Let us not pretend, as we have been doing all along, about the religious and therefore, spiritual implication of what Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, has lately allowed herself to be led into.
Her unfortunate open protest, either on her own or on behalf of others, against her husband, who has been struggling to correct all the economic, administrative, social and systemic dislocation caused to the polity by the previous governments, has thrown the family she has built over the years into disarray.
So much has the family been helped to be divided on the basis of things of this world, by those who have after all been waiting for such opportunity, that one is not sure who is where now.
Even though, President Buhari has acknowledged that irrespective of what happens, he still loves his wife (Aisha), but the reality is that, based on the way Aisha has been going about the whole thing, the relationship, or put appropriately, the love that is supposed to flow so as for the President to have some form of comfort, appears to have been diminished.
This is where the issue of religion comes in. While, to the best of my knowledge, Christianity preaches the importance of submissiveness of women to their husbands, Islam speaks elaborately on the duties of women to their husbands.
Islam, into which Aisha was born and grew, and the religion she married into and is practicing, places emphasis on wife safeguarding the interests of her husband. The Holy Qur’an specifically asks woman to protect the property of her husband and keep his secrets at all times and in all circumstances.
The Holy Qur’an says: “…So the righteous women are obedient to Allah and submissive to their husbands, and guard, in the husband’s absence, what Allah would have them guard i.e., their chastity and the prestige and property of the husband…”
Every woman must obey the legitimate commands of her husband. Appeasement of husband is a great virtue while the displeasure of the husband carries heavy prosecution. The Holy Prophet of Islam has said: “If I were to command humans to prostrate before anyone other than Allah, I would have commanded the women to bow down before their husbands.”
He added: “If a woman dies in a state that her husband is happy with her, she would enter the Paradise”
The same Prophet also said: “When the husband calls his wife for some work, she should immediately attend his call even if she may be sitting by the side of her hearth.” This means that the wife should give top priority to attend to her husband.
Another Hadith says: “If a husband says to his wife to transform a yellow mountain into a black one or turn a black mountain into a white one, she should obey his orders.” This Hadith means that the woman should try to perform the hardest of the hard job assigned by her husband.
The Prophet went further to say again: “Allah’s Angels curse the woman throughout the night whose husband calls her to bed but she refuses and the husband goes to sleep in anger.”
Those women, who are unaware of this feature of their role, may find difficulty in fulfilling the task. It is a job for the woman who is aware that the job requires a degree of sagacity, style, and ingenuity. For a woman to be a successful wife, she should win over her husband’s heart and be a source of comfort to him.
Imam Rida stated: ‘The greatest gain for a man is a faithful woman who, when she sees him, becomes happy and protects his property and her own honor in his absence.”
Indeed, in Islam, taking care of one’s husband has an important position. It has been equated to the role of Jihad (holy war in the path of Allah).
Imam Ali stated: ‘The Jihad of a woman is to take care of her husband well.”
Considering that Jihad is the struggle and holy war in the path of Allah, including the struggle for advancement and honor of Islam, defending the Islamic territories and execution of social justice, it is one of the highest acts of worship. The value of fulfilling the duties of a proper spouse is also reflected upon when considering Jihad.
The Prophet of Islam stated: “Any woman who dies while her husband is pleased with her, enters Paradise. If a woman does not perform her duty as a spouse, she has not done her duty to Allah.”
All these boil down to the purpose for which God created us, for He said, “I did not create human being and jinn except for them to worship Me.” And therefore, for an Muslim woman, observing and practicing those that are prescribed in the Holy Qur’an and Hadith is part of such worship.
The Islam, in another section, describes women as ‘all naked” by the nature of their creation, even as it enjoins them to lower their gaze in the midst of men that are not their husbands; to keep their chastity and expose their beauty only for the sight of their husbands.
Islam, therefore, looks at women who are doing something to the contrary as hypocrites, rebels and pretenders.
From the very first time Aisha Buhari appeared on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and spoke against her husband, exposing his supposed weak points, which of course, she should have covered to gain Allah’s pleasure, she had completely veered off the course.
One was at pains to explain why she would go to Belgium and had the temerity to defy God by shaking hands with a man who was not her husband. She has forgotten the Islamic view on special contact either by sight, touch, or by feeling of a Muslim woman with a man that is not her husband. In one word, such contact is considered as ‘adultery.’ That is to say that there is adultery of sight, of touch and of feeling, which is what even some people jokingly refer to as ‘touchery’, ‘lookry’ and so on.
It is becoming clearer that Aisha is being brainwashed by the enemies of Islam to derail her technically from the path of Allah, just so that she would be seen as being modern or ‘independent or not belonging to the kitchen, the living room and the other room.’ And where would such sense of freedom or equality or haughtiness take her?
As a matter of fact, a Muslim woman, like Aisha, ought to be strong enough and with untainted pride, to display her religious culture anywhere, because, what she possesses, even if she is President of the country, leads ultimately to how she relate with God and carry out His command without question.
Or is Aisha ashamed that her husband said that she belongs to his kitchen, the living room and the other room? Is she being carried away by the condemnations of her husband for saying what he said by those who know nothing about her religion or those who know but are playing politics with it? Or those who just want to ridicule her husband through her?
And by going haywire in Belgium, what lesson would she want her children, especially, daughters to learn?
The voice of those of us that are calling on Aisha Buhari to retrace her steps and stop dancing to the music of condemnation of her husband by the ‘majority’ across the ‘civilized’ but polluted world may be tiny and unimpressive, but that is the voice of wisdom.
Even if she spends 1,200 years on this earth and possesses all the wealth and power and in this world, one day, just one day, she will return to Allah and answer for how she serves Him; which is the purpose she was created in the first place.
May she be well-guided. [myad]
