History of Aishah Bint Abu Bakr(RA)

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
presen ce. 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 wh o 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." S ometimes 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 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
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.