Kamil Ahmad – The Lives of the Sahabiyyat – 02 – Aishah bint Abi Bakr – ra Part 1
AI: Summary ©
The segment discusses the importance of finding a partner for a new relationship in Islam, as it is often the case for couples who desire a partner to avoid the need for physical appearance. The segment also touches on the origins of the Prophet's marriage to Aisha, including her father's marriage and the importance of the church. The segment also touches on various stories and events related to Aisha's life, including her wedding with the Prophet, her weakness in the Prophet's words, and her personal interaction with the Prophet.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of
the worlds.
And peace and blessings be upon the best
of Allah's creation.
And upon his family, his companions, and those
who are guided by his guidance.
And we await his Sunnah until the Day
of Judgment.
O Allah, teach us what will benefit us.
And benefit us with what You have taught
us.
And increase us in knowledge.
And show us the truth as the truth.
And grant us to follow it.
And show us falsehood as falsehood.
And grant us to avoid it.
And make us of those who listen to
the word, and follow the best of it.
And after that, peace and blessings be upon
you.
We met Khadija bint Khawlid.
And we said we would go through all
of the wives of the Prophet ﷺ.
Before moving on to the other Sahabiyat.
And when we went through the story of
Khadija last week.
We saw how she was a very, very
important figure.
You know, the most important woman in the
life of the Prophet ﷺ.
And today we move on to another very,
very important personality and woman in the life
of the Prophet ﷺ.
And that is Aisha bint Abi Bakr.
And the story of Aisha is a story
that will really take a lot of time
to go through.
There are so many things to talk about
in her life.
And that is why what we are going
to do insha'Allah is that we are
going to need next week as well.
So we will start today and we will
continue next week insha'Allah.
Now when we talk about Aisha, we are
not talking about just another wife of the
Prophet ﷺ.
But we are talking about someone who the
Prophet ﷺ really loved a lot.
And last week we spoke about Khadija ﷺ
and the love that the Prophet ﷺ had
for her.
And Aisha comes second.
In that regard Aisha ﷺ comes next.
And so who was Aisha ﷺ?
And how did the Prophet ﷺ marry her?
Her full name is Aisha bint Abi Bakr.
Ibn Abi Quhafa.
Ibn Amir.
Ibn Amr.
Ibn Ka'b.
Ibn Sa'ad.
Ibn Taym.
Ibn Murrah.
Aisha bint Abi Bakr.
Ibn Abi Quhafa.
Ibn Amir.
Ibn Amr.
Ibn Ka'b.
Ibn Sa'ad.
Ibn Taym.
Ibn Murrah.
And this is where her lineage meets with
the lineage of the Prophet ﷺ at the
seventh generation for her.
And we mentioned last week that Khadija ﷺ,
her lineage is closer.
It meets with the Prophet ﷺ closer than
any of the other women he ever married.
And her mother was Umm Rumman Zaynab ﷺ.
Umm Rumman Zaynab ﷺ.
And both she and Abu Bakr were among
the earliest to accept Islam.
So Abu Bakr ﷺ and his wife Umm
Rumman were among the very first to accept
Islam.
And at that time Aisha ﷺ was not
even born.
And so she was born in Mecca about
four or five years after the Prophet ﷺ
became a prophet.
And last week we mentioned that it was
in the tenth year of the Prophethood that
his beloved wife Khadija ﷺ passed away.
And we mentioned how this was a very
difficult time for him.
But as time passed, it was time to
move on and marry someone else.
To have a partner in life.
Especially given his status and this mission that
he was upon, he needed to have a
partner.
So he was not going to remain single.
So one of the companions, one of the
female companions, Khawla bint Hakim ﷺ, she came
to the Prophet ﷺ and asked him, O
Messenger of Allah, will you not get married?
So he asked her, to who?
She said, if you wish, you can get
married to a bikr, a virgin, or a
tayyib, a woman who has been previously married.
Someone like you, you don't have to, anyone
who marries you, it will be in their
best interest.
So he asked, who do you have in
mind?
And so she said, as for a bikr,
a virgin, then the daughter of the most
beloved man to you, Aisha bint Abi Bakr,
he said, how about the tayyib, the woman
who has been previously married, who do you
have in mind?
She said, Sauda bint Zam'a.
She believed in you and she followed you.
So the Prophet ﷺ said, then go and
propose to both of them.
And so the Prophet ﷺ got married to
both Sauda and Aisha after the death of
Khadijah.
So Khawla, she says that she then went
to the house of Abu Bakr and she
found Umrumman, the wife of Abu Bakr.
And she said to her, I give you
the glad tidings of good and barakat and
blessings.
I give you the glad tidings of a
fortune.
So Umrumman, she said, what is it?
She said that the Prophet ﷺ is interested
in marrying your daughter Aisha.
So Umrumman, she said, wait until Abu Bakr
comes so that we can discuss it with
him.
So when Abu Bakr came, he was a
bit surprised.
Because he saw the Prophet ﷺ as being
his close friend and also they were of
the same age.
So he asked, is she really appropriate for
him?
Because she is the daughter of my brother.
So Abu Bakr had a very very strong
relationship with the Prophet ﷺ.
And he looked at him as his, not
just a friend, but like his own brother.
And you don't marry your brother's daughter, right?
So that's the way he was thinking right
now.
So Khawla, she went back and she mentioned
this to the Prophet ﷺ.
So he told her, go back and tell
him that you are my brother in Islam
and your daughter is appropriate for me.
Meaning, you are my brother in Islam, not
my blood brother.
Yes, if you are my blood brother, I
cannot marry your daughter.
But you are my brother in Islam.
So she went back to Abu Bakr ﷺ
and she told him what the Prophet ﷺ
said.
And so he said, call Rasulullah ﷺ.
So he came and the marriage was performed.
Now in another narration, it mentions that Abu
Bakr ﷺ objected to Khawla.
And he told her that there's another man,
Al-Mut'im ibn Adi, who was already
interested in Aisha for his son.
And that was Jubair ibn Mut'im.
At that time, this family of Al-Mut
'im ibn Adi and their son, at that
time they were not Muslims.
But he had already given him his word.
And it seems like this was an engagement
that was already made.
So Abu Bakr ﷺ said, I have to
go speak to him first and see if
he's still interested.
So he went to Al-Mut'im ibn
Adi and he said, you showed your interest
in Aisha for your son.
Are you still interested?
So he said, here is his mother, ask
her, my wife.
So Abu Bakr asked her and she frowned
in his face.
And she said, we are afraid that if
we marry our son to your daughter, that
you will cause him to go astray and
you will bring him into your religion.
You will bring him into your religion, Islam.
So when Abu Bakr heard this, he was
very happy.
Because he wanted that the Prophet ﷺ marry
his daughter and not this Mushrik, this Kafir.
But because he had already given his word,
he was a man of his word and
he was not going to go back on
his word.
But then when he heard this, he went
back to Khawla, telling her to go call
the Prophet ﷺ.
And that is how the marriage was performed.
Now, in another narration, we learn that the
marriage to Aisha was divinely inspired through a
dream that the Prophet ﷺ had.
And this is found in Sahih al-Bukhari.
The Prophet ﷺ says, Jibreel came to me
and I saw you.
He was speaking to Aisha.
He says, Jibreel came to me and I
saw you covered in a silk curtain.
And when I opened the cover, I saw
you and Jibreel told me, this is your
wife in the dunya and in the akhirah.
This is your wife in the dunya and
in the akhirah.
And the Prophet ﷺ saw this dream twice.
And we know that the dreams of the
Prophets are true.
They are from Allah.
They are a form of wahi, a form
of revelation from Allah.
In his commentary of this hadith, the famous
scholar, hadith scholar Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, he
mentions that this dream came after the Prophethood
had started.
And it was wahi, revelation, that had implications
in real life.
And so its implication was that he ﷺ
would indeed go on to marry Aisha later
on.
So there's nothing in this hadith to indicate
that his marriage to Aisha was as a
result of that dream.
Right?
That the Prophet ﷺ saw the dream, then
he went and proposed to Aisha.
No.
That's not how it happened.
But rather, it happened as we mentioned.
The story behind how they got married.
As for the dream, it simply means that
this will happen in the future.
Right?
And so the Prophet ﷺ married Aisha just
like any other person would marry a woman.
By either proposing to her or the wali,
the father, proposing to him, etc.
And so it was a normal marriage as
we can see.
As for the dream, then it indicates that
the Prophet ﷺ would marry her eventually.
Now, when did the Prophet ﷺ marry Aisha?
He married her towards the end of his
time in Mecca.
When Aisha was six years old.
And then the marriage was consummated after the
hijrah to Medina.
When she was nine.
And this hadith, the evidence for this is
in Sahih al-Bukhari.
And there is no doubting this narration.
The narration is clear.
That the Prophet ﷺ married her when she
was six, meaning the nikah.
And then they consummated the marriage when she
was nine.
And that was in the month of Shawwal,
in the first year of the hijrah.
Now, this age of Aisha, as we can
see, she was very young.
And this is an issue that many raise
against Islam and against our Prophet ﷺ.
Saying that he married a child.
And they use this to bring Islam down
and to bring the Prophet ﷺ down.
And so for this reason, it's important for
us to learn how to counter these claims.
We have to respond.
We have to be able to respond.
And not just with an emotional response or
a weak response.
But with some solid points.
Now, there are two kinds of people who
attack this marriage.
One are Muslims with weak iman.
They wonder how is it that our Prophet
ﷺ could do something like that.
And so the reply to them would be
that if you're a Muslim and you're a
person of iman, then you have to understand
that this was the will of Allah.
And as Muslims, don't we believe that the
command of Allah has to be followed?
The Prophet ﷺ saw this in a dream.
And the dreams of the Prophets are true.
They are revelation from Allah.
So, no Muslim who believes in Allah and
his Messenger in the last day, should be
objecting to anything that Allah has decreed.
As for the other group, then they are
the Kuffar.
The non-Muslims and the enemies of Islam.
The critics who like to attack the character
of the Prophet ﷺ.
Our response to them would be that, look,
your problem is not really that the Prophet
ﷺ married Aisha.
Your problem is that you don't believe that
Muhammad ﷺ is the Messenger of Allah.
The issue of the marriage to Aisha is
just an excuse to attack Islam.
And so even if the Prophet ﷺ did
not do it, you would still attack him.
So the problem here is deep-rooted.
If they believe that Muhammad ﷺ is the
Prophet of Allah, then there would be no
right to question the creator of the worlds
as we mentioned.
That if it is a Muslim, then that's
how we respond.
So it's pointless to argue with the enemies
of Allah about this marriage to Aisha ﷺ,
because they don't accept Muhammad ﷺ as the
Messenger of Allah.
And when Quraysh used to accuse Muhammad ﷺ
of different things, Allah ﷻ revealed to him,
قَدْ نَعْلَمُ إِنَّهُ لَا يَحْزُنُكَ الَّذِي يَقُولُونَ فَإِنَّهُمْ
لَا يُكَذِّبُونَكَ وَلَكِنَّ الظَّالِمِينَ بِآيَاتِ اللَّهِ يَجْحَدُونَ We
certainly know that what they say, what your
opponents say to you, it grieves you.
It saddens you.
And then Allah says, it is not you
that they deny, but rather it is the
verses of Allah, the ayat of Allah that
the wrongdoers deny.
So they are not disbelieving in Muhammad ﷺ,
they are disbelieving in the message of Allah.
They are only attacking Muhammad ﷺ because he
is the Messenger.
He is the one who brought the message
from Allah.
They are not attacking his personality just because
of his personality, but rather because he is
conveying the message of Allah.
But nonetheless, having said that, we can easily
counter their attack regarding this marriage to Aisha.
So first of all, we say that the
Prophet ﷺ did not marry any young woman
or any virgin besides Aisha.
It was an exceptional case.
And so if you want to look at
the Prophet's marriages initiated by him and not
from above the seven heavens, then look at
his other marriages.
You will see how he married ordinary women
who were actually much older than him in
age.
Practically every single marriage of his besides his
marriage to Aisha.
Secondly, we say that Rasulullah ﷺ was 54
years old when he married her.
Yes, he was that old.
However, he was young even though he may
have been in his fifties.
He was not like other men.
The proof, first of all, when the Prophet
ﷺ met the delegation of the tribe of
Rabi'ah when they came for hajj.
At that time he was 50 years old.
The head of the tribe, he went back
to his people and he referred to Muhammad
ﷺ as a young man.
He referred to him as a young man.
He said, I met a young man in
Mecca.
Why did he say that?
Because of the strength and the energy and
the appearance of the Prophet ﷺ.
Just by looking at his face you would
think that, you know, this is someone young.
The second proof, when
Anas ibn Malik was narrating the story of
the hijrah, when the Prophet ﷺ and Abu
Bakr were walking in the desert, and some
people recognized Abu Bakr, but they did not
recognize Muhammad ﷺ because they didn't know what
he looked like.
Anas referred to Abu Bakr as an old
man who was known, while the Prophet ﷺ
was a young man who was not known.
And so again this shows us that the
Prophet ﷺ, you know, he was described according
to his looks.
Even though Abu Bakr was two years
younger than the Prophet ﷺ.
Only two year difference.
But they referred to Abu Bakr as being
an old man, and the Prophet ﷺ as
being a young man.
And thirdly, we know from the Sunnah that
the Prophet ﷺ used to race Aisha.
And she narrates that while she was on
a journey, along with the Prophet ﷺ, she
says, I had a race with him, and
I beat him on my feet.
Okay.
So this was while he was in his
fifties.
She says, when I gained some weight, so
later on, a couple of years later, she
says, when I gained some weight, I had
a race with him again, and this time
he beat me.
And so the Prophet ﷺ said, this is
for that.
Meaning, I got you this time.
This was payback basically for that time.
And so in this hadith, Aisha ﷺ says,
she gained some weight.
And so the Prophet ﷺ, this was perhaps,
he may have been in his, you know,
late fifties.
But yet he was healthy, he was active,
much older than his age.
And he needed to be in order to
complete his mission as the Messenger of Allah.
So all of this shows us that although
a man can be older in age, he
can be youthful in his energy and his
personality.
And therefore there would be no issue for
him to marry a woman much younger than
him.
But we can also add here, because then
the critics of Islam, they'll say, well, even
if a man is so old, it's not
appropriate for him to be marrying a child.
So to answer this, we say that in
those days, and for many centuries to follow,
marrying such young women was the norm.
It was not only normal among the Arabs
or other civilizations, but practically all the civilizations
of the world.
And this is well documented, even among European
civilizations.
There is one narration, Imam al-Shafi'i,
he says that he met a grandmother who
was 21 years old.
Like how on earth could a woman be
a grandmother at that age?
So it means that she must have gotten
married at let's say 9 years old, and
had a baby at a girl at 10.
And then that girl goes on to get
married at 9 or 10, and has a
child.
And so this is how this woman became
a grandmother at 21.
So the point here is that it was
completely normal.
And we can add to this that if
it was an issue, then the opponents of
the Prophet ﷺ, Quraysh and others, they would
have weaponized this issue to discredit him back
then.
But they did not.
Right?
They tried everything they could to discredit the
Prophet ﷺ.
They called him a magician, a poet, they
called him a liar, they said he's learning
from other people.
Right?
They tried to find everything they could to
attack him.
But not once did they say that, look
at this man, he's a *, he's marrying
young women.
No.
And this continued.
Again, even among the other civilizations that came
in contact with the Muslims.
For centuries, no one brought this issue up.
Right?
Even though they attacked the Prophet ﷺ for
other reasons, not once did they attack him
for this.
Because it continued to remain a non-issue.
Until only the present, when we have entered
into the modern era, where most people have
adopted a western, liberal, secular worldview and mindset.
Where according to them, this is wrong.
You know, according to their values, it's wrong
and it should not happen.
Now, why was the marriage of the Prophet
ﷺ to Aisha ﷺ so important?
One of the greatest blessings of Allah ﷻ
upon us as Muslims is that the Prophet
ﷺ married her.
You know, some people, they don't realize that
it would have been a disaster upon the
Ummah if the Prophet ﷺ did not marry
Aisha ﷺ.
How?
Aisha ﷺ, as we will see, she had
a mind of a scholar.
She was bright.
She was intelligent.
And she was very inquisitive in nature.
She was very curious.
She would always ask questions.
She describes herself, she says, the companions of
the Prophet ﷺ used to hear the hadith
of Rasulullah ﷺ and they would immediately follow
it.
So, they would hear something and they would
follow it.
They would implement whatever they learned.
She says, as for me, I would ask
the Prophet ﷺ questions about it.
I wouldn't just listen to the hadith and
just, you know, memorize it or, you know,
implement it in my life.
I would then ask questions about it.
And we will see examples of this later
on.
And so Aisha ﷺ, being the wife and
the most beloved to Rasulullah ﷺ, she had
this informal relationship with him.
So, she would question him while the others,
they were more respectful.
They would not dare question the Prophet ﷺ.
But because of this relationship she had with
him, she was able to do that and
she did.
Now, someone who has this relationship with the
Prophet ﷺ was needed.
So that she questioned him about certain things
and sometimes even argue with him.
And so as a result of all of
that, we learned so much.
As a result of such questions, we learned
so much.
That if she had not existed or if
this marriage had not taken place, we would
have missed out on so much knowledge.
And again, we're going to mention examples of
this.
We're going to mention examples of this.
So many things that we take for granted
today, like certain statements of the Prophet ﷺ,
famous ahadith that we have learned.
It wasn't just a statement initiated by the
Prophet ﷺ, but it was because of a
question that Aisha ﷺ asked.
As a result, he gave an answer.
As a result, we know that this is
part of Islam or something, a good deed
beloved to Allah, etc.
And so Aisha ﷺ, as we're going to
talk more about next week, she is one
of the top scholars from among the sahaba.
She is the fourth from the top seven
narrators of the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ.
Now, what we're going to do is, we're
going to go through some glimpses from the
life of Aisha ﷺ.
And there are so many different incidents that
took place in her life with the Prophet
ﷺ that have been well documented.
Because as we mentioned, she was one of
the top narrators, so she would narrate all
of these incidents.
And so we have a lot, you know,
too many to cover all of them.
Unlike Khadijah ﷺ, right?
With Khadijah, she passed away before the death
of the Prophet ﷺ, so she was not
a narrator of hadith.
And whatever we learned about her was either
through the Prophet ﷺ telling us about things
after she had passed away, or something that
Khadijah may have narrated to another companion.
Like the story we mentioned last week of
the first revelation.
That was narrated by Aisha ﷺ.
And she must have heard it from Khadijah
ﷺ, or the Prophet ﷺ.
Now, there is one story that we'll go
through today.
And this is the longest story that has
been narrated from Aisha ﷺ, from her personal
life.
And we'll go through this story first, and
then the other stories from her life we'll
cover next week inshaAllah, because they're much shorter.
As for this, it requires us to really
spend some time with.
And it is a story from her life
which was a challenge for her, a very
difficult trial and test for her.
In fact, none of the wives of the
Prophet ﷺ went through the kind of tests,
the kind of trial that she went through.
And even the Prophet ﷺ did not go
through any such test and trial with any
of his wives like he went through with
Aisha ﷺ in this particular incident.
This story is known as the story of
the ifk, or the outrageous lie, or the
outrageous slander.
Aisha ﷺ narrates this story herself, and it
is found in Bukhari and Muslim and many
other books of Hadith.
She says, whenever the Prophet ﷺ was about
to go out on a journey, he would
draw lots among his wives to decide who
would accompany him.
She says he did so as usual for
the military campaign against Bani al-Mustaliq.
So this was known as Ghazwah Bani al
-Mustaliq.
She says, my name was drawn, and so
he took me with him.
And she says, the women on such occasions,
they would eat light-filling foods, and so
they would be light-weighted.
So I would sit in my Hawdaj while
my camel was being saddled.
A Hawdaj is like a compartment that is
put on top of the camel for either
VIPs to sit in, or for women to
ride in.
So she continues, she says, the men who
were responsible for mounting it would then pick
up the Hawdaj and then lift it and
place it upon the camel's back, tying it
with the ropes.
So once she sat in it, they would
pick it up and they would put it
on the camel and tie it down.
They would then lead the camel away.
She says, when the Prophet ﷺ had completed
that journey, and now he was coming back
from that battle, when he was close to
Medina, he stopped for a break.
He stopped for a break, and so the
people, they camped out.
And then after some time, he called out
for everyone to pack up and get ready
to continue the journey.
She says, I happened to go out to
relieve myself, and I was wearing a necklace.
I was wearing a necklace, and when I
had finished, that necklace slipped from my neck
without me realizing it.
So then now I've come back to the
animal, to the camel, and I'm feeling for
the necklace on my neck, but I couldn't
feel it.
And now everyone's getting ready to leave.
But I went back to search for the
necklace.
So she says she went back, she searched
for the necklace, she found it.
She says, the men who were responsible for
my hawdaj, they picked it up, thinking that
I was in it.
And they fastened it to the camel.
And they had no doubt that I was
in it.
Why?
Because remember, she was light-weighted, and so
they thought that if it's light, you know,
she's in it.
And then they took the camel and they
left.
She says, when I got back to the
campsite, there was not a single soul there.
Everyone had left.
So imagine in the middle of the desert,
there's no one there.
You know, if it was anyone else, she
would have started screaming, calling out for help.
She may have tried to run after them.
But look at what she does.
And again, this shows us the intelligence of
Aisha radiallahu anha.
She was no ordinary woman.
She was smart even at a young age.
She says, I wrapped myself in my cloak,
my abaya, and I lay down.
Why did she do this?
She says, I was sure that they would
eventually return for me when they realized that
I was missing.
So she says she was lying down, and
she fell asleep.
She fell asleep.
She says, as she was lying down, and
she was sleeping, she heard someone come by.
And this was a companion of the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
His name was Safwan ibn al-Mu'attal.
And he was a good companion, a righteous
companion of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam.
She says he had been lagging behind.
He had been lagging behind, and he had
not spent the night with the others.
She says, when he saw my form, he
approached me.
And he had seen me before the hijab
was prescribed for us.
So he recognized her because he knew how
she looks.
She says, when he saw me, he started
to say, إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ Isn't
this the woman who was supposed to be
sitting in the hawdaj of the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wasallam?
She says, I was all wrapped up in
my cloak.
And then he asked me, what made you
stay behind?
May Allah have mercy upon you.
She says, I did not say a single
word.
He then brought up his camel and said,
you know, ride on it.
And then she says, he stepped away from
me.
And then I got onto the camel.
And then he led the camel away in
order for us to reach, to catch up
with the rest.
She says, then we reached the rest of
the army while they were taking a rest
at another place.
And this was around noon time.
And so, this was when some of the
hypocrites, some of the munafiqoon, and with them
their head, Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul, they
spotted the two of them coming.
And as a result, they started to spread
that slander.
You know, the munafiqoon, the hypocrites, anytime they
see an opportunity to attack the Muslims, to
spread a slander among the believers and lies,
they jump on it.
And so that is exactly what ended up
happening.
They started to spread this lie of this
affair that Aisha radiallahu anha was having with
with this righteous companion.
So as this slander was being spread, Aisha
radiallahu anha says that she knew nothing about
it.
We went to Medina and I soon fell
ill and I still had no idea what
was going on.
So it was, you know, as a result
of the travel she fell ill when she
got back.
And she says all the talk was going
on and she had absolutely no idea.
However she noticed that the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wasalam was not as he usually is towards
her.
She says whenever I had been sick, he
would be very kind, he would be very
comforting, but not this time.
She says I pretended not to notice.
When he came he would just see my
mother tending to me, nursing me.
He would ask formally, you know, how is
she?
And he wouldn't add anything more than that.
And this was not the nature of the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam.
Right?
So she says, eventually this coldness of his
bothered me.
So I asked, O Messenger of Allah, if
you allow me, I would like to go
and stay with my mother.
You know, I'd like to go stay with
her.
So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam allowed her.
And so she moved in with her mother.
And she says until now I still had
no idea what was going on until I
recovered from my illness some three weeks later.
She says, the women would go out a
bit far to use the open areas in
the outskirts of Medina to answer the call
of nature.
So every night the women would go outside
in a group.
So she says, I went one night and
I was accompanied by a woman, Umm Mistah.
Umm Mistah.
And so she was walking with me and
she tripped over her abaya.
And as she's falling, she cursed Mistah, her
son.
She said, may Mistah perish.
So I said to her, what a terrible
thing to say about a muhajir, a man
who fought at Badr.
And so she looked at Aisha radiallahu anha
and she says, has the news not reached
you, O daughter of Abu Bakr?
I said, what news?
And then she told her the whole story.
Apparently her son Mistah, who was a companion,
was also among the people who was spreading
that slander.
So now Aisha radiallahu anha she says, I
was so upset and I started crying so
much that I thought my liver would burst.
For the next two days she would stay
at her mother's house and she would only
be crying.
And then I told my mother, may Allah
forgive you.
Why didn't you tell anything?
Why didn't you say anything to me about
what the people were saying?
So she said, the mother of Aisha, she
said, don't take it seriously.
Rarely does a woman who has a husband,
who loves her, if he has other wives,
they're gonna become jealous and they're gonna start
speaking bad about her.
That was not the case obviously, but she
was trying to comfort Aisha radiallahu anha.
So then Aisha radiallahu anha she says, the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, it got so bad
for him that he got up on the
minbar and he asked, why is it that
people are troubling me about my family and
speaking lies about them?
I swear by Allah, I know nothing but
good about them.
And they're also talking about a man whom
I have never known anything but good about
him, that companion Safwan radiallahu anha.
And then, and then Aisha radiallahu anha continues,
she says, when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam
did that, he asked, who will take care
of a man who is spreading these lies?
He was talking about the head of the
munafiqoon.
So Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, who was the
head of one of the chiefs of Al
-Aws, he said, if they are from Aws,
then we'll take care of him for you.
But the head of the munafiqeen was from
Khazraj, the other tribe.
So he said, if they are from Khazraj,
then give me your order and I will
have his head cut off.
So another companion, Sa'd ibn Ubadah, who was
one of the chiefs of Khazraj, he got
up and he said, you lie, I swear
by Allah, you would certainly not cut off
their heads and you only made that statement
because you knew that they were from Khazraj.
If they had been from your tribe, you
would never have said that.
So now, you know, this huge war was
about to erupt between the companions, between the
Ansar.
Aisha radiallahu anha, she continues, then the Prophet
ﷺ called for Ali ibn Abi Talib and
Usama ibn Zaid, and he asked them about
me.
So Usama, he spoke well of me, and
he was a servant of the Prophet ﷺ,
he said, O Messenger of Allah, this is
about your family, your wife, about who we
know nothing but good about her, and these
are all foolish lies.
As for Ali ibn Abi Talib, he said,
O Messenger of Allah, there are plenty of
women out there, you can get rid of
her and marry someone else, but ask the
slave girl, she will tell you the truth.
So Aisha radiallahu anha, she had a slave
girl who would help her out in the
house, her name was Barira, the Prophet ﷺ
called her, obviously she would know things that,
you know, everyone else would not know because
of how close she is to Aisha radiallahu
anha.
So she asked Barira, have you ever suspected
Aisha of anything?
So Barira replied, I swear by Allah, I
know nothing but good about her, I haven't
found anything wrong with her all the time
that I've been with her except one thing,
and that is that when I need some
dough, and I ask her to watch over
it, she may fall asleep, and then the
goats come and eat it.
So that's all she was able to say
about her.
Aisha radiallahu anha, she goes on to say,
then the Prophet ﷺ came to me.
I had been with both of my parents
and an Ansari woman, and I was crying.
He sat down, and he said, Oh Aisha,
you have been told what the people have
been saying about you.
Fear Allah.
If indeed you have done something wrong, then
repent to Allah.
Allah accepts the repentance from His servants.
Aisha radiallahu anha, she says, as soon as
he said this, my tears dried up, so
that I could feel none of them, and
I waited for my parents to say something
on my behalf, but they did not say
a word.
I swear by Allah, I felt myself to
be insignificant and unimportant for Allah to send
a verse of the Qur'an about me,
one that would be recited and used in
every salah.
But I had hoped that at least the
Prophet ﷺ would see some dream in his
sleep by which Allah would prove my innocence.
But as for a verse from the Qur
'an to be revealed about me, I swear
I felt myself to be too insignificant for
that.
She goes on to say, when I saw
that my parents were not replying on my
behalf, I asked them, will you not reply
to Rasulullah ﷺ?
They said, by Allah, we don't know what
to say.
She says, I swear I don't know any
household that's ever suffered so much as that
of Abu Bakr through those days.
And so when they were unable to respond
for me, I burst out crying again.
Then I said, by Allah, I will never
repent to Allah for what you claim.
I swear I know that if I was
to admit what the people are saying, while
Allah knew me to be innocent of it,
I would be admitting what had not happened.
But if I was to deny what they're
saying, then you would not believe me.
She says, I then tried to remember the
name of Ya'qub, but I couldn't remember
it.
So I said, but I will say as
did the father of Yusuf.
What did the father of Yusuf say?
فَصَبْرٌ جَمِيلٌ وَاللَّهُ الْمُسْتَعَانُ عَلَى مَا تَصْيِفُونَ When
his sons came with the lie, with the
story they made up of Yusuf being eaten
up by the wolf, this is what Yusuf,
Ya'qub ﷺ had said.
He said, I will only endure with beautiful
patience.
She goes on to say, I swear the
Messenger of Allah was still sitting there, in
his seat, the same place where he was,
and he was wrapped in his cloak, and
she says, all of a sudden, revelation came
down to him.
Basically, she saw sweat coming down from the
face of the Prophet ﷺ.
This was a sign that, Allah was revealing
something to him.
She says, as soon as he recovered, the
Prophet ﷺ sat up, and his face streamed
with droplets like a winter day, and he
began to wipe the sweat from his face,
and he said, O Aisha, rejoice.
Allah ﷻ has sent down confirmation of your
innocence.
So, her mother, when she heard this, she
said, get up Aisha, and praise the Prophet
ﷺ.
Thank him.
Aisha she said, No, I will not.
I will only thank Allah.
And then, those ayat were revealed.
These ayat are from Surah An-Nur, where
Allah ﷻ talks about the whole incident, condemning
the people who were spreading that slander, and
Allah revealed verses and rulings concerning those who
spread such slander, how they have to be
lashed, 80 lashes, and there were three of
the companions who were involved in that slander.
One we mentioned, that was Mistah ﷺ, and
the other one was Hassan ibn Thabit, the
poet of the Prophet ﷺ, and the third
was Hamnah bint Jahsh.
She was the sister of one of the
wives of the Prophet ﷺ, Zaynab bint Jahsh.
So, they got that punishment.
As for the munafiqun, the hypocrites, they were
not punished, and the scholars mentioned that the
reason for that could have been that the
Prophet ﷺ wanted them to have their punishment
in the akhirah.
So, as for the sahaba, who were punished,
then that was a purification for them.
As we know, any punishment in this dunya,
it is a kaffarah, it is an expiation
for the punishment of the akhirah, for these
major sins that if we are punished for
it in the dunya.
And so, this was the story of Aisha
ﷺ and the slander.
Imam al-Qurtubi, he says, when Yusuf was
accused of having an affair, Allah declared his
innocence on the tongue of a baby that
was in its cradle.
And when Maryam was accused of the same,
Allah declared her innocence on the tongue of
her son Isa, as Allah mentions in the
Quran.
And when Aisha was accused of the same,
Allah declared her innocence through the Quran.
And so Allah ﷻ chose Aisha ﷺ to
declare her innocence through words and, you know,
through his own words that are in the
Quran, that are gonna be revealed, that are
gonna be recited until the very last day.
And as we saw Aisha herself did not
imagine that that would happen.
She said herself that, you know, maybe Allah
will declare my innocence to the Prophet ﷺ
through a dream that he chose him.
But as for Quran, she said, I consider
myself to be too insignificant for Allah to
care about me like that.
And, you know, declare my innocence, you know,
through Quran that will be recited until the
last day.
Now one last thing that we'll mention regarding
this story and regarding Aisha ﷺ.
Anyone who slanders Aisha ﷺ of having an
affair, committing zina, after Allah declared her innocent,
then the scholars say that this is kufr.
A person becomes a disbeliever if he slanders
Aisha ﷺ in that way.
And the reason for that is because they
are disbelieving in the Quran.
They are disbelieving in the Quran where Allah
declared her innocent.
In those, there are about 10 ayat in
the Quran in Surah An-Nur where Allah
ﷻ declares her innocence.
And so the Shia, the Rafidah, are known
for their hatred of the companions in general.
And certain companions in particular, like Abu Bakr
and Umar and also Aisha ﷺ.
And so they slander Aisha in this way.
You know, in the same way that the
Munafiqun, the hypocrites, did back then.
Ibn Kathir, he says that there is a
consensus, an ijma' of the scholars, that whoever
curses Aisha ﷺ after Allah declared her innocent
and slanders her with anything, he is a
kafir because he is opposing the Quran.
And Imam al-Qurtubi, he says anyone who
curses her with what Allah declared her innocent
of, then he disbelieves in Allah.
And whoever disbelieves in Allah, he is a
kafir.
So this is the story of the ifkh.
And insha'Allah next week we'll continue on
with the story of Aisha ﷺ mentioning other
stories from her life.
Especially her personal life with the Prophet ﷺ.
Her personal interaction with him when she was
very young as well as towards the end
of his life.
And then also after his death.
We're going to talk about the rest of
her life insha'Allah.
And we're also going to talk about some
of her fada'il, some of her virtues,
and what makes her special and unique from
among all of the wives of the Prophet
ﷺ.
So with that we'll conclude.
Subhanaka Allahuma wa bihamdika ashhadu an la ilaha
illa anta astaghfiruka wa atubu ilayka wa sallillahumma
wa sallimu ala nabina muhammad wa ala alihi
wa sahbihi ajma'in wasalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi
wa barakatuh