Mu'jam Kabir Tabarani 19444 — When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out

Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) narrates: When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) set out on a journey, he would cast lots among his wives, and whichever of them drew the lot, he (peace and blessings be upon him) would take her with him. She said: So he (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), and this was after the command of the veil (hijab) had been revealed, so I would be carried in a howdah and set down in it. Until, when the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) returned and drew near Madinah, he announced the departure. When the departure was announced, I got up and walked until I had gone beyond the army to relieve myself. Then I felt my chest and saw that my necklace of Zafar (beads) had broken and fallen, so I went back to search for it, and searching for it held me back. Meanwhile, the people who used to lift my howdah came and fastened it onto my camel, thinking that I was in it. In those days women were light, not heavy-bodied; we ate only a little food, and I was a young girl. So when they fastened the howdah onto my camel, the people did not find its weight strange, and they set off. I came to the camp, but there was neither anyone of them calling nor anyone answering. So I made for the same place where I had been, thinking that they would come back to look for me. She said: I was sitting when sleep overcame me and I slept. Safwan bin al-Mu'attal al-Sulami, then al-Dhakwani, was behind the army; he travelled in the last part of the night and reached that camp in the morning. He saw the dark shape of a sleeping person and recognised me, for he had seen me before the command of the veil was revealed. I woke at his saying 'Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un' (We belong to Allah and to Him we return), and I covered my face with my outer sheet. By Allah, I did not speak to him, nor did I hear any word from him other than his istirja', until he made his camel kneel and I mounted it, and we reached the people in the intense heat of midday. So whoever was to be ruined was ruined, and the one among them who took the greatest part in it (the slander) was Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul. She said: Then we travelled on until we reached Madinah, and I was ill for a month. I knew nothing of what they were saying, but something about the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) troubled me: I was not finding from him (peace and blessings be upon him) the gentleness I used to see from him (before). He (peace and blessings be upon him) would just come to me and say: "How is she?" and say nothing more than that. Until I went out towards al-Manasi', and Umm Mistah went out with me. We would only go out at night, and we found it troublesome to build toilets near our houses, and our practice was like that of the early Arabs. When we turned back, Umm Mistah tripped in her wrap and stumbled, and she 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: "Do you not know what he has said?" I said: "What has he said?" So she told me what the slanderers were saying, and it added further illness on top of my earlier illness. She said: Umm Mistah, who was the daughter of Sakhr bin Amir, was the maternal aunt of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him), and her son was Mistah bin Uthathah bin Abbad bin al-Muttalib bin Abd Manaf. Sayyidah Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: Then I wept for two nights and a day, until I thought that the weeping would split my liver. She said: When the revelation was delayed for the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), he (peace and blessings be upon him) called Usamah bin Zayd and Ali bin Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with them); he (peace and blessings be upon him) was consulting them about separating from his wife. Usamah said: "O Messenger of Allah, she is your wife, and we have known nothing but good." And Ali said: "Allah has not restricted you; there are many women besides her, and if you ask the slave 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 in Aishah that you dislike?" She said: "No, by the One who sent you with the truth, I have not seen anything in her for which I would blame her, more than that she is a young girl who falls asleep, neglecting her family's kneaded dough, and the household goat comes in and eats it." She said: The wife of Abu Ayyub (may Allah be pleased with him) had said to Abu Ayyub: "Have you not heard what people are talking about?" and she told him what the slanderers were saying. He said: "Glory be to You (O Allah)! It is not fitting for us to speak of this. Glory be to You! This is a tremendous slander." Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) stood up and said: "O company of Muslims, who will excuse me regarding a man whose harm has reached me concerning my family? By Allah, I have known nothing about her but good, and they have mentioned a righteous man who only used to come to my family with me." At this, Sa'd bin Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him) stood up and said: "O Messenger of Allah, I will take redress for you from him. If he is from al-Aws, we will strike his neck, and if he is from our brothers of al-Khazraj, you command us and we will carry out your command concerning him." At this, Sa'd bin Ubadah (may Allah be pleased with him) stood up; before that he had been a righteous man, but (tribal) zeal provoked him, and he said to Sa'd bin Mu'adh: "You have lied! By Allah, you are not able to kill him." At this, Usayd bin Hudayr (may Allah be pleased with him), who was 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." So the two tribes flared up against each other until they were intent on fighting, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) kept (restraining them) until he came between them. She said: Then the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) came to me while my parents were with me, and a woman of the Ansar had also come to me and was keeping me company (in weeping). She said: He (peace and blessings be upon him) sat down, and he (peace and blessings be upon him) had not sat with me since this thing had been said about me. Then he said: "To proceed: O Aishah, such and such has reached me about you. If you are innocent, Allah will surely declare you innocent; and if something has occurred from you, then seek Allah's forgiveness and repent to Him." She said: When the Messenger of Allah (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: My mother said: "I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." She said: And I was a young girl who did not read much of the Qur'an, so I said: "By Allah, if I confess to you something of which Allah knows I am innocent, you will surely believe me; and if I say that I am innocent, you will not believe me. By Allah, I find no example for me and for you except what the father of Yusuf (peace be upon him) said: 'So patience is best, and it is Allah whose help is sought against what you describe' (Yusuf: 18)." Then I turned over, and Allah knows that I was innocent, and in my own eyes I was far too small for Qur'an to be sent down about me. She said: But I hoped that Allah would show His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) a dream in his sleep through which He would declare me innocent. She said: By Allah, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) had not yet moved from his place, nor had any of the household gone out, when the intense state (of revelation) came over him (peace and blessings be upon him). She said: Whenever revelation came down to him (peace and blessings be upon him), this intense state would come over him (peace and blessings be upon him), until sweat like pearls would drip from him (peace and blessings be upon him) even on a winter day. She said: Then, when that state passed from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), the first thing he (peace and blessings be upon him) said was: "As for Allah, He has declared you innocent, O Aishah!" My mother said to me: "Get up and go to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." I said: "By Allah, I will not get up and go to him, and I will not praise anyone but Allah for this." So Allah, exalted be His mention, sent down these verses: "Indeed, those who brought the slander are a group from among you" up to "And Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing" (al-Nur: 21). Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) used to spend on Mistah because of his need and his kinship. When Mistah said what he said, Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "By Allah, I will never spend anything on him." So Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, revealed this verse: "And let not those of virtue and means among you (swear)" up to "Do you not love that Allah should forgive you?" (al-Nur: 22). So Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "Yes indeed, I would love for Allah to forgive me." So he resumed spending on Mistah as before. And the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) asked Zaynab bint Jahsh (may Allah be pleased with her). She said: She was the one among the wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) who used to compete with me. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) asked her about me, and Allah protected her through her piety. She said: "I protect my hearing and my sight; I have not seen anything in her that would cause me doubt." And Zaynab's sister Hamnah kept fighting against me, and so she was ruined along with those who were ruined.