The Woman Who Remembered
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Welcome. Imagine if everything you knew about a great person’s private life came from one witness. The way he spoke at home. The way he prayed at night. The way he treated children, and servants, and his wife.
For much of what we know about the Prophet ﷺ at home, that witness was A’ishah.
More than a thousand years ago, a scholar in Baghdad decided to gather her narrations into one book. His name was Ibn Abi Dawud. His father was Abu Dawud, the compiler of one of the six great books of hadith. And the son became a great scholar in his own right, so respected that the ruler set up a pulpit for him to teach from.
He was not without critics. Some of his rivals spoke against him, and even a harsh word of his own father was quoted. But the great historian al-Dhahabi explained that this was about his youth, not his hadith, and that he became one of the most trusted memorisers of his age.
His book is called simply, Musnad A’ishah. The hadith of A’ishah.
And as we turn its pages, a door opens. The door of a small room beside the mosque of Madinah, where the Messenger of Allah lived as a husband.
