What comes to mind when you think of Aisha bint Abu Bakr?
That she was the Prophet Muhammad’s closest wife? That she is known as Mother of the Believers, a pious and virtuous Muslim woman whom Muslim women today are taught to look to as a role model?
How much more are Muslims taught about Aisha and her contribution not just to the Islamic faith overall, but specifically to hadith science?
On a mainstream level, have any of us cared to learn about the life and legacy of the woman who has been reduced by many to the age at which she married the Prophet Muhammad?
One woman who has, in many ways, dedicated her life to uncovering the significant scale on which Aisha contributed to hadith science is scholar Dr Sofia Rehman.
The Leeds-based author, in her latest book, Gendering the Hadith Tradition: Recentring the Authority of Aisha, Mother of the Believers (Oxford University Press), explores and establishes the methodology by which Aisha validated, corrected and affirmed hadith, sometimes correcting and refuting the narrations of other Companions.
How is that Aisha bint Abi Bakr, the closest wife of the Prophet Muhammad and the woman whom the Prophet told Muslims to take a third of their faith from, has been so ignored when it comes to her contribution to hadith science?
“When you read the prophetic tradition, we’re often made to feel by the narrators of hadith or the collectors of hadith that this is an entirely male enterprise,” Sofia tells The New Arab.
“And it’s true that, for the most part, in terms of what has been preserved is attributed to male scholars. So, to be able to go back to the Islamic tradition and say at the very epicentre of the prophetic tradition, there is this female voice I felt was a really important and powerful thing to do.”
In her book, Sofia explains how, for Islamic scholars, past and present, Aisha represents a puzzle of sorts.
She is a bank of knowledge and during the rule of the four rightly guided Caliphs, she was often sought out by the Companions for advice and to affirm whether or not the Prophet Muhammad had said a particular thing, or how the Prophet practised particular things when he was alive.
But, having never left Medina, her methodology is never woven by any of Islam’s classical scholars or jurists into a wider school of thought and hence, as the four main schools or madhahib formed around the Companions who emigrated to Cairo, Damascus, Kufa, Basra and elsewhere, no one appears to quite know where to place Aisha’s contribution.
Hence, in the field of hadith science, her methodology is almost nowhere to be seen, save for one very remarkable book, al-Ijabah li-irad ma istadrakathu Aisha ala al-Sahabah, or The Corrective: Aisha’s Rectification of the Companions, written by Badr ad-Din al-Zarkashi, a 14th-century Islamic scholar.
Only two manuscripts of the book exist, and in Gendering the Hadith Narrative, Rehman has taken on the impressive task of translating part of the manuscript from Arabic into English.
“When I wrote the book, I wrote it with the intention in mind that it would be read not just by the scholarly community but also the wider Muslim community,” shares Sofia.
“I also always had in my mind that I would love to do a full translation of al-ijaba and have it in the household of every Muslim, just sitting there with Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, that everybody should have a copy of al-ijaba as well. A full translation is definitely an intention of mine.”
In Sofia’s translation of al-ijaba and her accompanying exegesis, we discover a robust methodology by which Aisha validated, refuted and corrected hadith.
When examining the narrations of the Companions, she would first look to see if what was said conflicted with the Quran. She would then go on to see if the hadith measured up against other hadith she knew of, as well as the Prophet’s actual practice or Sunnah, something she was privy to when he was alive. And sometimes, she would use her intellect.
“She’s somebody who has so much knowledge that she’s able to do that,” Sofia explains.
“She’s able to find the inconsistencies and say that’s not right. She has a more holistic picture. She’s able to say to the Companions, ‘No, you’ve only heard half of what was said or you’ve only understood part of the tradition.’ She’s able to fill those gaps.
“She also uses her own intellect. It might pass by the standards of the Quran, it might even not necessarily have a hadith that counters it, but if her own intellect is detecting an internal fallacy in the logic, then she will continue to question that.”
One prime example given in the book, derived from al-ijaba, is when Aisha uses not only her intellect, but an ethic of care towards the Muslim community, by refuting Abu Sa’id al-Khudri, who argued it was forbidden for women to travel without a male relative guardian with regards to Hajj.
She simply turns to the other women with her and says, ‘Not all of you have a mahram.’ She can examine the circumstances of the Muslims around her and measure the feasibility of a Companion’s narration against the lived realities of the Muslim community.
One of the most interesting discoveries in Gendering the Hadith Narrative is not only Aisha’s dedication in safeguarding and upholding the hadith and the Prophet’s Sunnah, but also the care with which she considered those at the margins of Muslim society, and in particular, the women.
Not only did she empower women of that time, as is apparent in her consideration of the narration regarding women performing Hajj without a male guardian, but by taking inspiration from her methodology, Muslim women today can be empowered by her too.
In Gendering the Hadith Narrative, we learn that there is so much more to Aisha. She is fiercely brave, remarkably clever, a fountain of knowledge, and doesn’t shy from speaking publicly to a crowd that includes men, holding their respect and attention.
From Aisha, we learn that we don’t need to be made to feel bad if something that is being conveyed to us regarding our faith sounds dubious or incorrect. As Muslim women, we are capable and we are allowed to authenticate that Islamic knowledge.
“When you look at Aisha historically, you find she’s a bit of a sore point, because she’s speaking up and holding men of authority to account. She is quite vociferously guarding the sunnah and loves the Prophet (peace be upon him), which means she’s continuously correcting those around her,” says Sofia.
“She goes on to raise an army against Ali bin Abi Talib. She’s vocal. She’s argumentative. She’s everything that we’re told that the pious Muslim woman is not. We’re told that the pious Muslim woman is demure, malleable and bends to the will of those around her. That means she is silent, and certainly doesn’t hold authoritative men to account. So, I think Aisha has historically posed a conundrum,” Sofia explains.
“I think that if Muslim women can see themselves reflected by the presence of Aisha in the hadith tradition, that in itself allows and validates our ownership of the religion.”
Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press
Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA
