in the lie was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy.

In Madinah she fell ill for a month, and knew nothing of what was being said. What troubled her was only that she missed the tenderness the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had always shown her in illness: he would come in, give the greeting, ask, “How is she?” and go. She learned of it when she was recovering, from Umm Misṭaḥ, who tripped on her own cloak as they walked out at night and cursed her son. “What an evil thing to say — do you curse a man who was at Badr?” — “Have you not heard what he said?” And she told her. ʿĀʾishah’s illness doubled. She asked leave to go to her parents, to be certain of it, and her mother said: “Daughter, take it lightly. It is seldom that a beautiful woman is loved by her husband and has fellow-wives, but they find much to say about her.” She wept that whole night until morning.

The revelation delayed, and the Prophet ﷺ consulted those close to him. Usāmah ibn Zayd spoke of what he knew of her innocence: “Your wife, Messenger of Allah; we know nothing but good.” ʿAlī said: “Allah has not made things narrow for you, and there are many women besides her; and if you ask the maidservant, she will tell you the truth.” So he asked Barīrah, who said: “By Him who sent you with the truth, I have never seen anything in her to find fault with, except that she is a young girl who falls asleep over her family’s dough, and the sheep comes and eats it.” He ﷺ stood on the pulpit: “Muslims, who will relieve me of a man whose harm has reached my own household? By Allah, I know nothing of my wife but good; and they have named a man of whom I know nothing but good.” Saʿd ibn Muʿādh rose to offer it, Saʿd ibn ʿUbādah rose against him, Usayd ibn Ḥuḍayr rose against Saʿd, and the Aws and the Khazraj were on the point of fighting while he ﷺ stood there, calming them until they were quiet.

She had wept two nights and a day, until her parents thought the weeping would split her liver, when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ came in and sat down — he had not sat with her since it began. He bore witness, and said: “ʿĀʾishah, such and such has reached me about you. If you are innocent, Allah will clear you. And if you have fallen into a sin, ask Allah’s forgiveness and turn to Him; for when a servant admits his sin and repents, Allah turns to him.” Her tears stopped so that she could not feel a drop. She said to her father, “Answer the Messenger of Allah for me.” He said: “By Allah, I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah.” She asked her mother, and her mother said the same.

So she answered for herself — “a young girl who had not read much of the Qurʾan”: “By Allah, I know that you have heard this story until it has settled in your hearts and you have believed it. If I tell you that I am innocent — and Allah knows that I am innocent — you will not believe me; and if I confess to you something of which Allah knows I am innocent, you will believe me. By Allah, I find no likeness for myself and you but what the father of Yūsuf said: ‘Patience is beautiful, and it is Allah whose help is sought against what you describe.’” Then she turned away and lay down on her bed. She knew that Allah would clear her; but she had never supposed that He would send down, about her, revelation that would be recited. “I was too small a thing in my own eyes for Allah to speak of me in words that are recited.” She had only hoped that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ might be shown it in a dream.

“By Allah, he had not risen from where he sat, and none of the household had gone out, before it came down upon him.” The weight of it took him as it always did, until the sweat ran from him like pearls though the day was wintry. When it lifted he was laughing, and the first thing he said was: “ʿĀʾishah — Allah has declared you innocent.” Her mother said, “Stand up and go to him.” She said: “By Allah, I will not stand up for him, and I will praise none but Allah.” Allah had sent down the ten ayat that begin, “Those who brought the lie are a band among you.”

Abū Bakr had been supporting Misṭaḥ ibn Uthāthah, who was his kinsman and poor, and he swore he would never spend on him again after what he had said. Then came down: “Let not those of bounty and means among you swear off giving to kinsmen, to the poor, and to those who emigrated in the way of Allah. Let them pardon and overlook. Do you not love that Allah should forgive you?” Abū Bakr said: “Yes, by Allah, I love that Allah should forgive me,” and he restored to Misṭaḥ what he used to give him, and said: “By Allah, I will never take it from him.” And Zaynab bint Jaḥsh — the one among the wives who rivalled ʿĀʾishah — when she was asked, said: “Messenger of Allah, I guard my hearing and my sight. I know nothing but good.”