When Ṣafwān, may Allah be pleased with him, finally woke, he discovered that the caravan had already departed. He noticed a distant figure—a dark silhouette—and approached it. It turned out to be ʿĀʾishah, the Mother of the Believers, may Allah be pleased with her, whom he had known before the command for the veil had been revealed.

What did he do? He brought his camel to its knees and, out of reverence for the household of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, did not utter a single word. He had no wish to converse with the Prophet’s wife in such a setting. Having knelt the camel, he braced his foot against its foreleg and his arm against its shoulder; ʿĀʾishah mounted, and he took the rein and led the camel on foot, with her riding behind him.

When they rejoined the army, the hypocrites began to talk. They seized the moment and spread lies about ʿĀʾishah: “A woman left behind on a journey with a man!” They maligned her honor—not because they cared about a young wife, but because they wanted to tarnish the bedding of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. “May Allah destroy them; how they are deluded!” (Q 9:30).

They kept on spreading their slander. By Allah’s wisdom, when the expedition reached Medina ʿĀʾishah fell ill and stayed in her house. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, would visit her, yet she did not sense from him the warmth she had always known. He would pass by and simply say, “How is that one?”—meaning, “How is she?” He did not press with questions such as, “How is she today? I hope she is better than yesterday,” and the like. He limited himself to that brief inquiry because the hypocrites’ talk had become widespread in Medina, and even some believers were uncertain.

The Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, never doubted his family; he was certain that, in His wisdom, Allah would never allow his bedding to be defiled