Three Weeks Without a Word

"We then went on to Madīnah. There, I soon fell seriously sick and heard nothing of what was going on." All of these rumours are spreading around, and ʿĀ'ishah has no idea about it. "All the talk soon reached the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) and my parents, but they told me absolutely nothing of this. All I noticed was that the Messenger of Allah was not as kind as usual towards me. Whenever I had been sick, he had been very kind and comforting to me, but not on this occasion. I pretended not to notice. When he came in to see me, my mother being present, nursing me, he would just say formally, 'Kayfa tīkum?'" — which means, "How is she?" He wouldn't even speak to her. "He would add nothing more. Eventually, this coldness of his bothered me, and so I asked him, 'O Messenger of Allah, if you will allow it, I'd like to go and stay with my mother to have her care for me.' The Prophet said, 'No problem.' And so I moved in with my mother. I still had no knowledge of what was going on until I recovered from my illness some three weeks later." So for three weeks, she had no idea that this rumour was spreading around about her.

She said: "We were an Arab people and didn't have in our homes those toilets that foreigners use. We find them disgusting. We would go out and use the open areas of Madīnah. Each night, the women would go outside to relieve themselves. I went out to do so one night, accompanied by Umm Misṭaḥ, a daughter of Abū Ruhm ibn al-Muṭṭalib. She was walking with me when she tripped over her gown and swore, 'Taʿisa Misṭaḥ!'" — which means, "Perish that Misṭaḥ!" — "Misṭaḥ was her son's nickname, his real name being ʿAwf. I commented, 'That's a terrible thing to say about a Muhājir and a man who fought at Badr.'" So ʿĀ'ishah here is saying: why are you saying this about your son, when your son is a Muhājir and he has attended Badr? This shows that attending Badr was a special thing.

"So the mother of Misṭaḥ said, 'Has the news not reached you, daughter of Abū Bakr?' I said, 'What news?' She then told me what those spreading the calumny were saying, so I exclaimed, 'This is really so?' She said, 'Yes, it is really so.'" ʿĀ'ishah says: "I swear, I was so upset I couldn't do my business and went home. I wept so much I thought my crying would burst my liver. I told my mother, 'May Allah forgive you for not telling me anything about what the people have been saying about me.' She said, 'Don't take it too seriously, daughter. Rarely does a beautiful woman with a husband who loves her not have her co-wives and others speak badly about her.'

"The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) had stood and addressed people on this subject, but I knew nothing of that. He had praised and thanked Allah, then said, 'Why is it that people are giving me concern about my family and speaking untruths against them? I swear by Allah, I know nothing but good of them, and they are also saying the same against a man of whom I have never known anything but good. He has never entered any of my dwellings without me being in his company.'" So the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) here is saying: I only know good of ʿĀ'ishah, and I only know good of Ṣafwān.