Aisha bint Abi Bakr

Daughter of the Prophet’s ﷺ closest friend, Aisha was his only wife not previously married, and the most beloved to him of them — asked openly who was dearest to him, he named her; asked "and among men?", he answered: "her father."

Her quarters adjoined the mosque, placing her at the centre of revelation and teaching for a decade. Quick, retentive, and unafraid to ask, she absorbed the Prophet’s ﷺ practice in the settings no man could witness — and revelation more than once descended in her presence, including the verses of tayammum, occasioned by her lost necklace on a journey.

She was also the subject of the community’s most painful trial of tongue: the slander of al-Ifk, when hypocrites accused her falsely on a journey home. Allah Himself declared her innocence in verses recited to this day (24:11–26) — an exoneration from above the seven heavens.

The Prophet ﷺ spent his final illness in her room by the agreement of his other wives, and died resting against her. He was buried in that room, where Abu Bakr and Umar were later buried beside him.

For nearly fifty years after his death, Aisha was one of the ummah’s foremost teachers: transmitting more than 2,200 hadith, correcting misunderstandings of the Prophet’s ﷺ practice, issuing legal verdicts across the reigns of four caliphs, and training the generation of Madinan scholars who systematized fiqh. The senior companions themselves brought their hardest questions to her.

She was drawn into the fitna at the battle of the Camel (36 AH), a role she deeply regretted for the rest of her life — and Sunni tradition mentions it, as it mentions all the companions’ trials, with restraint and prayers for Allah’s pleasure upon them.