The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

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252 'ALT [chap. XXXV.
of the treasury, he set out for Al-Kufa.
side, in reply, extemporised a couplet, extolling her as "the noblest and
best of Mothers." When they told this to her, she was much afifected,
and exclaimed, " Would that I had died twenty years before this !
A.H. 36. 'All did not stay long in Al-Basra. Having appointed
r. his cousin, 'Abdallah son of Al-'Abbas, governor of the
Basra.
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city, with Ziyad, the able administrator, to aid him in charge
'Air, also, when he heard it, said, " Would that I too had died twenty
years ago
!
'Aisha, always ready in repartee, was not very particular in her
language. 'Asim approaching her litter on the field, she cursed him for
the liberty he had taken. " It was but a little something red and white,"
he said impudently, " that I caught a glimpse of." " The Lord uncover
thy nakedness," she cried angrily ;
" cut off thy hands, and make thy
wife a widow !" All which (they say) came to pass. A saucy passage
is related between her and the aged 'Ammar, who said, as she was
leaving, " Praise be to the Lord that we shall hear no more that vile
tongue of thine.'"'
When starting for Mecca, with 'All and a company around her, she
said, " Let us not entertain hard thoughts one against the other ;
for
verily, as regardeth 'All and .myself, there happened not anything
between us '' (alluding to her misadventure in the Prophet's lifetime,
Life of Mohammad, p. 301), "but that which is wont to happen between
a wife and her husband's family ; and verily 'AU was one of the best
of them that entertained suspicions against me." 'Ah replied :
" She speaketh the truth ; there was not beyond what she saith, between
her and me." And then he went on to quote Mohammad's own words
regarding 'Aisha, that "she was not only his wife in this world, but
would be equally his wife in the world to come."