Aisha's Age: Difference between revisions

[[File:Muhammad and Aisha freeing chief's daughter.jpg|thumb|332x332px|Mohammed and his wife Aisha freeing the daughter of a tribal chief. From the Siyer-i Nebi]]

'''Aisha''' (''‘Ā’ishah'', c. 613/614 –c. 678)<ref name="Siddiqui">Al-Nasa'i 1997, p. 108</ref> or عائشة, (also transliterated as '''A'ishah''', '''Aisyah''', '''Ayesha''', '''A'isha''', '''Aishat''', or '''Aishah''') was married to [[Muhammad]] at the age of 6 or 7, and the marriage was consummated by Muhammad, then 53, when Aisha was aged 9 or 10 according to [[sahih]] [[Hadith|hadith]] tradition.<ref>Narrated Hisham's father:

Marriage at a young age was not unheard of in Arabia at the time, and Aisha's marriage to Muhammad may have had a political connotation, as her father Abu Bakr was an influential man in the community.<ref>Afsaruddin, Asma (2014). "ʿĀʾisha bt. Abī Bakr". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett. ''[http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2 Encyclopaedia of Islam]'' (3 ed.). Brill Online. Retrieved 2015-01-11</ref> Abu Bakr, on his part, may have sought to further the bond of kinship between Muhammad and himself by joining their families together in marriage via Aisha. Egyptian-American Islamic scholar, Leila Ahmed, notes that Aisha's betrothal and marriage to Muhammad are presented as ordinary in Islamic literature, and may indicate that it was not unusual for children to be married to their elders in that era.<ref>Ahmed, Leila (1992). ''Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate''. Yale University Press. p. 51-54. <nowiki>ISBN 978-0300055832</nowiki>.</ref> There are many such reports [[Child_Marriage_in_Islamic_Law#Child_Marriage_and_Muhammad.27s_Companions|regarding Muhammad's companions]]. In the neighbouring empires at that time, Byzantine law forbade marriage to girls below the age of puberty, which they fixed at thirteen years of age<ref>Sean Anthony, "Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The making of the Prophet of Islam", Oakland CA: University of California, 2020, p. 115</ref>, while Sasanian law provided that a girl might marry at the age of nine years so long as consummation of the union was delayed until she reached the age of twelve years.<ref>CHILDREN iii. Legal Rights of Children in the Sasanian Period - [https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/children-iii Encyclopedia Iranica online]</ref>

{{Quote|1={{Quran|65|4}}|2=And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women - if you doubt, then their period is three months, '''and [also for] those who have not menstruated.''' And for those who are pregnant, their term is until they give birth. And whoever fears Allah - He will make for him of his matter ease.}}

The Prophet (ﷺ) engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, "Best wishes and Allah's Blessing and a good luck." Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah's Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age.}}

Aisha's nephew, 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr (d. 94 AH), reportedly wrote a number of histographic letters to the late Umayyad court, which modern historians such as Professor Sean Anthony regard as an important source on early Islamic history. In one of these 'Urwa discusses the marriage of his aunt. This letter was transmitted by his son Hisham, and the contents thereof are apparently corroborated by 'Urwa's student, al-Zuhri (see the discussion in the section on modern academic views below). The letter reads as follows:

In the incident of the slander (al-ifk), widely reported in Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, Aisha was accused of committing adultery after she was left behind by the caravan.

.

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The detailed hadith of this incident is widely transmitted from Aisha through 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr (her nephew), through his student Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri. A brief answer to a question about the names of her accusers (though with no further detail) also appears in a letter by 'Urwa, transmitted through his son, Hisham.<ref>An analysis of the hadith transmission is summarized on pp. 34-37 of Goerke, A, Motzki, H & Schoeler, G (2012) [https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/12692843/First_Century_Sources_for_the_Life_of_Muhammad_a_debate.pdf First-Century Sources for the Life of Muhammad? A Debate], Der Islam, vol. 89, no. 2, pp. 2-59. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2012-0002</ref>

==Modern academic views==

The first objection is that, while sahih (sound) by Islamic hadith standards, the transmission of the hadiths about Aisha's marital age goes through one narrator, Hisham b. 'Urwa (from his father 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr, Aisha's nephew); that he did not narrate it in Medina but only after he moved to Iraq; that Imam Malik (in Medina) was angry with Hisham about (unspecified) hadiths he transmitted in Iraq (according to Ibn Khirash, d. 896 CE); that Hisham became unreliable after he moved there by omitting to mention intermediary transmitters when narrating from his father (according to Yaq'ub b. Shaybah, d. 875 CE, as cited by al-Dhahabi, d. 1348 CE); that he became confused in old age (according to al Hasan b. al-Qattan, d. 1231 CE); or that his memory diminished in old age (according to al-Dhahabi, who denies al-Qattan's claim that Hisham became confused).<ref>See pp. 7-8 of Dr Little's thesis, and pp. 435, 450-51 for quotes from Ibn Khirash and al-Dhahabi.</ref>

Shaykh Haddad responded to the objection that most of these narrations are reported only by Hisham as follows: "Try more than eleven authorities among the Tabi`in that reported it directly from `A'isha, not counting the other major Companions that reported the same, nor other major Successors that reported it from other than `A'isha."<ref name="Haddad" />  

I was in the house of `Aisha, the mother of the Believers. She said, "This revelation: "Nay, but the Hour is their appointed time (for their full recompense); and the Hour will be more previous and most bitter." (54.46) was revealed to Muhammad at Mecca while I was a playfull little girl."

However, the precise date of the revelation of Surah al-Qamar is unknown. Ibn Hajar, Maududi, and other traditionalists said it was revealed 5 years before Hijrah (BH).<ref>The incident of the ''shaqq-al-Qamar'' (splitting of the moon) that has been mentioned in it, determines its period of revelation precisely. The traditionists and commentators are agreed that this incident took place at Mina in Makkah about five years before the Holy Prophet's ''hijrah'' to Madinah.

This apologetic argument aims to make the claim that Aisha was at the Battles of Badr and Uhud, and that since standard practice at the time disallowed anyone under 15 from joining the battlefield, she could not have been younger than this.  

al-Tabari vol.12 p.127,146.</ref>

However, even if the claim Aisha converted to Islam before Umar were true, it does not mean this took place during the first year of Islam, since Umar converted in 617 AD, about 4 years after Aisha’s birth in 613 AD.<ref name="Siddiqui" /> Furthermore Aisha never accounted converting to islam as hadiths show she never remembered a time before when her family wasn't Muslim.<ref>Narrated 'Aisha: (the wife of the Prophet) '''I never remembered my parents believing in any religion other than the true religion (i.e. Islam)''', and (I don't remember) a single day passing without our being visited by Allah’s Apostle in the morning and in the evening."

Besides disputing the claim that Ibn Hisham reported that Aisha accepted Islam quite some time before `Umar ibn al-Khattab, Shaykh Haddad also casts doubt on the claim stating:  

However, there are multiple sahih hadith narrations of a highly relevant conversation between Muhammad and Jabir in which bikr (virgin) is clearly compatible with jariyah (young girl).

Shaykh Haddad says regarding the claim, "This is ignorant nonsense, bikr means a virgin girl, a girl who has never been married even if her age is 0 and there is no unclarity here whatsoever.".<ref name="Haddad" />

===Hadith saying Aisha had reached puberty===

This argument is based on a mistranslated hadith, Sahih Bukhari 1:8:465, which in one English translation states that Aisha had seen her parents follow islam since the age of puberty, and not a day passed by without Muhammad visiting them.

(the wife of the Prophet) I had seen my parents following Islam since I attained the age of puberty. Not a day passed but the Prophet (ﷺ) visited us, both in the mornings and evenings[...]}}

However, the word أَعْقِلْ means thoughts or reasoning, but the translator, Muhsin Khan, has used the word 'puberty'. The meaning rather is simply that Aisha was aware that her parents were following Islam. A literal translation would be "I was not aware of my parents other than that the two of them both acknowledged the religion". The exact same Arabic phrase is translated correctly by the same translator in another narration of the same hadith.<ref>Narrated Aisha:

===Hadith in which Aisha menstruated===

This argument is also based off a mistranslated hadith, Sunan Abu Dawud 4915 (Ahmad Hasan numbering; 4933 Dar-us-Salam).

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) married me when I was seven or six. When we came to Medina, some women came. according to Bishr's version: Umm Ruman came to me when I was swinging. They took me, made me prepared and decorated me. I was then brought to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), and he took up cohabitation with me when I was nine. She halted me at the door, and I burst into laughter. Abu Dawud said: That is to say: I menstruated, and I was brought in a house, and there were some women of the Ansari in it. They said: With good luck and blessing. The tradition of one of them has been included in the other.

Only in this latter migration to Medina does Aisha start to include herself in the story. Thus, it does not appear that she is claiming to have witnessed the earlier attempted migration to Abyssinia. Secondly, these are not the kinds of memories a young child would be able to understand and retain into late adulthood, so could hardly be her own first hand witness account of the first migration attempt even supposing she was already a young child at that point.

(the wife of the Prophet) I never remembered my parents believing in any religion other than the true religion (i.e. Islam), and (I don't remember) a single day passing without our being visited by Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) in the morning and in the evening. When the Muslims were put to test (i.e. troubled by the pagans), Abu Bakr set out migrating to the land of Ethiopia, and when he reached Bark-al-Ghimad, Ibn Ad-Daghina, the chief of the tribe of Qara, met him and said, "O Abu Bakr! Where are you going?" Abu Bakr replied, "My people have turned me out (of my country), so I want to wander on the earth and worship my Lord." Ibn Ad-Daghina said, "O Abu Bakr! A man like you should not leave his home-land, nor should he be driven out, because you help the destitute, earn their livings, and you keep good relations with your Kith and kin, help the weak and poor, entertain guests generously, and help the calamity-stricken persons. Therefore I am your protector.<BR />  

Another common argument is that puberty occurred earlier in the past or in hot climates. Puberty is a process which takes place over a number of years, while menarche (first menstruation) is a distinct physiological event which is the culmination of the anatomical processes of puberty. Apologetic websites typically cite books or articles which mention that the onset of puberty can occur today from as early as the age of eight. An article by Jesse Gamble is commonly quoted for saying that "Menarche affected Paleolithic girls between the ages of 7 to 13".<ref>Jesse Gamble, (2017) "Early Starters: Girls are entering puberty at every younger ages. What are the causes, and should we be worried?", ''Nature'' 550, S10-S11</ref> A journal article by Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson gives a similar range and is commonly cited for their argument that in the simpler societies of the past, psychosocial maturity was better aligned with the age of physical development.<ref>Gluckman, P. and Hanson, M. (2006) "Evolution, development and timing of puberty", ''Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism'', 17(1)</ref>  

The average age of menarche today in Europe and the United States has fallen to around 13 years old, while the average is about 14 years old in Yemen in the south of the Arabian Peninsula (coming down from 14.44 years old in 1979 to 13.8 in 2013, standard deviation of 1.36 years). The average age is very similar (13-14) across a large range of low and middle income countries.<ref>Tiziana Leone and Laura Brown [https://www.niussp.org/fertility-and-reproduction/trends-in-age-at-menarche-in-low-and-middle-income-countries-evolution-de-lage-a-la-menarche-dans-les-pays-a-revenu-faible-et-intermediaire/ Trends in age at menarche in low- and middle-income countries] - niussp.org, 1 March 2021</ref>