Besides Ayesha’s shrewishness, too, he was forced to endure mean tricks used by some of his other pestering wives, who, knowing his strong aversion to such smells as onion and garlic, sometimes took pains to eat malodorous foods. In his perplexity he devised various avenues of escape; but even the horse-races and the performances of singing-girls, which he not infrequently included in his list of pleasures, afforded him little lasting relief. There was some solace, however, in the fact that many of his famous followers were also stung by domestic broils. Abu Bekr and Omar, coming one day to visit the Prophet, found him gloomy and glum in the midst of his family. After Omar had made the aside remark, “I must say something to make the Prophet laugh,” he began thus: “O Apostle of God, if I see Bint Kharija [his wife] asking me for money I get up and throttle her!” Mohammed, immensely tickled in spite of himself, replied, “These women about me, as you see, are asking for money.” Abu Bekr immediately bounded up and started to choke Ayesha; Omar also seized his daughter Hafsa by the throat and savagely demanded, “Will you ask the Apostle of God for what he does not possess?”--upon which both women simultaneously gasped, “By God, we will never ask him for anything he does not possess!” This incident seems to have taught Mohammed how to manage his women better. Having first absented himself from their ministrations for about a month, he appeared with a new string of commandments. “O Prophet, say unto thy Wives--If ye seek after this present Life and the fashion thereof, come, I will make provision for you and dismiss you with a fair dismission. But if ye seek after God and His Apostle, and the Life to come, then verily God hath prepared for the excellent amongst you a great reward. O ye Wives of the Prophet! if any amongst you should be guilty of incontinence, the punishment shall be doubled unto her twofold; and that were easy with God.... Ye are not as other women.... And abide within your houses; and array not yourselves as ye used to do in the bygone days of ignorance. And observe the times of Prayer; and give Alms; and obey God and His Apostle.”