Aisha’s Marriage and her Historic Role

Aisha’s Marriage and her Historic Role Mother of the Believers, they say that the narrator made a mistake in hearing: the phrase spoken was tis‘a ‘ashar— nineteen—but the narrator heard only tis‘a—nine. In this way, the story arose that Aisha was nine years old, for ears sometimes make mistakes in hearing. (Habib al-Rahman Siddiqui Kandhlawi, ‘Umar e Aisha, Karachi, October 1994, pp. 8-9) This analogy, too, is not correct. The principle referred to above could apply to a narration of Aisha al-Siddiqah only if both the narrator and the person questioning the report had personally heard the original statement. One listener may say of another listener that he made a mistake in hearing, and that, according to what I heard, the actual statement was different. But a person who was not present and did not hear the statement himself has no right to reject a narration on the basis of such an analogy. This kind of reasoning is wholly unsound. If such an extended analogy is accepted as a valid principle, people may produce all kinds of conjectures that could distort the entire form of religion. The proper starting point of discussion in this matter is not why a young girl was married to a much older man. Rather, the proper starting point is to understand why Aisha al-Siddiqah became such an exceptional figure in history. The question of her marriage must be understood in the light of her exceptional historical role, not the other way around.