MUS'AB BIN AL-ZUBAYR AND AYISHAH HIS WIFE
It is told of Mus'ab 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 Mus'ab, 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, Mus'ab 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 Mus'ab standing by,
"And the lips of girls, that are perfume sweet; *
So nice to kiss when with smiles they greet:
Yet ne'er tasted I them, but in thought of him; *
And by thought the Ruler rules worldly seat."
The night of Mus'ab's 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 art
perfect, even in this." And a certain woman said, "I was with
Ayishah, when her husband came in to her, and she lusted for him;
so he fell upon her and she snarked and snorted and made use of
all wonder of movements and marvellous new inventions, and I the
while within hearing. So, when he came out from her, I said to
her, ‘How canst thou do thus with thy rank and nobility and
condition, and I in thy house?' Quoth she, ‘Verily a woman
should bring her husband all of which she is mistress, by way of
excitement and rare buckings and wrigglings and
motitations.[FN#113] What dislikest thou of this?' And I
answered ‘I would have this by nights.' Rejoined she, ‘Thus is
it by day and by night I do more than this; for when he seeth me,
desire stirreth him up and he falleth in heat; so he putteth it
out to me and I obey him, and it is as thou seest.'" And there
also hath reached me an account of
