Abu Bakr’s house to question Aisha himself. There, even
as she swore her innocence yet again, he went into a
prophetic trance. As she would tell it, “The Prophet was
wrapped in his garment and a leather cushion was put
under his head.... Then he recovered and sat up and
drops of water fell from him like rain on a winter day,
and he began to wipe the sweat from his brow, saying,
‘Good news, Aisha! God has sent down word of your
innocence.’ ”
It was a divine revelation, perfectly timed. That same
day Muhammad proclaimed it in public, in the words
that are now part of Sura 24 of the Quran: “The
slanderers were a small group among you, and shall be
punished. But why, when you heard it, did faithful men
and women not think the best and say, ‘This is a
manifest lie’? If the slanderers had even produced four
witnesses! But they produced no witnesses, so they are
liars in the eyes of God.... Why did you think nothing of
repeating what others with no knowledge had said,
thinking it a light matter when in the eyes of God it was
a serious one? Why did you not say, ‘This is a monstrous
slander’? God commands the faithful never to do such a
thing again.”
It was a glorious exoneration of Aisha, and all the
more powerful in that it demanded not one but all of
four people to contradict her word. Unless there were
four witnesses to an illegal sexual act, it said, the
accused was blameless, and the false accusers were the