The life of 'A'ishah 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.
' 'A'ishah 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 Allaah 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 disheveled," 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
'A'ishah. She shyly declined it but when he insisted she did so and then
offered the bowl to her sister Asmaa 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. 'A'ishah
said: "One day, the Prophet came in when I was playing with the dolls and
he said: 'O ''A'ishah, 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 'A'ishah and her friends.
'A'ishah'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 'A'ishah 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 'A'ishah that he loved most. From time to
time, one or the other of his companions would ask:
"O Messenger of
Allaah , 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 'A'ishah. 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
Allaah do, 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, 'A'ishah 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 'A'ishah
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, 'A'ishah 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 'A'ishah'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."
'A'ishah'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
'A'ishah remained to the last. During his final illness, it was to 'A'ishah'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 tooth stick 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 'A'ishah thought it
was the onset of death, but after an hour he opened his eyes.
'A'ishah it is who has
preserved for us these dying moments of the most honored of God's creation, His
beloved Messenger may He shower His choicest blessings on him.
When he opened his eyes
again, 'A'ishah 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 'A'ishah laid his head on
a pillow and joined them in lamentation.
In the floor of
'A'ishah'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.
'A'ishah 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. 'A'ishah 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, 'A'ishah 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 'A'ishah'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 benefited from 'A'ishah's
knowledge. Abu Musa al-Ashari once said: "If we companions of the
Messenger of God had any difficulty on a matter, we asked 'A'ishah 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-colored" was an epithet given to 'A'ishah by the
Prophet.
'A'ishah 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 'A'ishah."
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 'A'ishah's secretary receiving and replying
to letters addressed to her. The example of 'A'ishah 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), 'A'ishah 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.
The testimony of faith is saying with
conviction,
"Ash hadu an la ilaha illa Allah wa ash hadu anna
Muhammadar Rasul Allah."
("I declare there is no god but Allah and I
declare that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.")
The first
part, “There is no true god but God,” means that none has
the right to
be worshipped but God alone, and that God has neither partner nor son.
This testimony
of faith is called the Shahada, a simple formula that should be said
with
conviction in order to convert to Islam.
The testimony
of faith is the most important pillar of Islam.
If
I am right, it is from Allah; if wrong, it is from me.
I
ask Allah Almighty to protect you and me from errors
and
from all that displease Him.
"Al-Hamdu-lillahi
rabbil-alameen"
SISTER
AISHAH'S ISLAMIC JOURNEY