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When Muhammad was taken ill in June 632, he lost track of his wife-roster and kept asking, “In whose house will I be tomorrow? And where the next day?” His wives realised he wanted to be with Aisha and agreed that he would pass his illness in her house.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 679.</ref> He lay for several days with his head in her lap while she recited over and over to him the last two ''suras'' of the Qur’an.<ref></ref> She chewed a toothpick for his last teeth-cleaning “so that my saliva mixed with his on his last day in this world and his first day in the next.”<ref></ref> He was still lying in Aisha’s lap when he died.

Aisha was then 18 years old.<ref>{{Muslim|8|3311}}; Ibn Majah 3:1877.</ref> She had no children<ref></ref> and she was forbidden to remarry.<ref>{{Quran|||}}.</ref> She lived for another 46 years. In that time she continued to recite the Qur’an and teach Islamic law.<ref>E.g., {{Bukhari|6|61|515}}.</ref> Musa ibn Talha says, “I did not see anyone more eloquent than Aisha.”<ref>Al-Hakim, ''Musadrak'' vol. 4 p. 11.</ref>

Aisha originally supported those who wanted to assassinate Uthman, agreeing that he had “become an unbeliever”.<ref></ref> However, after Uthman had been duly disposed of (656), it became clear that his replacement was to be Ali. Aisha detested Ali<ref></ref> and would do anything to keep him out of power. She abruptly denounced Uthman’s assassins,<ref></ref> for which another Muslim called her to task. <ref>{{Tabari|17|pp. 52-53}}.</ref> She then started a war to rid herself of Ali.<ref></ref> She lost. Ten thousand died at the Battle of the Camel.<ref></ref> Aisha survived and was officially forgiven by Ali.<ref></ref> She was sent back to her hut in Medina, effectively to live out her days under house arrest.<ref></ref>

Ali was murdered after only five years,<ref></ref> and Abu Sufyan’s family seized the caliphate.<ref></ref> Aisha was never quite as obscure as Ali would have wished. People still consulted her on all matters of Islamic law, for judicial decisions, for information about medicine and history, or simply for stories about Muhammad.<ref></ref>