'Urwa told on' A’isha’s authority that God’s Messenger said to her concerning Barira, “Take her and set her free.” Now her husband was a slave, so God’s Messenger gave her her choice and she chose to separate from him; but if he had been free he would not have given her her choice.
Barira’s husband was a negro slave called Mughith whom I can still picture going round behind her in the streets of Medina weeping with the tears flowing on his beard. The Prophet said to al- ‘Abbas, “Are you not astonished, ‘Abbas, at Mughith’s love; of Barira and Barira’s hatred of Mughith?" The Prophet expressed a wish that she would take him back, but when she asked whether he was giving her a command and he replied that he was merely interceding, she said, “I have no need of him.”
Asma’ daughter of Yazid said she heard God’s Messenger say, “Do not kill your children secretly, for the milk with which a child is suckled while his mother is pregnant overtakes the horseman and throws him from his horse.”*
* It is here said that a child which is suckled while his mother is pregnant will suffer from it in later life, the tradition speaking specifically of his being thrown from his horse and killed.
