Transcription
Hello everyone and welcome to Blogging Theology. And today, I'm delighted to welcome back Shika Fatima Bakula. You're most welcome. Paul, how are you? Excellent. And good to see you again. It's been quite a while since you've been a guest on Blogging Theology. Uh, very happy to welcome you back. Um, and for those who don't know, I'll just introduce you before we get on to the main topic, inshallah.
So, Shika Fatima is an award-winning British Islamic scholar, author, and broadcaster. She studied Arabic and Quran studies at Al-Azhar in Egypt and has two Alama degrees from Islamic seminaries in the UK. She holds an award-winning master's degree in Islamic law from SOAS, at the University of London, and also a post-graduate diploma in English law from one of the top law schools in the world, the Dickson Poon School of Law at King's College in London. She has authored two groundbreaking books, Khadijah, Islam's First Lady, and Aisha, Beloved of the Prophet, and she's the founder of Muslim Womanhood.
Now, Aisha is a fascinating figure in early Islam who, on so many levels, still influences the ummah today. Her marriage to the Prophet, upon whom peace, has become highly controversial and an excuse for many Islamophobic attacks on Islam. In an earlier podcast we did, and the link is in the description below, we looked at her background and early life. But this podcast is the second part of a series titled Lessons from the Life of Aisha, Mother of the Believers. So, over to you.
Thank you so much, Paul. So, I guess the best way to begin is to recap some of the things we discussed last time. So last time, we looked at how Aisha was born into a family who were already Muslim. Okay. And that's that's quite a unique thing because, remember, that most of the Sahaba, most of the companions of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, were converts, right? But she was one of those who was actually born into Islam, right? Born into a Muslim family. Um, she had a very strong personality even from a young age. She was very observant. Uh, and we talked a bit about her father, Abu Bakr, because I believe that he had a great imprint in her life. And I think that's that's one of the things that you'll notice in general, you know, strong women often have a strong male figure in their life who has influenced them, empowered them in some way. So, Abu Bakr himself, of course, was the first Muslim, was the first adult Muslim himself, and he was the best friend of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and that obviously influenced Aisha as well.
Uh, we left the story at a time when there was a lot of persecution going on in Mecca. And Abu Bakr had established the first mosque in his house, in his backyard. And, you know, people were trying to expel him because of that, because he was attracting too much attention, too many people were converting to Islam at this point because of Abu Bakr, because of Aisha's father. And, um, I think this all really came to a head in one story. And this again shows you how passionately Abu Bakr was close to the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. When one of the mushrikin, he actually started to, he saw the Prophet Muhammad praying in front of the Kaaba, and he tried to, he, he sort of crept up on him and he took a cloak and twisted it. And because he knew the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, was deep in prayer, so vulnerable, he started to strangle him right in front of the Kaaba, you know, attacking him. And I've got a little extract from my book actually, which maybe I could read, which really brings this scene to life. And the reason why I'm highlighting this is it really shows you who Aisha's father was.
So, Ukba was the name of the polytheist. He's quite a well-known bad guy from the life of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, you know. And he said, "You dare to pray here at the Kaaba?" shrieking hysterically, tearing the cloak from his own back and twisting it around the Prophet's neck like a makeshift noose. The Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, squeezed his eyes closed in pain, gasping for breath, as he wrapped his fingers around the twisted fibers, trying desperately to remove the noose. By then, dozens of onlookers had gathered. Some cheered for Ukba, who continued to attack the blessed Prophet with ugly glee. Some secret followers of the Prophet Muhammad stood with downcast eyes in helpless shame. So great was their fear of becoming Ukba's next victims that they dared not intervene. The color drained from the Prophet Muhammad's face as he struggled for air, unable to repel the sudden and vicious attack alone.
And so it goes on. And then, and then we have this powerful image of, out of nowhere, felt the full force of another man shoving him to the ground. He grunted in pain. It was Abu Bakr, rushing to his friend's aid. "Woe to you, enemy of Allah!" Abu Bakr scolded, his eyes bloodshot with anger, with danger, his voice deathly hoarse. The crowd turned on Abu Bakr, beating and kicking until his head was sticky with blood. Still, he fought them off, his protests booming through the Makkan valley. "Would you kill a man because he says, 'My Lord is Allah?'" he shouted at them. Panting heavily, Abu Bakr squared up to Ukba and locked eyes with him. "Would you slay a man who brings clear signs from God?"
So you can see from this scene, you know, the bravery of Abu Bakr. And this is obviously based on hadiths that have been narrated about this incident. He was the one who would intervene, right, when everyone else was kind of scared, maybe because of his status, but also definitely, of course, because of his courage. So that was the father of Aisha, and in that context, she was born. So, of course, she was from a family who were very devoted to the Prophet.
Now, we already discussed the betrothal of Aisha. So, at a very young age, she's betrothed to the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. She was already betrothed to somebody else, you know, from another family. But when the Prophet's proposal came, though the other family, they were polytheists, and they decided, "Actually, we don't want to marry our son to Aisha," because, you know, they were afraid of the new message of Islam, they didn't want it to influence their son. And so Aisha is married or betrothed to the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And we already discussed the context at that time.
I've got a few quotes that I wanted to share based on some of the comments that we got last time, that I think will be very useful as well regarding the marriage. You know, I've got this fact: in 1275, this was when the first age of consent was set in England. Yeah, because we were talking about how people tend to look at history through a presentist lens, you know, using the norms and morality and the, you know, what we consider to be good and bad and normal in our times. People use that to judge the past. But actually, if you look at even, you know, just a few hundred years ago, in 1275, that was when the first age of consent was set in England. And that was the age of 12, right? And that's in the Statute of Westminster One. And in 1875, the Offences Against the Person Act raised the age to 13 in Great Britain and Ireland. Right? So that just gives you an idea of how, you know, adulthood and what was considered to be a marriageable age, even in Europe, right, was different even just a few hundred years ago.
And I found a great article or paper by some bioarchaeologists, I think Sha Sha Holcrow and Nancy Tales. And what they say in their paper, "The Bioarchaeological Investigation of Childhood and Social Age: Problems and Prospects," they basically highlight that in history, age was understood differently. It wasn't just counted in years. You know, childhood, adulthood, the line between them. In modern times is very different to traditional times. In traditional societies, it was usually judged by maturity, by skill, by character, readiness, you know, this kind of feeling, "Okay, I think my child is ready." Not through birthdays, right? And I've got this quote from the article. "Much of the," they say, "in contrast to modern Western society where social age is closely linked to chronological age, in many traditional societies, stages of maturation are acknowledged in defining age. These stages take into account not only the chronological age but also the skills, personality, and capacities of the individual." So, yeah, I think we made it very clear that, you know, age was a very different thing in those times. And of course, this was more like a betrothal. It wasn't a marriage, a full marriage where they're living together or anything like that.
And so now, the Muslims are being persecuted heavily. And we find that Aisha, she mentions that her father, many people started to migrate from Mecca. The Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, had given permission for people to migrate to Abyssinia already, which is modern-day Ethiopia and thereabouts. But now he had made a deal with people in the town of Yathrib, which is nearby, and it was time for people to start migrating there. And of course, that's modern-day Medina, right? Medina, the city of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Now, Abu Bakr was very restless. He really wanted to make Hijrah. He really wanted to leave with the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Other people had left already. Umar had left with many of the strong men in Mecca. And at this stage, they were left behind. And I'm just going to read this hadith in which Aisha actually talks about how her father was really waiting, he was really waiting for, you know, for the Hijrah to happen.
So, Aisha tells us that one day, and this is narrated by Aisha. She says, "One day, while we were sitting in our house, in Abu Bakr's house, at noon, somebody said to Abu Bakr, 'This is Allah's Messenger, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, with his head covered, coming at a time at which he never used to visit us before.' Abu Bakr said, 'May my parents be sacrificed for him! By Allah, he has not come at this hour except for a great necessity.'" You know, because it was unusual for somebody to be visiting somebody else at this time. So, Allah's Messenger, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, came and he asked permission to enter. He was allowed to enter. When he entered, he said to Abu Bakr, "Tell everyone who is present with you to leave the room." It was obviously something secret or private that he wanted to tell them. Abu Bakr replied, "There are none but your family." Meaning my family, you know, is your family, right? May my father be sacrificed for you, O Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. The Prophet said, "I have been given permission to migrate." Abu Bakr said, "Shall I accompany you?" And the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, said, "Yes."
And then Aisha, and this really shows you her personality even at this young age, she narrated this about that time. She says, "Before before that day, and before I saw Abu Bakr crying that day, I never thought that it was possible for anyone to cry out of happiness." So, this is an observation of Aisha in the hadith. So she says her father was literally crying tears of joy that he was going to be the one accompanying the Prophet. Now, Abu Bakr had prepared some camels. He had been preparing for this journey for a long time. And you know what they used to do? They used to feed camels certain types of food and drink and make sure they were ready for the long journey because it was going to be a long journey. They were going to not take the typical route. They had to take a very secret route.
Now, so Abu Bakr was ready. He already had his camels ready. He had a guide. And at the time when they were just getting ready to leave, Aisha's elder sister, Asma, okay, she was preparing food for them for their journey. And then the story goes, and it's Aisha who tells us this story, that they didn't have anything to tie their bag of food with, the leather bag of food with. And what her elder sister did was she took her own waist belt off, and it must have been sort of made of cloth. She took her own waist belt off and tore it into two strips, and she used half of it to tie up the food and provision of the Prophet and her father. And so you can see that the family of Aisha were very much involved in supporting the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, on this day. And the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, was so happy at seeing Asma do this that he gave her a title which means "the owner of the two belts." And this was a title that Asma was very proud of, actually. And some scholars say what it means is that she will be rewarded with two belts in paradise, you know, for sacrificing her belt for the sake of Allah.
So now, Abu Bakr and the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, are hiding in a cave. And Aisha's brother, Abdullah. So this is her half-sister and brother. Asma is her half-sister, and Abdullah is her half-brother, meaning that they have different mothers, but they are her elders. And Abdullah, he basically is going every night to provide food and give news to Abu Bakr and the Prophet about, you know, what the Quraysh are up to. One incident that I believe that Aisha would have witnessed is that Abu Jahl, who was one of the, you know, tyrants of Mecca, he actually came to Abu Bakr's house when he heard that Abu Bakr and the Prophet had escaped, you know, because they had been, they had sent a young man from every family in Mecca to stand outside the Prophet's house so that when he woke up and came out, they would attack him. But of course, the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, had already escaped. And Ali, the Prophet's cousin, had laid in his bed in his place. So the people in Mecca, they knew they knew that he, they had left. And so they came storming to their house and, you know, knocking, banging on the door. And Aisha would have probably witnessed this, in that she, you know, we have a narration where Asma actually opened the door. And Abu Jahl asked, "Where is your father?" And because she wouldn't tell them, okay, because she wouldn't be forthcoming with the information, he slapped her around her face, breaking her earring. Okay? So you can see, you know, that the family of Abu Bakr went through a lot just for the sake of the Prophet. And Aisha would have been witnessing this, would have been part of this.
There was another narration where the elderly father of Abu Bakr, his name is Abu Quhafah. He had not embraced Islam yet, but he was an elderly man and he couldn't see very well. And he was sitting in the house and he asked Asma, you know, "What has your father left for you? He's gone off to Medina. You know, he's gone off to Yathrib, but what has he left for you?" And Asma knew that Abu Bakr had actually taken every bit of wealth that he could have with him because of the dangerous journey ahead and because he wanted to help the Prophet. So they didn't really have much in terms of like cash, if you like, you know, in the house. But what she did was she handed her grandfather a bag, like a money bag, filled with pebbles, just to reassure his heart. And the old man, he kind of touched the bag of pebbles. And Asma said this, "He left this." And so, you know, obviously she wasn't lying. She was just kind of covering the truth. And he touched the bag of pebbles and he said, "If he's left this, then he's left a lot." Right? So you could see the whole family is kind of trying to keep things peaceful, trying to manage in very, very difficult circumstances.
Now, after all of this, the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and Abu Bakr, of course, eventually reached Medina. And as soon as they did, what they did was they sent Zayd bin Harithah, who was the Prophet's adopted son, and Abu Rafi, who was a slave of, I believe he was a slave of, he was a Coptic slave, so he's an Egyptian slave of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. He sent them with some money and some camels to bring the family of Abu Bakr and the Prophet's own family, so his own daughter Fatima, for example, to Medina. Abu Bakr sent a number of camels and he sent his guide, a Bedouin guide. And the whole family left. They bought some more camels as well. Some other companions accompanied them as well. Unfortunately, Aisha's own brother, Abdul Rahman bin Abu Bakr. So her full brother, who is her, who they share the same mother and the same father. Unfortunately, he had not embraced Islam at this stage. He actually embraced Islam much later, and it was a source of real pain for the family, you know, that he decided to stay behind. But he did. It really shows you that there was a lot of human emotion there, right, at this stage where they're having to leave people behind, they're having to go in a very secretive way, they might get caught, etc. But they did. They left. And the journey was quite smooth. Somebody else actually joined them during this journey, and that was Zubayr bin Al-Awwam. He's one of the senior companions of the Prophet. He had returned from Abyssinia, and he was actually married to Aisha's sister, Asma. So Asma was also married. She was a young lady, probably a teenager at this point, and she was expecting a baby during the Hijrah. So you can imagine it was a really difficult journey.
And but they made that journey. And as they got closer to Medina, Aisha's sister Asma actually was going into labor. So they had to stop at Quba. Quba is, um, there's a famous mosque there now, but it's a, like a little town, you could say, or a little area just outside Medina. Now it's kind of almost part of Medina, right? But in those days, it was outside Medina. And that's where they stopped. And Asma actually gave birth to her son, who's also a very important figure in Aisha's life, who became an important figure in Aisha's life, and his name is Abdullah bin Zubayr, the famous Abdullah bin Zubayr. And this baby was very special because there was a rumor going around at that time that the Muslims were cursed. Okay? So the sources say that some, some of the Jews of Medina, or some people, some of the disbelievers had spread a rumor that the Muslims are cursed and they're not going to be able to have children. Okay? And of course, you know, that's a superstitious thing, and Muslims didn't, the Muslims didn't believe that. However, it just so happened that no child was born to the Muslims since that rumor was spread. So some people had started to think, you know, is it true, right? And so when Abdullah bin Zubayr was born, it was, he was the first baby born from the time that this rumor had started to be spread. And so the Muslims were very, very happy. They lifted him up and they cheered. And the reason why this is something that's mentioned is that later on, in his life, Abdullah bin Zubayr became a candidate for becoming a Caliph, right? And he had, he tried to become the Caliph later on in his life, and unfortunately, he was executed. And at that time, people remembered the day that he was born, the day when everyone had cheered so much and had been so elated and happy that he was born. And they saw it as a positive omen, right, that he was born.
And they took him eventually to the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, who, who took a date and he softened it in his mouth and he put a tiny piece of the date, or a tiny, you know, remnant of the date, residue of the date, in the mouth of Abdullah bin Zubayr. And this is where we get our practice of tahneek from, you know? So when a baby's born, we take something sweet and we put it in the baby's mouth. It's usually honey. Or I didn't know that. That's news to me. Yeah. Yeah. So the Prophet did that. And so obviously, it was also blessed because it was the blessed saliva of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, would have been part of that as well. So, so this was the blessing of Abdullah bin Zubayr. And Abdullah is very important because Aisha really treated him like her son. You know, later on, when Aisha was sometimes a bit sad about the fact that she didn't have any children, and so she didn't have a kunya. A kunya is like a title that people give in the Arabic language, you know, people have their name, but they sometimes have a kunya as well. Kunya means, for example, Abu something or Umm something, right? So I don't know, Abu Bakr, right? Or Abu Abdullah. I, for example, have a son called Yusuf, so I would be Umm Yusuf, the mother of Yusuf, or the father of whoever, right? And usually, you have that title as a name that you're named after. You use the name of your eldest child, right, as kind of your, or sometimes people use it, for example, Umm Khair, which means mother of goodness, right? So sometimes people use it as a title to denote a certain characteristic that they want to be known for, right? So Aisha said, "All of my, later on, she would say, you know, all of my female co-wives, they have titles, they have these kunyas, but I don't." And so the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, actually said to her, "Why don't you take it from your son, your nephew?" And he called him her son, right, Abdullah. So Aisha was actually known as Umm Abdullah. That was actually her kunya. And that's because of how close she was to this nephew of hers, the son of Asma.
So now they arrive in Medina. Now, I think I want to share some of the slides now. Uh, okay, if I can just navigate to the slide that I want. So let's start off with this. Yeah. Okay. So, we, they arrive in Medina. And by the time they had arrived, the Prophet's mosque was probably built. I believe it was built or it was virtually built. And what the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, did was within the next two years, he had these little houses. If you, you can see on the bottom right of the screen, he had these little, well, you know, we could, I don't know, we can't even really call them houses. They're more like little huts, right, with a little courtyard. He had them built next to the Masjid. So this is the Prophet's mosque, a model of the Prophet's mosque in Medina, the first iteration of it. And these two houses, and these two houses were built for Sawdah, who was one of the wives who the Prophet married. She was an elder lady who was widowed, and the house of Aisha. So the nearer one, this nearer one is the house of Aisha, and the further one is the house of Sawdah. And there was actually a door that went from the courtyard of Aisha into the mosque. You see? So this is why, you know, when you read some of the hadiths, you read things like, you know, she handed him a comb, or she, you know, she watched the Abyssinians do a display, a military display. It was usually from the curtain and door that was just there, allowing access to the mosque from Aisha's house directly. And later, later on, this is another fact that later on, after Sawdah passed away, she actually left in her will that Aisha could have her house. Okay. So later on, Aisha ended up having both of these houses. And there was a good reason for that. It's because in her house, later on, Prophet Muhammad, Abu Bakr, and Umar were buried, right, once they passed away. So anyway, that's that's a slightly different point.
So, when men and women prayed together in that mosque, the Masjid, the men were in front and the women were behind. But the women weren't segregated into a separate place, were they? Like in some mosques, say, in London? Not at all. Not at all. In fact, mosques, sorry, yeah, absolutely. You, I think you're highlighting the fact that in our times, you know, we sometimes we put women up on the balcony or have like a completely separate space for women where, sadly, I, this is one of my bugbears, actually, that sometimes the women can't see the Imam. So if the sound system fails, you know, it's like we have no idea what's going on, right? And as you're rightly pointing out, and I think some mosques today are being built in this fashion, right? Like if you look at the mosque in Cambridge. Oh, yeah. Cambridge Mosque. You know, they have a big, just one space, right? And they allow different levels of privacy if some women would prefer that. But yes, you're right. It was one space. The row, the front row of the women was right behind the row of men or youth, right? So right in front of the women would have been the young boys or the men, right, depending on who was in the mosque. And I think it's unfortunate, actually, in our times that we that we have completely separated the women unnecessarily, you know.
I've got a little story actually. Yesterday, I was about, I was going to pray Asr. I needed to pray the Asr prayer. And I was out and about, and there was a little mosque nearby. And I knew, so I went to the mosque. I knocked on the door. And they said, "Oh, we're having some building work, so the women's section is closed." Okay. And we've only got the men's section open. And I said, "Okay, so can I pray at the back of the men's section?" Okay. And the brothers, they said, "Oh, sister, this is going to be very difficult." You know, I said, "Look, I actually made this exact point yesterday to them." I said, "If you think about it, in the time of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, the women would just pray in the same room as the men, right?" So the, so basically, these brothers were going to turn me away from praying in the mosque because there wasn't some designated space called the women's space, right? And anyway, because I'm very persuasive, I managed to, I managed to muscle my way into the mosque through my words. And alhamdulillah, they allowed me to come in. And when I came in, I was so shocked. The mosque was empty. It was a massive room. Really? It was a massive room. They returned to one room because it was even worse. Yeah. It was a massive room with plenty of space. But because unfortunately, some Muslims have it in their heads that there has to be a women's section and a men's section, as if it's like haram for a woman to enter that space, they have these kind of, we've created these false barriers. Fine. I'm not, by the way, I'm not criticizing people having those sections. That's fine. But can you imagine if a woman needs to, she should be able to come into that space. It's absolutely fine. There's no, there's no such thing as a men's section and a women's section, actually, if you really want to look at it in that way. If a woman, if a female servant of Allah needs to pray, she should be accommodated, right? I do hope that over time, that attitude is going to change, you know, amongst the Muslims because it is very based on culture, you know, especially in the Indian subcontinent. I think well, in the Indian subcontinent, unfortunately, they sometimes don't even have a women's section. You know, they don't, they don't consider the mosque a space where women, a woman has any business entering. And that could be because, I know that some of my teachers, they've highlighted that it's because, you know, in certain times, there were some problems or dangers. And so maybe there were some fatwas that were given saying, you know, that women should refrain from coming to the mosque, okay, in certain times, in history, in certain places. But of course, those were fatwas for a particular time and place and situation. Maybe the general, the general rule, as the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, clearly said to the men is, "Do not prevent the female servants of Allah from coming to the house of Allah." Right? That's the general rule. But yeah, I'm glad you highlighted that because I actually had that experience yesterday. And I think we need to change that attitude. And I think the men have to take, have to be in the forefront of helping to change that attitude, right?
This is just a little close-up. Obviously, this is a model. I think this is a model from one of the museums in Medina, but you can see close-up that there would have been a small, like a hut, which was covered. But then there's this open part or courtyard known as the hujrah. Okay, that's what the hujrah is. And then here, there was a little door from which you could enter. So that was early on. And then later, the mosque was expanded. So this is the smaller mosque. Okay. Later on, the mosque was actually expanded, and the houses were moved to this part. So the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, by that time had more wives. So he had small houses built, and one of the houses was also for his daughter Fatima. And the mosque just kept expanding. So this is also an image from one of the models that, you know, when some of the houses were being built, some of the other wives, Hafsa was very close to Aisha. They say that Hafsa's house was, Hafsa is the daughter of Umar, and later on, the Prophet married her. And her house was so close to Aisha's that they could talk to each other, you know, they would talk to each other through maybe a gap or something like this. This is another model, of course, like these are models. We don't know exactly the order and the way it was. But they're just intelligent, kind of based on research. Yeah. So, this is another depiction of it of the mosque. You can see the mosque was mainly open-air, right? Yeah. Used to get wet when it rained. Well, I don't imagine it rained very much in Medina, but I suppose sometimes of year it might have done. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, there were sometimes.
Now, we will look at other images later, inshallah. But that's just to give you an overview of where Aisha would have lived. Now, um, sorry, can we go back to the double screen? No. Can we go back to the double screen? Yep. Thank you. There we go. So, when they arrived in Medina, at this point, Aisha was, I believe she was still living with her parents. It's only really like two years after the arrival in Medina that Aisha moved into this little hut of hers, right? And by that time, she was about nine years old. Now, when they first arrived in Medina, a lot of the Sahaba actually became ill. They were ill because Medina was known to have like a different climate to Mecca, or it just had certain different. They were basically very homesick as well. You know, they had to leave Mecca in a very unceremonious way. They had to leave in a very secretive way under a lot of danger. And then once they arrived in Medina, they, some of them got fever and, you know, were affected by the ill health. And Aisha actually narrates about this. She witnessed this as well. She said, I mean, she says that she heard that, you know, the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, made this dua. He prayed for his companions who had made the Hijrah. He said, "My Lord, make us love Medina as much as or more than you made us love Mecca. Make this city a land of health and abundance. Bless its sa' and its mudd, and remove its fever and take it to Juhfah." So sa' and mudd are our measurements, you know, like things that you use to measure food in Medina. So he said, "Bless its, like, bless its kilograms and its, I don't know, its pounds." You know, that's what it means. So they're like these measure, measuring jugs or measuring amounts for food, usually food and gold and things like that in Medina.
So this dua, this supplication of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, of course, is what makes Medina so blessed. You know, even today, it's known as such a, it's such a wonderful city. People go there and they just feel at home straight away. Medina has a very friendly atmosphere. It has a very kind of, people feel like they've come home when they go there. And I think part of that is this dua of the Prophet, because he said, "Make us love Medina more than Mecca, even, right?" And Aisha said that, you know, Abu Bakr and Bilal both especially had become ill and they were missing Mecca. And so, you know, the Prophet was making dua for them.
And then Aisha says, now we have this beautiful narration of the Prophet where he talks about a dream that he had. And this may have happened before, okay, but I'm mentioning it now. He said to Aisha, and Aisha narrates this, that "You were shown to me twice in a dream. I saw you pictured on a piece of silk, and someone said to me, 'This is your wife.' When I uncovered the picture, I saw that it was you, and I said to myself, 'If this is from Allah, it will come to pass.'" Okay. So this probably happened earlier, you know, but I'm mentioning it here. And so two years after the Prophet's arrival in Medina, Aisha moves in. And she used to say, you know, "The Prophet married me in Shawwal." Shawwal is the month before Ramadan, right? Ramadan, Shawwal. Sorry, after Ramadan. Shawwal is the month after Ramadan. And so she used to consider Shawwal very special. She said, "The Prophet married me in Shawwal and began living with me in Shawwal. So which of the Messenger of Allah's wives has been more fortunate than me?" So you can see that, you know, Aisha, she has personality. She's very observant. And this is one of the reasons that the scholars say that, you know, she was a blessing to the ummah, that in that she was young, but she was also very sharp in terms of her observations, right? And that's exactly what we needed as the Muslim ummah, because later on, she would become such a great narrator of hadith. And of course, we as the Muslims benefit today from all the narrations that she made.
Um, I want to highlight some lessons. I would say some things that maybe we can take away from today's session. And inshallah, next time, we'll go on to the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam's marriages, how he married other women, the relationship they had with Aisha, and the tumultuous relationship, I would say, sometimes, you know, and sometimes quite humorous, and also sometimes quite touching relationship that they had. Um, I think some of the lessons we can really gain from today's session and the last session is, number one, the importance of a father's role in a child, in a daughter's life. You know, I think Abu Bakr was very much Aisha's first teacher. Um, you know, they say that because he was an expert in lineage, and in those days, lineage was like history, right? If you knew somebody's lineage, you knew the stories and the facts about all of the tribes and where they had come from and the battles and all of this. And Abu Bakr was a real expert in that. He could, you know, if he knew somebody's name, he could tell them their history, basically. And so he would have, he also passed that down to Aisha, right? So I think it shows that, you know, the impact that he had. Also, we see from this story the culture of the Muslims, which is for men to look after women in society, right? So the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and Abu Bakr, they, once they had escaped, they were of course sending people back to take care of the women, bring them, you know, trustworthy men, and they sent trustworthy men to bring them, etc. I think it also shows us the faith of Abu Bakr, right? And the family that they were, the persecution that the Muslims went through. And I think for our times, it's a lesson because, you know, if the best people in history, if the best people went through that, and they had the courage to go through it, what we're going through sometimes, you know, when we face anti-Muslim hatred, etc., is not comparable, really. And so I think we should expect some of it. And reading their stories should help us to really feel stronger.
Um, it also, I think, shows you the bravery of the early Muslims, you know, the bravery of the early Muslims, their struggles. What, what I found very interesting is the interconnectedness of the Sahaba, you know, the companions, how related they were to one another. And sometimes those stories are lost when we're just narrating history, you know, the actual blood relationships they had with each other or relationships through marriage. I think one of the other lessons we can glean is that the Sharia adapts to time and place, right? Yeah, because we said, I think in the last session, that look, even though it was the norm in those times for people to get married young, right, it doesn't mean that that has to translate to every time and place, right? So, for example, in modern times, most Muslim countries will have a minimum age. They have their age of consent. They have, and it's higher than it was in the past. So local governments do have the right to make laws and policies that are appropriate for their times and their places, where the Sharia gives them that leeway. So I think it shows you the adaptive power of the Sharia.
And I think it would be good at this point, because now going forward, what's going to happen is we're going to start seeing some controversies crop up, right, between the Sahaba, between the companions. So I think it would be good for me to just highlight to everyone the status of the Sahaba. The status of the Sahaba. Now, in Christianity, you have the disciples, right? Jesus had disciples. And so the Sahaba are not dissimilar to that, okay? They were the disciples of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. But what should our attitude be towards the Sahaba? That's a question that, you know, people often have in their minds. So I'm just going to highlight that, actually, the special status of the Sahaba, because, you know, they were the ones who preserved the Quran, right? They were given the task of preserving and transmitting the Quran, preserving and transmitting the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And that's why they have a special status within our creed. You know, it's actually a creedal issue. It's not just, you know, an issue of, it's not just out of respect that we speak well of them.
From the Quran itself, Allah tells us in the Quran, in Surah Al-Fath: "Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. And those with him are severe against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and falling down prostrate in prayer, seeking bounty from Allah and His pleasure. And then the verse goes on, and it really describes the Sahaba, you know, how important they are, what their characteristics are." So this is one of the verses that really cements the status of the companions of the Prophet. And the companions are those who met the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, or saw him, you know, in a state of Islam. So they were adults and they were Muslims at the time when they met and saw him, or spent some time with him. Right? What that means is that anyone who was a child, probably below the age of seven, would not automatically be considered a Sahabi, would not be considered a companion, because they might not even remember the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Had a like a separate category, if you like, for people who were very, very young or babies, you know, at the time of the Prophet. But generally speaking, you'd have to be, you know, an adult, or at least over the age of seven, at least over, you know, the age of discernment, and you would need to have been a Muslim at the time when you met the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and spent some time with him. And that is what would give you the status of being a disciple, a Sahabi of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And of course, there were females as well.
Also, Allah says about the Sahabah, right? He, he actually said, "Allah is pleased with those believers who," you know, "they gave the bay'ah, they gave the pledge of allegiance to the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, under the tree." So, in this verse, Allah again emphasizes that He is pleased with them. That's why we say when we mention the names of the Sahabah, we say, "May God be pleased with them," or "God is pleased with them." So, and and we can see why. It's because of their loyalty. It's because of the, you know, the early Muslims, especially, they were given a very high status because they became Muslim at a time when it wasn't popular. It wasn't easy. So their loyalty, their status is very much cemented. And what that means for us is that we have to be very careful when we talk about the Sahaba, not to criticize them, not to cast any aspersions on them, because they were all trustworthy and truthful people. Also, any controversies that came up between them, okay, we have to be very careful. So, as you might know, there are some groups of Muslims who are very critical of some of the Sahaba, right? Some sects, I mean. And anyone who casts aspersions on the character of the Sahaba, or curses the Sahaba, or says anything that would put any kind of doubt on their intentions, that is something that can take a person outside of the fold of Islam, right? Unequivocally, because the Sahaba were trustworthy, trustworthy, as established in the Quran and in the books of creed. And any problems that happened between them, and some of them we might highlight in future episodes, we don't doubt that they had those differences of opinion in good faith. And I think that's that's the important thing, you know. Doesn't mean they didn't make any mistakes. They were not angels. They were not prophets. They were humans. But I think what we have to be able to hold in our heads is that they might have, some of them might have made mistakes. They might have had their own judgment, their own ijtihad that they were using for different religious reasons, for different situations, especially after the death of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam. We don't cast aspersions on their intentions, but they might have made mistakes, and we can learn from that. You know, we can learn from their human experiences. And inshallah, I think that would be a good place for us to end today's session. Inshallah, we'll carry on next time. Look very much look forward to the continuing story. This is a series, as I said at the beginning, titled Lessons from the Life of Aisha, Mother of the Believers. It's an absolutely fascinating life for all sorts of reasons, of perennial interest, perhaps especially today, really. What about you, Paul? Is there anything that from what we've said today, I know you've already made some points, but is there anything that really, I don't know, stands out for you or that made you think?
Well, what I'm looking forward to particularly is her role as a scholar, actually, as a transmitter of the facts about the Prophet's life, effectively transmitting hadith. So, so many important hadith come from her, go through her, her knowledge, and the way she has such a specialist knowledge of the Sunnah of the Prophet, upon whom be peace. That, for me, is the most significant thing about her life. And of course, her character, her high intelligence, her, the way she's quite sharp mentally, and in many ways, she's a heroine, really, I think, for the ummah. And she's called as the Mother of the Believers, so she's definitely worth reflecting on and pondering her life for many, many reasons. Yeah. And maybe next time, we'll also talk about what does "Mother of the Believers" actually mean, you know? Oh, yeah, that could be something we start with. And you're right, like, you know, the reason why we're really going through her backstory is because obviously, a person's backstory is what builds them, right? And I think it will really help to understand her psychology and the way that she did things once we appreciate the family she came from, what she witnessed as a child, you know, and growing up, and the various stages that she had witnessed and gone through. Yeah. Because they obviously form part of her scholarship and her part, her her future. Yeah. And also the role of female scholars in general throughout history. I know one, one of, apparently, one of Ibn Taymiyyah's esteemed scholars was a female scholar. It's important just to stress this, actually, in case there's some imbalance in people's perception in the matter. Yeah. Later, we'll see that Aisha herself had many female students who she really taught, and they became later, became the advisors to the Caliphs, you know. She herself became an advisor to the Caliph Muawiyah, especially. So, yeah, all of that is to come. And so that's, to me, is the juiciest bit because it gets very, very, very interesting. But all of it is interesting. But that's, I think I'm looking forward to that the most. So grateful indeed for your time, your expertise. Did you have the books there with you? Physically? Can you hold them up to the camera? Uh, the books, you mean, the Aisha, my book? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Do you have your book to hand? Can you hold it up? I actually do not have my book. I have submitted it as a manuscript, and it is being published as we speak. It is being printed somewhere in Turkey, or I don't know, wherever, as we speak. So, as soon as I have the first copy, Blogging Theology viewers will be the first to see it. Excellent. Well, I'm very much looking forward to that. Yes. Sorry. Looking forward to that. Uh, yeah. And we'll have to showcase that and publicize that, inshallah, when you get it soon, hopefully. So, fantastic. Great. Well, that was very interesting indeed. Thank you so much for your time. And inshallah, we'll be back soon with another installment of the series titled Lessons from the Life of Aisha, Mother of the Believers. So until then, take care.