Refuting the Objections of Ayesha’s Advocates in Connection with her Role at Jamal

Refuting the Objections of Ayesha’s Advocates in Connection with her Role at Jamal

Whilst we will raise Ibn al Hashimi’s generic objections to the Shia view of Ayesha later on, this chapter addresses his specific objections in connection with our critique of her role at Jamal.

First Objection – The suggestion that Ayesha wanted to fight Imam Ali (as) is a Shia concocted fairy-tale

Ibn al Hashimi states:

One of the most common lies in regards to Aisha (رضّى الله عنها) is that she left her house to fight Ali (رضّى الله عنه) in the Battle of the Camel. This lie has been propagated so many times by the Shia scholars that people have started to think of this as fact. In the words of Ibn Khaldum: “The more a supposed ‘incident’ becomes popular, the more a network of unfounded tales and stories is woven around it.”

Reply One – If anyone is fond of perpetuating fairytales it is the Nawasib

The irony is we could say exactly the same with ibn al Hashimi’s ad nauseum claim that all Fitnah from the anti Uthman movement until the assassination of Maula Ali (as) was the brainchild of Abdullah Ibn Saba. This Nasibi has continually sought to play the same broken record player in his articles, knowing that these events are based around the narrations of Sayf ibn Umar whose unreliability as a hadith narrator has unanimous Sunni opinion. With the popularity of these narrations Nawasib have subsequently sought to expand on such lies to give further credibility to this fairy tale, to paraphrase Ibn Khaldun 

“The more a supposed ‘incident’ becomes popular, the more a network of unfounded tales and stories is woven around it.”

We would invite Ibn al Hashimi to examine his own methodology before slandering others.

Reply Two – Ayesha’s conduct evidences her desire to fight Imam Ali (as)

Perhaps we are being simple, but when Ayesha:

• convenes a meeting in her home, wherein discussions focus on fighting Ali (as) and recruiting men from Basrah, where Talhah has influence (cited in the previous chapter)
• refuses to negotiate with Ali (as) and in fact seeks to undermine his authority, be telling him through written correspondence that issues are non negotiable (cited in the previous chapter)
• appears with fighting men on a camel, thus acting as the mascot for a cause,

can we not interpret such conduct as evidence of her desire to fight Imam Ali (as)?

As we had stressed previously, had her intention been different she would have sought to enter into negotiations with Imam Ali (as) directly in Makka, not sought to give her backing to movement intent on overthrowing Imam Ali (as)!