“And when Zeid had settled concerning her to divorce her, we married her to thee, that it might not be a crime in the Faithful to marry the wives of their adopted sons, when they have settled the affair concerning them....  No blame attacheth to the Prophet when God hath given him a permission.”

There follows the sum of Mahomet’s restrictions upon the dress and demeanour of women.  They are to veil their faces when abroad, and suffer no man but their intimate kinsmen to look upon them.  The Faithful are forbidden to go near the dwelling-places of the Prophet’s wives without his permission, nor are they even to desire to marry them after the Prophet is dead.  By such casual means, by decrees born out of the circumstances of his age and personal temperament, did Mahomet institute the customs which are more vital to the position and fate of Muslim women than all his utterances as to their just treatment and his injunctions against their oppression.

Power was already taking its insidious hold upon him, and his feet were set upon the path that led to the despotism of the Chalifate and the horrors of Muslim conquests.  Allah is still omnipotent, but He is making continual and indispensable use of temporal means to achieve His ends, and His servant does likewise.

After the interlude of peace, Mahomet was called upon in July, 626, to undertake a punitive expedition to Jumat-al-Gandal, an oasis midway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia.  The expedition was successful, and the marauders dispersed.  He had now reached the confines of Syria, and, with the extension of his expeditionary activities, his political horizon widened.  He began to conceive himself as the predatory chief of Arabia, one who was regarded with awe and fear by the surrounding tribes, with the one exception of the stiff-necked city, Mecca, whose inhabitants he longed in vain to subdue.  The success fostered his love of plunder, and inclined him more than ever to hold out this reward of valour to his followers.  His stern and wary policy was justified by its success, for by it he had recovered from the severe blow at Ohod, but it threatened to become his master and set its perpetual seal upon his life.

In December, 626, he heard of the defection of the Beni Mustalik, a branch of the Khozaa tribe.  They joined the Kureisch for mixed motives, chiefly political, for they hoped to make themselves and their religion secure by alliance with Mahomet’s enemies.  Mahomet learnt of their desertion through his efficient spies, and determined to anticipate any disturbance.  With Ayesha and Omm Salma to accompany him, and an adequate army to support him, he set out for the quarters of the Beni Mustalik, and before long reached Moraisi, where he encamped.  The Beni Mustalik were deserted by their allies, and in the skirmish that followed Mahomet was easily successful.  Their camp was plundered, their women and some of their men taken prisoner.  The expedition was, however, provocative of two consequences which take up considerable attention in contemporary records, the quarrel between the Citizens and the Refugees, and the scandal regarding Ayesha.