If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

by Carla Power

A top Islamic scholar, an inspiration to champions of women’s rights, a military commander riding on camelback, and a fatwa-issuing jurist, Aisha stretched the role of Leader’s Wife far beyond the usual job description of comeliness and decorum. By the standards of both our own time and hers, Aisha’s intellectual standing and religious authority were astonishing. She knew it, too. Ten things, she said, set her apart from her co-wives. An excerpt from an early Islamic account of her words: “He did not marry any other virgin but me … The revelation would come to him while he was with me, and it did not come down when he was with any of his wives except me. Allah took his soul while he was against my chest.”