Conflicting reports have been handed down concerning the acquisition of the Prophet’s seventh bride. Going one day to visit his adopted son Zeid, who was absent, he was invited in by Zeid’s wife Zeinab, who ... but here the tales diverge. Some say that Mohammed merely saw her unveiled face, while others assert that her carelessly disarranged dress gave him further glimpses; some say that the Prophet, moved by a purely artistic admiration of her beauty, uttered the words, “Praise be to God, the ruler of hearts!” but others insist that his approbation was of a lower sort, and translate his ejaculation thus: “Gracious Lord! Good Heavens! how Thou dost turn the hearts of men!” It is agreed, however, that Zeinab was so elated at the impression she had made on the Prophet’s facile susceptibility to feminine wiles that she took special pains to repeat his compliment over and over to Zeid, who, in addition to being short, pug-nosed and generally ugly, was a mere freedman, and, therefore, had never appealed too strongly to his high-born wife. Hot with jealousy, Zeid went to Mohammed and declared that he wished to divorce Zeinab. “Why,” he was asked, “hast thou found any fault in her?” “No,” groaned Zeid, “but I cannot live with her.” “Go and guard thy wife,” he was told, “treat her well and fear God.” But Zeid, who presumably saw how matters lay, soon divorced her “in spite of the command of the Prophet,” remarks an admirer, who goes on to explain that Mohammed “was grieved at the conduct of Zeid, more especially as it was he who had arranged the marriage of these two uncongenial spirits.” Obviously, the trouble could be mended in but one way. One day, as Mohammed sat by Ayesha’s side, a prophetic spasm gripped him; after it had passed, he smiled and gently inquired, “Who will go and congratulate Zeinab, and say that the Lord hath joined her unto me in marriage?” The wedding soon took place; yet, since many Moslems thought it rather odd that the Prophet, after forbidding sons to wed their bereaved stepmothers, should himself marry the wife of an adopted son, it seemed highly advisable for him to have recourse to Allah. Thus runs the Koran: “And when Zeid had fulfilled her [Zeinab’s] divorce, We joined thee with her in marriage, that there might hereafter be no offence to Believers in marrying the Wives of their adopted sons, when they have fulfilled their divorce; and the command of God is to be fulfilled.” Criticism immediately collapsed. Zeinab proudly boasted that “God had given her in marriage to His Prophet, whereas his other wives were given to him by their relatives”; but Ayesha retorted with the caustic observation that there was no longer the least doubt that Mohammed rendered Allah’s messages verbatim, inasmuch as this last revelation showed the Prophet up most unmercifully. Ayesha, however, was one woman in a thousand. III