Aisha bint Abi Bakr

Aisha bint Abi Bakr (born in Mecca around 614 CE, died in Medina in 678 CE) was a wife of the Prophet Muhammad and the daughter of Abu Bakr, who would become the first caliph (successor as leader of the Muslim community) after the Prophet's death in 632. Her exact birth year is a traditional estimate that early sources do not fix precisely. She married Muhammad in Medina, and traditional accounts describe her as his favourite wife in the years after the death of his first wife, Khadija.

Aisha is best known for two things. First, she is one of the most prolific transmitters of hadith — the reports of the Prophet's sayings and deeds — and is conventionally counted among the handful of Companions credited with over two thousand reports (a figure of roughly 2,210 is commonly given, with counts varying by method), many concerning the Prophet's personal and domestic life. Second, she became a central figure in the First Fitna, the first Muslim civil war. After the caliph Uthman was killed in 656, Aisha, with Talha and al-Zubayr, raised opposition at Basra and fought the new caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib, at the Battle of the Camel (656) — so named because the fiercest fighting swirled around her camel-litter. Ali's side won; reports say she was treated with respect and escorted back to the Hijaz, where she lived out her years in Medina.

How Aisha is viewed differs by tradition: in the Sunni view she is revered as a learned scholar, hadith transmitter, and teacher, while Shia traditions generally view her critically because of her opposition to Ali.