Aisha's life Part Three

A one point,  the Banu al Mustaliq began to prepare to fight the Muslims, and accordingly the Prophet (PBUH) led an army against them.
 Often when the Prophet went to war, he took one of his wives with him. He did not choose anyone in particular, but simply drew lots and took the wife whose name came out. When he went to fight the Banu al-Mustaliq, the lot fell to Aisha.

Aisha who was small, slim, and graceful, so that it was difficult for the men who carried her litter to know for certain whether or not she was actually inside it when they lifted it up. On the way back to Medina, after the Banu al Mustaliq had been subdued, the Muslim army stopped for a rest, but then the Prophet unexpectedly ordered the army to continue the march back. Unknown to everyone else, Aisha had stepped out of her litter for a few minutes and had left the camp, seeking some privacy. On her way back she had noticed that her onyx necklace was missing and so she retraced her steps to try and find it. When she had at last found it finally returned to the camp, it was to find that everyone had gone. The men who had been carrying her litter had thought she was still in it, and had picked it up, strapped it to the camel and marched on

 Asha, who trusted completely in Allah, sat down, and waited, hoping that someone would notice her absence and come back for her. Fortunately she did not have long to wait, for a young Muslim man named Safwan ibn al-Mu'attal, who had fallen behind the army after taking a rest, reached the camp during the night and found her lying fast asleep. Safwan immediately recognizing her, because he had seen her before she entered the House of the Prophet.

"Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un!" - "Surely we come from Allah and surely to Him we return!" he exclaimed in surprise, waking Aisha up with the loudness of his voice. He did not say anything else. He let her climb on the camel and started to lead it, hoping he would catch up with the rest of the group.  They eventually cought up, but only the next morning.

 Unfortunately, some hypocrites who had seen Safwan and Aisha arrive alone together began to gossip and spread slanderous lies about them. Eventually the story reached the Prophet himself, and by then the whole community was talking about what might or might now have happened before the two young muslims. Naturally the believers, were certain that noting bad had happened, but some others were not so convinced.

As a result of all this gossip, the Prophet (PBUH) and his household came under a great strain, and in fact Aisha herself fell ill. Not because she was aware of what the hypocrites were saying about her, but because the Prophet did not seem to care for her as much as he had done before the campaign against the Banu al Mustaliq.

 Finally, someone told her what some people were saying. This made Aisha even more ill, so with the Prophet's permission, she went to stay at the house of her parents.

When she arrived, she said to her mother, Umm Ruman, "Mother! What are the people saying?" She replied "O my daughter! Do not make too much of the business. By Allah, seldom has there been a woman of beauty with a husband who loves her and who has co wives but that people say a lot against her."
Aisha said, "Glory be to Allah! The people have really been saying this?" Aisha said, "I have spent the entire night until morning unable to stop weeping and could not sleep at all. Morning found me still weeping."

In the meantime, when Safwan was confronted with the allegations that had been made, he replied, "Glory be to Allah! By Allah, I have never removed the veil of any woman!"

Since there had been no revelation to clarify the matter, the Prophet asked Barira, who was Aisha 's maid servant, if she had seen anything in Aisha' s behavior that was at all doubtful. "By Him who sent you with the truth," she replied, "I have not seen nothing wrong with her, other than that she is a young woman and sometimes she falls asleep while she is kneading the dough and a lamb comes along and eats it!" Some of the companions who were present scolded Barira and told her to come to the point. "Glory be to Allah!" she replied. "I know as much about her as a jeweler knows about a piece of pure gold!"

The Prophet also asked Zaynab bint Jahsh for her opinion, since he valued it highly. Although she and Aisha were frequently at odds with one another and Zaynab's sister Hamna, was the one of those who were actively gossiping and spreading the rumor, she replied without hesitation, "O Messenger of Allah," she said, "I will not repeat anything that I have not heard with my own ears and seen with my own eyes. By Allah, I find nothing in her but goodness."

The Prophet then tried to vindicate Aisha's honor by calling everyone to the mosque and publicly defending her reputation, but the hypocrites who had started the trouble in the first place only made matter worse, so that arguments broke out all over the mosque, and people had almost come to blows over the matter before the Prophet (PBUH) calmed them down and silenced them.

The Prophet then came to Abu Bakr's house, where Aisha had been crying her heart out, and in the presence of her parents said the shahada, and then continued, "If you are innocent, then Allah Himself will protect your honor, and if by accident there has been a lapse on your part, then seek the forgiveness of Allah and He will pardon you, for when a slave admits a fault and turns to Him in repentance, then Allah also turns and accepts that repentance."
Aisha said, "When the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) finished what he was saying, my tears stopped so that I was not aware of a single tear. I said to my father, 'Answer the Messenger of Allah for me regarding what he has said.' He said, 'By Allah, I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah,' I said to my mother, 'Answer the Messenger of Allah for me regarding what he has said.' She said, 'By Allah, I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah.'"

Aisha said, "I am a young woman who does not yet recite much of the Quran. By Allah, I know that you have heard this story that people are saying and it has become fixed in yourself and you have believed it. If I were to say to you that I am innocent, you would not believe me. If I were to confess to something to you and Allah knows that I am innocent you would believe me.
 By Allah, I can only say what the father of Yusuf said, "Patience is beautiful, and Allah is my protection against what you describe." Quran 12:18
Then I turned over on my bed, Allah knowing that I was innocent and hoping that Allah would proclaim me innocent. However, by Allah, I did not think that any relation would be sent down regarding me. I thought too little of myself that something would be said in the Qur'an regarding me, however I hoped that the Messenger of Allah would have a dream in which Allah would exonerate me. She had hardly finished speaking when the Prophet  received a direct revelation of some more ayahs of the Quran, and when it was over, he smiled and said, "Do not worry, Aisha, for Allah has revealed proof of your innocence."
Aisha's mother, who had been standing next to her, said, "Get up and thank him."
"By Allah," exclaimed Aisha, whose title, 'Siddiqa', means 'the truthful one', "I will not thank him and praise him but rather Allah Who has given the revelation that has protected my honor!" Then the Prophet went to the mosque and recited what had just been sent down:

“Surely those who fabricate the lie are a group from among you. Do not think it is bad thing for you; no it is good for you. Every man will receive what he has earned for this sin, and whoever had the greater part in it will have a great punishment. Why did the men and women believers, when they heard it, not think good in their selves and say: 'This is clearly a lie?' Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they did not produce witnesses, they are certainly liars in the sight of Allah. If it were not for the grace of Allah, and His mercy on you in this world and in the next world, an awful doom would have overtaken you for what you repeated. Since you received it with your tongues, and repeated what you did not know anything about with your mouths, you thought it was a trifle, but in the sight of Allah it is serious. Why, when you heard it, did you not say: 'It is not for us to repeat this, Glory be to You (O Allah), this is a serious rumor.' Allah warns you to never repeat anything like this again, if you are indeed believers and Allah makes the signs clear to you; and Allah is Knowing, Wise. Surely those who love to spread around slander about those who believe will have a painful punishment in this world and in the next world; and Allah knows and you do not know.” Quran 24:11-19

Aisha forgave those who had let themselves be caught in the slander and in later years would not hear anything bad said about them. The fact that Aisha' s honor and reputation had been protected by a revelation from Allah could not be ignored by anyone, and from then on everyone was more aware of her high station with Allah.

It was also during the course of Aisha's marriage with the Prophet Mohamed  that the Muslim community expanded so rapidly and that Mecca was eventually conquered by the Muslim army, and preparations were made for the first of the many battles that were successfully fought against the Greeks and the Persians after the letters from Mohamed inviting Heraclius and Choroes to embrace Islam and worship Allah alone had been contemptuously ignored.