Before I begin to give my opinion about this book, please allow me to briefly introduce a little story about the author of this biography of Aishah R.A.
Nabia Abbott was born in Turkey on 1897 and died in 1981. Nabia Abbott was taken by her family across the Middle East to India, and later on she lived in Iraq and in the Unite States of America. Apart from that, she became the first woman faculty member of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago in 1933.
Aishah R.A. was a daughter of Umm Ruman and Abu Bakr As-Siddiq, Prophet’s right-hand man as well as the 1st Caliph of Muslims community. She was the beloved wife of the Prophet after Khadijah’s death. After Khadijah’s death, the Prophet decided to marry Sawdah bint Zam’ah-the follower of the Prophet and Aishah-the daughter of Abu Bakr As-Siddiq as an advice from Khawlah bint Hakim. At the beginning, the little girl Aishah doesn’t know to whom she will be married with. Until then, when she was playing with her friends in a playground, came a group of women who then washed her face. And at the age of not more than ten years old, Aishah became the Prophet’s wife. Due to Aishah’s age, when coming home the Prophet would see his wife busy playing with her toys and sometimes playing with her friends.
All in all, as Aishah growing older, Prophet has married Hafsah-the daughter of Umar ibn Al-Khattab, and many others. This situation was indeed, creating jealousy among the Prophet’s wives especially the little Aishah, she said that “when the Messenger of Allah married Umm Salamah, I was extremely sad and jealous”.
Later on, the dignity of Aishah was tested on the way back from the expedition against the Banu al-Mustaliq. “The affair of the slander” was the name of the bad episode directed to the beloved wife of the Prophet and Safwan ibn al-Mu’attal that was created by Abdullah ibn Ubayy. This slander remained unsettled and it creates the young Aishah to cry because nobody believe in her, and so does the Prophet who was in fact has doubts of her virtue and never visited her in Aishah’s house. The months have passed, what Aishah can do is just praying to Allah so that the truth will come out. Furthermore, revealed Surah An-Nur 11-16 to prove that Aishah was innocent.
All Muslims community knew that Aishah was his favourite and due to this reason Muslims community had decided to send any gifts they had for the Prophet on Aishah’s “day”. Among the reason on why she became the beloved wife of Prophet was because, whenever she wanted to visits her father, she will ask Prophet’ permission first. Prophet once said to Aishah: “O Aishah, may Allah reward you well, I am not the source of joy to you that you are to me”. When he Prophet was sick, it was she who takes care of him and nurtured him well, she has put the comfort of the Prophet as her priority. Prophet’s love to Aishah can be seen when he asked each of his wives and tried to figure out when does Aishah’s “turn” will took place because he felt that the illness was killing him badly. Aishah was on her eighteen years old when the Prophet breathed his last in her arms and was buried in Aishah’s house as requested by him.
After her father died, it was her to establish herself as a major factor of the politics. Aishah was entrusted by the welfare of her family because she was capable of doing it and an energetic woman. Aishah, the Mother of the Believers has turned her energies and talents and dominated the political situation in the Muslims world. She breathed her last on Tuesday; the seventeenth of Ramadhan in the age of sixty-four and requested to be buried with the rest of Prophet’s departed wives.
0 comments:
Post a Comment