Mu'jam Kabir Tabarani 19438 — I heard al-Zuhri (may Allah have mercy)

Yunus bin Yazid al-Ayli (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I heard al-Zuhri (may Allah have mercy on him) say: I heard Urwah bin al-Zubayr, Sa'id bin al-Musayyab, Alqamah bin Waqqas and Ubaydullah bin Abdullah bin Utbah (may Allah have mercy on them) narrate the hadith of Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her), the honoured wife of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), about the time when the people of the slander said about her what they said, and then Allah declared her innocent of it. Al-Zuhri said: Each of them narrated to me the part of this hadith that he narrated from Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her), and some of their narrations confirm others, though some of them remembered it better than others. They related that Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her), the wife of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), said: When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) intended to set out on a journey, he would cast lots among his wives, and whichever of them drew the lot, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) would take her with him. Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) cast lots among us for a military expedition that he (peace and blessings be upon him) undertook, and my lot came out. So I set out with the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) after the command of the veil (hijab) had been revealed; I would be carried in my howdah and set down in it. We travelled on until, when the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had finished that expedition and set off back, and we drew near Madinah, the departure was announced one night. When the departure was announced, I got up for my need. When I had finished my need and came back towards my mount, I saw that my necklace of Zafar beads had broken and fallen. So I went back to search for my necklace. Meanwhile, the people who used to place me on my mount came, lifted my howdah and placed it on the camel I used to ride, thinking that I was in it. Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: In those days women were light; they did not grow fat or put on flesh, for they ate only a little food. So the people did not find the lightness of the howdah strange, and I was a young girl. They drove the camel on and set off with it. I found my necklace after the army had moved on, and I came to their camp, but there was neither anyone calling nor anyone answering. So I went to the place where I had been before, thinking that the people would soon miss me and come back for me. While I was sitting in my place, sleep overcame me and I slept. Safwan bin al-Mu'attal al-Sulami, then al-Dhakwani, had stayed behind the army; then, travelling in the last part of the night, he reached my place in the morning, and he saw the dark shape of a sleeping person. He came to me and recognised me as soon as he saw me, for he had seen me before the command of the veil was revealed. I woke from my sleep only at the sound of his saying 'Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un' (We belong to Allah and to Him we return), when he recognised me. So I covered my face with my outer sheet. Then he did not say a single word to me other than his istirja', nor did I hear any word from him, until he made his mount kneel and put his foot on its foreleg, and I mounted it. Then he set off leading the mount, until we reached the army after they had halted. So whoever was to be ruined was ruined, and the one who took the greatest part in this slander was Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul. Then we reached Madinah, and after arriving there I was ill for a month. During this time people were busy with the talk of the slanderers, and I knew nothing of it. In my illness it troubled me that I did not feel from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) the gentleness I used to see during my illnesses. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) would only come in and say: "How is she?" and then leave. This troubled me, but I did not sense the evil, until I went out after recovering, and Umm Mistah went with me towards al-Manasi', which was our place for relieving ourselves. We would only go out at night. This was before toilets were built near our houses, and in going out to relieve ourselves our practice was like that of the early Arabs; we found it troublesome to build toilets near our houses. So Umm Mistah and I set out. Umm Mistah was the daughter of Abu Ruhm bin al-Muttalib bin Abd Manaf, and her mother was the daughter of Sakhr bin Amir, the grandmother of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him), and her son was Mistah bin Uthathah bin al-Muttalib. When the two of us had finished our need and were walking towards my house, Umm Mistah stumbled in her wrap and said: "May Mistah perish!" I said to her: "What an evil thing you have said! Do you revile a man who was present at Badr?" She said: "O simple one! Have you not heard what he said?" I said: "What did he say?" So she told me what the slanderers were saying, and my illness increased on top of my illness. When we returned to my house, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) came to me, greeted me with salam, and then said: "How is she?" I said: "Will you permit me to go to my parents?" (At that time I wanted to confirm the news from them.) The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) gave me permission. I came to my parents and asked my mother: "Mother, what are people talking about?" She said: "My daughter, take it lightly. By Allah, it rarely happens that a beautiful woman is with someone who loves her, and she has co-wives, without their talking much about her." I said: "Subhan Allah! Are people really talking about this?" So I wept that night until morning; my tears did not stop and no sleep came to me, and in the morning too I was weeping. Then, when the revelation was delayed, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) called Ali bin Abi Talib and Usamah bin Zayd (may Allah be pleased with them both) to consult them about separating from his wife. Usamah advised according to what he knew in his heart of the innocence of his (peace and blessings be upon him) family and of his love for them, and he said: "O Messenger of Allah, they are your family, and we know nothing about them but good." And Ali said: "O Messenger of Allah, Allah has not placed any restriction on you; there are many women besides her, and ask the servant girl, she will tell you the truth." So the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) called Barirah and said: "O Barirah, have you seen anything that would cause you doubt?" Barirah said: "By the One who sent you with the truth, I have not seen anything in her for which I would blame her, except that she is a young girl who falls asleep, leaving her family's dough, and the household goat comes and eats it." Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) stood up that same day and sought (people's) support against Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul, and he said on the pulpit: "O Muslims, who will excuse me regarding a man whose harm has reached my family? By Allah, I have known nothing about my family but good, and about the man they have mentioned I also know nothing but good, and he never entered my house except with me." Sa'd bin Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him) stood up and said: "O Messenger of Allah, I will excuse you regarding him. If he is from al-Aws, I will strike his neck, and if he is from our brothers of al-Khazraj, you command us and we will carry it out." Sa'd bin Ubadah stood up; he was then the chief of al-Khazraj, and before that he had been a righteous man, but tribal zeal overcame him, and he said to Sa'd bin Mu'adh: "You have lied! By Allah, you will not kill him, nor are you able to." Usayd bin Hudayr, the cousin of Sa'd bin Mu'adh, stood up and said to Sa'd bin Ubadah: "You have lied! By Allah, we will certainly kill him; you are a hypocrite arguing on behalf of the hypocrites." At this, al-Aws and al-Khazraj became enraged, until they were about to fight, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) kept calming them until they all fell silent, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) too fell silent. I wept that day; my tears did not stop and no sleep came to me. In the morning my parents were with me, and I had wept the whole night; no sleep had come to me and my tears had not stopped, and they thought that the weeping would split my liver. Meanwhile a woman of the Ansar asked permission; I gave it, and she too sat down weeping. Meanwhile the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) came in and sat down. He (peace and blessings be upon him) had not sat with me since this thing had been said, and a month had passed without any revelation coming down. He (peace and blessings be upon him) recited the tashahhud and then said: "To proceed: O Aishah, such and such has reached me about you. If you are innocent, Allah will surely declare your innocence; and if a sin has been committed, then seek forgiveness and repent, for when a servant confesses and then repents, Allah accepts his repentance." When he (peace and blessings be upon him) had finished speaking, my tears dried up so completely that I could not feel a single drop. I said to my father: "Answer what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) has said." He said: "By Allah, I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." Then I said to my mother: "Answer what the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) has said." She said: "By Allah, I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." So I, a young girl who had not read much of the Qur'an, said: "By Allah, I know that you have heard this thing, and it has settled in your hearts and you have believed it. If I say that I am innocent, you will not believe me; and if I confess, though Allah knows that I am innocent, you will believe me. By Allah, my example and yours is the same as what the father of Yusuf (peace be upon him) said: 'So patience is most fitting, and it is Allah whose help is sought' (Yusuf: 18)." Then I turned over and lay down, and I was certain that I was innocent and that Allah would surely make it known. But I did not think that any revelation would be sent down about me that would be recited; I considered myself too insignificant for that. Rather, I hoped that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) would see a dream through which Allah would make my innocence known. By Allah, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had not yet risen from his place, nor had any of the household gone out, when Allah, the Blessed and Exalted, sent down revelation upon him (peace and blessings be upon him). The state that used to come over him at the time of revelation came over him (peace and blessings be upon him), and drops of sweat like pearls began to fall even on a winter day, because of the weight of the Qur'an that was being sent down upon him (peace and blessings be upon him). When that state passed, he (peace and blessings be upon him) was smiling, and the first words he said were: "Allah has declared you innocent." My mother said: "Go to him." I said: "By Allah, I will not go, nor will I praise anyone but Allah." And Allah, exalted be His mention, sent down all ten verses beginning "Indeed, those who came with the slander". When Allah sent this down about my innocence, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him), who used to spend on Mistah bin Uthathah because of his kinship with him and his poverty, said: "By Allah, I will not spend anything on Mistah after what he said about Aishah." So Allah revealed this verse: "And let not those of virtue and means among you swear that they will not give to their relatives, the poor and those who emigrated in the cause of Allah; let them pardon and overlook. Do you not love that Allah should forgive you? And Allah is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful." So Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "Yes indeed, by Allah, I would love for Allah to forgive me." So he resumed the spending on Mistah that he used to make, and said: "By Allah, I will never withhold it from him." Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was asking Zaynab bint Jahsh (may Allah be pleased with her), the wife of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), about my affair, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "O Zaynab, what have you known or what have you seen?" She said: "O Messenger of Allah, I protect my hearing and my sight. By Allah, I have known nothing but good." She was the one who used to compete with me, but Allah protected her through her piety. Her sister Hamnah began to fight on her behalf, and so she too was among those of the people of the slander who were ruined. Al-Zuhri said: This is what has reached us about this group from the hadith of Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her).