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Aisha bint Abi Bakr, Part 3

Widowhood

Aisha spent her adult life in the mosque at Medina, keeping all the Muslim prayers and fasts and being careful never to show her face to any man. When a blind man asked her why she bothered to veil herself from him, she replied, “Even if you cannot see me, I can see you.”^[1] Her friends often saw her dressed in loose trousers, shift, gown, veil and gold rings. Unlike the typical modern niqab, Aisha’s gown and veil were often dyed “flame-red”^[2] or “safflower-red”.^[3] She sometimes wore black veils,^[4] but none of Muhammad’s widows ever wore white.^[5] Wolfskin furs against the cold are also mentioned, although Aisha was particular not to wear the furs of carrion.^[6]

Her income was the revenues of Khaybar. After the surviving Jews were banished to Syria,^[7] Aisha chose to take control of her share of the real estate (“land and water”) rather than the annual income of dates and barley.^[8] She lived frugally. She was asked why she bothered to mend her old trousers when “Allah has given you so much wealth,” and she replied, “Enough! A person who has nothing old and worn has nothing new.”^[9] She expended most of her wealth in charity. Her nephew bought her house in exchange for 100,000 dirhams (about £500,000) and allowing her a lifetime residence. The money arrived in two sacks, and Aisha spent all day dividing the money up into bowls to give away as alms. She did not keep even enough to buy her evening meal, although she said she would have done this much if she had thought of it.^[10] Another time her nephew gave her a gown of rough silk, which she did keep for herself.^[11]

Career

In working life, she was much sought as a teacher.^[12] She hung a curtain in her house so that she could sit behind it while men came to hear her teaching without seeing her.^[13] She narrated 2,210 ahadith to her students.^[14] “Whenever we encountered any difficulty in the matter of any hadith, we referred it to Aisha and found that she had definite knowledge about it.”^[15] Many of her ahadith were the endless prescriptions for the correct rituals of prayer and hygiene: Muhammad liked to put on his right sandal first;^[16] he rinsed his nostrils with water and plucked his armpit-hairs;^[17] and he considered vinegar an “excellent condiment”.^[18]. But many of her other teachings were stories about her friends and family, giving insight into events and relationships while leaving the morals unspoken and implicit. Of Muhammad she said, “His character was the Qur’an,”^[19] an assessment that few would dispute.

There is some evidence that, while Aisha could not contradict any teaching of Muhammad that had become public knowledge, she emphasised the aspects of Islam that she liked. After the Qur’an was collated in writing, she commissioned a copy for herself. When her scribe reached “Guard the prayers and the middle prayer,” she told him to correct it to, “Guard the prayers and the middle prayer and the afternoon prayer,” because this, she said, was how Muhammad had recited it.^[20] It is difficult to see what motive Aisha could have had for inventing this kind of detail, but other people were not convinced, and her addition does not appear in the standard Qur’an.^[21] At other times, Aisha was content not to bother correcting the text. She said that the injunction to stone adulterers to death had been written “on a paper and kept under my pillow. When Allah’s Messenger expired and we were occupied by his death, a goat entered and ate away the paper.”^[22] Although several Muslims had memorised this verse, and Aisha never denied that it had once existed, she also made no attempt to re-insert it into the Qur’an. To this day, it is not included.^[23]

She remembered several ahadith that had not seemed important to the male narrators. When a sack of bread was brought to Muhammad, he had specifically distributed among the female, not male, peasants and slaves.^[24] She recalled his promise that, “Whoever is tried with something from daughters, and he is patient with them, they will be a barrier from the Fire for him.”^[25] When a student mentioned that prayer was annulled by the passing of a dog, a donkey or a woman, Aisha protested, “Is the woman an ugly animal? It is not good that you people have equated us with dogs and donkeys. When I lay in my bed, the Prophet would come and pray facing the middle of the bed.^[26] Whenever he prostrated, he pushed my feet, and I withdrew them, and whenever he stood, I stretched them.”^[27] In fact there was dispute about what Muhammad did teach. Three male teachers agreed that the Prophet had told them that a woman who came closer than “the back of the saddle” annulled a man’s prayer.^[28] Abdullah ibn Abbas conceded that Muhammad had specified only “a menstruating woman,”^[29] while Aisha had no witnesses to her assertion that Muhammad had prayed so close to her that he had nearly touched her feet on prostration. Of course, it is quite possible that Muhammad was inconsistent or that a revelation was abrogated.^[30] The point here is that Aisha was shaping Islam to her own liking.

When recounting the story of how she had been accused of infidelity, she finished, “Questions were asked about [Safwan] ibn Al-Muattal, and they found that he was impotent; he never touched women. He was killed as a martyr after this.”^[31] Perhaps she believed that she would never be contradicted because Safwan was dead. Unfortunately, his name had already appeared on the public record in a law-suit. Not only had he been married, but his wife had complained that he demanded sex while she was fasting (in addition to beating her for spending too long at her prayers). Safwan’s defence had been, “I am a young man and I cannot restrain myself.” Muhammad had ruled that a woman should not fast without her husband’s permission (and that the way to avoid being beaten was to pray shorter prayers).^[32] In fabricating additional “evidence” for her innocence, as if the assertions in the Qur’an would not be enough to convince a devout Muslim, Aisha had overshot the mark.

Sometimes she gave legal judgments even to senior companions, for “nobody else was so knowledgeable in law.”^[33] She ruled that the guardian of an orphan was allowed to enjoy the income of her ward’s property.^[34] She warned some Syrian women to stop their custom of visiting public bath-houses since, “If a woman undresses outside her own home, she tears the veil between herself and Allah.”^[35] When she recalled Muhammad’s word that, “Breaking a dead man’s bone is like breaking it when he is alive,”^[36] she was presumably dealing with a current case. She mentioned that Muhammad had not claimed the estate of a freedman who, after falling out of a palm-tree, had died without heirs, but had paid it out to a neighbour from the servant’s village.^[37] She was good at arithmetic, so the Muslims used to consult her on dividing up an inheritance or profits.^[38]

She was also consulted on medicine, for nobody knew more home remedies. “A person would become ill and would be prescribed something, and it would benefit, and I would hear the people prescribing for each other, and I would memorise it all.”^[39] For example, Muhammad had always treated her fevers with broth.^[40] She used to recommend talbina, a gruel of barley-flour, milk and honey, for a depressed mood, even though patients disliked it.^[41] She believed crushed black cumin mixed with oil could cure anything short of death.^[42] But the best she could advise for snake-bites and scorpion-stings was an incantation similar to that used against the Evil Eye.^[43]

Abu Bakr and Umar

Islamo-apologists like to emphasise Aisha’s public life. They describe her as “a political activist”^[44] and refer to her “predominant role in government”^[45] However, such remarks tend to confuse the public sphere with the professional, perhaps betraying the reality that, historically speaking, most Muslim women have been excluded from both. Aisha was unquestionably a working professional; she influenced people who came to her voluntarily for teaching about Islam; but outside of her profession, there are few concrete examples of her political activity. She never bore an office of state. There is no evidence that she was ever consulted about policy. If she chose to speak out, she was not always heeded. It would be closer to the truth to state that Aisha was a minor political figure who occasionally influenced politics.

For the first two years after Muhammad’s death, Abu Bakr was the Caliph (leader) of the Islamic state.^[46] The Arab tribes who did not want to pay tax immediately apostasised from Islam,^[47] and “the whole of Central Arabia [was] either in open apostasy or ready to break away on the first demand of tithe.”^[48] Aisha recalled, “If what fell upon my father had fallen upon the solid mountains, it would have crushed them,”^[49] but Abu Bakr determined to fight the apostates until they re-submitted and paid every dirham “down to the last camel’s halter.”^[50] Aisha played no visible role while her father “crushed Apostasy and laid secure the foundations of Islam.”^[51] His caliphate ended with a series of bereavements for Aisha: first her brother Abdullah died of battle-wounds;^[52] then her elderly grandmother Umm Al-Khayr died;^[53] Abu Bakr died of a fever in August 634;^[54] and her grandfather Abu Quhafa died a few months later at the age of 95.^[55] Abu Bakr was buried in Aisha’s house beside Muhammad.^[56]

Umar succeeded him as caliph.^[57] His reign was devoted to conquest. He sent his armies to Mesopotamia, Syria, Jordan, Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Persia, much of Byzantium, parts of Afghanistan, Egypt, Mauritania and Morocco, and subjected them all to Islam.^[58] “He directed the government with the most complete success and victories were numerous during his time.”^[59] “‘Omar began his reign master only of Arabia. He died the Caliph of an Empire.”^[60] This expansionist policy did not require assistance from Aisha or any other woman, and there is no record that Aisha had anything to do with any of it. Umar liked women to sit behind curtains where men could not see them.^[61] He did not like them to contribute ideas.^[62]

Within these limits, and when it did not cost him much, Umar showed respect to Muhammad’s widows. His own daughter was one of them,^[63] yet he paid particular recognition to Aisha. He decreed a pension of 10,000 dirhams (about £50,000) to each widow, but he allowed 12,000 (£60,000) to Aisha because “she was the beloved of Allah’s Messenger.”^[64] As Aisha was doing more than any of the others to promote Islam through her teaching career, she probably perceived her pension as a well-earned salary. When Umar wanted to marry Aisha’s four-year-old sister, the little girl complained, “He leads a rough life and is severe with his womenfolk.” Aisha therefore withheld consent, and her emissary explained: “You are rough and ready … How will it be with her if she disobeys you in any matter and you beat her?”^[65] Umar, who was 57, did not press the point and instead married the nine-year-old daughter of Ali.^[66] At about the same time, he enlarged the mosque, commensurate with the increase of the crowds who converged on Medina to work and worship.^[67] It is not detailed what difference these crowds, and their larger buildings, might have made to Aisha’s living conditions.

But Aisha had no power to prevent anything that Umar really wanted. When Abu Bakr died, Umar stood outside Aisha’s door, forbidding her relatives inside to practise any mourning rituals, “but they refused to stop.” Umar ordered one of Aisha’s aunts outside, whereupon Aisha announced, “I forbid my house to you.” But Umar overruled her: “Go in, for I have given you permission.” A man pushed his way through Aisha’s door and brought her aunt out to Umar. The latter “raised his whip over her and gave her a number of blows. The weeping women scattered when they heard that.”^[68]

Muhammad’s widows could not leave Medina unless Umar gave them express permission. He kept them close to the mosque for a decade,^[69] for Muhammad had told his wives at the Farewell Pilgrimage in 632: “It is this Hajj and then there is confinement.”^[70] It was not until October 644, when Aisha was 30, that she and six of her co-wives were allowed to make another Hajj to Mecca (i.e., to take a holiday).^[71] Dressed in safflower-pink,^[72] they travelled in howdahs covered with green shawls, preceded by the camel of Uthman ibn Affan and followed by the camel of Abdulrahman ibn Awf. Uthman and Abdulrahman “did not let anyone come near them nor see them,” and shouted, “Get away! Get away! Go left!” or “Go right!” at anyone whom they passed on the road. They stopped whenever Umar stopped. In the midday heat he made camp for them in ravines, shielded by trees on every side, “and they did not let anyone come near them.” A woman who brought them some meat and milk wept at the sight of them, saying she “remembered Allah’s Messenger,” which made all of them weep with her.^[73]

Umar was assassinated by a disaffected slave in November 644.^[74] He petitioned to be buried beside Muhammad and Abu Bakr. Although Aisha had assumed that this burial spot would be hers, she conceded, “Today I prefer Umar to myself.”^[75] With Umar in her house, even though he was dead, Aisha did not like to expose her face. “I never took my veil off and used to stay wrapped up in clothes”Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content until she could have a wall built to section off the three tombs. Thereafter she never entered the tomb-room unveiled.^[76] The new wall must have reduced her usable living space to half.

The Caliphate of Uthman

Uthman ibn Affan, a son-in-law of Muhammad from the aristocratic Umayya clan,^[77] was elected the third caliph.^[78] Aisha, who was now 30, had no ties of kinship or friendship with him. He began his reign by increasing the salaries of his officials^[79] and continued to make extravagant gifts to his personal friends.^[80] Uthman was well-liked in the early years, for “he treated them with leniency and was attached to them.”^[81] As Medina prospered under his rule, “the fatness of men reached its height,” and “lax” people could be seen betting on flying pigeons and shooting with crossbows – until Uthman cut the wings of the pigeons and broke the bows.^[82] In 652 he standardised the Qur’an and burnt variant copies.^[83] Above all, Uthman continued the policy of military conquest, making forays into Cyprus and Spain, and adding the remaining provinces of North Africa, Anatolia (modern Turkey), Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, most of modern Afghanistan and parts of western India (modern Pakistan) to the Islamic empire.^[84] None of this required help from Aisha.

Aisha still needed permission to leave Medina. Uthman eventually agreed to escort Muhammad's widows on a second Hajj, and once again, “we were kept well out of sight.”^[85] It is not recorded that Aisha left Medina again until 656. Uthman expanded the mosque at Medina to a size of about 67m x 71m by buying up most of the adjoining buildings, though not the houses of Muhammad’s widows. Aisha therefore exchanged her old neighbours for carved stone walls, stone pillars and a teakwood roof.^[86]

But Uthman was elderly,^[87] and his competence declined with his age. After 650 the people became disillusioned by his nepotism and his embezzling of the state treasury.^[88] The residents of Medina were angry when he appropriated the common pastures around the city for the Umayya clan and forbade anyone else to graze their animals there. Restatement of the History of Islam.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, a man of humble birth who had been one of the earliest converts to Islam,^[89] preached against Uthman’s opulent lifestyle: “Your gold and silver shall burn red-hot in Hellfire and brand your foreheads!”^[90] Unable to take the criticism, Uthman exiled Abu Dharr to the desert, where he died in penury.^[91] The Caliph’s only economy was to reduce Aisha’s pension to the same sum allowed to Muhammad’s other widows.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Aisha went to ask Uthman to restore her “inheritance,” but he refused, reminding her that she had actively supported Abu Bakr’s decision not to pay any inheritance to Muhammad’s family as “prophets have no heirs.” After this interview, Aisha invoked the penalty for apostasy, exclaiming, “Kill this old fool, for he is an unbeliever!” Ibn Athir, History vol. 3 p. 206.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Abdullah ibn Masood, who had been persecuted in Mecca for proclaiming the Qur’an in the earliest days,^[92] and was also of the peasant class,^[93] criticised Uthman for his embezzlements and for exiling Abu Dharr. The Caliph broke off his Friday sermon to call Abdullah “a foul and despicable beast,” at which Aisha (whose front door was directly opposite the pulpit^[94]) protested from behind her curtain: “Is this the way to speak of a companion of Allah’s Apostle?” Uthman ordered Abdullah out of the mosque under a life-sentence of house arrest and loss of pension, at which his henchmen ejected Abdullah so violently that his ribs were broken. Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Musnad vol. 5 p. 197.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content

Ammar ibn Yasir, an early convert to Islam^[95] who had also been severely persecuted as a slave in Mecca^[96] and had fought at Badr,^[97] also challenged Uthman for embezzling the public treasury. Uthman ordered him to be thrown out of the mosque; the octogenarian Ammar was beaten up to unconsciousness. Baladhuri, Ansab al-Ashraf vol. 5 pp. 48, 54, 88. Ibn Saad, Tabaqat vol. 3 part 1 p. 185.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content At the next Friday’s prayers Aisha emerged from her house carrying an old shirt and sandal of Muhammad’s and interrupted prayers to address Uthman: “How soon indeed you have forgotten the sunna of your Prophet, when his hair, shirt and sandal have not yet perished!” Abbott, N. (1942, 1998). Aishah: the Beloved of Muhammad. London: Saqi Books.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content When the Governor of Kufa (who was Uthman’s brother) turned up to prayers so drunk that he recited the liturgy wrongly,^[98] Uthman overlooked it and withheld the customary punishment. A delegation from Mesopotamia arrived in Medina to ask that the drunken Governor be replaced, and the Caliph threatened to punish them for making the request. The Mesopotamians appealed to Aisha, drawing from Uthman the remark, “Can the rebels and scoundrels of Mesopotamia find no other refuge than the home of Aisha?”Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content When Aisha brought their complaint back to Uthman, he responded that she had no right to approach him since she had been “ordered to stay at home.” Abbott (1942, 1998).Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content At this suggestion that a woman should not be involved in public affairs, some people “demanded to know who indeed had better right than Aisha in such matters.” Abbott (1942, 1998).Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; refs with no name must have content Uthman belatedly sentenced his brother to 80 lashes, which Ali delivered.^[99]

Matters came to a head when Uthman’s governor in Egypt committed a murder, and 700 Egyptians arrived in Medina to petition for a new incumbent. Aisha once again took a stand against Uthman: “You have refused the request of Muhammad’s companions to remove this man, yet he has killed one of their people. Therefore do them justice against your Governor.”^[100] After similar urgings from Talha and Ali, Uthman promised to appoint Aisha’s brother Muhammad as the replacement governor. But on his journey to Egypt, Muhammad intercepted a letter bearing Uthman’s seal that ordered the old governor to kill him. He returned to Medina to show the letter,^[101] which Uthman then denied writing,^[102] “and there was not one of the people of Medina but was wroth against Othman, and it increased the wrath and anger of those who were enraged on account of Ibn Masa’ud, Abu Darr, and Ammar-b-Yasir.”^[103] Letters signed with Aisha’s name called for Uthman’s assassination, though she later claimed they had been forged: “No, by the One in whom believed the believers and disbelieved the disbelievers, I did not write to them with the black [ink] on the white [paper]!”^[104] Even if, as her friends chose to believe,^[105] she was telling the truth – even if she did not write the letters and her specific goal was only Uthman’s abdication – she very obviously did not care what his other enemies might do to him. She even said, “I wish I had him in my baggage so that I could throw him into the sea!”^[106]

The disaffected in Medina negotiated with those in the provinces. In April 656 rebels from Syria, Mesopotamia and Egypt converged in Medina to demand that Uthman abdicate.^[107] They besieged him in his house and cut off his water supply^[108] while the citizens of Medina watched. Leading Muslims like Ali, Talha and Al-Zubayr made only token efforts to assist their Caliph.^[109] Seeing that the rebels were likely to prevail, Aisha “prepared to flee by going on the Pilgrimage” to Mecca^[110] so that she would be far from the crime-scene. She was 42, and it was the first time she had left Medina without asking anyone’s permission, a strong indication of Uthman’s loss of control. She urged her brother Muhammad to accompany her, but he declined.^[111] During her absence, he was the leader of the besiegers who broke through the roof of Uthman’s house and stabbed him to death.^[112]

The Caliphate of Ali

Aisha had expected that the next caliph would be one of her brothers-in-law, Talha ibn Ubaydullah or Al-Zubayr ibn Al-Awwam.^[113] But on the road back to Medina after her Hajj, she heard that Ali, whom she still hated,^[114] had been elected,^[115] and exclaimed, “I would rather see the sky fall down than Ali chosen as leader!”^[116] She suddenly remembered that Muhammad had thrice told Uthman, “If Allah ever places you in authority, and the hypocrites want to rid you of the garment, do not take it off,” and when she was asked why she had not told everyone that hadith earlier, she replied, “I was made to forget it.”^[117] She turned back to Mecca and called for Uthman’s murder to be avenged.^[118] Ali denied any involvement with the assassination,^[119] but nevertheless he claimed he was powerless to punish the murderers as long as the mob ruled^[120] and he refused to comment on whether the killing had been just or unjust.^[121] Talha and Al-Zubayr, who claimed they had only sworn allegiance to Ali under duress, now joined Aisha in Mecca,^[122] and the anti-Ali faction gathered around them.^[123] The three of them vowed to avenge Uthman.^[124] When they were asked, “How is that? By Allah, you were the first to incline the blade against Uthman and were saying, ‘Kill the fool!’”^[125] they replied: “We wanted ... Uthman to satisfy (our complaints). We didn’t want him to be killed.”^[126] According to the British historian Sir William Muir: “The cry of vengeance on the regicides really covered designs against … ‘Ali,”^[127] whom they intended to depose in favour of one of themselves.

Aisha raised an army of 30,000,^[128] which Talha and Al-Zubayr warned her was still not enough to tackle the rebels in Medina.^[129] Instead they marched out to Syria, where they defeated the Governor of Basra and took over the city.^[130] They put to death everyone who was implicated in the assassination of Uthman.^[131] But they were not powerful enough to do anything more towards either their ostensible goal of avenging Uthman (since the majority of the rebels were still in Medina) or their real goal of deposing Ali. After gathering reinforcements^[132] Ali entered Basra with a professional army of 20,000.^[133] At first each side held up copies of the Qur’an, urging the other not to fight.^[134] Aisha’s side cursed Uthman’s killers, and Ali’s side started cursing them too.^[135] If the conflict really had been about avenging Uthman, negotiations might well have averted the battle.^[136] But on 7 December 656 hostilities erupted. Aisha’s warriors killed Ali’s messenger-boy, and Ali responded, “Battle is now justified, so fight them!”^[137] So battle commenced.

Aisha directed her troops from an armour-plated red howdah on a red camel named Al-Askar (“soldier”).^[138] Talha was one of the first to be killed, by an arrow to his knee.^[139] However, since most of the warriors were wearing armour, arrows killed inefficiently, so both sides concentrated on sword-work and cutting off one another’s limbs. It was said that there was never a battle “in which there were more cut-off arms and legs whose owners were not known than this one.”^[140] “Never did I see a day when more men hastened to fight with only a left hand because they had lost their right.”^[141] Al-Zubayr lost the desire to fight and left the battle, but he was followed and killed while at his prayers.^[142] The battle was long and bloody, and 13,000 were slain.^[143] After losing both Talha and Al-Zubayr, Aisha’s men felt obliged to protect the Mother of the Faithful by keeping close to her camel. One by one, forty men (some say seventy^[144]) took turns to hold its nose-rope,^[145] chanting, “Fear not, O Aisha our Mother! All your sons are heroes brave; none is fearful or cowardly. We will not flee until our skulls tumble, until boiling red blood pours from them! Fear not, O Aisha, wife of the Blessed!”^[146] None of Ali’s men who failed to wound the camel made a second attack.^[147] Al-Askar held steady amid the battle until Aisha could no longer hear the chanting because Ali’s forces had cut down every man.^[148] By this time both camel and howdah “looked like a giant hedgehog” because they were so stuck with arrows.^[149] Finally someone managed to cut off Al-Askar’s right leg, whereupon “it threw itself down on its side and growled,” and the howdah fell to the ground. Ali’s men cut it from the dying camel’s girth, and Aisha’s men fled.^[150]

Aisha, at Ali’s command, was extracted from her howdah by her own brother Muhammad and brought to Ali.^[151] It would have been foolish to subject a Mother of the Faithful to judicial execution, so Ali staged a public show of reconciliation. He addressed Aisha as “Mother,” and they each said to the other: “May Allah forgive us and you!”^[152] Then he gave her food, servants and a new camel for her journey, and they took public leave of one another, assuring their audience that there was no further quarrel between them. Ali sent Aisha to Mecca, where she remained for several months until the next Hajj, as if to demonstrate that she was free to go where she wished. But then she returned to Medina,^[153] where Ali kept her under house-arrest in the mosque complex for as long as he lived. She was to play no further part in public affairs.^[154]

Muslims have traditionally perceived the Battle of the Camel, the first war where Muslim fought Muslim, as “proof” that “woman was not created to poke her nose into politics.”^[155] In fact Aisha was no more aggressive than her male counterparts, and the war was no more disastrous than the hundreds of wars, including Muslim-against-Muslim wars, that male Muslims have fought ever since. The real problem was not that Aisha was a woman but that her Islamic world-view had taught her to solve problems by authoritarianism, assassination and open war. Aisha regretted the Battle of the Camel; she more than once declared, “I wish I had been a leaf on a tree! I wish I had been a stone! I wish I had been a clod of earth! By Allah, I wish that Allah had not created me as anything at all!”^[156] Sunni Muslims understand these expressions of regret as proof that Aisha “sincerely repented and wasn't against the household [of Ali] after that.”^[157] However, it is not completely clear whether she repented starting the war or whether her real regret was only that she had lost it.

The remainder of Ali’s reign was dominated by his conflict with Muaawiya ibn Abi Sufyan,^[158] a brother-in-law of Muhammad^[159] and kinsman of Uthman.^[160] In due course, Muaawiya captured Aisha’s brother Muhammad, killed him “in retaliation for Uthman,” then “cast him into the corpse of a donkey and set fire to it.” Although Aisha had demanded vengeance on Uthman’s assassins, she apparently had not meant her brother, for “she mourned for him greatly and made extra prayers for him at the end of the ritual prayers.”^[161] Muhammad’s son Al-Qasim came to live with her,^[162] which must have been a significant compensation, as Aisha had always wanted a child of her own.^[163] Ali was assassinated within five years.^[164] When Aisha heard the news, she recited: “And she threw down her staff and settled upon her place of abode like the traveller happy to return home.”^[165] A neighbour asked her if she had really been speaking so happily of Ali’s death, to which Aisha cryptically replied, “I am forgetful! If I forget, remind me.”^[166]

The Caliphate of Muaawiya

Muaawiya succeeded Ali as caliph in January 661.^[167] He was praised, even by his enemies, for his political acumen, justice and restraint.^[168] He was criticised for his nepotism and for his toleration of silk, stringed instruments and alcohol.^[169] He was not criticised for being “the first who introduced eunuchs into his service,”^[170] i.e., who ordered the castration of his slaves. He continued the Islamic conquests, consolidating gains in Persia and modern Afghanistan and adding Sudan to the empire.^[171]

Muaawiya had no reason to dislike Aisha, who had been his enemy’s enemy. He did not even need to take active steps to “keep her out of politics” by maintaining her house-arrest, for he moved the capital of the Islamic empire to Damascus,^[172] so the great affairs of state no longer occurred on Aisha’s doorstep in the mosque at Medina. He knew Aisha was well occupied by bringing up her nephew, teaching the Qur’an and settling local legal disputes. Therefore he had nothing to lose by showing her, at least superficially, the deference due to the foremost Mother of the Faithful. He requested her, “Write a letter to advise me, and do not overburden me.” Aisha’s polite reply deliberately avoided all political controversy.

Aisha and Muaawiya chanced to meet in Mecca, indicating that Aisha now took holidays whenever she chose. Their conversation was polite, but Muaawiya had recently beheaded one of Ali’s partisans, and Aisha told him that he should have shown more forbearance^[173] She suffered no penalty for voicing this criticism. In 671 Aisha’s brother Abdulrahman refused to take the oath of allegiance to Muaawiya’s son Yazid as the future successor.^[174] Marwan, Governor of Medina,^[175] ordered his arrest from the pulpit. Abdulrahman went straight to Aisha’s house, “and they were not able to capture him,”^[176] for unlike Umar 27 years earlier, Marwan did not dare enter behind the curtain of the Mother of the Faithful. He announced from the outside, “Abdulrahman is the man about whom Allah revealed the verse, ‘The man who says to his parents, “Fie on you!”…’”^[177] From behind the curtain, Aisha’s voice contradicted, “Marwan is lying! Allah never revealed any part of the Qur’an about any member of Abu Bakr’s family except me! But I heard Allah’s Apostle curse Marwan’s father before Marwan was born, so Marwan is full of Allah’s curse.”^[178] The strictures of the Veil had saved Aisha’s brother for the time being. Fortunately for Abdulrahman, Muaawiya soon afterwards re-assessed the political situation and decided not to press the point.^[179]

Despite the observation of these basic courtesies, however, it is clear that Aisha was in no position to overrule anyone of importance. When she heard that Marwan’s brother had taken his newly divorced daughter into his own home, Aisha instructed Marwan to follow the correct Islamic procedure for the idda and order his niece’s return to her husband’s house.^[180] The Governor pleaded the precedent of Fatima bint Qays,^[181] whom Muhammad had long ago allowed to serve her idda at the house of a blind man.^[182] Aisha, who had “severely objected” to that ruling, told Marwan that, “Fatima lived in a desolate house and she feared for her loneliness there,” so Muhammad had made a special exception,^[183] which should not be used as a general precedent.^[184] Marwan advised Aisha that if she understood why Muhammad had made an exception for Fatima, she ought to understand why his niece also had good reason to be considered an exception.^[185] The silence as to the outcome of the dispute indicates that, even in this trivial matter, Aisha did not prevail against the Governor.

Aisha devoted the last 17 years of her life to professional rather than political activities. She continued to teach the Qur’an and to reminisce about Muhammad. Her nephew and adopted son, Al-Qasim, became one of Medina’s foremost scholars of Islam.^[186] Aisha said that it did not matter in which order the suras of the Qur’an were arranged, but she had memorised them all and she could, on request, recite them in chronological order.^[187] Whenever she recited, “Women, remain in your houses,”^[188] she wept until her veil was soaked.^[189]

Death

Muhammad’s cousin, Abdullah ibn Abbas, visited Aisha on her deathbed and reminded her: “Good news! Nothing remains between you and meeting Muhammad!” But Aisha, despite Muhammad’s promises that, “You will be my wife in the Garden,”^[190] did not admit to any confidence that she was going to Paradise. She replied to Abdullah, “Leave me be. I wish I had been something discarded and forgotten.”^[191] She died on Tuesday 17 Ramadan 58 AH,^[192] the 56th lunar anniversary of the Battle of Badr.^[193] By the Gregorian calendar, it was 16 July 678, and she was 64 years old.

It would have been natural to bury her in her own house, but she instructed that she should be laid beside nine of her co-wives in the Jannat al-Baqi (Celestial Cemetery) in Medina, “as I would not like to be looked upon as better than I really am,”^[194] and, “because I have caused mischief after Allah’s Messenger.”^[195] A flaming palm-branch led her funeral procession, and women gathered at al-Baqi as if it were a festival.^[196] “The Ansar gathered and attended [the funeral], and no other night was ever seen that was more crowded than that one. [Even] the people of the villages outside Medina came.”^[197] Aisha had chosen to waive the posthumous glory that she might have attracted if she had lain beside her husband, on display throughout all history as the most important of Muhammad’s consorts.

See Also

• Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Aisha (primary and early sources about Aisha)
• Muhammad's Wives (Hub Page)
• The Tragedy of Aisha
• Aisha (Farsideology) (satire)

References