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Aishah
bint Abi Bakr
The life of Aishah is proof that a woman
can be far more learned than men and that she can be the
teacher of scholars and experts. Her life is also proof
that a woman can exert influence over men and women and
provide them with inspiration and leadership. Her life is
also proof that the same woman can be totally feminine and
be a source of pleasure, joy and comfort to her husband.
She did not graduate from any university
there were no universities as such in her day. But still
her utterances are studied in faculties of literature, her
legal pronouncements are studied in colleges of law and
her life and works are studied and researched by students
and teachers of Muslim history as they have been for over
a thousand years.
The bulk of her vast treasure of
knowledge was obtained while she was still quite young. In
her early childhood she was brought up by her father who
was greatly liked and respected for he was a man of wide
knowledge, gentle manners and an agreeable presence.
Moreover he was the closest friend of the noble Prophet
who was a frequent visitor to their home since the very
early days of his mission.
In her youth, already known for her
striking beauty and her formidable memory, she came under
the loving care and attention of the Prophet himself. As
his wife and close companion she acquired from him
knowledge and insight such as no woman has ever acquired.
Aishah became the Prophet's wife in
Makkah when she was most likely in the tenth year of her
life but her wedding did not take place until the second
year after the Hijrah when she was about fourteen or
fifteen years old. Before and after her wedding she
maintained a natural jollity and innocence and did not
seem at all overawed by the thought of being wedded to him
who was the Messenger of God whom all his companions,
including her own mother and father, treated with such
love and reverence as they gave to no one else.
About her wedding, she related that
shortly before she was to leave her parent's house, she
slipped out into the courtyard to play with a passing
friend:
"I was playing on a see-saw and my
long streaming hair was dishevelled," she said.
"They came and took me from my play and made me
ready."
They dressed her in a wedding-dress made
from fine red-striped cloth from Bahrain and then her
mother took her to the newly-built house where some women
of the Ansar were waiting outside the door. They greeted
her with the words "For good and for happiness may
all be well!" Then, in the presence of the smiling
Prophet, a bowl of milk was brought. The Prophet drank
from it himself and offered it to Aishah. She shyly
declined it but when he insisted she did so and then
offered the bowl to her sister Asma who was sitting beside
her. Others also drank of it and that was as much as there
was of the simple and solemn occasion of their wedding.
There was no wedding feast.
Marriage to the Prophet did not change
her playful ways. Her young friends came regularly to
visit her in her own apartment.
"I would be playing with my
dolls," she said, "with the girls who were my
friends, and the Prophet would come in and they would slip
out of the house and he would go out after them and bring
them back, for he was pleased for my sake to have them
there." Sometimes he would say "Stay where you
are" before they had time to leave, and would also
join in their games. Aishah said: "One day, the
Prophet came in when I was playing with the dolls and he
said: 'O Aishah, whatever game is this?' 'It is Solomon's
horses,' I said and he laughed." Sometimes as he came
in he would screen himself with his cloak so as not to
disturb Aishah and her friends.
Aishah's early life in Madinah also had
its more serious and anxious times. Once her father and
two companions who were staying with him fell ill with a
dangerous fever which was common in Madinah at certain
seasons. One morning Aishah went to visit him and was
dismayed to find the three men lying completely weak and
exhausted. She asked her father how he was and he answered
her in verse but she did not understand what he was
saying. The two others also answered her with lines of
poetry which seemed to her to be nothing but
unintelligible babbling. She was deeply troubled and went
home to the Prophet saying:
"They are raving, out of their
minds, through the heat of the fever." The Prophet
asked what they had said and was somewhat reassured when
she repeated almost word for word the lines they had
uttered and which made sense although she did not fully
understand them then. This was a demonstration of the
great retentive power of her memory which as the years
went by were to preserve so many of the priceless sayings
of the Prophet.
Of the Prophet's wives in Madinah, it
was clear that it was Aishah that he loved most. From time
to time, one or the other of his companions would ask:
"O Messenger of God, whom do you
love most in the world?" He did not always give the
same answer to this question for he felt great love for
many for his daughters and their children, for Abu Bakr,
for Ali, for Zayd and his son Usamah. But of his wives the
only one he named in this connection was Aishah. She too
loved him greatly in return and often would seek
reassurance from him that he loved her. Once she asked
him: "How is your love for me?"
"Like the rope's knot," he
replied meaning that it was strong and secure. And time
after time thereafter, she would ask him: "How is the
knot?" and he would reply: "Ala haaliha in the
same condition."
As she loved the Prophet so was her love
a jealous love and she could not bear the thought that the
Prophet's attentions should be given to others more than
seemed enough to her. She asked him:
"O Messenger of God, tell me of
yourself. If you were between the two slopes of a valley,
one of which had not been grazed whereas the other had
been grazed, on which would you pasture your flocks?"
"On that which had not been
grazed," replied the Prophet. "Even so,"
she said, "and I am not as any other of your wives.
"Everyone of them had a husband before you, except
myself." The Prophet smiled and said nothing. Of her
jealousy, Aishah would say in later years:
"I was not, jealous of any other
wife of the Prophet as I was jealous of Khadijah, because
of his constant mentioning of her and because God had
commanded him to give her good tidings of a mansion in
Paradise of precious stones. And whenever he sacrificed a
sheep he would send a fair portion of it to those who had
been her intimate friends. Many a time I said to him:
"It is as if there had never been any other woman in
the world except Khadijah."
Once, when Aishah complained and asked
why he spoke so highly of "an old Quraysh
woman", the Prophet was hurt and said: "She was
the wife who believed in me when others rejected me. When
people gave me the lie, she affirmed my truthfulness. When
I stood forsaken, she spent her wealth to lighten the
burden of my sorrow.."
Despite her feelings of jealousy which
nonetheless were not of a destructive kind, Aishah was
really a generous soul and a patient one. She bore with
the rest of the Prophet's household poverty and hunger
which often lasted for long periods. For days on end no
fire would be lit in the sparsely furnished house of the
Prophet for cooking or baking bread and they would live
merely on dates and water. Poverty did not cause her
distress or humiliation; self-sufficiency when it did come
did not corrupt her style of life.
Once the Prophet stayed away from his
wives for a month because they had distressed him by
asking of him that which he did not have. This was after
the Khaybar expedition when an increase of riches whetted
the appetite for presents. Returning from his self-imposed
retreat, he went first to Aishah's apartment. She was
delighted to see him but he said he had received
Revelation which required him to put two options before
her. He then recited the verses:
"O Prophet! Say to your wives: If
you desire the life of this world and its adornments, then
come and I will bestow its goods upon you, and I will
release you with a fair release. But if you desire God and
His Messenger and the abode of the Hereafter, then verily
God has laid in store for you an immense reward for such
as you who do good."
Aishah's reply was:
"Indeed I desire God and His
Messenger and the abode of the Hereafter," and her
response was followed by all the others.
She stuck to her choice both during the
lifetime of the Prophet and afterwards. Later when the
Muslims were favored with enormous riches, she was given a
gift of one hundred thousand dirhams. She was fasting when
she received the money and she distributed the entire
amount to the poor and the needy even though she had no
provisions in her house. Shortly after, a maidservant said
to her: "Could you buy meat for a dirham with which
to break your fast?"
"If I had remembered, I would have
done so," she said. The Prophet's affection for
Aishah remained to the last. During his final illness, it
was to Aishah's apartment that he went at the suggestion
of his wives. For much of the time he lay there on a couch
with his head resting on her breast or on her lap. She it
was who took a toothstick from her brother, chewed upon it
to soften it and gave it to the Prophet. Despite his
weakness, he rubbed his teeth with it vigorously. Not long
afterwards, he lost consciousness and Aishah thought it
was the onset of death, but after an hour he opened his
eyes.
Aishah it is who has preserved for us
these dying moments of the most honoured of God's
creation, His beloved Messenger may He shower His choicest
blessings on him.
When he opened his eyes again, Aishah
remembered Iris having said to her: "No Prophet is
taken by death until he has been shown his place in
Paradise and then offered the choice, to live or
die."
"He will not now choose us,"
she said to herself. Then she heard him murmur: "With
the supreme communion in Paradise, with those upon whom
God has showered His favor, the Prophets, the martyrs and
the righteous..." Again she heard him murmur: "O
Lord, with the supreme communion," and these were the
last words she heard him speak. Gradually his head grew
heavier upon her breast, until others in the room began to
lament, and Aishah laid his head on a pillow and joined
them in lamentation.
In the floor of Aishah's room near the
couch where he was lying, a grave was dug in which was
buried the Seal of the Prophets amid much bewilderment and
great sorrow.
Aishah lived on almost fifty years after
the passing away of the Prophet. She had been his wife for
a decade. Much of this time was spent in learning and
acquiring knowledge of the two most important sources of
God's guidance, the Quran and the Sunnah of His Prophet.
Aishah was one of three wives (the other two being Hafsah
and Umm Salamah) who memorized the Revelation. Like
Hafsah, she had her own script of the Quran written after
the Prophet had died.
So far as the Ahadith or sayings of the
Prophet is concerned, Aishah is one of four persons (the
others being Abu Hurayrah, Abdullah ibn Umar, and Anas ibn
Malik) who transmitted more than two thousand sayings.
Many of these pertain to some of the most intimate aspects
of personal behavior which only someone in Aishah's
position could have learnt. What is most important is that
her knowledge of hadith was passed on in written form by
at least three persons including her nephew Urwah who
became one of the greatest scholars among the generation
after the Companions.
Many of the learned companions of the
Prophet and their followers benefitted from Aishah's
knowledge. Abu Musa al-Ashari once said: "If we
companions of the Messenger of God had any difficulty on a
matter, we asked Aishah about it."
Her nephew Urwah asserts that she was
proficient not only in fiqh but also in medicine (tibb)
and poetry. Many of the senior companions of the Prophet
came to her to ask for advice concerning questions of
inheritance which required a highly skilled mathematical
mind. Scholars regard her as one of the earliest fuqaha of
Islam along with persons like Umar ibn al-Khattab, Ali and
Abdullah ibn Abbas. The Prophet referring to her extensive
knowledge of Islam is reported to have said: "Learn a
portion of your religion (din) from this red colored
lady." "Humayra" meaning
"Red-coloured" was an epithet given to Aishah by
the Prophet.
Aishah not only possessed great
knowledge but took an active part in education and social
reform. As a teacher she had a clear and persuasive manner
of speech and her power of oratory has been described in
superlative terms by al-Ahnaf who said: "I have heard
speeches of Abu Bakr and Umar, Uthman and Ali and the
Khulafa up to this day, but I have not heard speech more
persuasive and more beautiful from the mouth of any person
than from the mouth of Aishah."
Men and women came from far and wide to
benefit from her knowledge. The number of women is said to
have been greater than that of men. Besides answering
enquiries, she took boys and girls, some of them orphans,
into her custody and trained them under her care and
guidance. This was in addition to her relatives who
received instruction from her. Her house thus became a
school and an academy.
Some of her students were outstanding.
We have already mentioned her nephew Urwah as a
distinguished reporter of hadith. Among her women pupils
is the name of Umrah bint Abdur Rahman. She is regarded by
scholars as one of the trustworthy narrators of hadith and
is said to have acted as Aishah's secretary receiving and
replying to letters addressed to her. The example of
Aishah in promoting education and in particular the
education of Muslim women in the laws and teachings of
Islam is one which needs to be followed.
After Khadijah al-Kubra (the Great) and
Fatimah az-Zahra (the Resplendent), Aishah as-Siddiqah
(the one who affirms the Truth) is regarded as the best
woman in Islam. Because of the strength of her
personality, she was a leader in every field in knowledge,
in society, in politics and in war. She often regretted
her involvement in war but lived long enough to regain
position as the most respected woman of her time. She died
in the year 58 AH in the month of Ramadan and as she
instructed, was buried in the Jannat al-Baqi in the City
of Light, beside other companions of the Prophet.
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