Aisha: Difference between revisions

A'isha's [[teknonym]] was Umm 'Abd Allah after her nephew, [['Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr]]. In many historical sources, she is known with the title, "Umm al-Mu'minin" (Mother of Believers).

It is said that the Prophet (s) referred to, and addressed, her as al-Humayra'. There is a well-known hadith in which the Prophet (s) told her: "talk to me, O Humayra'". The hadith was first cited by [[al-Ghazali]] in his ''Ihya' 'ulum al-din'', but it is not cited in any earlier sources. Al-Fattani, a Sunni scholar (d. 986/1578) writes: what is cited by al-Ghazali has no origins. [[Sayyid Murtada 'Askari]], a Shiite scholar, also believes that the hadith is totally groundless, taking it to be fabricated, and wrongly attributed to the Prophet (s), by al-Ghazali.

Aisha was one of the wives of the Prophet (s). She married him after the death of [[Lady Khadija (a)]] and after the Prophet's marriage to [[Suda bt. Zam'at b. Qays|Suda]], the daughter of Zam'a b. Qays. Her marriage with the Prophet (s) lasted nine years and five months. It is widely agreed that the marriage took place after the demise of Lady Khadija (a). However, there is a disagreement as to whether it occurred two or three years before [[Hijra]]. On some accounts A'isha's marriage to the Prophet (s) preceded his marriage to Suda. However, according to the majority of hadiths, the Prophet's marriage to Suda preceded his marriage to A'isha. It is said that Khawla, [[Uthman b. Maz'un]]'s wife, went to [[Abu Bakr]] and proposed the marriage to A'isha's father. The Prophet (s) married A'isha in [[Shawwal]] of [[11]] (December 632). The [[mahr]] for their marriage was four hundred dirhams.

There are disagreement about her age at the time of marriage. Her age at the time of marriage and consummation is reported between six to eighteen. According to popular sources of history, A'isha was around six or seven years old at the time of her marriage to the Prophet (s).<ref>Ibn Saʿd, ''al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā'', vol. 8, p. 47-48. </ref> The consummation of their marriage took place a few years later after the migration to [[Medina]] when A'isha was nine years old.<ref>Ibn Saʿd, ''al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā'', vol. 8, p. 47-48. </ref>

[[Al-Sayyid Ja'far Murtada al-'Amili]] denies that A'isha was underage at the time of marriage. He argues that she was between thirteen and seventeen at the time of 'aqd (the [[Marriage formula]]). He cites Ibn Ishaq's account according to which A'isha was one of the people who converted to Islam early after [[Bi'tha]]; in fact she was the nineteenth Muslim. Al-Sayyid Ja'far Murtada al-'Amili draws on this to show that if she was, say, seven at the time of Bi'tha, then she must have been seventeen at the time of marriage and twenty at the time of Hijra, unless it is claimed that she was younger than seven when she converted to Islam.

Sunnis believe that the [[revelation]] of these verses exhibits a virtue for A'isha. Thus, they quoted A'isha herself and her close companions as saying that she was superior to other wives of the Prophet (s); for example, the quote that the most favored woman for the Messenger of God was A'isha. However, some Shiite scholars, while admitting that the verses were revealed about A'isha, deny that they constitute a virtue for her, because they only acquit A'isha of adultery.

During the period of the [[caliphate]] of Abu Bakr and [[Umar b. Khattab|Umar]], A'isha did not directly interfere in political matters in spite of being the wife of the Prophet (s), the daughter of [[Abu Bakr|the first caliph]], occupying a high social status and being well served by the first two caliphs. According to a group of Shi'a authors, A'isha played an important role in making Abu Bakr accede to caliphate, and on the last days of the Prophet's (s) life, strove to pave the ground for her father's caliphate. Likewise, she narrated traditions from the Prophet (s) mentioning the virtues of Abu Bakr and Umar in order to help establish and legitimize their caliphate.<ref>Wāridī, ''Naqsh-i hamsarān-i rasūl-i khudā'', p. 114.</ref> There are accounts which relate the first two caliphs offering gifts and reaching out to A'isha and extending continuous help and offerings to her much more compared to the other wives of the Prophet (s).<ref>Ibn Saʿd, ''al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā'', vol. 8, p. 53. </ref> These reports have caught the attention of the Shi'a and have been regarded as a form of unfairness.<ref>Taqīzāda Dāwarī, ''Taṣwīr-i khāniwāda-yi Payāmbar'', p. 115-116.</ref>

A'isha's relation with [[Uthman b. 'Affan|Uthman]] was cordial during the first few years of his caliphate, but soured during the end. However, in the second half of his caliphate, their relationships tended to hostility, cultivating in her leadership of riots against, and murdering, Uthman. Based on accounts of the dispute between A'isha and the third caliph, it was grounded in Uthman's poor administrative performance, tribalism, and corruption. Moreover, political disputes between A'isha and Uthman was fueled by his injustice to [[companions]] such as [['Abd Allah b. Mas'ud]], [['Ammar]], [[Abu Dhar]], and [[Jundab]]. In her sermons, as well as in her encounters with Uthman in the [[Masjid al-Nabawai|Mosque of Medina]], she seriously criticized the caliph. In response, Uthman likened her to the wives of [[Noah (a)]] and [[Lot (a)]] who betrayed their husbands and entered the [[Hell]]. A'isha strongly reacted to the response and shouted, "kill the stupid old man, because he has become an unbeliever", thus announcing that Uthman deserved death.