(Note: The name spelt in this article as Aisha is properly
transliterated as'Á'ishah)
Qualities of Aisha and herrole in Islam
In any discussion on the age of Aisha (ra: may Allah be pleased with
her) at the time of her marriage with the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may
peace and the blessings of Allah be upon him), it is of the greatest
relevance to note the pivotal role she played as a teacher, exponent
and interpreterof the religion of Islam. Aisha was an exceptionally
intelligent and astute woman, a young prodigy, and this was the main
reason whyshe was got married to the Holy Prophet, as is clearly
proved by events after the Holy Prophet's life. She entered his
household, shortly after his emigration to Madina,just at the time
when the teachings of Islam in all fields of life for the Muslim
community were starting to be revealed tothe Holy Prophet and
demonstrated by him by his example and practice.An intellectually
gifted person was required who would have daily contact with the Holy
Prophet at the closest and most personal level, so as to absorb the
teachings that he was giving on all aspects of life by his words and
actions. Such a person would need to possess the following qualities:
an excellent, precise memory to retain a vast amount of detail accurately,
the understanding to grasp the significance and the principles of the teachings,
powers of reasoning, criticism and deduction to resolve problems on
the basis of those teachings,
the skills to convey knowledge to a wide range of audience,
and, finally, have the prospect of living for a considerable period of
time after the death of the Holy Prophet in orderto spread his message
to distant generations.
That Aisha possessed all these qualities and carried out this mission
isan absolutely positive and undeniable, historical fact. After the
Holy Prophet's death, she acted as a teacher and interpreter of Islam,
providing guidance to even the greatest of the male Companions of the
Holy Prophet Muhammad.They made a special point of going to her to
gain knowledge and seek her opinion. A vast number of sayings and
actions of the Holy Prophet are reported from her in books of Hadith.
She not only quoted his sayings and reported her observations of
events, but interpreted them to provide solutions to questions.
Whenever necessary, she corrected the views of the greatest of the
Companions of the Holy Prophet. She made rulings and judgments onwhich
Islamic law is based.
The following are two examples of what the Holy Prophet's male
Companions said about her:
"Abu Musa said: Whenever there was any hadith that was difficult [to
understand] for us, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, and we
asked Aisha we always found that she had knowledge about that hadith."
"Musa ibn Talha said: I never saw anyone more eloquent than Aisha." [1]
In the famous compilation of the lives of saints in Islam,
Tadhkirat-ul-Auliya, the author Farid-ud-Din Attar, who lived eight
centuries ago, introducesthe life of the early female saint Rabia of
Basra as follows:
"If anyone says, 'Why have you included Rabia in the rank of men?', my
answer is that the Prophet himself said, 'God does not regard your
outward forms'. … Moreover, if it is proper to derive two-thirds of
our religion from Aisha, surely it is permissible to take religious
instruction from a handmaid of Aisha." [2]
It is thus recognised, from the earliest times in Islam, that some
two-thirds of Islamic Sharia is based on reports and interpretations
that have come from Aisha.
In view of these exceptional qualities of Aisha and the towering role
played by her in the transmission of the teachings of Islam, it is
simply preposterous and outrageous to suggest that she was the victim
ofsome form of child and marital abuse. We ask in particular the
Christian and Jewish critics of Islam, who are reviling the Holy
Prophet Muhammad on the basis of his marriage with Aisha, whether they
can point out any example of a woman in their religions who played a
role like that of Aisha in learning the religion from its founder and
becoming the teacher and instructor of all his followers, including
men,after his death.
Age of Aisha at time of marriage with Holy Prophet Muhammad
It is believed on the authority of some Hadith reports that the
marriageceremony (known as nikah, amounting to betrothal) of Aisha
with the Holy Prophet Muhammad took place when she was six years of
age, and that she joined the Holy Prophet as his wife three years
later at the age of nine. We quote below from two such reports in
Bukhari.
"It is reported from Aisha that she said: The Prophet entered into
marriage with me when Iwas a girl of six … and at the time [of joining
his household] I was a girl ofnine years of age."
"Khadija died three yearsbefore the Prophet departed to Medina. He
stayed [alone] for two years or so. He married Aisha when she was a
girlof six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was
nine years old." [3]
As to the authenticity of these reports, it may be noted that the
compilers of the books of Hadith did not apply the same stringent
tests when accepting reports relating to historical matters as they
did before accepting reports relating to the practical teachings and
laws of Islam. The reason is that the former type of reportwas
regarded as merely of academic interest while the latter type of
report had a direct bearing on the practical duties of a Muslim and
onwhat was allowed to them and what was prohibited. Thus the
occurrence of reports such as the above about the marriage of Aisha in
books of Hadith, even in Bukhari, is not necessarily a proof of their
credibility.
Determination of the trueage of Aisha
It appears that Maulana Muhammad Ali was the first Islamic scholar
directly to challenge the notion that Aisha was aged six and nine,
respectively, at the time of her nikah and consummation of marriage.
This he did in, at least, the following writings: his English booklet
Prophet of Islam, his larger English book Muhammad, the Prophet,and in
the footnotes in his voluminous Urdu translation and commentary of
Sahih Bukhari entitled Fadl-ul-Bari, these three writingsbeing
published in the 1920s and 1930s. In the booklet Prophet of Islam,
which was later incorporated in 1948 as the first chapter of his book
Living Thoughts of the Prophet Muhammad, he writes in a lengthy
footnote as follows:
"A great misconception prevails as to the age at which Aisha was taken
inmarriage by the Prophet. Ibn Sa'd has stated in the Tabaqat that
when Abu Bakr [father of Aisha] was approached on behalf of the Holy
Prophet, he replied that the girl had already beenbetrothed to Jubair,
and that he would have to settle the matter first with him. This shows
thatAisha must have been approaching majority at the time. Again, the
Isaba, speaking of the Prophet's daughter Fatima, says that she was
born five years before the Call and was about five years older than
Aisha. This shows that Aisha must have been about ten years at the
time of her betrothal to the Prophet, and not six years as she is
generally supposed to be. This is further borne out by the fact that
Aisha herself is reported to have stated that when the chapter [of the
Holy Quran] entitled The Moon, the fifty-fourth chapter, was revealed,
she was a girl playing about and remembered certain verses then
revealed. Now the fifty-fourth chapter was undoubtedlyrevealed before
the sixth year of the Call. All these considerations point to but one
conclusion, viz., that Aisha could not havebeen less than ten years of
age at the time of her nikah, which was virtually only a betrothal.
And there is one report inthe Tabaqat that Aisha was nine years of age
at the time of nikah. Again it is a fact admitted on allhands that the
nikah of Aisha took place in the tenth year of the Call in the month
of Shawwal, while there is also preponderance of evidence as to the
consummation of her marriage taking place in the second year of Hijra
in the same month, which shows that full fiveyears had elapsed between
the nikah and the consummation. Hence there is not the least doubt
that Aisha was at least nine or ten years of age at the time of
betrothal, and fourteen or fifteen years at the time of marriage." [4]
(Bolding is mine.)
To facilitate understanding dates of these events, please note that it
was in the tenth year of the Call, i.e. the tenth year after the Holy
Prophet Muhammad received his calling from God to his mission of
prophethood, that his wife Khadija passed away, and the approach was
made to Abu Bakr for the hand of his daughter Aisha. The hijra or
emigration of the HolyProphet to Madina took place three years later,
and Aisha came to the household of the Holy Prophet in the second year
after hijra. So if Aisha was born in the year of the Call, she would
be ten years old atthe time of the nikah andfifteen years old at the
time of the consummation of the marriage.
Later research
Research subsequent to the time of Maulana Muhammad Ali has shown that
she was olderthan this. An excellent short work presenting such
evidence is the Urdupamphlet Rukhsati kai waqt Sayyida Aisha Siddiqa
ki umar ('The ageof Lady Aisha at the time of the start of her married
life') by Abu Tahir Irfani.[4a] Points 1 to 3 below have been brought
to light in this pamphlet.
1. The famous classical historian of Islam, Ibn Jarir Tabari, wrote in
his 'History':
"In the time before Islam,Abu Bakr married two women. The first was
Fatila daughter of Abdul Uzza, from whom Abdullah and Asma were born.
Then he married Umm Ruman, from whomAbdur Rahman and Aisha were born.
These four were born before Islam." [5]
Being born before Islam means being born beforethe Call.
2. The compiler of the famous Hadith collection Mishkat al-Masabih,
ImamWali-ud-Din Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Khatib, who died 700 years
ago, has also written brief biographical notes on the narrators of
Hadith reports. He writes under Asma, the older daughterof Abu Bakr:
"She was the sister of Aisha Siddiqa, wife of theHoly Prophet, and was
ten years older than her.… In 73 A.H. … Asma died at the age of one
hundred years." [6]
(Go here to see an image of the full entry in Urdu.)
This would make Asma 28years of age in 1 A.H., the year of the Hijra,
thus making Aisha 18 years old in 1 A.H. So Aisha would be 19 years
old at the time of the consummation of her marriage, and 14 or 15
years old at the time of her nikah. It would place her year of birth
at four or five years before the Call.
3. The same statement is made by the famous classical commentator of
the Holy Quran, Ibn Kathir, in his book Al-bidayya wal-nihaya:
"Asma died in 73 A.H. at the age of one hundred years. She was ten
years older than her sister Aisha." [7]
Apart from these three evidences, which are presented in the Urdu
pamphlet referred to above, we also note that the birth of Aisha being
alittle before the Call is consistent with the opening words of a
statement by her which isrecorded four times in Bukhari. Those words
areas follows:
"Ever since I can remember (or understand things) my parents were
following the religion of Islam." [8]
This is tantamount to saying that she was born sometime before her
parents accepted Islam but she can only remember them practising
Islam. No doubt she and her parents knew well whether she was born
before or after they accepted Islam, as their acceptance of Islam was
such a landmark event in their life which took place just after the
Holy Prophet received his mission from God. If she had been born after
they accepted Islam it would make no sense for her to say that she
always remembered them as following Islam. Only if she was born before
theyaccepted Islam, would it make sense for her to saythat she can
only remember them being Muslims, as she was too young to remember
things before their conversion. This is consistent with her beingborn
before the Call, and being perhaps four or five years old at the time
of the Call, which was also almost the time when her parents accepted
Islam.
Two further evidences cited by Maulana Muhammad Ali
In the footnotes of his Urdu translation and commentary of Sahih
Bukhari, entitled Fadl-ul-Bari, Maulana Muhammad Ali had pointed out
reports of two events which show that Aisha could not havebeen born
later than the year of the Call. These areas follows.
1. The above mentioned statement by Aisha in Bukhari, about her
earliest memory of her parents being that they were followers of
Islam, begins with the following words in its version in Bukhari's
Kitab-ul-Kafalat. We quote this from the English translation of
Bukhari by M. Muhsin Khan:
"Since I reached the age when I could remember things, I have seen my
parents worshipping according to the right faith of Islam. Not a
single day passed but Allah's Apostle visited us both in the morning
and in the evening. When theMuslims were persecuted,Abu Bakr set out
for Ethiopia as an emigrant."[9]
Commenting on this report, Maulana Muhammad Ali writes:
"This report sheds some light on the question of the age of Aisha. …
The mention of the persecution of Muslims along with the emigration to
Ethiopia clearly shows that this refers to the fifth or the sixth year
of the Call. … Atthat time Aisha was of an age to discern things, and
so her birth could not have been later than the first year of the
Call." [10]
Again, this would make her more than fourteen at the time of the
consummation of her marriage.
2. There is a report in Sahih Bukhari as follows:
"On the day (of the battle) of Uhud when (some) people retreated and
left the Prophet, I saw Aisha daughter of Abu Bakr and Umm Sulaim,
with their robes tucked up so that the bangles around their ankles
were visible hurrying with their water skins (in another narration it
is said, 'carrying the water skins on their backs'). Then they would
pour the water in the mouths of the people, and return tofill the
water skins again and came back again to pour water in the mouthsof
the people." [11]
Maulana Muhammad Ali writes in a footnote under this report:
"It should also be noted that Aisha joined the HolyProphet's household
onlyone year before the battle of Uhud. Accordingto the common view
she would be only ten years of age at this time, whichis certainly not
a suitable age for the work she did on this occasion. This alsoshows
that she was not so young at this time." [12]
If, as shown in the previous section above, Aisha was nineteen at
thetime of the consummation of her marriage, then she would be twenty
years old at the time of the battle of Uhud. It may be added that on
the earlier occasion of the battle of Badr when some Muslim youths
tried, out of eagerness, to go along with the Muslim army to the field
of battle, the Holy Prophet Muhammad sent them back on account of
their young age (allowing only one such youngster, Umair ibn Abi
Waqqas, to accompany his older brother the famous Companion Sa'd ibn
Abi Waqqas). It seems, therefore, highly unlikelythat if Aisha was ten
years old the Holy Prophet would have allowed her to accompany the
army to the field of battle.
We conclude from all the evidence cited above that Aisha (may Allah be
pleased with her) was nineteen years old when she joined the Holy
Prophet as his wife in theyear 2 A.H., the nikah or betrothal having
taken place five years previously.
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The Bible on marriage of young girls with much older men
As it is Christian evangelists and other believers in the Bible who
have been bitterly reviling the Holy Prophet Muhammad on account of
his marriage with Aisha, we put to them thepractices of the great
patriarchs and prophets that are recorded in the Bible itself in this
connection. The main accusations regarding the marriage of Aisha
arethat she was too young in age while the Holy Prophet was a much
older man, being fifty years of age, and that consent to marriage was
either not obtained from her or she was not capable of giving it.
Abraham
In the book of Genesis in the Bible it is recorded about Abraham:
"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an
Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she saidto Abram, 'The Lord has
kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I
can build a family through her.' Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So
after Abram had been living in Canaan tenyears, Sarai his wife took
her Egyptian maidservantHagar and gave her to her husband to be his
wife. He slept with Hagar,and she conceived. … So Hagar bore Abram a
son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram
was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael." (Genesis,
chapter 16, verses 1–4, and 15–16, New International Version. Bolding
is mine.)
Firstly, it is evident that as Abraham (who then had the name Abram)
was 86 years old, Hagar must have been some fifty years younger than
him, and probably even younger, to bear a child. Secondly, the Bible
speaks of Sarai giving her maidservant Hagar toAbraham. So Hagar's
consent was not obtained but rather she was commanded by Saraito go
and become Abraham's wife.
David
The first book of Kings in the Bible begins as follows:
"When King David was old and well advanced in years, he could not keep
warm even when they put covers over him. So his servants said to him,
'Let us look for a young virgin to attend the king and take care of
him. Shecan lie beside him so thatour lord the king may keep warm.'
Then they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful girl and found
Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The girl was very
beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him, but the king
had no intimate relations with her." (1 Kings, chapter 1, verses 1–4,
New International Version. Bolding is mine.)
So there seems nothing wrong, according to the Bible, in procuring a
young virgin, again apparently without her consent, whose duties
include lying with the elderly king in bed. The intention was
certainly for sexual enjoyment, otherwise there was no necessity of
looking for a young, beautiful virgin. Amuch older woman, perhaps a
widow, could have performed all these duties, including lying with the
king to keep him warm.
Mary and Joseph
The most famous marriage in Christianity isno doubt that of Mary,
Jesus' mother, with Joseph. While the following details are not in the
canonical Gospels in the Bible, it appears from other early
Christianwritings (known as apocryphal writings) thatMary was twelve
years old when the temple elders decided to find a husband for her.
They selected the husband by drawing lots, and Joseph whom they chose
was an elderly man, being according to some accounts ninety years old.
The husband was selected and Mary was handed over to him, and she
played no part in his selection.
These accounts are summed up in the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913
edition, which is available online, as follows:
"It will not be without interest to recall here, unreliable though
they are, the lengthy stories concerning St. Joseph's marriage
contained in the apocryphal writings. When forty years of age, Joseph
married a womancalled Melcha or Escha by some, Salome by others; they
lived forty-nine years together and had six children … A year afterhis
wife's death, as the priests announced through Judea that they wished
to find in the tribe of Juda a respectable man to espouse Mary, then
twelve to fourteen years of age, Joseph, who was at the time ninety
years old, went up to Jerusalemamong the candidates; a miracle
manifested the choice God had made of Joseph …" [13] (Bolding ismine.)
Although these apocryphal accounts are not now accepted by many
Christians, and the Catholic Encyclopedia says that they "are void of
authority", yet it also speaks of their influence as follows:
"they nevertheless acquired in the course of ages some popularity; in
them some ecclesiastical writers sought the answer to the well-known
difficulty arising from the mention in the Gospel of the Lord's
brothers; from them also popular credulity has, contrary to all
probability, as well as to the tradition witnessed by old works of
art, retained the beliefthat St. Joseph was an oldman at the time of
marriage with the Mother of God."
However, these accounts are accepted by the Eastern churches. The
website of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy has an article on this subject
entitled An Elderly Joseph which agrees with the presentation in the
apocryphal writings "of Joseph as an elderly man,a widower with adult
children". It concludes:
"The Christian East's picture of Joseph as a courageous, faithful,
God-centred elderly widower rings true." [14]
We give below, as Appendix, a quotation from one of these apocryphal
books, The Infancy Gospel of James, describing how Mary's husband was
selected.
While the Western Christian churches may not accept these accountsas
authentic, the Eastern churches in Europe do accept that Mary was 12
years old and Joseph a widower 90 years old when they married.
Moreover, there is nothing in the Gospels of the New Testament to
contradict these accounts, and the Gospel stories are not at all
inconsistent with these ages for Mary and Joseph.
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References
[1]. Tirmidhi, Abwab-ul-Manaqib, i.e. Chapters on Excellences, under
'Virtues of Aisha'.
[2]. Muslim Saints and Mystics, abridged English translation of
Tadhkirat-ul-Auliya, by A.J. Arberry, p. 40.
[3]. Bukhari, Book of Qualities of the Ansar, chapter: 'The Holy
Prophet's marriage with Aisha, and his coming to Madina and the
consummation of marriage with her'. For Muhsin Khan's translation, see
this link and go down to reports listed as Volume 5, Book 58, Number
234 and 236.
[4]. Living Thoughts of the Prophet Muhammad, 1992 U.S.A. edition, p.
30, note 40.
[4a]. This Urdu pamphlet was published by the Ahmadiyya Anjuman
Isha'at Islam, Bombay, India. A partial English translation is
available at this Lahore Ahmadiyya website.
[5]. Tarikh Tabari, vol. 4, p. 50.
[6]. Mishkat al-Masabih, Edition with Urdu translation published in
Lahore, 1986, vol. 3, p. 300–301. (Go here to see an image of the full
entryin Urdu.)
[7]. Vol. 8, p. 346.
[8]. Those four places in Sahih Bukhari are the following:
Kitab-us-Salat, ch. 'A mosque which is in the way but does not
inconvenience people'; Kitab-ul-Kafalat, ch. 'Abu Bakr under the
protection of a non-Muslim in the time ofthe Holy Prophet and his pact
with him'; Kitab Manaqib-ul-Ansar, ch. 'Emigration of the Holy Prophet
and his Companions to Madina'; and Kitab-ul-Adab, ch. 'Should a person
visit everyday, or morning and evening'.
[9]. Muhsin Khan's Englishtranslation of Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 37,
Number 494. See this link.
[10]. Fadl-ul-Bari, vol. 1, p. 501, footnote 1.
[11]. Sahih Bukhari, Kitab-ul-Jihad wal-Siyar, Chapter: 'Women in war
and their fighting alongside men'. See this link in Muhsin Khan's
translation and go down to report listed as Volume4, Book 52, Number
131.
[12]. Fadl-ul-Bari, vol. 1, p. 651.
[13]. In article St. Joseph, under letter J. Here is a link to this
article in the online Catholic Encyclopedia.
[14]. Here is a link to this article An Elderly Joseph.
