It was a glorious exoneration of Aisha, and all the more…

““It was a glorious exoneration of Aisha, and all the more powerful in that it demanded not one but all of four people to contradict her word. Unless there were four witnesses to an illegal sexual act, it said, the accused was blameless, and the false accusers were the ones to be punished. For a wronged woman, there could have been no better outcome, yet the form of it would be cruelly turned around and used by conservative clerics in centuries to come to do the opposite of what Muhammad had originally intended: not to exonerate a woman but to blame her. The wording of his revelation would apply not only when adultery was suspected but also when there had been an accusation of rape. Unless a woman could produce four witnesses to her rape—a virtual impossibility—she would be considered guilty of slander and adultery, and punished accordingly. Aisha’s exoneration was destined to become the basis for the silencing, humiliation, and even execution of countless women after her. She had no idea that this would be the case, of course. What she knew was that the accusations against her had been declared false, and by no less than divine authority. Her accusers were publicly flogged in punishment, and the poets who had composed the most scurrilous verses against her were now suddenly moved to compose new ones in lavish praise of her. She returned to her chamber in the courtyard of the mosque and resumed her role as the favorite wife, though now with the added status of being not only the sole person in whose presence Muhammad had received a revelation but also the only one to have had a revelation specifically about her.””

— Anonymous