Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of A isha bint Abi Bakr.

• Author: Gordon, Matthew

This is not, as the title of Spellberg's work may indicate, a biography of A isha, the "favorite" wife of the Prophet Muhammad, and daughter of his close companion and first successor, Abu Bakr. Rather, it is a wide-ranging thematic treatment of the shaping of A isha's legacy by (mostly) male Muslim scholars from the early medieval period to the present day. While the point is never stated directly, Spellberg's introductory comments on the historiography of that legacy suggest that a "true" version of A isha's life is irretrievable from the written medieval Arabic record. This is quite a different kind of work, in other words, than Nabia Abbott's Aishah, the Beloved of Mohammed, published in 1942, which is, as Spellberg points out, the only other full-length study of A isha in Western scholarship. Spellberg and Abbott share a careful, engaging scholarship as well as the determination to "recover" the role of women in the history and traditions of Islam. Currents of sympathy and commitment aside, their books, when read together, offer a striking study of how differently research in Islamic history is being conducted today, at least in given circles, from earlier in the century. The central point of contrast is historiographical; as carefully researched and readable as Abbott's book is, it is simply too trusting of the early Arabic sources to yield a coherent account of the salient experiences of A isha's life.

Spellberg's goal, however, is to move beyond the debate over the nature of early Arabic sources and, by extension, the accessibility of early Islamic history. The intent here is to understand A isha as "prism," as "lightning rod," as inspiration for sectarian and highly "gendered" debate between opposing tendencies of Islamic social, religious and political life. It was through such debate, Spellberg argues, that Islamic self-definition and communal identity were forged. Spellberg identifies the poles of this division as "Sunni" and "Shi i," rubrics that one is accustomed to using, but which, in such a book as this, deserve a more detailed definition than they receive here. While Spellberg concentrates on the contributions of Sunni writers, their Shi i interlocutors receive no small amount of attention as well.

The frequent parting of ways between the two camps over the "problem" of A isha hinged, in doctrinal terms, on two events: the charge of adultery leveled against A isha during the Prophet's lifetime, and her participation in the...