Re: Why Aisha?
I am really disturbed by the mudslinging in this post to a simple question. First of all, the sahaba and sahabiyat were not infalliable, and did make mistakes, such as Abu Bakr’s unfair treatment of Fatima in terms of inheritance, and of Umar attempting to ban women from the masjid, which he later retracted when confronted by a woman from the community. However, they were all certainly more pious than us, and we can and should learn from their examples.
Aisha was the best of the women, and she is one of four who narrated more than 2000 ahadith, and Rasulullah (saw) stated that we could learn much of our deen from her. She is not mentioned directly by name in the Quran, but is declared innocent of the false accusations made against her (24:11).
With regards to Aisha’s jealousy of Khadija, this is well-documented, but it was more of a childish jealousy, and not something destructive.
"Of her jealousy, Aishah would say in later years:
“I was not, jealous of any other wife of the Prophet as I was jealous of Khadijah, because of his constant mentioning of her and because God had commanded him to give her good tidings of a mansion in Paradise of precious stones. And whenever he sacrificed a sheep he would send a fair portion of it to those who had been her intimate friends. Many a time I said to him: “It is as if there had never been any other woman in the world except Khadijah.”
Once, when Aishah complained and asked why he spoke so highly of “an old Quraysh woman”, the Prophet was hurt and said: “She was the wife who believed in me when others rejected me. When people gave me the lie, she affirmed my truthfulness. When I stood forsaken, she spent her wealth to lighten the burden of my sorrow.””
The USC MSA has an excellent biography of Aisha (ra):
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/history/biographies/sahaabah/bio.AISHAH_BINT_ABI_BAKR.html