Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar

On one of his trading journeys between Makkah and Syria, Hashim passed through Yathrib and met Salma bint Amr, an energetic and dynamic businesswoman of Banu Adi ibn al-Najjar (Khazraj). He proposed through her father, and she set conditions: that she would remain in Madinah, keep all her children, and continue her work as a businesswoman. Hashim agreed, and they married, though the couple were only able to be together for a short time before he continued his travels.

In the days before the arrival, the Ansar, the Muslims of Madinah, went out every morning toward Quba to wait for the Prophet ﷺ. Quba was the outermost settlement of Madinah on the side facing Makkah. Each day they waited until the midday heat forced them back home. One day, just after they had gone home, the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA appeared in the distance. A Jewish man picking dates at the top of a palm tree was the first to see them. He shouted, "O Arabs, your king has arrived!" The Prophet ﷺ entered on a Monday in the 14th year of the dawah, which became the first year of the Hijrah. Hundreds of the Ansar rushed out to receive him. Al-Bara' ibn Azib RA, one of the Ansar, recalled that over 500 men came out armed and dressed up. The women climbed onto the rooftops and the children crowded around to see. The Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA waited about a week at Quba for Ali RA, Aisha RA, and Asma RA to arrive. Then they all entered central Madinah together, reportedly on a Friday. Every companion wanted the Prophet ﷺ to stay with him. The Prophet ﷺ let his camel walk freely and said, "Let the camel be, because Allah has taken charge of it." Wherever it sat down would be the site of his mosque and his house. It sat on an open piece of ground used for drying dates. The Prophet ﷺ asked which of his relatives lived closest, since his great-grandmother had come from the Banu al-Najjar clan of Madinah. Khalid ibn Zayd, known as Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, came forward and said he was from the Banu al-Najjar. This made him roughly the Prophet ﷺ's sixth cousin. So the Prophet ﷺ chose to stay with him until his own house was built. The poem Tala'a al-badru alayna is popularly said to have greeted him on this arrival. Sh. Yasir Qadhi argues that this cannot be so, because Thaniyat al-Wada', the pass named in the poem, lies on the road north of Madinah, not on the road from Makkah. If the singing happened, it was on his return from Tabuk.

The Prophet ﷺ lived in the two-storey house of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari RA for about six months, while his own house and Masjid al-Nabawi were being built. At first Abu Ayyub and his wife moved upstairs, giving the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr RA the ground floor. Out of respect, the couple could not bear to live above him, and they insisted that he move to the upper floor. So the Prophet ﷺ spent only his first few weeks downstairs.

The slander, known as al-ifk, was the last and most painful of three things that happened on the way home from the expedition of al-Muraysi'. That expedition was against the Banu al-Mustaliq, in Sha'ban of 5 AH. Most books of Seerah follow Ibn Ishaq and date it to 6 AH instead. More hypocrites marched with the Muslims on this expedition than on any other. The target was close, there was no harvest to keep men at home, and victory was certain. So Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul and his followers came along. On the way back, a Muhajir and a man of the Ansar scuffled at a well. The quarrel grew into a stand-off between the two halves of the army. It ended when the Prophet ﷺ condemned the old tribal war cries as rotten. Ibn Ubayy had hoped for a fight. In his tent he said that once they reached Madinah, the honourable would drive out the lowly. A boy, Zayd ibn Arqam RA, reported what Ibn Ubayy had said. Ibn Ubayy swore that he had said no such thing. That morning, Surah al-Munafiqun was revealed, quoting his own words back at him. The Prophet ﷺ then marched the army for twenty hours without stopping, so that the gossip had no time to spread. Ibn Ubayy had been exposed by the Qur'an itself, and he looked for revenge. He found it in the Prophet ﷺ's own household. Aisha RA told the whole story herself, in long narrations in Sahih al-Bukhari that run to several pages. Before a journey, the Prophet ﷺ would draw lots among his wives, and this time her name had come up. The verses about hijab had already been revealed, so she travelled inside a covered seat, called a howdah, on her camel. On the last night before Madinah, the order came to make camp. She walked out beyond the army to relieve herself. On the way back she felt at her neck and found that her necklace of Yemeni onyx had broken. She went back to look for it. While she was searching, the order came to move on. The men who carried her howdah lifted it onto the camel without noticing that she was not inside. Fifty years later she explained why, gently excusing them as she always did. She had been a slight young girl who ate little. The army moved off. She found the necklace under the spot where her camel had knelt, and returned to an empty camp. She was sure they would notice she was missing and come back. So she wrapped herself up and fell asleep. She woke to hear a man saying, "La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah." It was Safwan ibn al-Muattal RA, who had fallen behind the army and slept through its departure. He had seen her before the verses of hijab came, and he recognised her. She covered her face. He said nothing more. He made his camel kneel and turned his back while she climbed on. Then he led the camel on foot until they caught up with the army, which had stopped to rest in the heat of the day. The hypocrites always rode at the back of the column, and Abdullah ibn Ubayy was among them there. That was when the talk began. Out of respect for her, the books of Seerah never record what was said. They simply call it "the slander". Aisha herself heard none of it. She fell ill with a fever when they reached Madinah, and spent a month in bed. She only noticed that the Prophet ﷺ was not as tender with her as usual, and she did not know why. When she recovered, she went out one night with Umm Mistah bint Abi Ruhm RA, her father's cousin. They went to the open ground that people used before houses had their own toilets. Umm Mistah tripped on her cloak and cursed her own son, Mistah RA. Aisha scolded her for cursing a man who had fought at Badr. Umm Mistah asked whether she really had not heard. Then she told her. Aisha went home more ill than before. She asked the Prophet ﷺ's permission to go to her parents. There she asked her mother, Umm Ruman RA, what people were saying. Her mother tried to soften it. She said that a beautiful woman whose husband loves her, and who has co-wives, will always be talked about. Aisha understood that the rumours were real. She wept all night, until she thought her liver would burst. The story had been started by Ibn Ubayy and some of his followers from the Khazraj. Only three believers had repeated it. They were Mistah, the poet Hassan ibn Thabit RA, and Hamnah bint Jahsh. Hamnah was the sister of Zaynab bint Jahsh RA, Aisha's one real rival among the wives. The Prophet ﷺ asked Zaynab herself about Aisha. Zaynab said that she would protect her ears and her eyes, and that she knew nothing but good of Aisha. As Aisha later put it, Zaynab's religion protected her, while her sister was ruined for her sake. Meanwhile, no revelation had come to the Prophet ﷺ for a whole month. He asked the advice of the two young men closest to his household. Usama ibn Zayd RA had been born and raised in his house. He said plainly that the rumour was impossible. Ali ibn Abi Talib RA said that Allah had not limited him to one woman. He also advised him to question Aisha's maidservant, Barirah RA, who would know the truth. Barirah was terrified. The only fault she could find in her mistress was that she sometimes fell asleep while kneading dough and let the family goat eat it. The Prophet ﷺ then stood on the minbar. He asked who would defend him against a man who had hurt him through his own family. He said that he knew nothing but good of his wives, and nothing but good of the man they had named. Sa'd ibn Mu'adh RA, of the Aws, answered first, though some narrations name another young leader of the Aws. He said that if the man was from his own tribe, he would behead him. If the man was from the Khazraj, he only needed the order. Sa'd ibn Ubadah RA, of the Khazraj, was a righteous man. But as Aisha said, the old tribal feeling flared up in him for a moment. He called Sa'd ibn Mu'adh a liar and said he would never dare to do it. Usayd ibn Hudayr RA then called Sa'd ibn Ubadah a hypocrite who was defending hypocrites. The two tribes were on their feet before the Prophet ﷺ calmed them down. While Aisha was still weeping, the Prophet ﷺ came to her at her parents' house. A woman of the Ansar was sitting and weeping with her. He sat down and praised Allah. Then he told Aisha that if she was innocent, Allah would clear her name. If she had slipped, she should ask Allah's forgiveness, because He forgives whoever repents. At once her tears dried up. She asked her mother to answer for her, but her mother did not know what to say. She asked her father, Abu Bakr RA, but he did not know what to say either. So she answered for herself. She used the words of the father of Yusuf, though in her distress she could not remember his name. She said, "Patience is beautiful, and Allah is the One whose help is sought against what you describe" (Qur'an 12:18). Then she turned to face the wall. She had hoped that Allah might show her innocence in a dream. She never imagined that He would reveal Qur'an about her. But before the Prophet ﷺ had even left the room, the signs of revelation came over him. He felt the heaviness, and sweat ran down him on a cold day. When it lifted, he was laughing. He said, "O Aisha, Allah has declared you innocent." The opening passage of Surah al-Nur had been revealed, from 24:11 onwards. It called the affair a lie. It promised the worst of punishments to the man who led it. It set a punishment of eighty lashes for anyone who accuses a chaste woman without four witnesses. It also asked the believers why they had not simply said what Abu Ayyub al-Ansari RA had said. His wife had asked him whether he had heard the rumour. He had answered, "Glory be to You, this is a monstrous slander." Aisha's mother told her to get up and thank the Prophet ﷺ. Aisha said that she would get up and thank only Allah. The three believers who had repeated the story were flogged. The hypocrites who had invented it were left to be judged in the Hereafter. Abu Bakr had been supporting Mistah, a poor relative of his. He swore never to give him another coin. Then a verse was revealed asking whether he did not want Allah to forgive him. So he swore instead to support Mistah for the rest of his life. Before the matter was settled, Safwan had struck Hassan with the flat of his sword for repeating the rumour. The Prophet ﷺ ruled in Hassan's favour, because no man may take the law into his own hands. Then he asked Hassan to forgive Safwan. Hassan forgave him for the Prophet ﷺ's sake, and he was given a garden. Safwan swore that he had never lifted the veil of any woman. He married later, and he died a martyr in the time of Umar RA. When Aisha told the story, she made excuses for everyone in it. She would never allow anyone to speak ill of Hassan in her presence.

Safiyyah was a young girl in Madinah on the day the Prophet ﷺ arrived there. Her father was Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the chief of the Banu Nadir. She was his favourite child, and the favourite of her uncle Abu Yasir too. One day the two men came home from going to see the Prophet ﷺ. Safiyyah ran to greet them, but they walked straight past her with their shoulders slumped. Then she overheard them talking. Her uncle asked whether it was really him. Her father answered, "By the Lord of Moses, it is him." Her uncle asked what they would do now. Her father said they would oppose him for as long as he lived. Later Safiyyah was exiled along with her tribe. She settled in Khaybar and married there. In the fighting at Khaybar, the Banu Nadir threw themselves into the front line of its defence. More of them died than of Khaybar's own people, and her husband Kinana was among the dead. When the fighting ended, Safiyyah was a widow and a captive. When the captives were divided, she was given to Dihyah al-Kalbi. Some Companions told the Prophet ﷺ that the daughter of the chief of the Banu Nadir should be his, not left with Dihyah. So he paid Dihyah her price and took her. At first no one knew whether he had taken her as a servant or as a wife, so they watched. When it was time to leave Khaybar, he made his camel kneel. He knelt down himself and made his thigh into a step to help her mount. Out of respect, she placed her knee on it rather than her foot. Then he covered her with his cloak. At that the Companions understood, because that veil was only for his wives. Safiyyah herself did not yet know what it meant. When he went to her on the first night, she refused him, and he left her alone. When they were a night's journey from Madinah, she agreed. He asked Umm Sulaym to prepare her. Umm Sulaym hung two cloths between some trees, and the women did what they could with the little they had. They worried that they had no perfume or jewellery for her. But when they had finished, they smelt a scent finer than any they knew. When the Prophet ﷺ came in, he said the hard thing first. He said to her, "Your father Huyayy was the most open of the Jews in their animosity against me until Allah caused his death." This was a test of what was in her heart. She answered with a teaching of the Qur'an, that no soul bears the burden of another. Then he said to her, "You have a choice. If you accept Islam, I shall keep you for me; if you remain in your faith, then perhaps I will free you and you can return to your people." As she understood it, staying with him meant remaining a captive. She told him that she had been drawn to Islam even before he offered it, and had already believed in him. She said she had no people to go back to, since her father and her brother were gone. And she said that Allah and His Messenger ﷺ were dearer to her than her own family. So he freed her, made her freedom her dowry, and married her. He had noticed a bruise on her face and asked her about it. She explained that she had once told her husband about a dream. In it, the moon rose from Yathrib and fell into her lap. Her husband struck her and asked whether she expected the king of the Arabs to marry her. He had understood the dream correctly. Later she was asked why she had refused him on the first night. She said that they were still so close to Khaybar that she had feared the Jews would retaliate. The Prophet ﷺ loved her all the more for it. Abu Ayyub al-Ansari stood outside the tent all night with his sword drawn. He was afraid of what a woman whose family had died at Muslim hands might do. In the morning the Prophet ﷺ found him there. He laughed and prayed for him. The wedding feast was made of whatever anyone had. There were dates, a little clarified butter and barley, all mixed together. On the road home, the walls of Madinah came into sight. As was the custom in Madinah, the riders whipped their camels forward. The Prophet ﷺ's camel stumbled and threw both him and Safiyyah to the ground. Every Companion turned his face away. Only Abu Talha cried out to ask whether he was all right. The Prophet ﷺ replied, "I am okay; I am not hurt." He was on his feet at once and put his cloak over her. In Madinah the other wives came to look at her. Zaynab bint Jahsh said to Juwayriyya that this one would be trouble. Safiyyah belonged to neither of the groups among the wives, since she had no family of her own there. Perhaps that is why the Prophet ﷺ was so tender with her. Once Hafsa called her "the daughter of a Jew", and Safiyyah wept. The Prophet ﷺ asked her, "Why didn't you defend yourself?" She asked how. He said, "You should have said your father was a prophet (Harun), and your uncle was a prophet (Musa), and you are married to a prophet. What do they have over you?" On the Farewell Hajj, he stopped speaking to Zaynab because she refused Safiyyah a camel. In his last illness, Safiyyah said she wished she could take his fever on herself. The other wives said something unkind to her. He told them to rinse their mouths, and when they asked why, he said, "Because you have made fun of Safiyyah, and wallahi, she has spoken the truth." She died in 52 AH.