She said:

So I wrapped myself in my cloak and lay down in my place, confident that if they noticed my absence they would come back for me.

By Allah, while I was still lying there Safwān ibn al-Muʿaṭṭal al-Sulamī passed by. He had remained behind the army for some personal need and had not spent the night with the people. He saw the outline of my figure and came up until he stood over me—for he had seen me before the veil was imposed upon us. When he recognized me he exclaimed, "Indeed we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return! The wife of the Messenger of Allah!" I was completely wrapped in my clothes.

He said, "What kept you behind? May Allah have mercy on you!"

I did not answer him. He then brought his camel near and said, "Mount," and he moved away from me. I mounted, and he took hold of the camel’s head and set off swiftly to catch up with the people. By Allah, we did not reach them, nor was I missed, until morning when the people halted. As they settled, the man appeared leading the camel with me upon it.

The people of the slander then said what they said and the whole camp was thrown into turmoil, but by Allah I knew nothing of it. We returned to Madinah, and soon afterward I fell gravely ill. Nothing of the matter reached me, though the story had already reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and my parents; they would not mention a single word of it to me. What I did notice was that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was showing me less kindness than usual—whenever I fell sick he would normally show me compassion, yet during this illness he did not, and I found that strange. Whenever he entered while my mother was tending me he would say only, "How is that one?" and no more.

At last I felt distressed and said, "O Messenger of Allah, if you permit me, I would like to go to my mother so she may nurse me." He replied, "There is no harm." I therefore went to my mother’s house, still unaware of anything that had happened, and after more than twenty nights I recovered from my illness.

We were an Arab people who did not build inside our homes the latrines the non-Arabs construct; we found them repugnant. Instead we would go out to the open places of Madinah, and at night the women would go out for their needs. One night I went out for that purpose, accompanied by Umm Mistah, the daughter of Abī Ruhm ibn al-Muṭṭalib.

By Allah, while she was walking with me she tripped on her cloak and cried, "Misṭah be ruined!" Misṭah was a nickname; his name was ʿAwf. I said, "What a dreadful thing you have said about a man from the Emigrants who fought at Badr!"

She replied, "O daughter of Abū Bakr, have you not heard the news?" I asked, "What news?" She then told me what the people of the slander had been saying.

I exclaimed, "Has this really happened?" She said, "Yes, by Allah, it has." By Allah, I could not even finish what I had gone out to do; I returned at once, and by Allah I kept weeping until I thought my liver would split from so much crying.

I said to my mother, "May Allah forgive you! People have been saying what they have said, and you did not tell me any of it?" She replied, "My daughter, take it easy. By Allah, whenever a beautiful woman is married to a man who loves her and she has co-wives, they will malign her and the people will speak against her."

Meanwhile the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had stood and addressed the people—though I knew nothing of it. He praised Allah and glorified Him, and then said,

"O people, what is the matter with men who pain me concerning my household and attribute to them what is untrue? By Allah, I know nothing about them but good. And they speak of a man concerning whom, by Allah, I know nothing but good, and he never enters any house of mine except when I am present."

She said: The chief instigator in that affair was ʿAbd Allah ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl, together with some men of the Khazraj, along with what Misṭah had said and Ḥamnah bint Jahsh—whose sister Zaynab bint Jahsh was then married to