Āʾishah

 In full ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr, (born 614, Mecca, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died July 678, Medina), the third wife of the Prophet Muhammad (the founder of Islam), who played a role of some political importance after the Prophet’s death. All Muhammad’s marriages had political motivations, and in this case the intention seems to have been to cement ties with ʿĀʾishah’s father, Abū Bakr, who was one of Muhammad’s most important supporters. ʿĀʾishah’s physical charms, intelligence, and wit, together with the genuine warmth of their relationship, secured her a place in his affections that was not lessened by his subsequent marriages. It is said that in 627 she accompanied the Prophet on an expedition but became separated from the group. When she was later escorted back to Medina by a man who had found her in the desert, Muhammad’s enemies claimed that she had been unfaithful. A subsequent Qurʾānic revelation asserted her innocence; the Qurʾān furthermore criticized and stipulated punishment for those who slander virtuous women. Āʾishah had no important influence on her husband’s political or religious policies while he lived, but he is said to have recognized her knowledge of Islam by counseling his Companions to “take half your knowledge from Humayra,” Humayra (“Little Red One”) being his term of endearment for her. When Muhammad died in 632, ʿĀʾishah was left a childless widow of about 18, although some sources suggest she was older. She remained politically inactive until the time of ʿUthmān (644–656; the third caliph, or leader of the Islamic community), during whose reign she played an important role in fomenting opposition that led to his murder in 656. She led an army against his successor, ʿAlī, when he refused to bring ʿUthmān’s murderers to justice, but she was defeated in the Battle of the Camel. The engagement derived its name from the fierce fighting that centred around the camel upon which ʿĀʾishah was mounted. Afterward she was allowed to return to Medina. She spent the rest of her days there in disbursing alms, transmitting Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet), and interpreting the Qurʾān.

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Abū Bakr

 Called also al-Ṣiddīq (Arabic: “the Upright”), (born 573—died August 23, 634), Muhammad’s closest companion and adviser, who succeeded to the Prophet’s political and administrative functions, thereby initiating the office of the caliph. Of a minor clan of the ruling merchant tribe of Quraysh at Mecca, Abū Bakr purportedly was the first male convert to Islam, but this view is doubted by a majority of Muslim historians. Abū Bakr’s prominence in the early Muslim community was clearly marked by Muhammad’s marriage to Abū Bakr’s young daughter ʿĀʾishah and again by Muhammad’s choosing Abū Bakr as his companion on the journey to Medina (the Hijrah, 622). In Medina he was Muhammad’s chief adviser (622–632) but functioned mainly in conducting the pilgrimage to Mecca in 631 and leading the public prayers in Medina during Muhammad’s last illness. On Muhammad’s death (June 8, 632), the Muslims of Medina resolved the crisis of succession by accepting Abū Bakr as the first khalīfat rasūl Allāh (“deputy [or successor] of the Prophet of God,” or caliph). During his rule (632–634), he suppressed the tribal political and religious uprisings known as the riddah (“political rebellion,” sometimes translated as “apostasy”), thereby bringing central Arabia under Muslim control. Under his rule the Muslim conquests of Iraq and Syria began, although it is not clear whether he himself was aware of these military forays from the beginning. The first written compilation of the Quʾrān is said to have taken place during Abū Bakr’s caliphate, after the deaths of several Quʾrān reciters in the Battle of Yamama raised the possibility that parts of the text could be lost and ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (Abū Bakr’s eventual successor as caliph) urged Abū Bakr to have the Quʾrān written down. During his last illness, Abū Bakr was nursed by ʿĀʾishah. As he requested, he was buried in ʿĀʾishah’s apartment, close to where her husband, the Prophet Muhammad, had been buried in accordance with Muhammad’s reported utterance that a prophet should be buried where he dies.

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Uthmān ibn ʿAffān

 (died June 17, 656, Medina, Arabian Peninsula), third caliph to rule after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. He centralized the administration of the caliphate and established an official version of the Qurʾān. ʿUthmān is critically important in Islamic history because his death marked the beginning of open religious and political conflicts within the Islamic community (see fitnah).ʿUthmān was born into the rich and powerful Umayyad clan of Mecca, and he became a wealthy merchant. When Muhammad began preaching in Mecca about 615 CE, he soon aroused the hostility of the Umayyads, but about five years later ʿUthmān accepted Muhammad and thus became the first convert of high social and economic standing. Muhammad valued this contact with the Meccan aristocracy, and he allowed ʿUthmān to marry one of his daughters. ʿUthmān rarely displayed energy or initiative, however, and his role in the first years of Islamic history was passive. Umar, the second caliph, died in 644, and ʿUthmān was elected successor by a council named by ʿUmar before his death. Apparently ʿUthmān was selected as a compromise, when the more powerful candidates cancelled each other out. He also represented the Umayyad clan, which had suffered a partial eclipse during the Prophet’s lifetime but was now reasserting its influence. As caliph ʿUthmān promulgated an official recension of the Qurʾān, which had existed in various versions. ʿUthmān followed the same general policies as ʿUmar but had a less forceful personality than his predecessor. He continued the conquests that had steadily increased the size of the Islamic empire, but the victories now came at a greater cost and brought less wealth in return. ʿUthmān tried to create a cohesive central authority to replace the loose tribal alliance that had emerged under Muhammad. He established a system of landed fiefs and distributed many of the provincial governorships to members of his family. Thus much of the treasure received by the central government went to ʿUthmān’s family and to other provincial governors rather than to the army. As a result of his policies, ʿUthmān was opposed by the army, and he was often dominated by his relatives—unlike ʿUmar, who had been strong enough to impose his authority on the governors, whatever their clan or tribe. By 650 rebellions had broken out in the provinces of Egypt and Iraq. In 655 a group of Egyptian malcontents marched upon Medina, the seat of caliphal authority. ʿUthmān, however, was conciliatory, and the rebels headed back to Egypt. Shortly thereafter, however, another group of rebels besieged ʿUthmān in his home, and, after several days of desultory fighting, he was killed.