what kind of toothpick he used to clean his teeth. The
Sunnis would eventually name themselves for the sunna;
they would own it, as it were, despite the fact that the
Shia honor it too.
Yet no matter how many hadith would be attributed to
Aisha—and there were thousands—the future would not
be kind to her. As long as she lived, she was honored as
the leading Mother of the Faithful, but in memory she
was destined to remain an embattled symbol of slandered
virtue. In later centuries, conservative clerics would
point to her as an example of the division they claimed
ensues when women enter public life, as Aisha would so
disastrously when Ali ɹnally became Caliph. Everything
that makes her so interesting to the secular mind—her
ambition, her outspokenness, her assertiveness—would
work against her in the Islamic mind, even among
Sunnis.
And no matter how pale an image Fatima left in
comparison with Aisha, no matter that she died young
and never got a chance to dictate her own version of
history, time would favor her. The Shia would call her
Al-Zahra, the Radiant One. If she seemed anything but
radiant in life—a pale, almost self-eʃacing presence—
that was of no importance. This was radiance of spirit,
the pure light of holiness, for the Prophet’s bloodline ran
through Fatima and into her two sons.
In Shia lore, Fatima lives on in another dimension to