[58] The following elucidation of the above circumstance is given by
Sale: "Mahomet having undertaken an expedition against the tribe of
Mostalek, in the sixth year of the Hegira, took his wife Ayesha with
him. On their return, when they were not far from Medina, the army
removing by night, Ayesha, on the road, alighted from her camel, and
stepped aside on a private occasion; but on her return, perceiving she
had dropped her necklace, which was of onyxes of Dhafar, she went back
to look for it; and in the mean time her attendants, taking it for
granted that she was got into her pavilion, set it again on the camel,
and led it away. When she came back to the road and saw her camel was
gone, she sat down there, expecting that when she was missed some would
be sent back to fetch her; and in a little time she fell asleep. Early
in the morning, Safwan Ebu al Moattel, who had stayed behind to rest
himself, coming by, perceived somebody asleep, and found it was Ayesha;
upon which he awoke her, by twice pronouncing with a low voice these
words, 'We are God's, and unto him must we return.' Ayesha immediately
covered herself with her veil; and Safwan set her on his own camel, and
led her after the army, which they overtook by noon, as they were
resting. This accident had like to have ruined Ayesha, whose reputation
was publicly called in question, as if she had been guilty of adultery
with Safwan."--_Sale's Koran_, xxiv. _note_.
[59] He once thought to have ordered the pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but
finding the Jews so inveterate against him, thought it more advisable to
oblige the Arabs.
[60] "An implicit belief in magic is entertained by almost all
Mussulmans. Babil, or Babel, is regarded by the Mussulmans as the
fountain-head of the science of magic, which was, and, as most think,
still is, taught there to mankind by two fallen angels, named Haroot and
Maroot, who are there suspended by the feet in a great pit closed by a
mass of rock."--_Lane's Arab. Nights_, vol. i. pp. 66, 218.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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