The Mughira-Umm Jamil Affair

قصة المغيرة بن شعبة وأم جميل

Medina

Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba kept visiting Umm Jamil bint Yahjan of Hilal — wife of the Thaqafi al-Hajjaj ibn Utayk — till Abu Bakra ibn Masruh, Shibl ibn Ma'bad al-Bajali, Nafi' ibn al-Harith and Ziyad ibn Ubayda watched him enter and burst in on them naked; they testified before Umar, who told Abu Musa al-Ash'ari 'I am sending you to a town where Satan has nested' and made him governor with al-Bara' ibn Malik, Imran ibn al-Husayn and Awf ibn Wahb, recalling al-Mughira. Nafi', Shibl and Abu Bakra swore explicitly; Ziyad, fourth, said 'I saw an ugly sight and heard a high breathing — I know not whether he entered her'. Umar: 'I see the face of a man on whose word I hope no Companion is stoned' — he had the three flogged; Shibl cried 'you flog truth's witnesses?', Abu Bakra swore anew and was warned of the hadd — 'then it is a claim, your man is stoned' — and swore never to speak to Ziyad, his half-brother by Sumayya.