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.
Sheikh Abdulfattah Abu-Abdullah Adelabu (Ph. D. Damas),
a West African Islamic Academic founded AWQAF Africa, of
which he's the first al Amir (i.e. President).
Sheikh Dr. Adelabu was studying Postgraduate Degrees in
Damascus early 1990's during when Syria reviewed its
national security after an ‘Oslo Accord'...
Syria like many other countries around the world
witnessed, during this period, the flood of refugees
from war troubled nations like Somalia, arrival of
people from Algeria during the brutal struggling between
the Mujahidun and the government, resettlement of the
Palestinians fleeing from sophisticated guns of the
Israelis as well as adventure of African migrants for
reasons uncountable…
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