—he saw me—he had seen me before the command of the veil—and he exclaimed, “Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return!” His cry roused me, and when I realized who it was I pulled my cloak over my face. By Allah, he did not address me with a single word, nor did I hear from him anything except that invocation. He made his camel kneel, placed its fore-leg so that I could mount, and I did so. Then he set off, leading the mount (1) until we reached the army after they had already halted for rest in the blazing heat of noon (2). Those who were destined to fall into sin concerning me did so, and the one who assumed the principal share of the slander was ʿAbd Allah ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl (3).

We came to Medina, and I fell ill for a month while people were spreading the talk of the slanderers, yet I was completely unaware of it. What troubled me (4) during my sickness was that I could not sense from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ the kindness I was accustomed to whenever I was ill; he would only come in, greet me, say, “(How is that one?),” and then leave.

That was what disturbed me, but I still suspected no evil until, after I had recovered, I went out with Umm Mistah toward al-Manāsiʿ (5), the place where we answered the call of nature. We used to go out only from night to night; this was before latrines were built near our houses, and our custom was that of the early Arabs—to relieve ourselves in the open—and we would have found it distressing to build privies close to our dwellings.

Thus Umm Mistah—the daughter of Abū Ruhm ibn ʿAbd Manāf, whose mother was the daughter of Sakhr ibn ʿĀmir, the maternal aunt of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq—and I set out together. After we had finished our business and were heading back toward my house, Umm Mistah caught her foot in her cloak,