Microsoft Word Marriage Guide doc

Source: 
www.al-islamforall@org
 
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Like Khadijah, 'A'ishah gave the Blessed Prophet full support in his life of prayer and 
submission to God, frequently standing behind him through his long nightly hours of 
meditation, praying with him, and ready to give him whatever aid he needed when he had 
finished. His daily needs were very little-he lived so simply and ate so sparingly. The burden 
of this ascetic life fell on his womenfolk, who all shared his regimes. This would certainly 
not have suited every woman; the wives who married the Blessed Prophet were expected to 
be of like mind to himself, devout and self-sacrificing, living the life of the poorest folk of 
Madinah. 
It is therefore to her immense credit that A'ishah had the full confidence of the 
Prophet (P.B.U.H) during his lifetime. This has allowed us to receive a wealth of information 
on private and intimate aspects of his sunnah, as we will see later. No-one apart from 
Khadijah knew him as she did, she who shared his most intimate moments and private 
devotions; but, unlike Khadijah, A'ishah left a treasure of thousands of hadiths! 
The Blessed Prophet appreciated her high intelligence and deep understanding, and 
he found her a worthy co-worker for Allah. He used to tell the Muslims that if they had any 
religious problems while he was absent from Madinah, or needed any information, they 
could go for advice to A'ishah. 
After his death, the Muslims used to go to her for verification of what they had 
heard, confident of her judgment, not only because of her closeness to the Blessed Prophet, 
but also because of her own recognised abilities. 
Ibn Ata said: 'A'ishah was, among all the people, the one who had the most 
knowledge of fiqh, the one who was the most educated, and compared to those who sur-
rounded her, the one whose judgment was the best.' (Ibn Hajar, al-Isaba) 
It is interesting to record that on one occasion she heard Abu Hurayrah repeating a 
hadith concerning what the Blessed Prophet used to do after he made love. She disputed the 
details, crying: 'But who has heard that from Abu'l-Qasim'? (a name of the Prophet). The 
point was that Abu Hurayrah was relying on hearsay, whereas she had the experience of 
sharing the Blessed Prophet's most intimate times. 
She had a keen mind and memory, and no fewer than 2,210 hadiths are narrated on 
her authority. In an age when the tribal elite found it difficult to accept the full significance 
of the Islamic teaching on female dignity, her reliability and the respect in which she was 
held formed a much-needed precedent for later generations of Muslim scholars. 
For example, when according to Ibn Marzuq someone invoked in front of her a 
hadith stating that the three causes of the interruption of prayer were dogs, asses and 
women, she rounded on him smartly with the words: 'Now you compare us to asses and 
dogs! In the name of Allah, I saw the Prophet (P.B.U.H) saying his prayers while I was 
there, lying on the bed between him and the qibla, and in order not to disturb him, I 
did not move!' (Bukhari.) 
She never accepted a hadith that was at variance with the Holy Qur'an, even if 
it came from so reliable a source as the son of the Caliph Umar. Human beings, no 
matter how high their rank, were all capable of making mistakes. Once Umar's son 
related a hadith about dead persons suffering punishment on account of the wailings of 
the mourners. She explained that he had misunderstood or misheard; no person in the 
Hereafter suffers for the misdeeds of the living. The Blessed Prophet had been 
commenting on the burial of a Jewess, and pointed out that her relatives were wailing 
while she was being punished. Ibn Umar conceded the point. 
The Prophet's next wife was Hafsah, the daughter of Umar, whose husband 
Khunays had died from wounds suffered at the Battle of Badr when she was nineteen 
years old. Umar instantly approached their friend Uthman, who had just lost his own 
wife, the Prophet's daughter Ruqayyah. However, Uthman did not rush to marry her, 
and neither did Abu Bakr, to whom she was also mentioned. It is possible that their 
reluctance might have been because the lady, like her father, had a fiery 
temperament. The Prophet realising Umar was hurt, offered to marry her himself. 
Hafsah was highly educated and very intelligent, and spent much of her time reading 
The Muslim Marriage Guide: Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

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