Born: 613 or 614, Saudi Arabia
Died: 678
Country most active: Saudi Arabia
Also known as: عائشة بنت أبي بكر,ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr
The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in 1879 and shared online by Project Gutenberg.
Ayesha, daughter of Caliph Abubeker, was the favourite wife of the Prophet. After the death of her husband she lived in retirement, for twenty years, at Medina. But she possessed a restless, ambitious spirit, and had no inclination for a life of repose and obscurity. After the sudden murder of Caliph Othman, in 654, when Ali was elected, she refused to acknowledge the latter, and declared her belief that he had a share in the murder of his predecessor. The nation, divided into opposing factions, was soon plunged into civil war. The malcontents, headed by Ayesha, assembled in thousands at Mecca, and marched thence to Bassorah, where they expected to find warm support.
Arrived before Bassorah they were astounded to find the gates shut against them. Ayesha, mounted on a camel, advanced to the walls and harangued those assembled on the battlements. But she was old and crabbed, with sharp features and a shrill voice—rendered even more shrill by the rapidity with which she spoke,—so the people only laughed at her. The louder they laughed, the shriller her accents grew. They reproached her for riding forth, bare-faced, to foment dissension among the Faithful; and they jeered at her followers for bringing their old grandmother in place of their young and handsome wives.
However, a number of the citizens were secretly in favour of the malcontents; and the friends of Ayesha seized the palace one dark night, bastinadoed the governor, plucked out his beard, and sent him back to his master. Great, however, was the dismay of Ayesha when the Caliph encamped one morning before Bassorah; but, resolved not to give way, she rejected the proposals of Ali, and plunged both armies into a fierce engagement before very well knowing what she was about. But terrified at the horrors of war, to which until this day she was almost a stranger, the old woman besought Kaub, who led her camel, to throw himself between the combatants. In trying to obey her command he was slain.
The large white camel of Ayesha soon became the rallying-point of the insurgents, around which the fury of the battle concentrated. The reins were held alternately by the Modian Arabs, who chanted pieces of poetry; and it is said that out of the tribe of Benni Beiauziah alone not less than two hundred and eighty lost a hand on this occasion. The howdah, pierced all over with arrows, had something the appearance of a porcupine or a giant pincushion.
After the battle had raged for several hours, the Caliph, seeing plainly that it would go on so long as the camel remained alive, ordered his chiefs to direct all their efforts towards cutting down the beast. First one leg was cut off; but the camel maintained its erect position. Another leg was cut off; yet the animal remained immovable. For a moment the soldiers of Ali thought the camel was a sorcerer or a genie. But a third leg was cut off, and the camel sank to the ground.
The battle soon ended; all resistance ceased when the insurgents knew that their leader was taken. Ali treated his prisoner with that true chivalry which had already sprung up amongst the Arabs. He sent her home to Medina, escorted by female attendants disguised as soldiers, and while he lived she was not permitted to meddle in politics. After the murder of Ali she resumed her former position. Many years after, when Moawyah wished to make the Caliphate hereditary in his family, he purchased the influence of Ayesha by the gift of a pair of bracelets valued at one hundred and fifty thousand dinars, or nearly seventy thousand pounds.
The “Battle of the Camel,” as it is generally styled by Oriental historians, was fought in December, A.D. 656, (A.H. 36.)
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
AYESHA, The Second, and most beloved of all Mahomet’s wives, was the daughter of Abubeker, the first caliph, and the successor of Mahomet. She was the only one of all his wives who had never been married to any other man; but she was only nine when she was espoused by him. She had no children; but his affection for her continued till death, and he expired in her arms. After his death she was regarded with great veneration by the Mussulmen, as being filled with an extraordinary portion of Mahomet’s spirit. They gave her the title of “Mother of the Faithful,” and consulted her on important occasions. Ayesha entertained a strong aversion for the caliph Othman; and she had actually formed a plot to dethrone him, with the intention of placing in his stead her favourite Telha, when Othman was assassinated, by another enemy in a sedition.
The succession of All was strongly opposed by Ayesha. Joined by Telha and Zobier at Mecca, she raised a revolt, under pretence of avenging the murder of Othman; an army was levied, which marched towards Bassora, while Ayesha, at its head, was borne in a litter on a camel of great strength. On arriving at a village called Jowab, she was saluted with the loud barking of the dogs of the place, which reminding her of a prediction of the prophet, in which the dogs of Jowab were mentioned, so intimidated her that she declared her resolution not to advance a step; and it was not till a number of persons had been suborned to swear that the village had been wrongly named to her, and till the artifice had been employed of terrifying her with a report of Ali’s being in the rear, that she was prevailed on to proceed.
When the revolters reached Bassora, they were refused admittance into the city. In the end, however, they gained possession. All assembled an army, and marched against Ayesha, who violently opposed all pacific counsels, and resolved to proceed to the utmost extremity. A fierce battle ensued, In which Telha and Zobier were slain. The combat raged about Ayesha’s camel, and an Arabian writer says, that the hands of seventy men, who successively held its bridle, were cut off, and that her litter was stuck so full of darts, as to resemble a porcupine. The camel, from which this day’s fight takes its name, was at length hamstrung, and Ayesha became a captive. Ali treated her with great respect, and sent her to Medina, on condition that she should live peaceably at home, and not intermeddle with state affairs.
Her resentment afterwards appeared In her refusal to suffer Hassan, the unfortunate son of Ali, to be buried near the tomb of the prophet, which was her property. She seems to have regained her influence in the reign of the caliph Moawiyah. She died in the fifty-eighth year of the Hegira, A. D. 677, aged sixty-seven; having constantly experienced a high degree of respect from the followers of Mahomet, except at the time of her imprudent expedition against Ali.