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 resear ched 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 acqui red.
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 happines s 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 hor ses,' 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
malafather 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 underst and 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 t he 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 sacrifice d 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 f orsaken, 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 e nd 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 styl e 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 sel f-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, th en 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 cou ch 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 con
sciousness 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, wit h 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 in timate 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 mathem atical
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 r eligion (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 ha dith 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 knowledg e, 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.