Aisha's Age: Difference between revisions

After concluding that Hisham is responsible for the formulation of the story into the hadith from which all others ultimately derive, Little goes on to argue that Hisham concocted the story entirely. Hisham was accused of being an unreliable transmitter after his move to Iraq, and the hadith about his great aunt would have been useful there. Aisha's virginity at the time of her marriage and her status as Muhammad's favourite wife was a basic feature of proto Sunni polemics against the proto-Shi'i, especially in Kufah where the latter were dominant, and Hisham's hadith must have been very welcome there as it was immediately incorporated into this Kufan proto-Sunni material about the virtues of Aisha.

===Other considerations===