ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr
Wife of the Prophet ﷺ and daughter of his closest companion, and the dearest of women to him. She narrated 2,210 hadiths and gave rulings to the Companions for forty years after him.
In brief
- Her name
- ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, of Banū Taym; her mother was Umm Rūmān.
- What set her apart
- The only one of his wives not married before him, and revelation came to him under her coverlet and no other’s.
- His love for her
- He was asked: which of people is dearest to you? He said: “ʿĀʾisha.” And of the men? “Her father.” (Bukhārī and Muslim)
- The slander
- She was falsely accused, and God sent down her innocence in ten verses of Sūrat al-Nūr, recited until the Day of Judgement.
- Her narration
- 2,210 hadiths — fourth among the great narrators, and the foremost of all women.
- Her death
- In Medina, 58 AH, aged about sixty-six; buried in al-Baqīʿ.
His story
She was among the most learned of people in the Qurʾān, inheritance law, the lawful and unlawful, poetry, and the history of the Arabs. Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī said: “Never did a hadith trouble us Companions and we asked ʿĀʾisha, but that we found knowledge of it with her.”
The Prophet ﷺ died in her house, between her chest and her chin, and was buried in her chamber. She would say: “Among God’s favours upon me is that His Messenger died in my house, on my day, and between my chest and my chin.”
She lived forty-six years after him teaching, sought out by the senior Companions and those who followed. What was preserved from her of law and hadith placed her among the four who carried the bulk of the Sunna to the nation.