men and that she can be the teacher of scholars and experts. Her life
is also proof that a woman can exert influenceover men and women and
provide them with inspiration and leadership. Her life is also proof
that the same woman can be totally feminine and be a source of
pleasure, joy and comfort to her husband.
She did not graduate from any university there were no universities as
such in her day. But still her utterances are studied in faculties of
literature, her legal pronouncements are studied in colleges of law
and her life and works are studied and researched by students and
teachers of Muslim history as they have been for over a thousand
years.
The bulk of her vast treasure of knowledge was obtained while she was
still quite young. In her early childhood she was brought up by her
father who was greatlyliked and respected for he was a man of wide
knowledge, gentle manners and an agreeable presence. Moreover he was
the closest friend of the noble Prophet who was a frequent visitor to
their home since the very early days of his mission.
In her youth, already known for her striking beauty and her formidable
memory, she came under the loving care and attention of the Prophet
[sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] himself. As his wife and close
companion, she acquired from him knowledge and insight such as no
woman has ever acquired.
Aishah became the Prophet's wife in Makkah when she was most likely in
the tenth year of her life but her wedding did not take place until
the second year after the Hijrah when she was about fourteen or
fifteen years old. Before and after her wedding she maintained a
natural jollity and innocence and did not seem at all overawed by the
thought of being wedded to him who was the Messenger of God whom all
his companions, including her own mother and father, treated with such
love and reverence as they gave to noone else.
About her wedding, she related that shortly before she was to leave
her parent's house, she slipped out into the courtyard to play with a
passing friend:
"I was playing on a see-saw and my long streaming hair was
dishevelled," she said. "They cameand took me from my play and made me
ready."
They dressed her in a wedding-dress made from fine red-striped cloth
from Bahrain and then her mother took her to the newly-built house
where some women of the Ansar werewaiting outside the door. They
greeted her with the words"For good and for happiness may all be
well!" Then, in the presence of the smiling Prophet, a bowl of milk
was brought. The Prophet drank from it himself and offered it to
Aishah. She shyly declined it butwhen he insisted she did so andthen
offered the bowl to her sister Asma who was sitting beside her. Others
also drank ofit and that was as much as there was of the simple and
solemn occasion of their wedding. There was no wedding feast.
Marriage to the Prophet did not change her playful ways. Her young
friends came regularly to visit her in her own apartment.
"I would be playing with my dolls," she said, "with the girls who were
my friends, and the Prophet would come in and they would slip out of
the house and he would go out after them and bring them back, for he
was pleased for my sake to have themthere." Sometimes he would
say"Stay where you are" before they had time to leave, and would
alsojoin in their games. Aishah said:"One day, the Prophet came in
when I was playing with the dolls and he said: 'O Aishah, whatever
game is this?' 'It is Solomon's horses,' I said and he laughed."
Sometimes as he came in he would screen himself with his cloak so as
not to disturb Aishah and her friends.
Aishah's early life in Madinah alsohad its more serious and
anxioustimes. Once her father and two companions who were staying with
him fell ill with a dangerous fever which was common in Madinah at
certain seasons. One morning Aishah went to visit himand was dismayed
to find the three men lying completely weak and exhausted. She asked
her father how he was and he answered her in verse but she did not
understand what he was saying. The two others also answered her with
lines of poetry which seemed to her to be nothing but unintelligible
babbling. She was deeply troubled and went home to the Prophet saying:
"They are raving, out of their minds, through the heat of the fever."
The Prophet asked what they had said and was somewhat reassured when
she repeated almost word for word the lines they had uttered and which
made sense although she did not fully understand them then.
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