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<strong>Life</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Muhammad</strong> sa 181<br />
the courtyard and went forward to embrace and kiss<br />
her. But the wife raised her hands and pushed him<br />
back. The astonished husband looked at his wife and<br />
said, "Is this the treatment for one who comes home<br />
after a long time?"<br />
"Are you not ashamed?" said the wife. "The Prophet sa<br />
<strong>of</strong> God should go on dangerous expeditions, and you<br />
should be making love to your wife? Your first duty is to<br />
go to the battle-field. We shall see about the rest." It is<br />
said the Companion went out <strong>of</strong> the house at once,<br />
tightened the girths <strong>of</strong> his mount and galloped after the<br />
Prophet sa . At a distance <strong>of</strong> about three days' journey he<br />
overtook the Muslim army. The disbelievers and the<br />
hypocrites had probably thought that the Prophet sa<br />
acting upon rumours, invented and spread by them,<br />
would spring upon the Syrian armies without a thought.<br />
They forgot that the Prophet sa was concerned to set an<br />
example to generations <strong>of</strong> followers for all time to come.<br />
When the Prophet sa neared Syria, he stopped and sent<br />
his men in different directions to report on the state <strong>of</strong><br />
affairs. The men returned and reported there were no<br />
Syrian concentrations anywhere. The Prophet sa decided<br />
to return, but stayed for a few days during which he<br />
signed agreements with some <strong>of</strong> the tribes on the<br />
border. There was no war and no fighting. The journey<br />
took the Prophet sa about two months and a half. When<br />
the hypocrites at Medina found that their scheme for<br />
inciting war between Muslims and Syrians had failed<br />
and that the Prophet sa was returning safe and sound,<br />
they began to fear that their intrigue had been exposed.<br />
They were afraid <strong>of</strong> the punishment which was now their<br />
due. But they did not halt their sinister plans. They<br />
equipped a party and posted it on the two sides <strong>of</strong> a<br />
narrow pass some distance from Medina. The pass was<br />
so narrow that only a single file could go through it.<br />
When the Prophet sa and the Muslim army approached<br />
the spot, he had a warning by revelation that the enemy<br />
was in ambush on both sides <strong>of</strong> the narrow pass. The<br />
Prophet sa ordered his Companions to reconnoitre. When
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