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I think there is confusion here over words and their meaning: In modern English, marriage mostly means consummation, or is simultaneous with it. However, it was a tradition in Arabia, as it is still in many places in the world, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to have a legal ceremony (e.g. Ketubah in Judaism, "Half a Garland" for Coptic Christians, ...etc.). The actual consummation was done later. It could be a week later, or a few months, or even years. In the case of Aisha, it was after she reached puberty, at nine. So to say that she married at six is inaccurate, since they did not live together as husband and wife nor had sex until she was 9. Here is a reference from Sahih Al Bukhari : Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death). It is also clear from Ibn Hajar's commentary (Arabic) [1] that it was Abu Bakr, Aisha's father, who prompted Muhammad to consummate the marriage, saying "what is holding you from consummating your marraige with your wife"? It was a normal thing to do in 7th century Arabia and other places in the world. -- KB 02:58, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)
Aisha's age is of enormous importance if she was 9 when they had sex then she was raped
I find it disappointing that, due to the insecurities of a minority of Muslims, the neutrality and integrity of the article is bound to suffer. The age of Muhammad and Ayesha at and later consummation of that marriage is well attested to by the most genuine/strong narrations and we are as close to undisputedness as can be. Part of maintaining Wikipedia is confronting those individuals who let their personal beliefs distort and prevent an unbiased encyclopedia. Usedbook 19:44, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Hi and peace to everybody. Im a shia, and added some more text to the article. I expect i to be un-appreciated by sunnis, even though i only quote sunni sources. Mostly since i bring up events that sunnis rather would like to forget. It would be intresting to get some feedback from sunnis but also from non-muslims.
Thx for your time Zora, and i apologise for my horrible spelling and grama. Im glad you can help me whith that.
I took a fast look at the changes,and it maide me feel that some important point where lost. Ill bring them up here in the dissusion page later on. Thanks.
-- Striver 23:13, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The vast majority of Islamic scholars do believe that Aisha was indeed nine at the age of consumation, so that being the case it seems to be misleading if this article gives quotes that suggest an alternative age first, and only later on does it give quotes that the mainstream Muslim scholars believe
Moreover, my version of the article mentions the sunni Muslim view on top, then it gives alternative evidence that contradict that claim .. latter it gives hadith that support sunni Muslim view .. Your version doesn't even mention the contradictory evidence until the very end. That alone is strong reason to reject your version OneGuy 09:34, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Every quote mentions Aisha. Such as, According to Ibn Ishaq's (d. 768), Aisha accepted Islam before Umar ibn al-Khattab.
You see the word Aisha there?
Tabari reports that when Abu Bakr planned on migrating to Ethiopia (8 years before Hijrah), he went to Mut`am - with whose son Aisha was engaged at that time - and asked him to take Aisha as his son's wife. Mut`am refused because Abu Bakr had converted to Islam. If Aisha was only six years old at the time of her marriage, she could not have been born at the time Abu Bakr decided on migrating to Ethiopia.
Do you see the word Aisha there?
You can read the read the rest of the quotes yourself. The fact is that my version is more neutral. It starts with mentioning the narrations by Aisha that she was six. It then gives contradictory evince, and ends with quotes from Bukhari. Your version doesn't even mention these strong contradictory evidence, including Ibn Ishaq .. till the very end. Obviously my version presents both sides and is balanced. Your version doesn't. It tries to hide the evidence till very end OneGuy 10:04, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree with OneGuy's ordering of the facts, it makes more sense to allow the article to counterargument the stated facts on Aisha's age first. As there is more information supporting the initial argument to follow this up. Hiding the counterargument below a large list of sources makes it less relevant than it should be in this article. -- [[User:Solitude| Solitude\ talk]] 11:05, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
Vandal wants the references. These are Arabic original sources. The Arabic is clearly posted here:
http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.asp?type=discussion&did=89
Post proof that these quotes are not accurate. OneGuy 12:22, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Notice vandal 168.209.97.34 is deleting material from the article because he doesn't have the book and can't check it. That really makes sense! Buy the book. Ask some other people to check it for you. Do not delete material because you don't have books or can't read arabic OneGuy 13:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You are going to delete material from wiki pages because you don't have the books to verify something. And that makes sense to you. Hmm OneGuy 14:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Look, I can stay here for the next 24 hours. I have a lot of free time, as you must have noticed. Either you can continue this revert war or we can make a comprise. You want to add the quotes from Bukhari on top. Fine, but you need to mention the information is disputed in the first two/three paragraphs. And do not delete the sources I posted. References are clearly cited. You can check it by asking someone who has access to these sources, such as http://answering-islam.org OneGuy 14:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
168.209.97.34 search for Ibn Hisham and Sira. You are searching the book name. Arabic names can be transliterated in several ways into English. OneGuy 14:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Gone? But since I know you will be back next day, let me repeat it again. We can revert this article forever, or we can comprise. You can post Bukhari quotes on top. Given, (1) mention somewhere in the first three paragraphs that some traditions give contradictory age. (2) do not delete the contradictory evidence that I posted. The references are cited and can be checked. If you can't check them, ask someone, your Christian apologist friends, to check them. If not, well, then we can start all over again tomorrow ... OneGuy 16:33, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
My take on the edit war is simple: OneGuy is right, anon is trying to suppress information from an earlier period which is rather more reliable than the hadiths in question. However, when this page gets unprotected, one thing does need to be changed: Aisha means "living", not "life". - Mustafaa 09:57, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Mr. 168 etc., this is NUTS. Of course Ibn Ishaq is a real book. I have it, in English. The Life of Muhammad, a translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, with Introduction and Notes by A. Guillaume. Oxford University Press, 16th printing, 2003. Available for $30.95 from Powell's. Order it and read it. That should take you a few months. I haven't finished it myself; 800 pages of teeny tiny print is a lot of reading.
I'm not a Muslim, I'll never BE a Muslim, I'm a Buddhist, thank you, and my only axe to grind in these discussions is accuracy and NPOV. I don't want the various Islamic articles to slip into pious brochures, as they sometimes tend to do, and I don't want them to be anti-Islamic diatribes either. This is a hard balance to strike, given the current political situation, but I think it can be done. You're not helping. Please please come back when you've read something besides various hate-filled web sites, take a username, and be prepared to compromise, if only in the usual Wikipedia way of "A says X and B says not-X". If you want to be A, let B lay out his argument instead of trying to pervert or delete it. Zora 11:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
With OneGuy, as you will see by his posts, it is either his way or no way. He will even get into an edit war to get his way. One thing though, I'm sure you have just made him very happy with your comment. Maybe you two can become a dynamic duo. BTW.. you should consider converting to Islam, it would suit you well. 168.209.97.34 11:18, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Now it's a little more NPOV." - for which we can thank Zora and OneGuy, not you. OneGuy's edits have considerably improved the article, supplying the full contect of the debate instead of dealing with it in two somewhat inaccurate sentences. - Mustafaa 11:30, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually, Ibn Ishaq is available online, at Al-Warraq, along with several hundred other major classical Arabic works - in both recensions, Ibn Hisham's and at-Tabari's. Too bad you can't read Arabic, huh? Fortunately, you can always pay the 30 bucks. - Mustafaa 11:45, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Please can you all get usernames, so it's easier to talk to all of you? It looks like you are all getting cites to back up your positions, which is well and good when controversial topics are being edited. I'm glad that the discussion here is getting somewhere, and it looks like it should soon be safe to unprotect this page.
I'd just like to make one request: when the page is editable again, can we put the discussion of her age at marriage and consummation further down the article, not at the start? I know that the age debate is highly contentious, and it has a place in this article for that reason (the controversy is notable in itself), but a more comprehensive biography of Aisha should precede it. -- Karada 11:33, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I concur - the extensive section on the sources deserves its own subheading at this point. As for the other point, there's only one anonymous editor here, which at least reduces confusion... - Mustafaa 11:34, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
On page 116 of the English version, there's a list of the people who accepted Islam after the first eight men (who included Abu Bakr). In the list are:
Asma d. Abu Bakr together with his little daughter Aisha.
So that would be sometime around 613. The narrative proceeds chronologically, and some pages later we have the emigration to Abyssinia and the conversion of Umar, sometime around 615, page 155.
We don't know how little is little, but presumably Aisha was something more than an infant, since she is said to accepted Islam. Perhaps she was old enough to speak? Two or three years old? If she was born in 610-611, and the Hegira was in 622, and she was married sometime in the year after the Hegira, that puts her age at anything from eleven to twelve or even older. Since 12-14 is the average age of menarche, and she is supposed to have reached puberty before she entered Muhammad's household, that would seem a likely chronology. (Re marrying at 12 -- in my biography of Guru Dutt, the famous Indian film director, the author notes that the director's mother was married at the age of 12, just after she reached puberty. This is not unusual, however strange it may seem to Westerners.)
The other point I should make, as an anthropologist, is that Ibn Ishaq doesn't give dates. It's just this happened and that happened, in sequence. All the dating comes later, as later Muslim commentators counted years from the Hegira, before the Hegira, correlated this and that, and finally came up with chronologies. Before universally accepted calendars, people date by significant events. (It says in Ibn Ishaq that Muhammad was born in the year of the elephant.) Or by years before and after significant events. So it's possible that Aisha might not really have known when she was born, or how old she was, and that when she said "9", she wasn't exaggerating so much as guessing.
I'm pushing this argument because based on a lot of reading in anthropology and history, it was extremely common for betrothals or formal marriages to be contracted while the principals were still pre-pubescent, and that consummation of the marriage would be delayed until after puberty. If Muhammad's marriage was arranged with Aisha's family, and delayed until she grew up, it seems to me extremely likely that she would have been post-pubescent and at least 12. Muslims are stuck with the 9-year-old figure because they don't dare question hadith. Other scholars can be more iconoclastic.
I should add that I've spent hours poring over Ibn Ishaq trying to find info re Muhammad's marriages, and it's in short supply. No one is much interested in Muhammad's wives. Instead, every single raid or military engagement is described in detail, together with lists of the dead and wounded. Apparently this is the sort of thing Muslim warriors liked to remember. Zora 13:40, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Since 168.209.97.34 wanted the reference in English, here it is:
History of al-Tabari Vol. 11
http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=52359
It will only cost you $24.95 for Paperback.
On page 141, it says that all four of Abu Bakr's children were born during the pre-Islamic period. There is text note (by the translators?) that says that Aisha would have been no younger than thirteen years old if she were born pre-Jahiliyyah. The note also points out that this contradicts other part where he quotes Aisha that she was nine. OneGuy 15:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In light of the discussion here, I've worked off-line to revamp the article. I gave an expanded bio of Aisha first and put the debate re her age at the bottom. I gave the pro-9-year-old-versions first and the conflicting versions second. I also included Sunni and Shia views of Aisha (which are quite different). Would everyone be OK with letting me post it and leaving it up for ONE DAY, while we argue on the talk page, before starting to play revert war again? Zora 23:42, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've extensively rewritten the article and it's posted, temporarily on my talk page. Just click on my sig and go check it out. But please argue here, instead of on my talk page! Zora 06:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Shi'a historians take a much dimmer view of Aisha. They believe that 'Ali should have been the first caliph, and that the other three caliphs were usurpers. Aisha not only supported the usurpers, she raised an army against her son-in-law. In doing so, she meddled inappropriately in the affairs of men, rather than being a properly modest and retiring woman.
Who said this? Whose interpretation is it? In general, aside from that one line, this article is remarkably NPOV. -- Alberuni 07:13, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I think there is confusion here over words and their meaning: In modern English, marriage mostly means consummation, or is simultaneous with it. However, it was a tradition in Arabia, as it is still in many places in the world, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to have a legal ceremony (e.g. Ketubah in Judaism, "Half a Garland" for Coptic Christians, ...etc.). The actual consummation was done later. It could be a week later, or a few months, or even years. In the case of Aisha, it was after she reached puberty, at nine. So to say that she married at six is inaccurate, since they did not live together as husband and wife nor had sex until she was 9. Here is a reference from Sahih Al Bukhari : Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death). It is also clear from Ibn Hajar's commentary (Arabic) [1] that it was Abu Bakr, Aisha's father, who prompted Muhammad to consummate the marriage, saying "what is holding you from consummating your marraige with your wife"? It was a normal thing to do in 7th century Arabia and other places in the world. -- KB 02:58, 2004 Aug 18 (UTC)
Aisha's age is of enormous importance if she was 9 when they had sex then she was raped
I find it disappointing that, due to the insecurities of a minority of Muslims, the neutrality and integrity of the article is bound to suffer. The age of Muhammad and Ayesha at and later consummation of that marriage is well attested to by the most genuine/strong narrations and we are as close to undisputedness as can be. Part of maintaining Wikipedia is confronting those individuals who let their personal beliefs distort and prevent an unbiased encyclopedia. Usedbook 19:44, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Hi and peace to everybody. Im a shia, and added some more text to the article. I expect i to be un-appreciated by sunnis, even though i only quote sunni sources. Mostly since i bring up events that sunnis rather would like to forget. It would be intresting to get some feedback from sunnis but also from non-muslims.
Thx for your time Zora, and i apologise for my horrible spelling and grama. Im glad you can help me whith that.
I took a fast look at the changes,and it maide me feel that some important point where lost. Ill bring them up here in the dissusion page later on. Thanks.
-- Striver 23:13, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The vast majority of Islamic scholars do believe that Aisha was indeed nine at the age of consumation, so that being the case it seems to be misleading if this article gives quotes that suggest an alternative age first, and only later on does it give quotes that the mainstream Muslim scholars believe
Moreover, my version of the article mentions the sunni Muslim view on top, then it gives alternative evidence that contradict that claim .. latter it gives hadith that support sunni Muslim view .. Your version doesn't even mention the contradictory evidence until the very end. That alone is strong reason to reject your version OneGuy 09:34, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Every quote mentions Aisha. Such as, According to Ibn Ishaq's (d. 768), Aisha accepted Islam before Umar ibn al-Khattab.
You see the word Aisha there?
Tabari reports that when Abu Bakr planned on migrating to Ethiopia (8 years before Hijrah), he went to Mut`am - with whose son Aisha was engaged at that time - and asked him to take Aisha as his son's wife. Mut`am refused because Abu Bakr had converted to Islam. If Aisha was only six years old at the time of her marriage, she could not have been born at the time Abu Bakr decided on migrating to Ethiopia.
Do you see the word Aisha there?
You can read the read the rest of the quotes yourself. The fact is that my version is more neutral. It starts with mentioning the narrations by Aisha that she was six. It then gives contradictory evince, and ends with quotes from Bukhari. Your version doesn't even mention these strong contradictory evidence, including Ibn Ishaq .. till the very end. Obviously my version presents both sides and is balanced. Your version doesn't. It tries to hide the evidence till very end OneGuy 10:04, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I agree with OneGuy's ordering of the facts, it makes more sense to allow the article to counterargument the stated facts on Aisha's age first. As there is more information supporting the initial argument to follow this up. Hiding the counterargument below a large list of sources makes it less relevant than it should be in this article. -- [[User:Solitude| Solitude\ talk]] 11:05, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
Vandal wants the references. These are Arabic original sources. The Arabic is clearly posted here:
http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.asp?type=discussion&did=89
Post proof that these quotes are not accurate. OneGuy 12:22, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Notice vandal 168.209.97.34 is deleting material from the article because he doesn't have the book and can't check it. That really makes sense! Buy the book. Ask some other people to check it for you. Do not delete material because you don't have books or can't read arabic OneGuy 13:35, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
You are going to delete material from wiki pages because you don't have the books to verify something. And that makes sense to you. Hmm OneGuy 14:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Look, I can stay here for the next 24 hours. I have a lot of free time, as you must have noticed. Either you can continue this revert war or we can make a comprise. You want to add the quotes from Bukhari on top. Fine, but you need to mention the information is disputed in the first two/three paragraphs. And do not delete the sources I posted. References are clearly cited. You can check it by asking someone who has access to these sources, such as http://answering-islam.org OneGuy 14:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
168.209.97.34 search for Ibn Hisham and Sira. You are searching the book name. Arabic names can be transliterated in several ways into English. OneGuy 14:00, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Gone? But since I know you will be back next day, let me repeat it again. We can revert this article forever, or we can comprise. You can post Bukhari quotes on top. Given, (1) mention somewhere in the first three paragraphs that some traditions give contradictory age. (2) do not delete the contradictory evidence that I posted. The references are cited and can be checked. If you can't check them, ask someone, your Christian apologist friends, to check them. If not, well, then we can start all over again tomorrow ... OneGuy 16:33, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
My take on the edit war is simple: OneGuy is right, anon is trying to suppress information from an earlier period which is rather more reliable than the hadiths in question. However, when this page gets unprotected, one thing does need to be changed: Aisha means "living", not "life". - Mustafaa 09:57, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Mr. 168 etc., this is NUTS. Of course Ibn Ishaq is a real book. I have it, in English. The Life of Muhammad, a translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, with Introduction and Notes by A. Guillaume. Oxford University Press, 16th printing, 2003. Available for $30.95 from Powell's. Order it and read it. That should take you a few months. I haven't finished it myself; 800 pages of teeny tiny print is a lot of reading.
I'm not a Muslim, I'll never BE a Muslim, I'm a Buddhist, thank you, and my only axe to grind in these discussions is accuracy and NPOV. I don't want the various Islamic articles to slip into pious brochures, as they sometimes tend to do, and I don't want them to be anti-Islamic diatribes either. This is a hard balance to strike, given the current political situation, but I think it can be done. You're not helping. Please please come back when you've read something besides various hate-filled web sites, take a username, and be prepared to compromise, if only in the usual Wikipedia way of "A says X and B says not-X". If you want to be A, let B lay out his argument instead of trying to pervert or delete it. Zora 11:05, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
With OneGuy, as you will see by his posts, it is either his way or no way. He will even get into an edit war to get his way. One thing though, I'm sure you have just made him very happy with your comment. Maybe you two can become a dynamic duo. BTW.. you should consider converting to Islam, it would suit you well. 168.209.97.34 11:18, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Now it's a little more NPOV." - for which we can thank Zora and OneGuy, not you. OneGuy's edits have considerably improved the article, supplying the full contect of the debate instead of dealing with it in two somewhat inaccurate sentences. - Mustafaa 11:30, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Actually, Ibn Ishaq is available online, at Al-Warraq, along with several hundred other major classical Arabic works - in both recensions, Ibn Hisham's and at-Tabari's. Too bad you can't read Arabic, huh? Fortunately, you can always pay the 30 bucks. - Mustafaa 11:45, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Please can you all get usernames, so it's easier to talk to all of you? It looks like you are all getting cites to back up your positions, which is well and good when controversial topics are being edited. I'm glad that the discussion here is getting somewhere, and it looks like it should soon be safe to unprotect this page.
I'd just like to make one request: when the page is editable again, can we put the discussion of her age at marriage and consummation further down the article, not at the start? I know that the age debate is highly contentious, and it has a place in this article for that reason (the controversy is notable in itself), but a more comprehensive biography of Aisha should precede it. -- Karada 11:33, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I concur - the extensive section on the sources deserves its own subheading at this point. As for the other point, there's only one anonymous editor here, which at least reduces confusion... - Mustafaa 11:34, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
On page 116 of the English version, there's a list of the people who accepted Islam after the first eight men (who included Abu Bakr). In the list are:
Asma d. Abu Bakr together with his little daughter Aisha.
So that would be sometime around 613. The narrative proceeds chronologically, and some pages later we have the emigration to Abyssinia and the conversion of Umar, sometime around 615, page 155.
We don't know how little is little, but presumably Aisha was something more than an infant, since she is said to accepted Islam. Perhaps she was old enough to speak? Two or three years old? If she was born in 610-611, and the Hegira was in 622, and she was married sometime in the year after the Hegira, that puts her age at anything from eleven to twelve or even older. Since 12-14 is the average age of menarche, and she is supposed to have reached puberty before she entered Muhammad's household, that would seem a likely chronology. (Re marrying at 12 -- in my biography of Guru Dutt, the famous Indian film director, the author notes that the director's mother was married at the age of 12, just after she reached puberty. This is not unusual, however strange it may seem to Westerners.)
The other point I should make, as an anthropologist, is that Ibn Ishaq doesn't give dates. It's just this happened and that happened, in sequence. All the dating comes later, as later Muslim commentators counted years from the Hegira, before the Hegira, correlated this and that, and finally came up with chronologies. Before universally accepted calendars, people date by significant events. (It says in Ibn Ishaq that Muhammad was born in the year of the elephant.) Or by years before and after significant events. So it's possible that Aisha might not really have known when she was born, or how old she was, and that when she said "9", she wasn't exaggerating so much as guessing.
I'm pushing this argument because based on a lot of reading in anthropology and history, it was extremely common for betrothals or formal marriages to be contracted while the principals were still pre-pubescent, and that consummation of the marriage would be delayed until after puberty. If Muhammad's marriage was arranged with Aisha's family, and delayed until she grew up, it seems to me extremely likely that she would have been post-pubescent and at least 12. Muslims are stuck with the 9-year-old figure because they don't dare question hadith. Other scholars can be more iconoclastic.
I should add that I've spent hours poring over Ibn Ishaq trying to find info re Muhammad's marriages, and it's in short supply. No one is much interested in Muhammad's wives. Instead, every single raid or military engagement is described in detail, together with lists of the dead and wounded. Apparently this is the sort of thing Muslim warriors liked to remember. Zora 13:40, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Since 168.209.97.34 wanted the reference in English, here it is:
History of al-Tabari Vol. 11
http://www.sunypress.edu/details.asp?id=52359
It will only cost you $24.95 for Paperback.
On page 141, it says that all four of Abu Bakr's children were born during the pre-Islamic period. There is text note (by the translators?) that says that Aisha would have been no younger than thirteen years old if she were born pre-Jahiliyyah. The note also points out that this contradicts other part where he quotes Aisha that she was nine. OneGuy 15:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
In light of the discussion here, I've worked off-line to revamp the article. I gave an expanded bio of Aisha first and put the debate re her age at the bottom. I gave the pro-9-year-old-versions first and the conflicting versions second. I also included Sunni and Shia views of Aisha (which are quite different). Would everyone be OK with letting me post it and leaving it up for ONE DAY, while we argue on the talk page, before starting to play revert war again? Zora 23:42, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've extensively rewritten the article and it's posted, temporarily on my talk page. Just click on my sig and go check it out. But please argue here, instead of on my talk page! Zora 06:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Shi'a historians take a much dimmer view of Aisha. They believe that 'Ali should have been the first caliph, and that the other three caliphs were usurpers. Aisha not only supported the usurpers, she raised an army against her son-in-law. In doing so, she meddled inappropriately in the affairs of men, rather than being a properly modest and retiring woman.
Who said this? Whose interpretation is it? In general, aside from that one line, this article is remarkably NPOV. -- Alberuni 07:13, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)