| Subject: Aishah - A Role Model |
Author:
Mohd Som
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Date Posted: 18:41:44 09/21/02 Sat
Author Host/IP: j185.bkj25.jaring.my/161.142.101.199
AISHAH - A ROLE MODEL
The life of Aishah (r.a) is a living proof that she was
the best role model for women.
She can be the teacher of scholars and experts.
Her life shows that while a woman can exert an
influence over men and women and provide them
with inspiration and leadership, the woman can still
maintain her feminity and be a source of pleasure, joy and comfort to her husband.
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 greatly liked and
respected for he was a man of wide knowledge, gentle manners and an agreeable
presence. Moreover he was the closest friend of the Prophet SAW, 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 SAW himself. As his wife and
close companion, she acquired from him knowledge and insight such as no woman has
ever acquired. Aishah (r.a.) became the Prophet's wife in Mecca 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 14 or 15 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 the Prophet SAW. Aishah's
(r.a.) early life in Medina also had it's more serious and anxious times. Once her father
and two companions who were staying with him fell ill with a dangerous fever which was
common in Medina at certain seasons. One morning Aishah went to visit him and 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 SAW
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. This was a demonstration of the great retentive power of her
memory which as the years went by were to preserve so many of the priceless sayings
of the Prophet SAW.
As she loved the Prophet SAW, her love was a jealous love and she could not bear the
thought that the Prophet's attentions should be given to others more than seemed
enough to her. Of her jealousy, Aishah (r.a.) would say in later years: "I was not,
jealous of any other wife of the Prophet SAW as I was jealous of Khadijah (r.a),
because of his constant mentioning of her and because God had commanded him to
give her good tidings of a mansion in Paradise of precious stones. And whenever he
sacrificed a sheep, he would send a fair portion of it to those who had been her intimate
friends. Many a time I said to him: "It is as if there had never been any other woman in
the world except Khadijah (r.a.)".
Once, when Aishah (r.a) complained and asked why he spoke so highly of "an old
Quraish woman", the Prophet SAW was hurt and said: "She was the wife who believed
in me when others rejected me. When people gave me the lie, she affirmed my
truthfulness. When I stood forsaken, she spent her wealth to lighten the burden of my
sorrow..".
Despite her feelings of jealousy which nonetheless were not of a destructive kind,
Aishah (r.a) was really a generous soul and a patient one. She bore with the rest of the
Prophet's SAW household, poverty and hunger, which often lasted for long periods. For
days on end no fire would be lit in the sparsely furnished house of the Prophet SAW for
cooking or baking bread and they would live merely on dates and water. Poverty did not
cause her distress or humiliation.
The Prophet's SAW affection for Aishah (r.a) remained to the last. During his final
illness, it was to Aishah's (r.a.) home that he went, at the suggestion of his wives. For
much of the time he lay there on a couch with his head resting on her lap. It was she
who took a tooth stick from her brother, chewed upon it to soften it and gave it to the
Prophet SAW. Despite his weakness, he rubbed his teeth with it vigorously.
Not long afterwards, he lost consciousness and Aishah (r.a) thought it was the onset of
death, but after an hour he opened his eyes. It was Aishah (r.a) who has preserved for
us these dying moments of the most honoured of God's creation, His beloved
Messenger. When he opened his eyes again, Aishah (r.a.) remembered him having said
to her: "No Prophet is taken by death until he has been shown his place in Paradise
and then offered the choice, to live or die."
"He will not now choose us," she said to herself. Then she heard him murmur: "With
the supreme communion in Paradise, with those upon whom God has showered His
favor, the Prophets, the martyrs and the righteous...". Again she heard him murmur: "O
Lord, with the supreme communion," and these were the last words she heard him
speak. Gradually his head grew heavier upon her breast, until others in the room began
to lament, and Aishah (r.a.) laid his head on a pillow and joined them in lamentation.
In the floor of Aishah's room near the couch where he was lying, a grave was dug in
which was buried the Seal of the Prophets amidst much bewilderment and great sorrow.
Aishah (r.a.) lived on almost 50 years after the passing away of the Prophet SAW. She
had been his wife for a decade. Much of this time was spent in learning and acquiring
knowledge of the two most important sources of God's guidance, the Noble Qur'an and
the Sunnah of His Prophet. Aishah (r.a.) was one of three wives (the other two being
Hafsah and Umm Salamah) who memorized the Revelation. Like Hafsah (r.a.), she had
her copy of the Noble Qur'an written after the Prophet SAW had died.
Her utterances are studied in faculties of literature, her legal pronouncements are
studied in colleges of law while her life and works are studied and researched by
students and teachers of Muslim history as they have been for over a thousand years
still...
Courtesy of: Nurul Aiman
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