Gendering The Hadith Tradition: Recentring the Authority of Aisha, Mother of the Believers

‘The positions of Aisha have been tragically dulled through the canonization process, but not entirely obscured from the historical record,’ writes Sofia Rehman in her new book Gendering The Hadith Tradition: Recentring the Authority of Aisha, Mother of the Believers, which aims to explore the role of Aisha, wife of the Prophet Muhammad [PBUH], within the Islamic tradition. It argues that Aisha enjoyed much greater authority within the Muslim tradition prior to the 11th century, when the process of canonisation, which involved centring Sunni Muslim beliefs around certain texts, cut much of Aisha’s authority and a source of religious instruction out.  ‘Who we know Aisha as today is but a fraction of what there is to know of her.’ Rehman is not advocating for a rejection of Islamic tradition as received today, but reviving a much needed corrective to it; in medieval times, there was a very robust and rich tradition by Islamic scholars of hadiths, jurisprudence and philosophical criticism and critical inquiry.

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The help us understand the historical position Aisha enjoyed within pre-canonised Islam. Rehman draws upon the 14th century Mamluk-era, Cairo based Islamic scholar, Al-Zarkashi, whose book, The Corrective: Aisha’s Rectification of the Companions, aimed to push back against the reduction of Aisha’s role and authority. The book is untranslated into English and Gendering The Hadith offers an English translation of key parts of the book with commentary and context for them. While Gendering The Hadith is part of Islamic feminist scholarship, it departs from a lot of work done in feminist Islamic scholarship field. A key point Rehman makes is that, by relearning Aisha’s place within Islamic tradition, does not mean pitting gender equality religious readings against traditional readings. Rather, it would enable a fuller appreciation for Islamic traditions. What we receive today is only a partial version of Muslim religious tradition and the aim of Gendering The Hadith is to enable us to think about the parts we do not receive today. ‘Aisha, much like any iconic figure, including the Prophet, has seen her persona constructed and reconstructed repeatedly over time in response to a plethora of demands on her character.’

The Aisha we meet in Gendering The Hadith is one of the most important figures in early Islam. She is an important source on the life of the Prophet [PBUH]. Aisha also offers important contributions to moral and ethical questions, a judicial source and a key figure in the hadith narration tradition. She would often disagree with and offer corrections to other companions and early Caliphs. For example, Ibn Umar, a companion of the Prophet, attended a funeral and requested the mourners stop crying as God punishes the deceased for their wailing relatives. When the claim was mentioned to Aisha, she asked God to have mercy over Umar and that he had incorrectly quoted the Prophet [PBUH]. Aisha pointed out no one carries the burdens of someone else’s sin, but the correct quote referred to a disbeliever being cried over by relatives. Aisha was demonstrating her superior knowledge over a companion and her ability to reason, too. Al-Zarkashi recants a number of places where Aisha corrects the other companions, whether it was in matters of the Sunnah, Hadith or Qu’ran, she has a deep knowledge of all of these areas. ‘Aisha relies on in measuring the statements and predicaments brought before her … she has a certain criteria upon which she relies when engaging in a juridical exercise.’  She was also a Hadith master who was able to take on the likes of Abu Hurayra and challenged some of his understandings and approaches.

The Aisha we encounter in Gendering The Hadith is an important religious figure who is intellectually engaged with the challenges of her day and offers insight into ways to approach and understand Islamic teaching. The book offers much food for thought and complicated simplistic reductions of Islam’s rich traditions; the downgrading of Aisha in terms of her contribution to Islamic knowledge and sciences was not solely due to one factor, but happened for a combination of reasons as the book explores. While the full tradition of Aisha cannot be fully recreated, according to the author, as much of it has been lost and we are not sure of what it would be, what we do know about her offers a chance to rethink modern orthodoxy through an expanded tradition that is a living breathing thing. Gendering The Hadith offers a guide to thinking about how Aisha could enable us today to think more holistically about what tradition offers us today.   

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