A Tradition Invented 2-9 In yet another interaction, ‘A’isha asserts the Prophet’s precedent in the face of collective memory loss. Members of the community had denied her request that the funerary bier of Sa‘d b. Abl Waqqas be brought through the masjid so that she could pray for him. Upon hearing that they feel it is prohibited to bring the bier into the mosque, she replies, “How quick people are to forget. It was within the masjid that the Prophet himself performed the janaza for Suhayl b. Bayda’.’”3 Thus, ‘A’isha’s memory serves to steer the community back to the Prophet’s model in the face of aberrant tendencies. These two examples illustrate well the tenor of ‘A’isha’s interactions. More than just a trustworthy eyewitness to the Prophet’s life, she functions as an exegete and a critical traditionist. ‘A’isha’s traditions, taken together, reveal her profound involvement in the daily life of her community. Her commentary found its way into seemingly mundane aspects of a Muslim’s life. A topic that occurs in several traditions concerns the diligence due in washing clothes that have traces of ritual impurity: does one immerse them fully in water or simply wash the part that is unclean? ’ In one rather interesting version of these reports, ‘Abd Allah b. Shihab al-Khawlan! states that on one occasion when he was ‘A’isha’s guest, he happened to have an erotic dream. Upon waking, he fully immersed his clothes in water. A servant girl reported this to ‘A’isha, who interrogated him and ascertained that it had not been a wet dream; therefore no ritual impurity had resulted from it. Had it been a wet dream, she explained, he would only have needed to remove the traces of the impurity (by rubbing it when it dried out, for instance) rather than washing the entire garment. Numerous other instances in which ‘A’isha answered questions on matters commonly deemed private underscore that while she was an esteemed wife of the Prophet, she was not above discussing matters intimate or sexual, even with men. An element of dissuading believers from engaging in overly puritanical behavior occurs often in ‘A’isha’s haditb, and in this she may be seen as a counterbalance to pious excesses evidenced in other Companions, among them ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Umar. In a well-circulated haditb, she censures Ibn 35 al-Zarkashl, al-Ijaba, 162. In another version, the wives collectively ask that the bier be brought to the masjid. They are denied the request, and when ‘A’isha hears of this, she issues a condemnation of the ruling. In both versions, the import is the same. Sa‘d b. Abl Waqqas’s death date is somewhere between 50 and 58/670-78. 36 See, for example, the following traditions in al-Musnad al-Jami‘, 19:298-307, #16075-86. I generally cite the original collections of haditb except in cases where I cite a cluster of traditions or the musnad (collection of traditions attributed to a specific narrator). 37 Muslim, Sahib (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1995), 2:1:16 (vol. 2, part 1, 16).