Profile of Aisha on Famous Like Me

Aisha, Ayesha, 'A'isha, or 'Aisha¹ (Arabic عائشة `ā'isha, "she who lives") was a wife of Muhammad, the messenger of Islam.

Early life

It is not clear when Aisha was born. Most scholars calculate her age by reference to the date of her marriage to Muhammad (622 CE) and then subtracting her age at marriage. However, there are many theories as to her age at marriage.

Aisha was the daughter of Abu Bakr of Mecca. They belonged to the Bani Tamim clan of the tribe of the Quraysh, the tribe to which Muhammad belonged. Aisha is said to followed her father in accepting Islam when she was still young. She also joined him in his migration to Ethiopia in 615 CE; a number of Mecca's Muslims emigrated then, seeking refuge from persecution.

According to the early Islamic historian al-Tabari, Aisha's father tried to spare her the dangers and discomfort of the journey by solemnizing her marriage to her fiance, Jubair, son of Mut`am ibn `Adi. However, Mut’am refused to honor the long-standing betrothal, as he did not wish his family to be connected to the Muslim outcasts. The emigration to Ethiopia proved temporary and Abu Bakr's family returned to Mecca within a few years. Aisha was then betrothed to Muhammad.

Aisha's marriage to Muhammad

The marriage was delayed until after the Hijra, or migration to Medina, in 622. Aisha and her older sister Asma only moved to Medina after Muhammad had already fled there. Abu Bakr gave Muhammad the money to build a house for himself. After this, the wedding was celebrated very simply, by the bride and groom drinking a bowl of milk in front of witnesses.

Status as "favorite wife"

Even though the marriage may have been politically motivated, to mark the ties between Muhammad and his companion Abu Bakr, most early accounts say that Muhammad and Aisha became sincerely fond of each other. Aisha is usually described as Muhammad's favorite wife.

Shi'a, however, disagree and believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove that Khadijah was Muhammad's favorite wife. The various Shi'a groups believe that Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, was the prophet's appointed successor, and that the offspring of Ali and Fatima, Muhammad's daughter, are Islam's rightful rulers. According to Shi'a school of thought, Aisha opposed Fatima and Ali. Consequently, they tend to see Aisha in a negative light. This extends to the Shia versions of Aisha and Muhammad's marriage. Shi'a stress Aisha's jealousy, both of the deceased Khadijah, Fatimah's mother, and of Muhammad's other, living, wives. They also point to a disputed episode in which Aisha was accused of adultery.

Aisha accused of adultery

Aisha was traveling with Muhammad and some of his followers. She left camp in the morning to search for a lost necklace; when she returned, she found that the company had broken camp and left without her. She waited patiently for half a day, until she was rescued by a man named Safwan and taken to rejoin the caravan.

Malicious tongues started to wag, claiming that she must have been having an affair with Safwan. Some urged Muhammad to divorce his wife. He then received a revelation directing that adultery be proven by four eyewitnesses, rather than simply inferred from opportunity. One passage of the Qur'an, "Verily! They who spread the slander are a gang among you…" (Qur'an 24.11), is usually taken as a rebuke to those who slandered Aisha.

The Story of the Honey

According to one widely-accepted tale, Muhammad's wife Zainab bint Jahsh was given a skin filled with honey, which she shared with her husband. He was fond of sweets and stayed overlong with Zainab — at least in the opinion of Aisha and her co-wife Hafsa. Aisha and Hafsa conspired. Each of them was to tell Muhammad that the honey had given him bad breath. When he heard this from two wives, he believed that it was true and swore that he would eat no more of the honey. Soon afterwards, he reported that he had received a revelation, in which he was told that he could eat anything permitted by God (Qur'an 66:1). In the following verses, Muhammad's wives are rebuked for their unruliness: "your hearts are inclined (to oppose him)".

Word spread in the small Muslim community that Muhammad's wives were tyrannizing over the mild-mannered prophet, speaking sharply to him and conspiring against him. Umar, Hafsa's father, scolded his daughter and also spoke to Muhammad of the matter. Muhammad, saddened and upset, separated from his wives for a month, sleeping by himself on a lumpy mattress. By the end of this time, his wives were humbled and harmony, of a sort, was restored.

When Muslim commentators on the Qur'an explicate surah 66, it is usually this story that is told to explain the "occasion of revelation".

There is a similar but alternative explanation of surah 66, also involving Aisha. In this story, Aisha and her co-wives were unhappy because Muhammad was infatuated with Maria al-Qibtiyya, the Christian Coptic woman who bore Muhammad a son. (Some accounts say that she was a slave, some that she converted to Islam, was freed, and was taken as a wife.)

The death of Muhammad

Ibn Ishaq, in his Sirat Rasulallah, states that during Muhammad's last illness, he sought Aisha's apartments and died with his head in her lap. The Sunni take this as evidence of the Prophet's fondness for Aisha. The Shia do not believe this story.

Aisha never remarried after Muhammad's death. A passage in the Qur'an forbids any Muslim to marry the prophet's widows.

After Muhammad

Aisha's father becomes the first caliph

After Muhammad's death in 632 C.E., Aisha's father Abu Bakr became the first caliph, or leader of the Muslims. This matter is extremely controversial. Shi'a believe that Ali should have been chosen to lead; Sunni maintain that the community chose Abu Bakr, and did so in accordance with Muhammad's wishes. This is discussed in much greater detail in the article Succession to Muhammad.

The Battle of the Camel

Abu Bakr's reign was short, and in 634 C.E. he was succeeded by Umar, as caliph. Umar reigned 10 years, and was then followed by Uthman in 644 C.E. Both of these men had been among Muhammad's earliest followers, were linked to him by clanship and marriage, and had taken prominent parts in various military campaigns.

Aisha, in the meantime, lived in Medina and made several pilgrimages to Mecca. In 656 C.E. Uthman was killed by rebellious Muslim soldiers. The rebels then asked Ali to be the new caliph. Many reports absolve Ali of complicity in the murder. He is reported to have refused the caliphate, saying, "You are not a people fit for my rulership nor am I a master fit for you people". He agreed to rule only after he was threatened with death.

Aisha raised a small army which confronted Ali's army outside the city of Basra. Battle ensued and Aisha's forces were defeated. Aisha was directing her forces from a howdah on the back of a camel; this 656 battle is therefore called the Battle of the Camel.

Ali captured Aisha but declined to harm her. He sent her back to Medina under military escort. Thenceforth she lived a retired life until she died in approximately 678.

Young marriage age controversy

The age of Aisha at marriage is an extremely contentious issue. On the one hand, there are several hadiths which are said to have been narrated by Aisha herself, which claim that she was six or seven years old when betrothed and nine when the marriage was consummated. On the other hand, there is evidence from early Muslim chroniclers like Ibn Ishaq that indicates Aisha may have been 12 to 14 years old, just past the age of puberty, or perhaps even older.

Most Muslim scholars have accepted the tradition that Aisha was nine years old when the marriage was consummated. This has in turn led critics to denounce Muhammad for having sexual relations with a girl so young. (These critics often raise this issue in the context of a widereaching critique of Islam as a whole, and the character of Muhammad in particular.) A response to this criticism has been that Aisha was post-pubescent at nine and that early marriages were common in most cultures until fairly recent times.

However, some Muslim scholars point to other traditions that conflict with those attributed to Aisha in this matter. If the other traditions are right, this would imply that Aisha was either confused in her dating, was exaggerating her youth at marriage, or that her stories (which were not written down until more than 100 years after her death) had been garbled in transmission. If we believe traditions that say she was post-pubescent when married, then these other traditions, from Ibn Ishaq and Tabari and others, seem much more convincing.

From the viewpoint of the Islamic clergy, the ulema, this explanation, while relieving them of one difficulty, poses another. The "late marriage" argument values the biographical and historical literature, the sira, over the canonical hadith, or oral traditions accepted by the ulema. However, anything that threatens the value of the hadith, and especially hadith narrated by Aisha, threatens the whole elaborate structure of Islamic law, or sharia. The Shi'a version of sharia is less at risk in this one instance, as the Shi'a deprecate anything sourced to Aisha.

Liberal Muslims do not see any problem with saving Muhammad's character at the expense of traditionalism. Conservative Muslims, and the ulema, tend to embrace the "early puberty" theories.

Evidence of age nine at consummation

These traditions are from the hadith collections of Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875). These two collections are regarded as the most authentic by Sunni Muslims.

• Sahih Muslim Book 008, Number 3310: 'Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.

• Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88 Narrated 'Urwa: The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).

• Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64 Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).

• Sahih Bukhari 8:151, Narrated 'Aisha: "I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet , and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah's Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for 'Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.) (Fateh-al-Bari page 143, Vol.13)

• Sahih Bukhari vol. 5, Book 58, Number 234 Narrated 'Aisha: The prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six. We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Harith Kharzraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became all right, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, "Best wishes and Allah's blessing and a good luck." Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage).

Other hadith in Bukhari repeat this information.

Indirect evidence of older age

• According to Ibn Hisham's recension of Ibn Ishaq's (d. 768) biography of Prophet Muhammad, the Sirat Rashul Allah, the earliest surviving biography of Muhammad, Aisha accepted Islam before Umar ibn al-Khattab. If true, then Aisha accepted Islam during the first few years of Islam. She could not have been less than 14 years in 1 AH - the time she got married^{Citation needed}.

• Tabari reports that when Abu Bakr planned on migrating to Ethiopia (8 years before Hijrah), he went to Mut`am - with whose son Aisha was engaged at that time - and asked him to take Aisha as his son's wife. Mut`am refused because Abu Bakr had converted to Islam. If Aisha was only six years old at the time of her betrothal to Muhammad, she could not have been born at the time Abu Bakr decided on migrating to Ethiopia^{Citation needed}. Tehqiq e umar e Siddiqah e Ka'inat, Habib ur Rahman Kandhalwi, p. 38.

• Tabari in his treatise on Islamic history reports that Abu Bakr had four children and all four were born during the Jahiliyyah - the pre Islamic period. If Aisha was born in the period of jahiliyyah, she could not have been less than 14 years in 1 AH. Tarikh al-umam wa al-mamloo'k, Al-Tabari, Vol. 4, p. 50.

• According to Ibn Hajar, Fatima was five years older than Aisha. Fatima is reported to have been born when Muhammad was 35 years old. Muhammad migrated to Medina when he was 52, making Aisha 14 years old in 1 AH. Tamyeez al-Sahaabah, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalaniy, Vol. 4, p. 377.

Sunni and Shia views of Aisha

Sunni historians praise Aisha as a Mother of Believers and a learned woman, who tirelessly recounted stories from the life of Muhammad and explained Muslim history and traditions. She is considered to be one of the foremost scholars of Islam's early age and is revered as a role model by millions of women.

Shi'a historians take a much dimmer view of Aisha. They believe that Ali should have been the first caliph, and that the other three caliphs were usurpers. Aisha not only supported Umar, Uthman and her father Abu Bakr, she also raised an army and fought against Ali, her step-son-in-law. The Shia believe that in opposing Ali, the divinely appointed successor of Muhammad, she committed a grievous sin.

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