Urwa reported,

Alqama bin Waqqas and Ubaydullah bin Abdullah bin Utba bin Masud related the account of Ayesha, the wife of the Prophet ﷺ, concerning what the people of the slander said about her, and how Allah declared her innocent. Each of them related to me a portion of her account, and some retained her account better than others and were more exact in relating it. I committed to memory from each of them the account he related to me, and their accounts confirm one another.They mentioned that Ayesha, the wife of the Prophet ﷺ, said, "Whenever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ intended to set out on a journey, he would draw lots among his wives, and whichever of them her lot fell to, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would take her out with him.He drew lots among us for an expedition he went on, and my lot came out, so I went out with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. This was after the screen had been sent down. I was carried in my howdah and set down in it while we travelled.When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had finished his expedition and turned back, and we drew near to Madinah, he gave the order one night to march. I rose when they announced the march and walked until I had passed beyond the army. When I had finished what I needed, I came back toward the caravan, and I felt at my chest and found that a necklace of Zafar onyx had broken and fallen. So I went back and searched for my necklace, and the search delayed me.The party who used to load my howdah came, took it up, and fastened it onto the camel I rode, thinking I was inside it. Women in those days were light. They were not heavy and had little flesh on them, for they ate only small amounts of food. So the people thought nothing strange of the weight of the howdah when they lifted and loaded it. I was a young girl at the time.They roused the camel and set off, and I found my necklace after the army had already moved on. I came to their camping place, and there was no one there to call out to and no one to answer. So I made for the place where I had been, thinking that the people would miss me and come back for me.While I was sitting in my place, my eyes overcame me and I slept. Safwan bin Muattal Sulami, of the clan of Dhakwan, had halted behind the army and set out again in the last part of the night, and he reached my place in the morning. He saw the dark shape of a sleeping person and came to me. He recognized me when he saw me, for he used to see me before the screen was prescribed for me. I woke at his saying, we belong to Allah and to Him we return, when he recognized me, and I covered my face with my outer garment.By Allah, he did not speak a single word to me, and I heard no word from him other than that, until he made his camel kneel and pressed on its foreleg so that I mounted it. Then he set off leading the camel with me on it, until we reached the army after they had halted in the fierce heat of midday. Then those who were destroyed by what was said about me were destroyed, and the one who took the greatest part in it was Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul.We came to Madinah, and I fell ill for a month after our arrival. The people were pouring out the words of the people of the slander, and I knew nothing of it. What troubled me in my illness was that I did not find from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ the tenderness I used to see from him when I was ill. He would only come in, greet us, and then ask, 'How is that one of yours?' That is what troubled me, and I sensed nothing of the evil until I went out after I had recovered.Umm Mistah went out with me toward Manasi, which was where we relieved ourselves, and we went out only from one night to the next. This was before privies were built close to our houses, and our custom was that of the early Arabs in going out to open ground. We were troubled by the idea of having privies beside our houses.So I set out with Umm Mistah, who was the daughter of Abu Ruhm bin Muttalib bin Abd Manaf, and her mother was the daughter of Sakhr bin Amir, the maternal aunt of Abu Bakr Siddiq, and her son was Mistah bin Uthatha bin Abbad bin Muttalib. The daughter of Abu Ruhm and I came back toward my house when we had finished, and Umm Mistah stumbled in her gown and said, 'May Mistah fall.'I said to her, 'What an evil thing you have said. Do you insult a man who was present at Badr?'She said, 'My dear, have you not heard what he said?'I said, 'And what did he say?'Then she told me the words of the people of the slander, and my illness grew worse upon my illness.When I returned to my house, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ came in to me, greeted me, and asked, 'How is that one of yours?'I said, 'Will you give me permission to go to my parents?'At that moment I wanted to be certain of the news from them. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave me permission, and I came to my parents and said to my mother, 'Mother, what are the people saying?'She said, 'My little daughter, take it lightly. By Allah, seldom has there been a beautiful woman with a husband who loves her, and who has fellow wives, without them saying a great deal against her.'I said, 'Glory be to Allah. Have the people really been speaking of this?'I wept that night until morning, my tears never stopping and no sleep touching my eyes, and I woke still weeping.The Messenger of Allah ﷺ called Ali bin Abu Talib and Usama bin Zayd, when the revelation was delayed, to consult them about parting from his wife. As for Usama bin Zayd, he advised the Messenger of Allah ﷺ according to what he knew of the innocence of his family and what he felt in himself of affection for them, and he said, 'Messenger of Allah, they are your family, and we know nothing but good of them.'As for Ali bin Abu Talib, he said, 'Allah has not placed you in difficulty. There are many women besides her. And if you ask the servant girl, she will tell you the truth.'So the Messenger of Allah ﷺ called Barira and asked, 'Barira, have you seen anything from Ayesha that troubles you?'Barira said to him, 'By the One who sent you with the truth, I have never seen anything in her that I could hold against her, other than that she is a young girl who falls asleep over her family's dough, so the household sheep comes and eats it.'Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood and asked for support against Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said while he was on the pulpit, 'Muslims, who will support me against a man whose harm toward my household has reached me? By Allah, I know nothing but good of my family, and they have spoken of a man of whom I know nothing but good, and he never entered upon my family except in my company.'Saad bin Muaz Ansari stood and said, 'I will support you against him, Messenger of Allah. If he is from the Aws, we will strike his neck, and if he is from our brothers of the Khazraj, then order us and we will carry out your command.'Then Saad bin Ubada stood, and he was the chief of the Khazraj and had been a righteous man, but tribal zeal carried him away. He said to Saad bin Muaz, 'By the life of Allah, you will not kill him, and you are not able to kill him.'Then Usayd bin Hudayr, who was the cousin of Saad bin Muaz, stood and said to Saad bin Ubada, 'You have lied. By the life of Allah, we will certainly kill him. You are a hypocrite arguing on behalf of the hypocrites.'So the two tribes, the Aws and the Khazraj, rose up until they were on the point of fighting, while the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was standing on the pulpit. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ kept calming them until they fell silent, and he too fell silent.I wept that whole day, my tears never stopping and no sleep touching my eyes, and I wept through the night that followed, my tears never stopping and no sleep touching my eyes, while my parents thought that the weeping would split my liver.While the two of them were sitting with me and I was weeping, a woman of the Ansar asked permission to come in to me. I gave her permission, and she sat weeping with me.While we were like that, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ came in to us, greeted us, and sat down. He had not sat with me since what was said about me had been said, and a month had passed in which nothing was revealed to him about my case.The Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave the testimony of faith when he sat down, then said, 'As for what follows, Ayesha, such and such has reached me about you. If you are innocent, Allah will declare you innocent. And if you have fallen into a sin, then seek the forgiveness of Allah and turn to Him in repentance, for when a servant confesses a sin and then repents, Allah turns to him in forgiveness.'When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had finished what he had to say, my tears dried up until I could not feel a drop of them.I said to my father, 'Answer the Messenger of Allah ﷺ for me about what he has said.'He said, 'By Allah, I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.'So I said to my mother, 'Answer the Messenger of Allah ﷺ for me.'She said, 'By Allah, I do not know what to say to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.'So I said, and I was a young girl who did not recite much of the Quran, 'By Allah, I know that you have heard this until it has settled in your hearts and you have believed it. If I tell you that I am innocent, and Allah knows that I am innocent, you will not believe me in that. And if I confess to you something that Allah knows I am innocent of, you will believe me. By Allah, I find no comparison for myself and for you except what the father of Yusuf said, "So beautiful patience. And Allah is the One whose help is sought against what you describe" [Yusuf 12:18].'Then I turned away and lay down on my bed. By Allah, I knew at that moment that I was innocent and that Allah would declare my innocence. But by Allah, I did not think that revelation would come down about my case to be recited. My case was too small in my own eyes for Allah to speak about me in words that would be recited. I only hoped that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would see a dream in his sleep through which Allah would clear me.By Allah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had not left his seat, and no one of the household had gone out, when Allah sent down revelation upon His Prophet. The strain that used to come over him at the time of revelation took hold of him, until drops like pearls of sweat ran down from him on a winter day, from the weight of the words being sent down upon him.When the state passed from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he was smiling, and the first word he spoke was, 'Be glad, Ayesha. Allah has declared you innocent.'My mother said to me, 'Get up and go to him.'I said, 'By Allah, I will not get up and go to him, and I will praise none but Allah . He is the One who sent down my innocence.'Then Allah revealed "Indeed, those who came with the slander are a group among you" [Nur 24:11], ten verses. Allah sent down these verses declaring my innocence."Abu Bakr, who used to provide for Mistah because of his kinship and his poverty, said, "By Allah, I will never spend anything on him again after what he said about Ayesha."Then Allah revealed "And let not those of virtue among you and wealth swear" up to His words "Do you not love that Allah should forgive you?" [Nur 24:22].Abu Bakr said, "By Allah, I certainly love that Allah should forgive me." So he restored to Mistah the provision he used to give him and said, "I will never withhold it from him again."Ayesha said, "The Messenger of Allah ﷺ had asked Zaynab bint Jahsh, the wife of the Prophet ﷺ, about my case. He asked, 'What do you know, or what have you seen, or what has reached you?'She said, 'Messenger of Allah, I guard my hearing and my sight. By Allah, I know nothing but good.'"Ayesha said, "She was the one among the wives of the Prophet ﷺ who used to vie with me, and Allah protected her through her scrupulousness. Her sister Hamna bint Jahsh set about fighting on her behalf, and she was destroyed among those who were destroyed."Ibn Shihab said, "This is what has reached us of the affair of this group."Among the variant wordings reported were, a necklace of Zafar onyx, and, they were not heavy, and, I made for it, and, in the open country, and, she has fellow wives, and, so the household sheep comes and eats it, and, he had been a righteous man before that, but tribal zeal carried him away, and, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ kept calming them until they fell silent, and, my tears dried up, and, she set about fighting.

حدثنا يعقوب بن إبراهيم قال حدثني أبي عن صالح بن كيسان قال ابن شهاب حدثني عروة فذكر الحديث وإسناده وقال من جزع ظفار وقال يهبلهن وقال تيممت وقال في البرية وقال لها ضرائر وقال فتأتي الداجن فتأكله وقال وكان قبل ذلك رجلا صالحا ولكن احتملته الحمية وقال لم يزل رسول الله ﷺ يخفضهم حتى سكتوا وقال قلص دمعي وقال تحارب