ʿĀʾishah (bint Abī Bakr) summary

Learn about the life of Muhammad’s third wife, H.Uthmān ibn ʿUthmān

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ʿĀʾishah (bint Abī Bakr), (born 614, Mecca, Arabia—died July 678, Medina), Third wife of Muhammad. The daughter of his supporter Abū Bakr, she became Muhammad’s favourite wife. Left a childless widow at 18, she became politically active during the reign of the third caliph, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, leading the opposition that resulted in his murder in 656. She led an army against his successor, ʿAlī, who defeated her in the Battle of the Camel. She was allowed to live her remaining years quietly in Medina and is credited with transmitting more than a thousand Ḥadīth.

Muhammad Summary

Muhammad the founder of Islam and the proclaimer of the Qurʾān. Muhammad is traditionally said to have been born in 570 in Mecca and to have died in 632 in Medina, where he had been forced to emigrate to with his adherents in 622. The Qurʾān yields little concrete biographical information about the

Islam Summary

Islam, major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century ce. The Arabic term islām, literally “surrender,” illuminates the fundamental religious idea of Islam—that the believer (called a Muslim, from the active particle of islām) accepts surrender to the will of