User talk:1234567: Difference between revisions

Sorry about the auto block, I removed it now. --Whale (talk) 23:29, 25 July 2012 (PDT)

Thanks. I fully understand why you have to do it on a site like this. It was only my own work that I deleted!

Yea that system helps prevent a lot of vandalism (e.g. logs) and saves us time. I added you in a list where it wont monitor any of your edits so it wont happen again. --Whale (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2012 (PDT)

Muhammad and his Wives

Hi 1234567! First off, thanks for creating the new article on Muhammad's wives! The level of detail you went into looks incredible.

That being said, I have added our "under construction" template to it because it's style currently doesn't adhere to the site's guidelines. Articles should be free from sensationalist, emotional, humorous or sarcastic commentary. See this article, for an idea of what we're aiming for.

It would be great if you could edit it to conform with these guidelines. As a rough example, I have edited the conclusion of the article below:

Before:

After:

Again, thanks for such a great article. --Admin3 (talk) 22:50, 10 September 2012 (PDT)

Okay, I can convert it from "story" to "history" mode. But I'm on a time-budget so it won't happen immediately.

In fact I may be adding more information as I go. I have found several more interesting facts on Muslim sites. However, most of these do not cite sources, and it will take me a while to work out exactly how we know what we think we know.1234567 (talk) 17:01, 11 September 2012 (PDT)

Sounds great. Thanks. --Admin3 (talk) 19:44, 11 September 2012 (PDT)

Page splitting and pseudonym

Hi 1234567. Since the article is very large, I think once you're done, it's best to split it into several pages (a page for each wife etc.). You can see examples of this (we call them "in-depth studies") here and here. We would also need a pseudonym (or real name if you're comfortable with that) for attribution on the "front page" and navigational TOC. Do you have anything in mind? --Admin3 (talk) 05:27, 11 October 2012 (PDT)

I think this is a great idea! Unfortunately I'm not really sure how to use the software, so someone else may have to take responsibility for that. That's the advantage of a wiki - no one person is the author.

Several of the wives already have pages, so we should think how we are going to amalgamate these old articles with some of the new information.

We could perhaps amalgamate this article with the "list of wives" article (on which I've done some work). Make the list the hub article, then link it to separate pages on each wife, plus a page for "Broken Engagements," etc.

You can use the pseudonym Petra MacDonald for the author. This is the English translation of Asma bint Marwan (with the elements reversed).1234567 (talk) 15:25, 11 October 2012 (PDT)

Questions about the Wives articles

Hi 1234567, its me Whale (changed my username). I'm now Axius. Thanks again for the work you've done on the Women articles. I'm starting to look at them and trying to understand the approach you took and check if there are any issues with following our policies and guidelines. My first questions are about references.

Could you tell me a little about your sources for example:

1. What were the main/most important sources you used?
2. How did you have access to them? For example physical books, ebooks, electronic PDF or a website or all of them? Please tell me the type of format for the main sources in #1.

I'm asking this because I'd really like to have access to these sources if possible. I have Gulliume/Ishaq (book) and Tabari (40 volumes).

I'm just doing some random checks and I may do more later.

When you say "Tabari 6:19-26", do you mean the 6th volume and page 19-26? I have the 40 volume set of Tabari and I cant find mention of Khadija in vol 6, page 15.

How about:

• Bukhari 73:151. See also Bukhari 8:150. (ref #26)

The way we format Bukhari on our site is: {{Bukhari|8|76|537}}. But even if your reference was in our format (e.g. Sahih Bukhari 8:73:151), sometimes that website may not have the hadith we're looking for. The way we do this is, if the linked reference doesn't show anything, we try to quote the actual hadith in the reference so its preserved on our site and the user can see it if they want to. This is important.

For the reference you used, that one is available on the USC site. I type {{Bukhari|8|73|151}} and it comes out as Sahih Bukhari 8:73:151. Notice the complete reference for the hadith there "Volume 8, Book 73, Number 151" and note "volume 8". So the format we've used for Bukhari is based on how this website has the reference. So Bukhari references would have to be fixed and for hadiths which are not present on that site, we would need to quote that hadith verbatim in the Reference section.

Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq 155. (ref #38), which says "When they mocked his beliefs, she railed against them with counter-mockery and continued to declare to the world that Muhammad was Allah’s messenger.[38]"

I have Ishaq/Guill and I cant see anything about Khadija there (I'm looking at the book 'the life of Muhammad', translation of Ishaq by Guill, Oxford Univ Press, ISBN 0 19 636033 1). Or did you mean 155 to be the numbering on the sides? There I see some relevant matching information. Is there a reason you went by the side-numbering for Ishaq and not the page numbering?

After this I may do some more random checks and sometime later I'll be talking about policies and guidelines, for example:

• Sources: We must only talk about what the sources say. We cannot make assumptions, guesses, create facts or any kinds of derivations and embellishments (negative or positive).
• Anything not related to criticism of Islam does not belong on our site. Neutral information is fine.

thanks, --Axius (talk) 17:21, 12 November 2012 (PST)

hi 1234567, you probably haven't logged in in a while. There are additional problems with the text which need to be discussed (I can talk about those after you've responded to the above). All the text has been moved out of the main article space into WikiIslam:Sandbox/Muhammad and his Wives until the concerns are addressed. --Axius (talk) 03:28, 20 November 2012 (PST)

Examples of problematic statements are "Muhammad liked to play with children and he must have been a good stepfather to Hala and Hind, for they remained unswervingly loyal to him." - (article on Khadija near ref 25, bold emphasis mine). The bolded statement is original research. The kids may have been loyal to him out of fear or cultural reasons. It doesn't necessarily mean he was a good stepfather. There are other statements and more may exist because we haven't looked at all the material, but these kinds of assumptions are not right for our site. We focus on simply "quoting" sources and not editorializing content. Still I believe an effort can be made to save this work and I hope you come back and talk to us about it. --Axius (talk) 20:57, 23 November 2012 (PST)

Hi Axius, sorry I haven't been in touch. I am currently travelling with limited internet access and no access at all to my books (I was using hard-copy English translations of Tabari and Ibn Saad). For this reason it will be difficult for me to do much before January.

I do intend to respond to everything you have written but I would rather not do it on the fly. Some friends who are native speakers of Arabic (non-Muslims now living in a safe country) have offered to help me and I would like their opinion on some of the English translations I have been using. To give quick answers to some of your questions...

I used Poonawalla's translations of Tabari. I have volumes 6, 7, 8, 9 and 39.

I used Bewley's translation of the eighth volume of Ibn Saad, which I'm well aware is a dodgy interpretation of the original, but no other English translation is readily available.

I used an electronic copy of Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq, converted to a word document, because a format that allows the use of CTRL F is the easiest way to track the careers of the minor characters, which throws a great deal of light on facts that can otherwise be overlooked. E.g., the career of Muhammad's divorced wife, Fatima bint Al-Dahhak, suddenly became clear when I searched for her father, whose later adventures are also mentioned in the hadiths. The use of this format is the reason for the page-numbering I cited.

I used this site http://www.searchtruth.com/searchHadith.php for Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud and Muwatta because, once again, a search function is the best way to ensure that significant minor information is not overlooked.

I will be logging in again but probably not before January.

No problem, let us know when you're back in/after January. Safe travels. --Axius (talk) 07:55, 24 November 2012 (PST)

I am back. Actually I have been back for a while, but I delayed contacting you because I have lent out my copy of Ibn Saad, which impedes my ability to do serious work.

However, it would be foolish to delay indefinitely. I can still fix some of the other referencing - which, I promise you, is all real.

While I was away I accessed a copy of Ali Dashti's Twenty-Three Years. One thing that jumped out at me was that he anticipated several of my conclusions. Although I reached my own conclusions independently, in scholarship the race is to the swift, so of course I shall be adding his work to my references. The other thing that I noticed was that a "mistake" that I had attributed to Dashti was not his mistake at all, but one made in transition by someone (anonymous) who had misinterpreted his list. Unfortunately, the wrong version is now all over the internet and falsely attributed to Dashti. It does pay to read the sources in their original form.

I've also been going over William Muir again. I don't have access to many of the early sources he cites, but he makes some excellent points that, if we can find a way to verify them, are well worth revisiting.

hi 1234567, welcome back (out denting for my convenience). I have some Islamic texts in addition to the volumes/books you mentioned and I can arrange for you to have access to them (let me know if you'd like that). I'd also be interesting in getting some of the texts you have if possible but this sharing can be done later. You don't have to read the text that I posted before and I'll just repeat it here. I'll number the issues for convenience (#4, 5 and 6 are important). You can respond and refer to the issue #:

• (1) When you say "Tabari 6:19-26", do you mean the 6th volume and page 19-26?

Yes.

The text for that reference is:

• Khadija was born around 568 in Mecca. She was Muhammad’s third cousin, their common great-great-grandfather having been Qusayy ibn Kilab, keeper of the Kaaba.[3]

If it means pages 19-26, thats a lot of pages for the short amount of text that is quoted (which means this makes it hard for anyone to cross-check this certain reference). Or let me know if I have it wrong somehow.

I agree this particular reference is clunky. It is the whole history of Qusayy, i.e. everything that establishes him as a historical person. Probably only the first page of the reference was necessary to make my point. In fact I think Muhammad's genealogy is easier to read in Guillaume/Ishaq, but I don't have good access to the first volume of Guillaume. (I have photographs of the pages but nothing like a pdf, let alone a Word file like the one I have of volumes II and III.) Even from Guillaume, however, it is necessary to put together two references to make one fact, i.e. Muhammad's genealogy is on page 1 and Khadija's on page 82, but it is nowhere directly stated that they are cousins.

It would be boring for the reader if I explained how I derived every single conclusion by putting together disparate references (What was Safiya bint Huyayy's connection with the poisoner of Khaybar? How old were the single women sojourning in Abyssinia?) but I can certainly supply more details if you want them.

• (2) Making references:
  • Bukhari 73:151. See also Bukhari 8:150. (ref #26)

The way we format Bukhari on our site is: {{Bukhari|8|76|537}}. But even if your reference was in our format (e.g. Sahih Bukhari 8:73:151 [notice this is a USC.edu website]), sometimes that website may not have the hadith we're looking for. The way we do this is, if the linked reference doesn't show anything, we try to quote the actual hadith in the reference so its preserved on our site and the user can see it if they want to. This is important.

For the reference you used, that one is available on the USC site. I type {{Bukhari|8|73|151}} and it comes out as Sahih Bukhari 8:73:151. This is our system for making hadith references for those hadiths which are available on that site. Notice the complete reference for the hadith there "Volume 8, Book 73, Number 151" and note "volume 8". So the format we've used for Bukhari is based on how this website has the reference. The reason why we use this 3 parameter referencing for Bukhari is that the Hadith can be verified with a simple mouse click (as you can see). So Bukhari references would have to be fixed and for hadiths which are not present on that site, we would need to quote that hadith verbatim in the Reference section.

Other references would also have to be fixed for Muslim, Abu Dawud and Muwatta. We would use templates for the hadiths which can be found online on the USC.edu website. Others that are not on the website can be quoted verbatim if possible.

I can fix the references. Everyone knows it's an arduous job but I've had to do plenty of it.

• (3) Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq 155. (ref #38), which says "When they mocked his beliefs, she railed against them with counter-mockery and continued to declare to the world that Muhammad was Allah’s messenger.[38]"

I have Ishaq/Guillaume and I cant see anything about Khadija there (I'm looking at the book 'the life of Muhammad', translation of Ishaq by Guill, Oxford Univ Press, ISBN 0 19 636033 1). Or did you mean 155 to be the numbering on the sides? There I see some relevant matching information. Is there a reason you went by the side-numbering for Ishaq and not the page numbering? After your response I could possibly post a screenshot of the page.

I didn't realise there was more than one way of numbering the pages. How curious! I just went by the page-numbers in my version. But if there is an alternative numbering system, this is going to cause endless confusion. Maybe you could explain it to me?

• (4) You have statements like these which are fine:
  • Unlike the informed consent issue, which simply reveals that Muhammad was a product of his culture, this act of paederasty reveals that Muhammad was morally inferior to his own culture. He rejected the moral norms of his wisest contemporaries in order to indulge himself at Aisha’s expense. He demonstrated for once and for all that he had no timeless, universal moral insight to offer the world – in short, that he was not a prophet. - [1]

These are facts because you have referenced that even Jews at the time understood that "a girl should not be touched before puberty".

But you also have things like this:

• "It is unfair to claim that he “only married her for her money" - Why Muhammad Married Khadija

This shows a problem: There's a significant percentage of content that is actually pro-Islamic or apologetic and it brushes off valid (sometimes obvious and well-known) criticism of Islam. Although I havent looked at your work in detail but this tells me there may be other occurrences.

I hadnt heard of this Fakhita women and even if Muhammad was willing to marry her, it doesnt mean he wouldnt have wanted to marry Khadikha because she came from a powerful woman from a wealthy noble family. (from Wikipedia, I havent confirmed the sources but this is common knowledge that should be mentioned in a section titled "why he married her": "Khadija was from a noble family and at the time of Muhammad, she was a widow. Khadija was a very wealthy woman from inheriting the business her father created"). Yes you have mentioned it in the section but the "why" section refutes the 'wealthy' theory and it portrays Muhammad in a positive light and fully rejects the obvious that Muhammad must have been feeling great to be having marrying Khadija, a powerful wealthy woman. Obviously he gained a lot from that marriage. It was very useful for him.

Even if this certain issue is fixed, it makes me think about what other problems may exist. Its worrying that this kind of approach was used partly in writing it. The way we would approach it is that we would mention she was a wealthy widow from a powerful family. We would not even say "he married her because she was wealthy" (unless we could quote a reputed critic of Islam or a primary source like a hadith). We would only mention the facts and nothing else and we would let the reader judge for themselves (as to why Muhammad married her). This is an important point I want to tell you because thats how we approach things on WikiIslam.

Don't worry about asking me to take things out. I have already decided that I am going to save separately any material that you don't want and write my own e-book. (The counter-jihad is too important to be left in the hands of people who only want to make money out of it, but I still have to pay my bills! It will do me no harm at all to have a little extra material in reserve that you didn't want so I can keep it as a surprise for my commercial work.)

I am not surprised that you haven't heard of Fakhita as she is a minor player in the grand scheme of things. However, her story is as well established as any other fact from Muahmmad's life. Tabari mentions her several times, including volume 39 pp. 196-197. She was the daughter of Abu Talib, who was a poor man. Muhammad wanted to marry her, but Abu Talib gave her to a wealthy man. When Muhammad upbraided his uncle, he was essentially told that the family needed to marry for money. So when Muhammad afterwards told Khadija's servant Nafisa that he wanted to marry but couldn't afford to support a family, this was not just a conventional answer to her question but a reference to a personal disappointment that he had actually experienced.

I am quite certain that Muhammad liked Khadija's money. I suspect a selfish young man like Muhammad would have jumped at the chance to marry a millionaire even if he hadn't liked the woman, although we cannot prove this. But the proposal from Khadija was a piece of luck beyond his wildest dreams that he couldn't possibly have expected. In Fakhita we have clear evidence that he would have willingly married a poor woman if he couldn't find himself a rich one. So the assumption that Muhammad married Khadija only for the money just doesn't seem to be borne out by the facts. At the very least, there was the additional motive that he simply wanted to marry, which is probably a polite way of saying that he was looking for a sexual partner.

BTW, the Wikipedia statement that "Khadija inherited her business from her father" is one of those overworked statements that we all think we know about Islam but in fact is highly doubtful. How could she have inherited the business at a date when her father was still alive? And if he personally "created" the business, why did Khadija's five siblings not take over equal shares? Unless the source material clearly states otherwise, we should consider the possibilities that the business was inherited from her first husband (who came from a clan of prosperous merchants), was set up by her second husband (who was an immigrant but nevertheless prince among his own people) or was the result of Khadija's own personal efforts.

Another example. This is an example of original research (assumptions, deductions, opinions, things that are not present directly in a text):

• he must have been a good stepfather to Hala and Hind, for they remained unswervingly loyal to him. [2] (see statement after ref # 26)

The kids may have been loyal to him out of fear or cultural reasons. It doesn't necessarily mean he was a good stepfather. There are other statements and more may exist because I haven't looked at all the material, but these kinds of assumptions are not right for our site. We focus on simply "quoting" sources and not editorializing content.

Even if we accept this as an essay/op-ed, things like this would still not be suitable for our site.

There are in fact a couple of hadiths that indicate a warm relationship between Muhammad and his stepsons. Would it be more suitable if I simply quoted them and left the conclusion alone?

Having said that, I actually believe (though it would be difficult to prove this objectively) that the "good relationship" between them was superficial. The stepchildren (including Sawda's son) were never prominent in the Muslim community; we just don't find their names on the lists. As Muhammad was often quite nepotistic, this suggests he was not close to his stepchidren after they grew up.

• (5) Embellishing text:
  • Juwayriya was sweet-natured, charming and as alluringly beautiful as a fairy; men became infatuated with her at first sight. - [3]

Things like that (bold above) are not suitable for our site. This should be a fact-based serious article, not a script for a movie or a novel which can be good on its own but thats not the approach we use. So things like these would have to be changed. Content should be like what you would see in a reputed newspaper known for rigorous fact-checking, not a novel. If the sources says "beautiful like fairy", only then we can use it as it is and then we make sure the reader knows that this was an actual quote (we would use quotation marks for things like that). Yes content that is suited for a novel may appear exciting/engaging and story-like and newspaper content that is only based on facts and has no opinions may be dry/boring, but we go for facts only and not opinions. This style of writing requires restraint and prevents us from stating opinions and deductions that we have to let the reader see for themselves.

I realise you cited this as possibly typical of other passages - but in this case, it's simply unclear referencing. The words you have bolded are directly from Aisha! I agree that "fairy" (Ghadanfar's translation) is not a particularly good rendering of jinnya, but I'm stumped as to what other English word to substitute. (Elf? Siren? Angel? Veela?) Anyway, I'll go through the whole and make it clear that when I use expressions like that, it's some person's subjective opinion.

• (6) Style of sourcing

For example:

• Juwayriya was sweet-natured, charming and as alluringly beautiful as a fairy; men became infatuated with her at first sight. When she stood at the doorway of Muhammad’s tent, Aisha’s heart sank, for she knew Muhammad would react just like all other men. Sure enough, he did. Juwayriya asked Muhammad to arrange her redemption. Muhammad asked: “Would you like something better than that? I will ransom you myself and marry you.” He did not offer to send her back to her father: the choice was to marry Muhammad or to risk his anger by remaining Thabit’s slave. So Juwayriya agreed to marry Muhammad, and he declared her manumitted.[5] - [4]

This is the same location as in #5. Statements that are shown as fact are unreferenced but you have a reference at the end which is:

• Guillaume/Ishaq 629; Ibn Hisham note 918; Tabari 39:182-183; Abu Dawud 29:3920; Ibn Saad, Tabaqat 117; Ibn Hajar, Al-Isaba 4:265

Why this is wrong: Think of writing 3 pages and giving one combined reference at the end. This makes it really hard to cross-check anything. We dont know which of those statements was found in which source.

Again, I can alter the referencing. But many of the stories are clunky to reference no matter how they are approached. The six references tell the same story almost identically. I could certainly add a reference after each sentence, but each footnote would include four or five of the six total references. Or I could include only one of the references, but I would then have to sacrifice any information not specifically included in that reference.

Again, not all of the content is like that. You have some great stuff which forms a significant portion of the content and these are things that will remain hidden from the public (they will be interesting for Muslims and non-Muslims alike), unless they read your work (or if they buy all those references you have used, which is unlikely). But thats why I really want to attempt to save this work if possible and so I'm discussing it with you to see what can be done.

So I think these are issues that have to be discussed/resolved. In summary:

Minor:

• I want to make sure we are looking at the same copies of Ibn Ishaq
• References have to be converted to our template format where possible. For example {{Bukhari|3|4|67}}

Major:

• Style of references: Any 'Facts' must be referenced individually and combined references should not be used, so cross-checking can be done.
• Opinions/deductions/assumptions have to deleted from all the content, so we are left with only the facts found explicitly in the sources.
• No apologetic material must be found (especially if unreferenced). Continuing that thought, neutral content is interesting, valuable and should be retained but also remember that we focus on criticism of Islam.

Now perhaps I've been looking in the wrong places, but this is the nearest thing to a content-policy you have ever given me.

This is all I have for now. Sorry its really long so take your time. I've probably made some mistakes/typos in writing this but here I go. I really want to know what you think about 4, 5 and 6.

As regards sharing texts, I am glad of anything I can get. I have only what is generally available to the public; my copies of Tabari and Ibn Saad were bought from Amazon. I have realised from reading tertiary sources (often very bad ones) that access to Bayhaqi would probably fill in some important gaps, but if a complete English translation exists, I have missed it.

I strongly recommend you add http://www.kister.huji.ac.il/ to your favourites. Professor Kister was a serious scholar who had access to vast resources and had some important insights into Muhammad's relationship with the Jews. You can read his works for free without needing to join anything.

I came across an interesting one the other day that absolutely nails the Muhammad/Aisha relationship. The reason it is not better known is that the Arabic source is so badly cited. Ockley (writing in English in 1708) cites Maracci, and Maracci (writing in Latin in 1698) cites "the book by Abdulrahman Hamdanius". This isn't quite enough information to verify the reference. But if we can track it down and if it turns out to be at all reliable (I know it isn't necessarily, just because it's written in Arabic!) it will be a must-include. You can read Ockley's twice-translated version at the bottom of http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Saracens/Life_of_Mohammed/Part_I.

I know I haven't answered everything yet, but that is enough for today. I am going to work through the text one wife at a time, so I will begin with Khadija and ignore remarks that do not relate directly to her.

Muir has a very interesting take on Muhammad's "fidelity" to Khadija. He claims that all the suras in the Qur'an that concern the houris of Paradise were written in the period 614-619. I have no way of checking whether this is correct. But if it is correct, it is very significant. It means that in the final years of Khadija's life (when her health was failing and her money was running out) Muhammad was speaking openly about his visions of other women. Yet if Muir is correct, he stopped doing this as soon as he married Sawda, i.e. when he once again had a younger woman and didn't need to fantasise. It might not be a big deal, but it suggests that the marriage of Muhammad and Khadija was less idyllic than is often claimed.

Sahabah, feel free to add any additional input. I could have missed some additional important issues. --Axius (talk) 14:51, 2 February 2013 (PST)

It's hard for me to add much, since the talk pages have been deleted and I've lost all my saved data on the PC. In fact, I wrote a lengthy reply here, only to have my device crash, so I'll have to be brief.

Yeah, material that can be construed as apologetic towards Islam is not suitable, even as an essay. And we obviously want essays to be credible.

What you have to understand is, material that is hosted on WikiIslam will remain here indefinitely (the site isn't going anywhere). It will be read or used as a resource by hundreds of thousands, even millions of readers. It will likely be reposted, quoted or cited by many of websites, blogs and forums. Whilst articles remain, most editors do not. They usually submit their work then disappear. This is fine with us because we only accept referenced and easily verifiable material. If in two years its accuracy is questioned, the editors who are active at that time can easily defend it.

On the other hand, your work could be considered "original research". Tracking down the exact reference for stated facts seems difficult and you seem to infer things and make a lot of assumptions based on your own reading of the text (where you say things like, "most probably, or "likely", etc.). Since we have no idea of what led you to those conclusions, there is no way our editors can defend it. --Sahabah (talk) 17:01, 2 February 2013 (PST)

hi 1234567, I out-dented your quotes and am reproducing them for replies:

I didn't realise there was more than one way of numbering the pages. How curious! I just went by the page-numbers in my version. But if there is an alternative numbering system, this is going to cause endless confusion. Maybe you could explain it to me?

We go by page numbers too. Here's my page 155 [5]. Is this what you have too on your side? I dont see anything about Khadija on both pg 154 and 155. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong book or location. Here's the title page of the book [6]. The line that you wrote is here: [7] (ref 38 in that section)

So the assumption that Muhammad married Khadija only for the money just doesn't seem to be borne out by the facts.

Say he had a choice to marry two women who wanted to marry him. One was K, and the other was also K, but she was as poor as Fakhita. A man who goes after war booty and organizes caravan raids to rob non-Muslims definitely would go after the rich woman. Why did he really marry Khadija? We don't know. We only know the facts: She was from a rich family, he was from a poor one and when he found out K is single, maybe his thinking was "I couldnt get with Fakhita. I'll get a job with Khadija. If I get real lucky, she might just marry me".

So we dont know these things. For our site, we keep these kinds of opinions out because these conclusions can be questioned by anyone. Just stating the facts is enough and the reader should be left to decide the rest for themselves.

At the very least, there was the additional motive that he simply wanted to marry, which is probably a polite way of saying that he was looking for a sexual partner.

Of course. No one says 100% of the motive was money. It could be: 60% money and improving his future prospects and influence, 30% sexual partnership and 10% companionship and so on. Again if another K (who had no money) also proposed to him, he would married the rich K. Even today anyone would do that and would pay importance to money, if other factors were kept equal.

Khadija inherited her business from her father" is one of those overworked statements that we all think we know about Islam but in fact is highly doubtful. How could she have inherited the business at a date when her father was still alive?

Maybe the father said "I'm tired, you can take the reigns, you're pretty good at it.". We dont know what happened. The important thing is: She was a successful business woman and very rich.

Unless the source material clearly states otherwise, we should consider the possibilities that the business was inherited from her first husband (who came from a clan of prosperous merchants), was set up by her second husband (who was an immigrant but nevertheless prince among his own people) or was the result of Khadija's own personal efforts.

Yes those are possibilities. I dont know what the Wikipedia source exactly says but we would go by whatever the source says. Again the important issue is that she was rich. Whether she got rich through a lottery, father or husband, those are interesting details but secondary when studying why Muhammad married her. Muhammad wouldn't really care exactly how she inherited the wealth.

There are in fact a couple of hadiths that indicate a warm relationship between Muhammad and his stepsons. Would it be more suitable if I simply quoted them and left the conclusion alone?

Having said that, I actually believe (though it would be difficult to prove this objectively) that the "good relationship" between them was superficial. The stepchildren (including Sawda's son) were never prominent in the Muslim community; we just don't find their names on the lists. As Muhammad was often quite nepotistic, this suggests he was not close to his stepchidren after they grew up.

Yes, most definitely. We love quotes. In my opinion, any thing that says "this happened" needs a direct reference. So we cannot say "he must have been a good stepfather", unless there's a direct source for it. But as you said, you can refer to those hadiths as they are and not make any conclusions. This way we are being historically accurate without making inferences that may or may not be true (or can be debated). In other words, if something can be debated about and there's no source for it, it should be left out.

The words you have bolded are directly from Aisha!

Then it should be made clear, because to me the words were stated by you.

"it's simply unclear referencing"

It doesn't need to be said that no reference should be unclear. The reader wants to know whether something was an invention by the author, or by the primary source (Aisha). In fact it would have been a lot more interesting and credible, if the reader was told that Aisha described Juwayriya like that.

I agree that "fairy" (Ghadanfar's translation) is not a particularly good rendering of jinnya, but I'm stumped as to what other English word to substitute. (Elf? Siren? Angel? Veela?)

The more accurate and credible way to do this would be to say something like this: Aisha once described Juwayriya as 'jinnya', a word which some arabic dictionaries describe as 'beautiful, fairy like, elf and angel.'

Would you agree that its much better to tell the reader that Aisha described her as jinnya and not you? This isnt just about this certain issue but about others as well. The reader doesnt care for your personal opinions and conclusions. They want to know the facts. When you read a news article, you want to know what really happened. You dont care about the writer's own inventions and original research. Stories that only contain 'facts' are much more valued by the reader than those containing original research. You as a writer may feel good about seeing the article as 'your own' but the reality again is: the reader just wants to know the facts.

Anyway, I'll go through the whole and make it clear that when I use expressions like that, it's some person's subjective opinion.

There should ideally be no subjective opinion in any of the text unless they are opinions of important people in the story (Muhammad's wife, Muhammad, his enemies and so on).

Again, I can alter the referencing. But many of the stories are clunky to reference no matter how they are approached. The six references tell the same story almost identically. I could certainly add a reference after each sentence, but each footnote would include four or five of the six total references. Or I could include only one of the references, but I would then have to sacrifice any information not specifically included in that reference.

Just keep this in mind: If you think something may be and can be questioned by someone, it definitely needs very clear references that can be cross-checked. Wikipedia's principle is similar: "if it can be questioned, it needs a source".

Now perhaps I've been looking in the wrong places, but this is the nearest thing to a content-policy you have ever given me.

We have this [8] on our Guidelines page which says "content on WikiIslam should be based on facts, references and Islamic sources and not support any kind of fringe theories unsupported by the majority of evidence found in recognized translations of the Qur'an, hadith and quotations from Islamic". So we clearly state that content should be based on facts and references and that implies there shouldn't be any original research.

Thanks for your other information. You're definitely more well-read than I am and you're passionate about this subject and you've decided to come to this site. All these things are hard to find in an editor. If you did decide to take out all opinions and anything that is not directly stated in the references and keep it it part of the main content, that would be awesome and ideal for our site and it would make me really happy. But if you want to convert the whole thing to an essay as Sahabah mentioned, that's up to you. --Axius (talk) 19:28, 5 February 2013 (PST)

Considered submitting an essay/op-ed?

Hi there. It's a fairly recent development, but have you considered submitting an essay/op-ed? I know you mentioned how your research proves that all of Prophet Muhammad's wives were young, rather than the Muslim claim that most were old and widowed. So you could trim your work and make it more focused (with the obvious option of submitting further essays to include more of your research). Of course, there are still guidelines to adhere to, but this could be the ideal solution for all sides concerned. At WikiIslam we like to stick to the traditional interpretation of Islam and its history in our critique (for example, the order of revelations, authoritive tafsirs, and certainly the age of Kadijah and other fundamental issues). An essay would allow you to state your findings without them clashing with the site's more orthodox conclusions, and it will even give you space to explain how you came to your own conclusions (e.g. why you think the scholar's take on Kadijah's age is more likely than the commonly accepted one). Take a look at some of our essays here and you can find the submission form here. --Sahabah (talk) 18:02, 1 February 2013 (PST)

An essay is probably the best format for some of what I have to say. For example, it is not really controversial to state that "We don't know Khadija's age." The early traditions offer so many alternatives (everywhere between 25 and 45 when she married Muhammad) that we have to ask some pretty big questions about, "Well, who did know? Were they all inventing this?" But if you don't want this minor point argued in a "fact page" (who cares how old she was really?) I can certainly write an opinion piece about the ages of all Muhammad's wives.

Similarly, if I can follow up some other research I have started, I would like to produce a short piece on the gender balance in the Meccan Muslim community before 627. Long story short, there were far more men than women. The suggestion that the "war casualties" created a surplus of women is modern and not found in the early sources, and it doesn't seem to have any evidence in its favour. My impression is that there was still a majority of men, even after Uhud. But I can see how an opinion like this might rock the boat, and I'm having some trouble tracking references, so it's definitely a future project.

However, I think "biography" pages for Muhammad's wives are needed in addition to opinion pieces. In fact, I would also like to see biography pages for some of the other major players, e.g. Abu Sufyan, Abullah ibn Ubayy, Al-Zubayr ibn Al-Awwam. It is very easy for the casual reader's eyes to glaze over at the sight of all those Arabic names and not recognise them when they reappear. When you track their stories longitudinally, some quite startling portraits emerge.

Yes, essays about the ages of Muhammad's wives and the gender balance in the Meccan Muslim community before 627 would both be most welcome additions to the site. Both are interesting and important topics.

I agree more biographical pages are needed. If they're approached from a traditional angle, it would be great (e.g. our approach to criticism is to use commonly accepted narratives, but to also point out the less savoury details that accompany them).

Good luck with you e-book! If you need any help with it, feel free to leave a message on my talk page. I'd probably not be very useful, but if you need someone to check for typos or maybe just give you their honest opinion, know that I'm more than happy to give you a hand. --Sahabah (talk) 21:24, 4 February 2013 (PST)

Here's my opinion. Sahabah knows that I prefer our main content to essays because essays have personal opinions. Thats why we have this linked disclaimer [9] at the top of every essay says "Views contained in essays/op-eds are not necessarily endorsed by WikiIslam. ... Thus, they may contain original research/theories at odds with the rest of our content. ". Because of the fact that a piece of content only contains facts, WikiIslam stands behind everything that is in that content and essays don't get that support (and respect and success in my opinion). I actually dislike essays for that reason but I do see that they attract readership too. For example this certain essay series [10] imported by Sahabah was picked up by some quickly and linked online on forum(s). Sometimes a reader may relate to something in an essay. But again to me an essay has secondary importance. In the Wives case, the issue is all about history and when history is written about, the reader again wants to know what really happened. For this Factual persuasion series, its pretty clear its an essay series.

So I would really like if the work was improved upon so it can be part of the main content rather than being an essay. The first step in that would be to take out original research (conclusions, assumptions) which is not present in the source. Essays are attributed to a single author. We really want something where everything is fact based and there are no opinions and everything in it is what the site endorses. No one takes (unsourced) opinions seriously unless they are by Ibn Warraq or Tabari and so on. By that I mean, statements like that cant be quoted in a debate because they'll be questioned: Who wrote it? How do they know that? How can we trust this author and believe what they've written? When a piece in a newspaper says "In 1937, 110 people were killed in a landslide", that is a fact and no one doubts that and its more likely to be quoted. If someone says "There were many landslides in that area so many people must have been killed", that is weak as compared to the first. To clarify, Sahabah also likes fact-only articles just like I do too but he also likes essays.

But again -- if you guys want to work on keeping it as an essay that's up to you. If you decide to work on it as being part of the main content, of course essays can be written later too. I really wish I had time to work on this myself and if I did, I would have made it to be part of the main content and not be an essay. There's some really great stuff in what 1234567 has done, many interesting facts and details. --Axius (talk) 19:28, 5 February 2013 (PST)

No, I agree 100% with you. I prefer the no-nonsense, facts only, encyclopedic/counter-apologetic pages over essays. My editing history shows that I'm ruthless when it comes to removing opinions or non-referenced statements from our pages. My concern is that it will end up becoming too much of a hassle for both the author and the site. I'd rather have several new a-grade essays over eventually having nothing at all. Plus, in this instance, the author can argue a point we'd never make, I.e. that all of Prophet Muhammad's wives (including Kadijah) were young women. This would make it an important counter-apologetic piece, and I don't think it being attributed to a single author is an issue there. Ideally we'd have both, essays and encyclopedic pages. --Sahabah (talk) 20:28, 5 February 2013 (PST)

Ok. "that all of Prophet Muhammad's wives (including Kadijah) were young women." - this would also be fine if its not an essay because if we've given the sources for their ages we can make that direct conclusion that they were young and its not original research. I guess its up to 1234567 to decide if she wants to keep it as essays which will have disclaimers at the top, or part of the main content, in which case it needs revisions. --Axius (talk) 18:27, 6 February 2013 (PST)

I have noted your server-change. However, I doubt I shall have anything to post before you revert to your old server because I don't currently have access to my copy of Ibn Saad, which is an essential reference. My friend knows I want the book back, but I imagine it will take a while to organise the transfer. Meanwhile, I am tidying up the article on Khadija but I am not paying attention to any of the other wives. I have found a couple of new references not available in English (I don't count Google Translate!) so I will need to ask my Arabic-speaking friends whether they really mean what they seem to.

Great, thanks for the update. I look forward to seeing what you'll have. We are now on the new server and everything is back to normal. Arabic references sometimes contain things that get whitewashed/altered/softened in translation so that will be interesting. --Axius (talk) 18:25, 12 February 2013 (PST)

This still isn't exactly the way I wanted to write it because there are still a couple of references that I didn't manage to track. But rather than let you think I'd given up, I thought I should let you see what I have at present. I'm hoping there will be a little more to follow.1234567 (talk) 05:05, 31 March 2013 (PDT)

Hi 1234567. Nice to see you active again. I thought it would make it easier for you so I moved your work to as sandbox: User:1234567/Sandbox. Axius may be a little late in replying. Would you like me to rename your account to Petra MacDonald? --Sahabah (talk) 06:33, 31 March 2013 (PDT)

I havent read it yet but looks fine to me? I'll read it soon. I did see this:

If the report of Abdullah ibn Abbas is correct, she was a mere three years older than Muhammad, which hardly qualifies as an age-difference.

My opinion on that: We know Abbas is wrong. Its more commonly known that it was 25 and she was 40. It should be clear that this 3 year difference is a fringe theory. Fringe theories should not be given 'equal' treatment and should not be presented 'equally' visibly along with other facts. So this should be corrected with either removal of this portion, or with the addition that more common references talk about 25/40, or make a new subsection about her age and present all the various theories there along with their proper weights. This may be best because the age difference is frequently talked about.

Other than than it looks great, like the section "Khadija and Polytheism". There's lots of interesting information. Articles like this about Muhammad's most famous/prominent wives will be popular reads. After the remaining changes are made, we can see if we can move it to the main space and it may not even need an author attribution if it doesnt contain any opinions/original research. The pictures look great also. --Axius (talk) 08:59, 31 March 2013 (PDT)

I must admit I've had a U-turn of opinion here. Looking at the source and how it's written, I think the age issue has been handled great and doesn't need amending. Sources for both ages are provided and the readers can make up their mind. Also, after having a quick read through, I agree that this probably will not need to be labeled an essay. I think it would look good as part of the wiki mainspace. If 1234567 (Petra MacDonald) would like to be acknowledged as the original author, we can attribute this the way we do for all of our encyclopedic/counter-apologetic pages where the author requests recognition i.e. through an author category. Well, those are my thoughts. --Sahabah (talk) 16:54, 31 March 2013 (PDT)

Ok I'm fine with that. That age thing is minor I guess (provided there's no bigger issues). After there's the additional changes that 1234567 wants to do, we can make it part of the main space. --Axius (talk) 16:59, 31 March 2013 (PDT)

To avoid confusion, I have now deleted the version that was here and will continue working from the sandbox.

Great. Note that the version in the sandbox is an old version (you've made edits to the article after I copy/pasted it). --Sahabah (talk) 03:59, 1 April 2013 (PDT)

Should I move it to the mainspace now?--Sahabah (talk) 06:45, 2 April 2013 (PDT)

It's up to you, depending on whether you think it looks finished or requires more corrections. I'm afraid I'm the kind of person who is forever nit-picking my own work and will always be finding something that I want to change unless you stop me.

You asked several questions that I tried to answer, but they were lost in cyberspace. Let's try again, in no particular order.

(1) I don't think there is any reason to write an author-name on an encyclopaedia-type article like this one. It will deter other people from making additions. And you know the drill. If someone has a genuine reason for thinking I'm wrong, they should be allowed to contribute. If they just want to jump up and down and complain that Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Saad, Tabari and Bukhari don't show enough respect to the Holy Prophet, you already have a mechanism to stop that kind of non-correction.

(2) For now I'll keep my username as the anonymous 1234567. I think I've mentioned that "Petra MacDonald" is a translation of "Asma bint Marwan" (petra and marwan both mean "stone", and donald and asma both mean "supreme one") but there's no need to invoke Asma's fate upon myself unnecessarily!

(3) I notice you have a preference for standard American spelling. I've made no attempt to pretend I can write in American when I can't. But if you'd prefer to change every instance of "favour" to "favor" and "realise" to "realize", and add American currency equivalents to my pounds sterling, that's up to you.

(4) Tomorrow I'll be seeing my Arab friends and I hope to ask them a couple of translation questions. If they can clear up my issues, I should be able to submit an op-ed essay about the ages of Muhammad's wives. By my calculation, the mean age of a bride of Muhammad was 24, which is not exactly "elderly", even by medieval Arab standards. I will be submitting this as "Petra MacDonald" to emphasise that it's only my opinion. I'm afraid it's ditchwater-dull: "X died in DATE at the age of Y, therefore was born in DATE, and must have been married at age Z..." But some people out there will find it a useful reference, and others will like (or dislike) the conclusion.

(5) You began to ask about how I would define a "primary source". As I understand it, a primary source is an eyewitness account or an actual monument left over from the event. So the Qur'an is the only true primary source for the life of Muhammad. If we could find the original text of the Compact of Medina or of his Delegation Letters, these would also be primary sources. The hadith collections, no matter how high-quality and reliable, are only secondary sources. Ibn Ishaq, of course, is a hadith-collection arranged in a particular way, chronologically rather than thematically. I would concede that a copyist such as Ibn Hisham, Tabari or Al-Hakim is also a secondary source provided we are quite certain he is making an accurate copy of Ibn Ishaq and not altering the words.

As to Ibn Kathir, how to classify him depends on what you want to know. If your question is "How did fourteenth-century Muslim scholars think about Islam?" then Ibn Kathir is a primary source. If your question is "How should we understand the Qur'an?" then Ibn Kathir's tafsir is secondary. If your question is "How should we understand the events described in the hadiths?" then Ibn Kathir is tertiary. For example, his engaging little piece on the wives of Muhammad is tertiary. Really, I would put much of Ibn Kathir's work on a par with that of someone like Sir William Muir. Both were interpreting the secondary sources centuries after the events in the light of their own biases; both had access to a massive amount of information not available to you or me, arranged it logically and did the best they could with what they had. But of course the results were very different. In similar vein, Tabari fluctuates between secondary (when he has a word-for-word quote from a seconary source) and tertiary (when he comments on what he has quoted).

Hence you'll notice that I've cited a lot of rubbish from the internet. I think these quotes are valid primary sources on "how 21st-century Islamo-apologists think about the life of Muhammad." But they are not valid sources of actual information about Muhammad - they are quaternary at best.

(6) Do you want me to tidy up the list of "Wives of Muhammad"? After exhaustively trawling both Ibn Saad and Tabari, I'm fairly confident that I know the names of all the wives known to history (which, of course, is not necessarily the same as all the wives there ever were). I make it that Muhammad slept with 17 different women and had some kind of legal contract or engagement with 13 others. I have the names of 5 women whom he desired but who refused him, and 5 more whose offers he refused. A few other names popularly found on lists of Muhammad's wives are either alternative names for one of the above or mistakes based on misreadings of the texts (I'm fairly certain that he never married Hind bint Utba or Umm Haram, and that there was only one Maymuna, not two). I would suggest making a list of all those who could reasonably be deemed "wives", and a second list of "see also", then linking each name to the wiki-article that will give her biography.

(7) I'm currently working on an article about Aisha. That will be far less trouble than the one about Khadija because the sources are so much more accessible.

(8) And eventually I'll write an article to show that none of Muhammad's wives was a poor widow in desperate need of shelter, but not this week.1234567 (talk) 18:31, 4 April 2013 (PDT)

1. That's fine. Yes, the information is safe from people who simply want to delete things for no good reason

2. No problem.

3. Yeah, I'll convert the proper English to US. I do this for every article.

4. Sounds great. Looking forward to reading it.

5. Thanks for the detailed answers.

6. Okay. If you could add the references, that would be great.

7-8. Again, this sounds great. We're not going anywhere so take your time :) --Sahabah (talk) 04:48, 5 April 2013 (PDT)

List of Wives and Concubines of Muhammad

Hi. Thanks for the article you submitted on the talk page. The only problems I see is that people like Virgin Mary need some sort of quick explanation (i.e. "Engagement arranged in heaven", or something like that) otherwise it will leave readers bewildered. Also, it would be nice to note the reason why some were divorced (i.e. "divorced before consummation because she was "too old"", or "divorced before consummation because she suffering from leprosy"). Apart from that, the changes are positive. Thanks a lot for your work here.

Regardless, I've always felt that page was a little bland and empty. Would you like to expand the list a little by making it more like the List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad? This way you could include a nice little summary about each person. I will create a template page so you can see what I mean and, if you agree, to fill with the information you have. Also the name is an issue. I don't think "List of Wives and Concubines of Muhammad" quite covers the page's scope. What do you think of "List of Women in Muhammad's Life"? --Sahabah (talk) 13:38, 8 April 2013 (PDT)

I've made that page now: http://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Women_in_Muhammads_Life . Even as an empty shell, I can see that page has the potential to be one of our standout articles. I'll fill what I can to make it easier and quicker for you. --Sahabah (talk) 16:25, 8 April 2013 (PDT)

This new page looks great (or will when its complete). --Axius (talk) 16:42, 8 April 2013 (PDT)

"List of Women in Muhammad's Life" will do until one of us thinks of something better. However, it's somewhat misleading, as we're not including his daughters, aunts or domestic staff.

Yes, the set-up looks marvellous. I have already made tables that look similar to that one for my personal use, so I should be able to write it up as soon as I've worked out how to read the software.

I still want to make individual pages for most of these women. Quite a bit is known about characters like Asma bint Numan and Fatima bint Al-Dahhak (not as much as about Khadija or Aisha, of course, but at least stub-length), and it seems a pity to limit them to a one-liner in a table.

There is at least one extra name (a woman who refused M's proposal on the grounds she was already married) that I'm 99% sure will turn out to be valid, but at present I've mislaid the primary source. I suppose I can just keep adding information of that type as it surfaces? We have already covered ourselves for incompleteness by admitting that we don't know the full number of women. 1234567 (talk) 17:00, 8 April 2013 (PDT)

1. Yes, agreed. I think i made the scope a little wider than it should be. :) We'll try to think of an alternative title.

2. Okay. Yes. If the writing style is scholarly/historian-type, rather than narrative, it would be greatly appreciated.

3. Yes, you can add them as you get hold of the sources. The article will still be "complete" in the wiki sense of the word. I will stop adding those refs and leave you to it. Otherwise we'll have an edit conflict and one of us will lose everything we typed.--Sahabah (talk) 17:26, 8 April 2013 (PDT)

Just a note that you can put more than a sentence in each (2,3, or 4 maybe). Basically pack as much pertinent info in a tiny space as you can.--Sahabah (talk) 17:36, 8 April 2013 (PDT)

Simon Ockley again

My Arab friends have given me some help about Simon Ockley's translation of the paedophilia text. Simon Ockley was translating this text. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=xLJEAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en. You can scroll forward to page 23, where you will recognise the words Mohamet, Abu Bakr, Aisha. There is no serious doubt that Ockley has made an accurate translation of Maracci's Latin. You will see that the Arab scholar was called Abdulrahman al-Hamdani. My friends say that the title of his book is Al-Shabayat. They cannot read Latin and I did not tell them what it was about. I just asked them about the sentence of Arabic. They said it means: "He reached out his blessed arm and grabbed her by the clothes." They were very surprised by this odd sentence. I had to explain to them that it was probably a quote from the book, and the story was about Muhammad and Aisha. So I think we can fairly say that Maracci did have access to a real book and that he made a fair translation of the story. Now we must try to find out who the scholar was and when he lived. Perhaps then we can establish the reliability of his narrative. But there is something about it that rings horribly true. I don't think a Muslim hagiographer would have invented this story.1234567 (talk) 05:01, 13 April 2013 (PDT)

Interesting! Thanks for keeping us posted. --Sahabah (talk) 11:10, 13 April 2013 (PDT)

Essay about the Ages of Muhammad's Wives

The essay submission function seems to be out of action today.

The Young Wives of Muhammad

By Petra MacDonald

The Traditional View

Muslim apologists claim that Muhammad’s wives were elderly and that he did not marry them for physical attraction.

Even some Western historians have repeated this line.

What this highlights is that terms like “middle-aged” and “elderly” are subjective. They do not give precise information about how old the women were. Rather than debate what the words “middle-aged” and “elderly” ought to mean, we will consult the early Muslim sources and calculate the age of each wife on the day she married Muhammad.

How Long is a Year?

The Islamic year consists of twelve lunar cycles and hence it is 354 or 355 days long. This means it is quite difficult to calculate comparative dates. For example:

This calendar tool advises us that the date 12 Rabi-Awwal 1 AH is equivalent to the Gregorian date 27 September 622 AD. But this does not give the 53-year-old Muhammad a birthdate of 27 September 569. Because the lunar year is shorter, Muhammad’s age at the time of the Hijra was only about 51½ solar years. According to the calculator, his birthdate of 12 Rabi-Awwal 53 BH is equivalent to the Gregorian date 26 April 571.

Of course, the Gregorian calendar did not exist in Muhammad’s day, so reporting dates in Gregorian style is an anachronism. The Europeans used the Julian calendar, which was then only two or three days variant from the Gregorian. However, it will be convenient to compare Muhammad’s calendar with the one currently used by the majority of readers.

When Muslim historians speak of “the Year of the Elephant,” they always mean the year when Muhammad was born, which fell between 15 February 571 and 3 February 572.

Obviously it is suspicious that Muhammad apparently arrived in Medina exactly on his birthday – especially as 12 Rabi-Awwal was also his death-date!^[1] It suggests that his official birthday is a made-up date. In fact the early historians give numerous suggestions for birth-dates other than the 12th, which the calculator tells was in any case a Friday and not a Monday. However, since the variant birthdays for Muhammad are all in the month of Rabi-Awwal and the year “of the Elephant,” we shall assume here that Muhammad was born in April 571.

A further complication is that nobody is certain that the pre-Hijri year was exactly the same as the Muslim year that was standardised after the Hijra. However, Muhammad complained about the custom of adding an intercalary month, which was probably a Medinan practice introduced by the Jews.^[2] The fact that he abolished intercalary months^[3] suggests that no such practice had been known in Mecca and that the old Meccan year was much the same as the later Islamic year.

How Old was Khadijah?

The discussion about Khadijah’s age does not arouse the type of anger, defensiveness and sheer deceit that surrounds the discussion of Aisha’s age. Nobody denies that Khadijah married Muhammad as a very willing adult. Nevertheless, the traditional view of her age is probably wrong, and many people are uncomfortable with the news that their traditions are wrong.

The year “65 years before the tenth year of prophethood” ran between July 556 and July 557, which was 15 years before the so-called Year of the Elephant, so this is internally consistent.

Hakim was Khadijah’s nephew.^[4] Since children generally know the ages of their playmates, it is assumed that Hakim would have known the age of an aunt who was only two years older than himself. That is why his statement that she married Muhammad when she was 40 is usually accepted as true. However, there are problems with Hakim’s assertion.

Hakim ibn Hizam

The first problem is that Hakim claimed his own age to be 120.^[5] This is intrinsically questionable. To bolster his story, Hakim claimed to remember the episode when Abdulmuttalib ibn Hashim vowed to sacrifice his son Abdullah to the god Hubal but was able to ransom him for 100 camels. He says this was about five years before Muhammad was born.^[6] But Hakim’s ability to spill out details that were already common knowledge does not prove he was an eyewitness to the event: he might well have heard the story from his parents.

Hakim’s remarks about Khadijah’s age might have served a similar function of supporting his personal boasts rather than relaying accurate history. If he had long ago mentioned that Khadijah was two years older than himself, he might have needed to stick to his story about her relative age and readjust her chronological age in order to keep it consistent with his claims about his own age. There is something suspicious about his remark here.

The reporter is emphasising that Hakim was only using a figure of speech to indicate Khadijah’s age and did not literally mean that she followed Islamic prayer rituals before Muhammad was even born. However, this kind of careless anachronism is exactly what we would expect from a person who is not remembering an event but inventing it from his imagination. Crudely, it is the way liars speak.

It is not impossible for a human to live 120 years but it is an exception to the general rule. So it is surprising how many early Muslims claimed to have reached this great age. Yahya ibn Mandah even wrote a book entitled “Those of the Companions who Lived 120 Years,” in which he lists fourteen 120-year-old Muslims.^[7] Hakim ibn Hizam is one of them. Another is Huwaytib ibn Abduluzza.

Huwaytib died in the year 54 AH^[8] so he should have converted to Islam in the year 7 BH (615–616). The problem is, he openly admits that he did not convert until the conquest of Mecca in 8 AH! He gives a long list of excuses for the tardiness of his conversion^[9] but he never checks his arithmetic. If he became a Muslim in 8 AH, this was only 46 years before his death and not 60. This makes his age at death no more than 106. Of course, even this age assumes that he really was as old as 60 at the time of his conversion, which we now have licence to doubt. Huwaytib ibn Abduluzza lived to be elderly, but he was probably not entitled to his chapter in Yahya ibn Mandah’s book.

Muhammad’s poet, Hassan ibn Thabit, also claimed to be 120 years old. He said he was 60 at the time of the Hijra and that he lived another 60 years afterwards.^[10] This means he should have been born in 60 BH (seven years before Muhammad) and should have died in 61 AH. Tabari vaguely states that he died “in the caliphate of Muawiya,”^[11] which was between 41 and 60 AH. Modern historians usually give his death-date as 54 AH, seven years too early.^[12]

Not included in Yahya ibn Mandah’s book is the poet Abu Afak, who was said to be 120 years old in 624 when he was assassinated for criticising Muhammad.^[13] Of course, no records have survived from pre-Islamic Medina; it was only hearsay that attributed this great age to Abu Afak. Yet even his enemies were willing to go along with the hearsay.

Is it really plausible that so many persons (all of them male) lived to be 120? Assuming it is not, is it even fair to accuse them of lying about their ages? More likely, there was some culturally understood convention attached to the number 120. People who boasted of reaching this age did not expect to be taken literally. They were simply saying, “I’m really, really old.”

If Hakim ibn Hizam was not literally 120, nor is it necessarily true that Khadijah (or any other person) was the age he claimed for her.

Abdullah ibn Abbas

The second problem with Khadijah’s age is that there is a strong alternative tradition, one that originates from no less a person than Abdullah ibn Abbas. Ibn Abbas was the cousin who lived at Muhammad’s side through the final years in Medina.^[14] He was a great source of ahadith and his word would normally be accepted without question.^[15] What is more, his mother was a close friend of Khadijah’s.^[16] The only reason why Abdullah has been largely ignored on the subject of Khadijah is that he never knew her personally while Hakim ibn Hizam did.^[17] Abdullah ibn Abbas says:

An independent tradition is:

If she was 50 at death, she was 25 at marriage. However, this is not really a third tradition about Khadijah’s age, for context suggests that the number 50 is only an approximation. So the tradition that Khadijah was married at “about 25” is actually independent support for the tradition that she was in fact 28.

Gynaecology

The third problem with Khadijah’s age is the common-sense consideration that she bore Muhammad six children over a period of ten years.^[18] If she married him at 40, she was 50 by the time she gave birth to Fatima in 605.^[19] While this is not completely impossible, it is a sufficiently unusual achievement to cause us to pause and question the assertion.

Muhammad’s detractors in Mecca asked him why he did not perform any miracles.^[20] He had to fall back on, “The Qur’an is my miracle,”^[21] but it is clear that he was not happy about this response. He subsequently claimed to have split the moon and to have travelled to Jerusalem and back in one night. Later tales, omitted from the earliest histories, claimed that he had multiplied food like Jesus,^[22] transfigured wood into iron, reminiscent of Elisha’s retrieval of the borrowed axe-head^[23] or cursed his enemy’s camel to sink in the sand.^[24] Yet in the hostile atmosphere of Mecca, where a miracle was desperately desired to reinforce Muhammad’s credibility, he never pointed to his wife’s extraordinary fecundity and called it a blessing similar to Sarah’s gestation of Isaac^[25] or Elizabeth’s of John the Baptist.^[26] In fact nobody expressed even mild surprise that a woman of Khadijah’s age had produced so many children.

Perhaps that was because Khadijah’s fertility was a commonplace for a woman of her age. Perhaps she was still in her thirties when she bore Muhammad’s children. Perhaps, when Fatima was weaned in 607,^[27] Khadijah was still a few months short of forty – and that was why her childbearing ceased.

Conclusion

If Khadijah was only two to three years older than Muhammad, this makes sense of a great deal. It explains how she was able to use her sex appeal was well as her money to attract him: her archetype was not so much “sugar mama” or “cougar” as “movie star”. It explains how she was able to produce six children in ten years and why she then stopped childbearing. It explains why Muhammad remained attracted to Khadijah for so long when, in later life, he was to reject older women.^[28] It explains why, after twenty years of marriage, he began thinking about younger women,^[29] for Khadijah would have been at that time menopausal and first losing her looks.

While this date, not found in the major hadith collections, might be an educated fabrication rather than literally historical, there are no rival suggestions for Muhammad and Khadijah’s wedding date, and the year at least fits with all the generally accepted information about the ages of Muhammad and his children. 26 Elephant was 28 BH. A wedding date of 29 Safar that year would have fallen on 16 July 595.

If Khadijah was 28 at that time, she was born in the year between March 568 and March 569, some dozen years later than Hakim ibn Hizam claimed. Her age in solar years could have been anywhere between 26 years 4 months and 27 years 4 months. All we can do is take the median and accept it as an approximation.

Khadijah’s Median Age = 26 years and 10 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 24 years and 3 months.

Age Difference = (minus) 2 years and 7 months.

Far from being a “much older” woman, it appears that Khadijah was the only one of Muhammad’s wives who might fairly be deemed the same age as himself.

How Old was Sawdah?

No contemporary historian gives Sawdah’s exact age, so we can only make an educated guess. The wedding date, however, is widely agreed.

Ramadan fell between 13 April and 12 May 620; but as Khadijah died on 10 Ramadan^[30] (22 April), Muhammad probably married Sawdah towards the end of the month. We can call the date “May 620” without being far wrong.

Because Sawdah is described as “older” than her co-wives, this has led to extreme guesses that she was a bride of 65^[31] or even 80^[32] However, while trying to establish Sawdah’s age, we can immediately rule out any estimates that ignore three established facts.

Sawdah’s Father was Still Alive

When Khawla bint Hakim brought Muhammad’s marriage proposal to Sawdah:

Sawdah Lived another 54 Years

This date is September or early October 674 – more than 54 years after the day when Sawdah married Muhammad. If she had lived to be 134, or even 114, someone would have commented! But if she was only about 40 on her wedding day, she must have survived to her mid-90s, which is impressive but plausible.

Sawdah had Not Reached Menopause

The texts do not say that Sawdah “was old” but that she “became old”, i.e. that she was only at the beginning of the “old age” period of her life. In the modern world, this would suggest that she was 65 or 70, which may explain why modern historians have assumed she was very elderly. But this is clearly impossible in the light of the fact that she lived another fifty years.

In the culture of the medieval Arabs, when a woman’s value to society depended on her capacity to bear children, a woman only had three life-stages: childhood (before she could bear children), adulthood (childbearing age) and old age (when she was past childbearing). So an “old” woman was simply one who was too old to have children – possibly a healthy, active, sharp-minded woman as young as 40. It is practically certain that the sentence “Sawdah became old” really only means “Sawdah reached menopause.”

When did Sawdah reach menopause? Obviously it was after Muhammad had consummated his marriage to Aisha in 623. So we already know that Sawdah was pre-menopausal in 620. But in fact it was even later than this, for the near-divorce episode is referred to in Quran 4:128. Ibn Kathir frankly admits:

The fourth sura of the Quran is long and was probably not written all at once. But it all belongs to the same general period. It covers many family issues, including inheritance rights. Quran 4:7-11 was written to answer the complaint of an Uhud widow,^[33] so it must date from after 22 March 625. This same incident confirmed the limitation of the number of wives to four,^[34] so it must have been written before Muhammad gave himself permission to take a fifth concurrent wife^[35] on 27 March 627.^[36] The sura is also full of invectives against the Jews^[37] and “hypocrites,”^[38] who were no longer a problem after April 627.^[39] So the episode in which Sawdah “became old” and begged Muhammad not to divorce her occurred between mid-625 and early 627.

In fact, we strongly suspect that the date was towards the end of this period. Muhammad most likely considered divorcing Sawdah in December 626 or January 627 expressly because he wanted to marry a fifth woman but was trying to observe the limit of four wives.^[40] If Muhammad had not been contemplating marriage to a fifth woman, there would have been no point in divorcing Sawdah, for she was no trouble to him at home.^[41] It was only after he had decided to keep Sawdah after all that he needed the special dispensation to marry unlimited wives. However, the sources do not explicitly state this circumstance as the reason for the near-divorce. They only say that Sawdah “became old” and so Muhammad wanted to divorce her.

If Sawdah was menopausal in 626, or perhaps 625, this suggests she was then aged about 45, making her around 40 when she married Muhammad.

Conclusion

When Muhammad married Sawdah in May 620, he was 49. It is possible that Sawdah was also about that age^[42] and that she lived to be over 100. But it is unlikely. Allowing that she was not yet menopausal and that she had a father living, she was probably closer to 40.

Sawdah’s Probable Age = about 40 years.

Muhammad’s Age = 49 years and 1 month.

Age Difference = 9 years, plus or minus a few.

The age difference between Muhammad and Sawdah was not inappropriate for a middle-aged couple; but she was almost certainly the younger spouse. And we will state here that Sawdah was the oldest bride whom Muhammad ever married.

How Old was Aisha?

This question has already been adequately answered here and here. In sum, there is absolutely no reason to doubt Aisha’s own statements.

Copious documentation on hundreds of Muhammad’s companions shows that most Arabs knew their age to the nearest year. Why should Aisha, with her extraordinary memory,^[43] her penchant for details and her talent for arithmetic,^[44] have been any exception? To suggest that, contrary to her clear statement, she miscalculated or fabricated her own age is utterly insulting. The information about her death only confirms her consistency.

The year 66 years before 58 AH was once again nine years before the Hijra, making Aisha nine years old at her consummation in 1 AH. While it may well be true that most Arabs only knew their age to the year and not to the day, there is some evidence that Aisha’s family had noted at least the month in which she was born.

If they knew that she had been born at the “beginning” and not the “middle” or the “end” of the year, it is unlikely that they would have been wrong about the year itself. “The fourth year of prophethood” was indeed the ninth year before the Hijra. It was the year when Muhammad first preached Islam in public;^[45] Aisha’s parents would not have forgotten what was happening around the city at the time when their daughter was born. Abu Bakr’s accuracy is not really surprising, as he was a recognised expert on genealogy,^[46] so a person’s month of birth was exactly the kind of detail that he would remember.

These two narratives offer a variant for Aisha’s age when she was legally married, but this is an uncertainty about the date of the contract (two rather than three years before the consummation) and not about the date of Aisha’s birth, since they confirm that the marriage was consummated when she was nine. The real discrepancy can be missed by a Western reader, but it is obvious to anyone familiar with the Islamic calendar.

Aisha was married in the first year AH and widowed in the eleventh. Since she was married at nine, she should have been 19, not 18, when Muhammad died. This is possibly just careless counting by some person other than Aisha: “Nine and a bit plus nine and a bit is still only 18.” But it could also mean that on the day when Muhammad died, Aisha had not yet passed her birthday. Muhammad died on 12 Rabi-Awwal 11 AH (i.e., in the middle of the third month).^[47] If Aisha knew that she had been born on some date later in the year than 12 Rabi-Awwal, then she was still only 18 and not 19 when she was widowed.

This gives us Aisha’s date of birth to within six weeks. It might have been as early as 13 Rabi-Awwal 9 BH (4 January 614). But it is unlikely that it was any later than 29 Rabi-Thani 9 BH (19 February 614), as any date later than the fourth month would not have been “early” in the year. So we can express Aisha’s birthday as 27 January 614, plus or minus three weeks.

Her marriage was consummated in the tenth month of the first year AH. This fell between 11 April and 9 May (median = 25 April 623). We can now take an informed estimate of her age at consummation.

Aisha’s Median Age at Consummation = 9 years and 3 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 52 years and 0 months.

Age Difference = 42 years and 9 months.

The exact age or age difference down to the day or even to the year do not matter, of course. The real points are that (1) Aisha was a prepubescent child, and (2) Muhammad was old enough to be her grandfather.

Aisha was the youngest bride whom Muhammad married. It does not follow that she was the youngest wife in the household. Towards the end of his life, Muhammad acquired a few women whose age in years was even younger than Aisha’s.

How Old was Hafsah?

There is some discrepancy about Hafsah’s exact age but there is no doubt at all concerning her approximate age.

This was the year from January 605 to January 606, so the median birthdate for Hafsah is 26 July 605. Muhammad’s daughter Fatima was born in the same year.^[48]

This was the year between October and November 665, which is a contradiction. If Hafsah died at the age of 60 Islamic years, she would have been born in 607 (median = 4 July 607), two years later than Ibn Saad claims. However, the date “when the Quraysh were rebuilding the House” is precise, and so is the mention of Shabaan as the month of death. If both these details are correct, it is possible that “she was then 60” was only meant as an approximation.

So we will assume that Hafsah was born in 605; but we should bear in mind she might have been two years younger than this.

Shabaan fell between 20 January and 17 February 625 (median = 3 February).

Hafsah’s Median Age = 19 years and 7 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 53 years and 9 months.

Age Difference = 34 years and 2 months.

It does not really matter whether Hafsah was 19 or 17. The important points are that (1) she was biologically a woman and not a child, but (2) she was a young woman, while Muhammad was biologically old enough to be her grandfather.

How Old was Zaynab bint Khuzayma?

Zaynab’s life is not well documented, which has led to guessing about her age.

However, there is no need for this kind of guessing, for her age is in fact recorded.

Zaynab was therefore married on or soon after 18 February 625. She died on or just before 11 October 625. If she was “about 30” in 4 AH, she was born in October 596, plus or minus a few years.

Zaynab’s Median Age = 28 years and 4 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 53 years and 10 months.

Age Difference = 25 years and 6 months.

Zaynab married five times.^[49] Her fifth choice, it seems, fell on a high-status and already-married man old enough to be her father.

How Old was Hind?

The data about Hind (Umm Salama) is precise, and there are no variant traditions.

Eighty-four years before 59 AH brings us to the year between April 597 and April 598 and a median birthdate of October 597.

This date is early April 626.

Hind’s Median Age = 28 years and 6 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 55 years and 0 months.

Age Difference = 26 years and 5 months.

It is very plausible that Hind was 28 when she married Muhammad, for her fourth child was then a newborn^[50] while her eldest daughter was about ten years of age.^[51]

How Old was Zaynab bint Jahsh?

There is dispute about Zaynab’s exact age, but there is no doubt about her approximate age.

Note that this narrator was the grandson of Zaynab’s own nephew. If Zaynab was 53 in 20 AH, she was born in 34 BH between July 589 and July 590 (median = 16 January 590).

The first of Dhu’l-Qada 5 AH was 27 March 627. However, there is a contradiction. The same nephew who said she died at 53 also said:

Thirty-five years before 5 AH brings us to a birth-year of 31 BH, a discrepancy of three years. Probably Umar ibn Uthman was giving a round number when he said she was married at 35; to be conservative, we will assume the earlier birthdate. However, we must bear in mind that Zaynab might have been some three years younger than this.

Zaynab’s Median Age = 37 years and 2 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 55 years and 11 months.

Age Difference = 18 years and 9 months.

Therefore we have to discard modern commentaries claiming that Zaynab was “in late middle age.”^[52] While the Arabs might not have considered her “a young woman,” this is relative. She was still young enough to have been Muhammad’s daughter.

How Old was Juwayriyah?

Juwayriyah’s age is only mildly controversial.

If Juwayriyah was 65 in 50 AH, the year in which she was 20 would have been 5 AH, and the year in which she was born would have been 16 BH, which fell between 9 January and 28 December 607. (Although there is a variant tradition that she did not die until 56 AH,^[53] this tradition does not state her age at death, so we shall ignore it.) There is indeed some evidence for a wedding date of 5 AH.

This supports a date of 5 AH, though earlier than the eleventh month of Dhu’l-Qada, for the marriage to Juwayriyah.

Unfortunately, this cannot be right. For a start, Ibn Ishaq disagrees.

Further, it is certain that the raid at al-Muraysi and consequent marriage to Juwayriyah took place not before, but after, Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh. As Aisha tells the story:

On the way home, Aisha was temporarily lost:

Muhammad had ordered his wives to be veiled at the time he married Zaynab,^[54] so the raid at al-Muraysi must have been after this. After Safwan brought Aisha back to Medina, they found themselves the focus of malicious gossip.

This makes it very clear that Muhammad was already married to Zaynab at the time of the slander, which arose before the warriors had even arrived home from the al-Muraysi expedition. He married Zaynab in late 5 AH, so Ibn Ishaq’s date of 6 AH for the raid must be the correct one. It does seem odd that Aisha would give the wrong sequence for two such dramatic and personally painful events as the raid at al-Muraysi and the Prophet’s marriage to Zaynab. However, it is more likely that, when asked for a date, she accidentally named the wrong expedition than that, recalling the crisis of her life, she could not remember whether she had been veiled or who had been slandering her.

If Juwayriyah was 20 years old in 6 AH, she must have been born in 15 BH (between 29 December 607 and 17 December 608). That would make her only 64 not 65 at her death in 50 AH. This is not a serious discrepancy, but it does mean that one of these ages is only an approximation. On balance, the younger age is more likely to be correct. Young people are usually accurate about their ages (“When my husband was killed, I was definitely 20, not 19 or 21”) whereas the elderly are more likely to use round numbers (“I think this will be my final illness, for I’m already about 65”).

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, we shall take a two-year range for Juwayiriyah’s birthdate, between January 607 and December 608. The median is 28 December 607. She was married in Shabaan 6 AH, a median date of 2 January 628.

Juwayriyah’s Median Age = 20 years and 0 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 56 years and 9 months.

Age Difference = 36 years and 9 months.

The theme is becoming repetitive: Juwayriyah was young enough to be Muhammad’s granddaughter.

How Old was Safiyah?

Safiyah gives us unusual precision, for it appears that she knew her age to the month.

She married Muhammad at the time when Khaybar fell. The exact date of this victory is not recorded, but the general period of the siege is clear.

The Muslims therefore began the march to Khaybar in late May or early June 628 and were back in Medina before the end of July. So Muhammad married Safiyah early in Rabi-Awwal 7 AH (mid-July 628). Safiyah apparently knew that she had been born in Rabi-Awwal 17 years earlier, though she did not know whether it had been late or early in the month and therefore did not know whether she had reached 17 full years on the particular night when she married Muhammad. The Rabi-Awwal of 17 years earlier fell between 14 January and 12 February 612, giving Safiyah a birthdate of 28 January 612, plus or minus a fortnight.

Safiyah’s Age = 16 years and 6 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 57 years and 3 months.

Age Difference = 40 years and 9 months.

Safiyah was yet another bride who was young enough to be Muhammad’s granddaughter.

How Old was Ramlah?

It is said, citing Sunan Nasa’i vol. 1 book 1 #60 p. 127, that Ramlah (Umm Habiba) was 23 years younger than Muhammad.^[55] Since he was born in 53 BH, this would place her birth in 30 BH. Unfortunately I have not been able to verify this citation, though it is in broad agreement with the other sources.

Ibn Kathir makes Muhammad 25 years older than Ramlah. This is not a serious contradiction. If Muhammad was 53 in 1 AH, then he was only 59 and not 60 in 7 AH; so calling Ramlah’s age 35 rather than 36 may also be an approximation, much like Tabari’s “thirty-odd”. Since Ibn Kathir is not a primary source, we shall be conservative and assume that “thirty-odd” means 36 and that Ramlah was born in 30 BH.

30 BH fell between June 593 and May 594, giving Ramlah a median birthdate of 3 December 593. Her marriage to Muhammad was consummated upon his return from Khaybar in July 628.^[56]

Ramlah’s Median Age at Consummation = 34 years and 7 months.

Muhammad’s Age = 57 years and 3 months.

Age Difference = 22 years and 8 months.

Ramlah was young enough to be Muhammad’s daughter.

How Old was Maymunah?

There are two traditions about Maymunah, neither of which makes very much sense.

This would place her death in the year between October 680 and September 681 and her birth in 21 or 20 BH between March 602 and February 604 (median = 21 February 603).

This was between 4 February and 4 March 629 (median = 18 February), indicating that her age at marriage was 26, plus or minus a year.

But in fact the death-date of 61 AH might have been a mistranscription. Other sources indicate that she could not have been the last survivor of Muhammad’s widows, for Aisha outlived her, and Hind, of course, outlived Aisha.

While it is possible that Aisha’s remarks on Maymunah’s death are apocryphal (the sources are not particularly early), the story lends strength to an alternative tradition that Maymunah died about a decade before 61 AH.

This is still not correct, as not one, but four or five, of Muhammad’s widows were still alive in 51 AH (Hind, Aisha, Sawdah, Safiyah and perhaps Juwayiriyah). Ibn Kathir, writing 700 years after the event, was either trying to harmonise the conflict without considering all the facts – also known as “guessing” – or else blindly copying the text of someone else who did. If Ibn Kathir (or his source) guessed at which part of his original text was the error, he might also have been guessing at the year of Maymunah’s death. So we have no real confidence that the correct year was either 51 or 61 AH. The only consistency is that Maymunah lived to be about 80.

While we do not really know Maymunah’s death-date, and therefore her birth-date, we will accept Ibn Kathir’s more conservative tradition. According to this, she was born in 30 BH, i.e., between June 593 and May 594 (median = 2 December 593). This would make her about 35 when she married Muhammad in February 629, although we will bear in mind that she might have been many years younger.

Maymunah's Median Age at Marriage = 35 years and 2 months.

Muhammad’s Age at Marriage = 58 years and 10 months.

Age Difference = 23 years and 8 months.

Sir William Muir’s unsourced comment that “Maymunah is said to have been at this time 51 years of age”^[57] is thus wide of the mark.

How Old was Mulaykah?

Mulaykah’s exact age is not given, but there is a clue in this statement.

If they expected Mohammed to believe that “she is too young to think for herself,” they were suggesting that she was barely an adult – someone whose body had so recently reached puberty that her mind had not yet caught up.

This makes sense in the light of the fact that Mulaykah found a new fiancé within days of her divorce from Muhammad, before she had completed her three-month waiting-period.^[58] It looks suspiciously as if this man had already been a suitor before it became politically necessary for Mulaykah to marry Muhammad. If she had been courted but not married, this also suggests that she was very young.

Since the mean age of menarche was 12½ years,^[59] this indicates that Mulaykah was about 13, plus or minus a couple of years.

While this is only a guess, we were also only guessing about Sawdah. By the time Muhammad married Mulaykah, Aisha had become a just-nubile 16. Although Mulaykah was an older bride, she was almost certainly younger in years than Aisha.

How Old was Asma?

Asma’s age is unknown but her age-range is clearly implied.

Since Asma’s family had adopted Jewish cultural norms over a century earlier,^[60] it is safe to say that she had passed puberty at the time of her first marriage.^[61] Further, the text suggests that her first husband had been dead for some months or even years. When she arrived in Medina in the summer of 630,^[62] she must have been at least 14 years old and perhaps considerably older. She displayed a dignity and sense of duty^[63] that make her seem more mature than Mulaykah bint Kaab or Fatima bint Al-Dahhak. While this could tell us more about Asma’s education than her age (she was, after all, a princess), it is clear that she was no child-bride.

At the same time, Abdullah ibn Abbas suggests Asma’s upper age-limit.

This kind of accolade would be absurd for a woman who was older than 20. The sources do not describe Hafsah, Juwayiriyah or Safiyah as “youthful,” and Asma’s naiveté certainly suggests youth.

In conclusion, Asma was probably in her late teens; but we do not really know. To be conservative, we will say that she was 20.

Asma was once again young enough to be Muhammad’s granddaughter.

How Old was Amrah?

Amrah’s age is not stated anywhere. However, we do know the approximate age of her first husband.

He was Al-Fadl, the older brother of Abdullah ibn Abbas.^[64] Abdullah was born in early 620,^[65] while their next brother, Ubaydallah, was only a year younger.^[66] A fourth brother, Quthum, was born before March 624;^[67] a sister, Umm Habib, before 630;^[68] and there were also two other brothers, Maabad and Abdulrahman, both born before Muhammad’s death in June 632.^[69] The close spacing of the whole family suggests that Al-Fadl, the firstborn,^[70] was only a few years older than Abdullah. Since Abdullah was only 12 when Muhammad died, Al-Fadl was surely a teenager.

The following episode must have occurred after the family of Abbas emigrated to Medina, which was after Muhammad’s return from the conquest of Mecca in late March 630.^[71]

The young cousins had to remind Muhammad that they had reached puberty, so they must have been quite recently pubescent. This suggests that Al-Fadl was born in 615, plus or minus a year. The story goes on to describe how Muhammad granted their request and arranged marriages for them – that same day!

Mahmiyah ibn Jazi did not take his family on his emigration to Abyssinia,</ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 148, 527.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag So it is highly unlikely that Amrah was older than Al-Fadl (or that she was plain). She would have been the same age as her bridegroom or a little younger. However, Al-Fadl subsequently divorced Amrah, and she was afterwards married to Muhammad.

While the date of Amrah’s marriage to Muhammad is unknown, there would scarcely have been time for all these events to have occurred before January 631. Since Muhammad fell ill and then died in early June 632,^[72] the latest possible date for his marriage to Amrah would be May 632. So the median wedding date is September 631.

We do not know how old Amrah was in 631, but it is reasonable to suggest that she was 14 or 15 – a couple of years younger than Aisha.

Again, this is a guess, but it is an estimate based on real data about Amrah’s life. We can make no such guesses about the remaining women in Muhammad’s life.

Wives Whose Ages Are Not Known

Muhammad had some kind of marriage contract with several other women, but most of these unions were dissolved before consummation. The other women with whom he is known to have had a sexual relationship are the five listed below, four of whom were technically concubines rather than legal wives. The ages of these five women are unknown.

Rayhanah bint Zayd ibn Amr

Rayhanah was a Jewess from the Nadir tribe in Medina. She married a Qurazi,^[73] which means she must have been married before the Nadir tribe was banished from Medina in August 625.^[74] As a Jewess, she would not have been living with her husband before she reached menarche^[75] or before the age of 12 years.^[76] So her latest possible birthdate is mid-613.

These details, a siege of 25 nights starting from some time in Shawwal 5 AH, place the surrender of the Qurayza in April 627. Within a day or two of the surrender came the business of distributing the booty.

So Muhammad captured Rayhanah in April 627, a date when her youngest possible age would have been 14. She might have been considerably older than this minimum. Although secondary historians have guessed that she was about 15,^[77] this is not stated in the early sources. Since her exact age is not known, we have omitted her from the calculation.

Mariyah bint Shamoon

Mariyah’s age is not stated anywhere. The only certain fact is that, since she bore Muhammad a son in 630, she must have been of childbearing age.^[78] Various guesses that she was 20^[79] or 17^[80] betray the assumptions of the secondary historians that if she attracted Muhammad, she must have been young. The truth is, they are probably right. But because we don’t know Mariyah’s age, we have omitted her from the calculation.

Fatima bint Dahhak (Al-Aliya)

The only objective clue to Fatima’s age is that she lived another 50 years after Muhammad divorced her.^[81] Subjectively, her behaviour seems teenager-ish: we can imagine a giggly 15- or 16-year-old watching the action from behind her curtain without giving a thought to the rule of the veil, then screaming hysterically when she realised she was in trouble.^[82] But because we do not know Fatima’s age, we have omitted her from the calculation.

Al-Jariya and Tukanah

These two concubines were presumably selected for their looks and were presumably young. But presumption is not fact. We do not know their ages and so we have omitted them from the calculation.

How Old was the “Average Wife” of Muhammad?

We can now calculate the mean age of 14 of Muhammad’s wives at the time he married them.

The mean age of Muhammad’s brides was about 24½ years. Even by Arab standards, a woman of 24 was not quite “middle-aged”.

How Old was Muhammad when he Married?

We can also calculate Muhammad’s mean age as a bridegroom. Here is his age when he consummated each of these marriages.

Muhammad’s mean age at marriage was 53 years and 8 months. The mean age difference between Muhammad and all his wives was over 29 years.

Of course, Muhammad’s first marriage to Khadijah skews the statistics. She was the only wife whom Muhammad married as a young man. She was the only wife who was close to his own age, as opposed to being significantly younger. Some statisticians would exclude her as an outlier before they began the calculation.

A more serious skew of the statistics is caused by the fact that the 14 wives whose ages are known were not the only women whom Muhammad married. He also had four known concubines and at least one other full wife. While we do not know the ages of any of these women, we can infer a definite trend. They all seem to have been teenagers – significantly younger than the mean. If their ages could be added to the calculation, the mean age of Muhammad’s brides would be even lower, perhaps around 22 years.

Muhammad acquired these five women in the last five years of his life, so his mean age as bridegroom has to be raised. While we don’t know all of his wedding dates, the new figure would probably come to about 55 years – making the age difference between Muhammad and his “average wife” a grand mean of 33 years.

Therefore our calculation that Muhammad’s average wife was 29 years younger than himself and that she became his bride when she was 24½ has to be taken as conservative.

Conclusion

The widows whom Muhammad married after Khadijah’s death do indeed fall into two distinct age-groups. But to label these two groups as “the middle-aged” and “the elderly” gives atypical definitions to these terms. The “elderly” group would refer to those brides between 28 and 40 while the “middle-aged” group would mean the teenagers. We wonder which familiar adjective ought to be re-commissioned to describe the quinquagenarian bridegroom.

The inevitable conclusion is that Muhammad preferred younger women. He loved Khadijah, who was the same age as himself, when they were both young. He rejected Sawdah, who was a little younger than himself, when they were both middle-aged. All his other wives were young enough to be his daughters; several were young enough to be his granddaughters. In fact he divorced one woman before consummating the marriage^[83] and broke off another courtship^[84] solely because he decided that these women were “too old” for him; but he continued to chase teenagers until the day he died.^[85] Nor does he seem to have been in the least embarrassed by his own preference.

References