The Life & Character of the Seal of Prophets (sa) - Volume II — Page 419
IX - Repeated Treachery of the Jews, Compilation and Sequence of the Holy Qur ’ā n, Marriage of Ḥaḍrat Zainab ra , the Great Calumny and Mischief of the Hypocrites 419 something else, they would twist it, add a hundred lies to it and begin to publicise it covertly. As such, in Sūrah Al-Aḥzāb of the Holy Qur’ān, where the marriage of Ḥaḍrat Zainab ra has been alluded to, the hypocrites of Madīnah have especially been mentioned in parallel as well. Referring to their acts of mischief, Allāh the Exalted states: “If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and those who propagate false seditious news in Madīnah, desist not from their schemes, then O Messenger! We shall give you permission to take action against them, and then these people shall not continue to reside in Madīnah, except for a little while. ” 1 In this verse, the false nature of this tale has clearly been mentioned in principle. Then, as it shall be mentioned ahead, it was around this time when the terrible incident of slandering Ḥaḍrat ‘Ā’ishah ra transpired. ‘Abdullāh bin Ubayy and his wretched followers propagated this lie so widely, and disseminated such a twisted version of it that the Muslims began to lose their peace of mind. Certain Muslims, who were of weaker dispositions and unmindful, became victims of this propaganda as well. Hence, this era was especially a time of full force for the hypocrites, and their most desirable weapon was to spread false and filthy propaganda in order to slander the Holy Prophet sa and his relatives. These rumours were spread so cunningly that on certain occasions, due to not having in depth knowledge of affairs, the Holy Prophet sa and his most prominent Companions could not even find the opportunity to rebut these allegations, and their poison would continue to spread. In these instances, latter Muslims who were not in the habit of thorough investigation and deep thought, would consider this misinformation to be true and begin relating these accounts. It is in this manner that these narrations have found way into the collections of such Muslims who are the Wāqidī type, etc. As mentioned above, these narrations are absolutely nowhere to be found among the authentic Aḥādīth , nor have research scholars accepted 1 Al-Aḥzāb (33:61)