User:1234567/Sandbox 1: Difference between revisions

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So Muhammad finally went to Aisha and asked her directly if she was guilty. She waited for her parents to protest her innocence, then asked why they did not speak in her defence. They replied that they did not know what to say.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 496; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}};{{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref> Aisha responded, “I think you believe the lies. I won’t repent! If I confessed to the crime, I would be lying, but if I denied it, you wouldn’t believe me. I will be patient and ask for Allah’s help.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 496; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}};{{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref> Muhammad immediately went into the trance of revelation, sweat dropping off his brow. Then he announced: “Good news, Aisha! Allah has declared your innocence.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 497.</ref> Umm Ruman told Aisha to thank her husband, suggesting that she knew Allah’s real identity; but Aisha (possibly annoyed that Muhammad had taken a month to make up his mind) replied, “No, I will praise none but Allah.”<ref>{{Bukhari|3|48|829}}; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}}; {{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref>
So Muhammad finally went to Aisha and asked her directly if she was guilty. She waited for her parents to protest her innocence, then asked why they did not speak in her defence. They replied that they did not know what to say.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 496; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}};{{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref> Aisha responded, “I think you believe the lies. I won’t repent! If I confessed to the crime, I would be lying, but if I denied it, you wouldn’t believe me. I will be patient and ask for Allah’s help.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 496; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}};{{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref> Muhammad immediately went into the trance of revelation, sweat dropping off his brow. Then he announced: “Good news, Aisha! Allah has declared your innocence.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 497.</ref> Umm Ruman told Aisha to thank her husband, suggesting that she knew Allah’s real identity; but Aisha (possibly annoyed that Muhammad had taken a month to make up his mind) replied, “No, I will praise none but Allah.”<ref>{{Bukhari|3|48|829}}; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}}; {{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref>


Muhammad went out to the courtyard and recited the new revelation to the people:<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 497; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}};.</ref> “Why, when you heard it, did not the believing men and believing women think good of one another and say, ‘This is an obvious falsehood’? Why did [the slanderers] not produce for it four witnesses? And when they do not produce the witnesses, then it is they, in the sight of Allah, who are the liars.”<ref>''Ayat'' 12 & 13 of {{Quran-range|24|4|26}}.</ref> This excused Aisha even had she happened to be guilty, since she only had three and a half witnesses against her.<ref>{{Quran-range|24|11|20}}; {{Bukhari|3|48|829}}; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}}; {{Bukhari|6|60|274}}; {{Bukhari|6|60|281}}; {{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref> Hamna only counted as a half-witness because she was a woman;<ref>{{Quran|2|282}}. “Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.”</ref> but she still had to take the full punishment. She, Hassan and Mistah were sentenced to 80 lashes each.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 497. This was according to {{Quran|24|4}}: “And those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses – lash them with 80 lashes.”</ref> The aristocratic Abdullah was not lashed.<ref>His name is conspicuously absent from Ibn Ishaq’s account of the punishment. [http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2439&Itemid=79/ Ibn Kathir, ''Tafsir'' on Q24:14] says: “As for the hypocrites who indulged in the slander, such as Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul and his like … the threats that were narrated for a specific deed are bound to be carried out, if there is no repentance or sufficient righteous deeds to balance or outweigh it,” i.e., Abdullah was to be all the more punished in the Hereafter.</ref> Eighty lashes can cause serious injury, or even kill, although Hamna, Hassan and Mistah all survived. While the punishment seems an exaggerated retribution for mere gossip, that gossip had essentially amounted to a plot against Aisha’s life. The real problem lay in the Draconian system that not only killed adulterers but forced women in particular to take an unrealistic level of responsibility for never being suspected.
Muhammad went out to the courtyard and recited the new revelation to the people:<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 497; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}};.</ref> “Why, when you heard it, did not the believing men and believing women think good of one another and say, ‘This is an obvious falsehood’? Why did [the slanderers] not produce for it four witnesses? And when they do not produce the witnesses, then it is they, in the sight of Allah, who are the liars.”<ref>''Ayat'' 12 & 13 of {{Quran-range|24|4|26}}.</ref> This excused Aisha even had she happened to be guilty, since she only had three and a half witnesses against her.<ref>{{Quran-range|24|11|20}}; {{Bukhari|3|48|829}}; {{Bukhari|5|59|462}}; {{Bukhari|6|60|274}}; {{Bukhari|6|60|281}}; {{Muslim|37|6673}}.</ref> Hamna only counted as a half-witness because she was a woman;<ref>{{Quran|2|282}}: “Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her.”</ref> but she still had to take the full punishment. She, Hassan and Mistah were sentenced to 80 lashes each.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 497. This was according to {{Quran|24|4}}: “And those who accuse chaste women and then do not produce four witnesses – lash them with 80 lashes.”</ref> The aristocratic Abdullah was not lashed.<ref>His name is conspicuously absent from Ibn Ishaq’s account of the punishment. [http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2439&Itemid=79/ Ibn Kathir, ''Tafsir'' on Q24:14] says: “As for the hypocrites who indulged in the slander, such as Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul and his like … the threats that were narrated for a specific deed are bound to be carried out, if there is no repentance or sufficient righteous deeds to balance or outweigh it,” i.e., Abdullah was to be all the more punished in the Hereafter.</ref> Eighty lashes can cause serious injury, or even kill, although Hamna, Hassan and Mistah all survived. While the punishment seems an exaggerated retribution for mere gossip, that gossip had essentially amounted to a plot against Aisha’s life. The real problem lay in the rigid system that not only killed adulterers but forced women in particular to take an unrealistic level of responsibility for never being suspected.


In the light of his punitive attitude to adultery, Muhammad’s own behaviour is ironic. On the same night when Aisha was alone in the desert, with nobody to verify whether she was looking for a lost necklace or meeting a lover, there were 700 witnesses who had seen Muhammad take yet another new bride into his tent.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 629; Ibn Hisham note 918; {{Tabari|39|pp. 182-183}}; {{Abudawud|29|3920}}; Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 117.</ref> But these witnesses never accused him of adultery. The Prophet was not required to be faithful to a woman.
In the light of his punitive attitude to adultery, Muhammad’s own behaviour is ironic. On the same night when Aisha was alone in the desert, with nobody to verify whether she was looking for a lost necklace or meeting a lover, there were 700 witnesses who had seen Muhammad take yet another new bride into his tent.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 629; Ibn Hisham note 918; {{Tabari|39|pp. 182-183}}; {{Abudawud|29|3920}}; Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' 117.</ref> But these witnesses never accused him of adultery. The Prophet was not required to be faithful to a woman.

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