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.
