MUSAB BIN AL-ZUBAYR AND AYISHAH HIS WIFE
It is told of Musab bin al-Zubayr [FN#111] that he met in Al-Medinah Izzah, who was one of the shrewdest of women, and said to her, I have a mind to marry Ayishah [FN#112] daughter of Talhah, and I should like thee to go herwards and spy out for me how she is made. So she went away and returning to Musab, said, I have seen her, and her face is fairer than health; she hath large and well-opened eyes and under them a nose straight and smooth as a cane; oval cheeks and a mouth like a cleft pomegranate, a neck as a silver ewer and below it a bosom with two breasts like twin-pomegranates and further down a slim waist and a slender stomach with a navel therein as it were a casket of ivory, and back parts like a hummock of sand; and plumply rounded thighs and calves like columns of alabaster; but I saw her feet to be large, and thou wilt fall short with her in time of need. Upon this report he married her, -- And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
When it was the Three Hundred and Eighty-seventh Day
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Izzah this wise reported of Ayishah bint Talhah, Musab married her and went in to her. And presently Izzah invited Ayishah and the women of the tribe Kuraysh to her house, when Ayishah sang these two couplets with Musab standing by,
And the lips of girls, that are perfume sweet; * So nice to kiss when with smiles they greet: Yet neer tasted I them, but in thought of him; * And by thought the Ruler rules worldly seat.
The night of Musabs going in unto her, he departed not from her, till after seven bouts; and on the morrow, a freewoman of his met him and said to him, May I be thy sacrifice! Thou
