Aisha’s Observations on Hadith Reports

AISHA’S OBSERVATIONS ON HADITH REPORTS T he word istidrak literally means the correction of an error. A number of reports attributed to Aisha belong to this category. In them, she corrected the accounts of other narrators. When someone attributed a statement to the Prophet, Aisha would point out that he had not used those exact words and would explain what he had actually said. In Islamic literature, such clarifications are known as Aisha’s istidrakat. Hadith scholars have written several works on this subject. One well-known example is Ayn al-Isabah fi Istidrak Aishah ala al-Sahabah by al-Suyuti. The edition before me was published by Maktabat al-Ilm, Cairo, in 1409 AH. In this book, the author has collected fifty-two corrections made by Aisha. One such report relates that Aisha was told that Ibn Umar used to say that sudden death was a sign of God’s displeasure with believers. She replied, “May God forgive Ibn Umar. What the Prophet actually said was that