Aisha's Age: Difference between revisions

This article analyzes the modern Muslim apologetics that attempt to distort Aisha's young age at consumation. See a separate article for the positive evidence of her young age found in dozens of sahih hadiths in multiple collections.

Introduction

Some apologists have recently claimed that Aisha was actually older than nine lunar years at time of the consummation of her marriage to Prophet Muhammad. They have attempted to explain that Aisha was in fact not nine-years-old as the Sahih hadiths of her own testimony claim, but some other ages derived from misquotations, indirect sources, fuzzy dating techniques and slander. These dubious research techniques have led to several conflicting ages to be proposed for Aisha at the time of consummation, including 12, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 21 years. This article analyzes every single argument that has been put forward, and provides additional information on the origins and history of the "Aisha was older" apologetic arguments, and the only logical purpose behind making them.

Purpose

The arguments raised by some apologists have given many the false impression that Aisha's age is a long contested issue in Islam, and that it is a valid argument over interpretation that could eventually lead to reforms within mainstream Islam. This is certainly not the case. There is no argument over interpretation. The text clearly say one thing and one thing only. For those who have actually read the source material, it is disingenuous to claim otherwise. Lying about what sources say may be effective in apologetic pieces, but they are useless if the intentions behind them are to reform the religion. There is not a single serious Muslim scholar, someone who is accepted in the Muslim world and by mainstream Muslims as being representative of their beliefs, who would repeat these claims. Thus, the only purpose they serve is to deflect valid criticism from a belief that continues to result in millions of young girls being forced into pedophilic child marriages by individuals, and even entire nations, all of whom explicitly use Aisha's relationship with Muhammad as justification.

History

The majority of Muslims today, including both scholars and the general Muslim population, agree that Aisha was 9 when her marriage to Prophet Muhammad was consummated. This has been the mainstream Muslim understanding throughout Islam's 1,400 year history.

The first ever pro-Muhammad and provably faulty objection raised to Aisha's age was by Maulana Muhammad Ali who lived from 1874 to 1951.^[1] He is neither a respected nor a notable figures as far as Islam is concerned, since he belonged to the Ahmadiyya whose beliefs drastically differ from mainstream Islam. The Ahmadiyya and their writings are also heavily focused on missionary work.

Adding to Ali's objections, there is Habib Ur Rahman Siddiqui Kandhalvi (1924-1991) who in his Urdu booklet, "Tehqiq e umar e Siddiqah e Ka'inat" (English trans. 1997), laments that he is "tired of defending this tradition" that is "laughed" at and "ridiculed" by English-educated individuals he meets in Karachi who claim it is against "sagacity and prudence" and "preferred English society to Islam over this", and he readily admits his "aim is to produce an answer to the enemies of Islam who spatter mud at the pious body of the Generous Prophet".^[2] A posthumous fatwa was issued against him in November 2004, labelling him a "Munkir-e-Hadith" (hadith rejector) and a "Kafir" (infidel) on the basis of being a rejector of hadith.^[3]

More recently, there is Moiz Amjad (who refers to himself as "The Learner"). He readily admits to having lifted these faulty arguments from them, summarizing and presenting them in response to a Muslim asking him how he can respond to Christians who called Muhammad a pedophile (i.e. all of his arguments, like Ali's and Kandhalvi's before him, were apologetic in nature rather than scholarly).^[4] It was at this very recent point in history that the arguments originating from the Ahmadiyya in the 1920s and 1930s finally achieved a little popularity among a few orthodox Muslims. However, this popularity seems to be strictly limited to articles or arguments on the Internet. Clearly a knee-jerk reaction to the avalanche in online criticism of Muhammad's life, as opposed to a tangible shift in beliefs.

In July 2005, Shaykh Dr. Gibril Fouad Haddad responded to Moiz Amjad's polemics with, "Our Mother A'isha's Age At The Time Of Her Marriage to The Prophet", published at SunniPath.com.^[5] Including many facts that are easily verifiable for those who have access to the hadith and sira literature, he dismantled the distortions being spread by apologists. For example, his analysis highlighted the fact that many of the arguments were based solely on faulty assumptions taken from hadiths completely unrelated to Aisha's age, or were misrepresenting the sources that were being cited (i.e. they actually supported the fact that Aisha was 9). To this day, his scholarly reply remains unanswered by Moiz Amjad. Haddad, who was listed amongst the inaugural "500 most influential Muslims in the world",^[6] is a Muslim scholar and muhaddith (hadith expert)^[6] who is taken very seriously by mainstream Muslims. He is also a vocal critic of Salafi fundamentalism.^[7]

Since the publication of Haddad's definitive response, Moiz Amjad's highly convoluted arguments, with all of their obvious faults intact, have continued to be rehashed by countless apologists on the Internet with the same missionary and apologetic focus. Other transmitters of these arguments include, but are not limited to; T.O Shavanas,^[8] “Imam” Chaudhry (word-for-word plagiarism of Amjad's work),^[9] Zahid Aziz,^[1] Nilofar Ahmed,^[10] and David Liepert.^[11]

Analysis

The following series of arguments were presented by Moiz Amjad. We have chosen to analyze and respond to them specifically, due to his polemics encompassing every single claim made by other modern-day apologists who sometimes use a few, or even all of them as their own. They do this often without acknowledging Amjad as the true source of their claims.

First Argument: Number of Narrators

This is a classic Straw man. Many of the chains of narration for these hadiths do not involve Hisham (for example, Sahih Muslim 8:3311, and in any case there is no requirement in Islam for multiple narrations. Even a single sahih hadith is sufficient to establish Islamic laws and practices.

Shaykh Gibril Haddad also refutes the claim that most of these narrations are reported only by Hisham ibn 'Urwah.

Details of some of these other chains of narration that do not include Hisham ibn 'Urwah ibn az-Zubayr can be found in the first half of an article by the IslamQA website.

Second Argument: Locality

Another Straw man. There is no requirement for a hadith to be narrated in Medina for it to be considered sahih. Also, many events in the Prophet’s life were narrated by single narratives as well. Does that make them invalid? No. To demand multiple, independent narrations from Medinans is just setting up a standard that does not exist – i.e. a straw man.

Shaykh Haddad also refutes this argument by listing the people from Medina who reported this event.

Third Argument: Reliability of Hisham

According to Shaykh Haddad, Amjad’s third argument is either misrepresentation or a lie. Apparently, the slander against Hisham ibn Urwah is unfounded and unsupported by closer reading of Amjad’s own reference.

Fourth Argument: Hisham's Memory

This is another slander in which the accuser does not correlate Hisham’s memory loss with the ‘Aisha’s age’ hadiths. Hisham was born in 61 A.H. and died in 146 A.H. at Baghdad – meaning he was 85 years old when he died. He moved to Iraq when he was 71 years old. When did his memory fail him? The accuser provides no answer.

In fact, Shaykh Haddad accuses Moiz Amjad of outright lying.

Fifth Argument: Revelation Time of Surah al-Qamar

The precise date of the revelation of Surah al-Qamar is unknown. Ibn Hajar, Maududi, and other traditionalists said it was revealed 5 years before Hijrah (muslimhope). Zahid Aziz said it was revealed before 6 BH. Khatib said it was revealed in 8 BH. Amjad does not name his source for his claim that the verse was revealed in 9 BH. The point is that the precise date of revelation of Surah al-Qamar is unknown, and using an imprecise date to calculate Aisha’s age is not only ridiculous but stupid. However, if an estimate must be used, then why not use Ibn Hajar’s estimate which is more authoritative and traditionally accepted than Amjad’s unnamed source?

Shaykh Haddad confirms this. He also proves that the traditional estimate of the revelation of Surah al-Qamar is consistent with Aisha’s age being nine years.

Thus, Amjad’s attempt to throw doubt on Aisha’s age by using a non-traditional (i.e. spurious) estimate for the date of revelation of Surah al-Qamar is easily debunked.

This is what Amjad later said, which totally debunks his own argument above.

So now we have Amjad backtracking on his claim that the date of revelation of Surah al-Qamar can be determined precisely. Initially he claimed it was in 9BH. Now he says it’s some undefined time in the Meccan period. Thus, it can be seen that Amjad himself has finally seen the absurdity of his own argument.

Sixth Argument: Battle of Badr and Uhud

Aisha did not participate in Badr at all, despite Amjad’s assertion. It is illuminating to know that Amjad had partially quoted the Uhud hadiths to falsely convey the impression that Aisha participated at Uhud when the hadiths are clear in that she was merely carrying water skins to the combatants. The last part of the hadith was omitted, either deliberately or inadvertently, an act some people may consider disingenuous.

Women and young children went to the battlefields to perform other functions.

Therefore, it is clear that the fifteen-year age threshold applied only to boys, and Amjad’s line of argument is clearly false.

Shaykh Haddad also showed that Amjad had used false or incomplete information.

Seventh Argument: Asma's Age

Shaykh Haddad challenges the accuracy of the information, thus casting doubt on Amjad’s source material.

It is only from al-Zinad that we have the 10 year age difference. Even from al-Zinad, who Amjad relies on, we have two isnads. In the 2nd report he gives a more ambiguous age difference of ten or so years (بعشر سنين أو نحوها).

IslamQA further point out the unreliability of al-Zinab, and criticise attempts to use his sole narration against the mass of evidence for the traditional age of Aisha at her marriage:

In other parts of their article IslamQA cite alternative reports on when Asma was born (ten, six or five years before the prophet's mission began.

Using inaccurate data and an unreliable narrator, Amjad assumes Asma was older than Aisha by 10 years when a more reliable source says the age difference is up to 19 years. Taking this more reliable information calculates Aisha’s age at around nine years old at the time of her consummation even if we grant the traditional date of Asma's own birth, completely in accordance with the sahih hadiths where Aisha herself said she was nine years old.

Eighth Argument: Tabari's Account

Shaykh Gibril Haddad says that the evidence Amjad provided above is false.

There is also no need to make oblique calculations using Tabari when Tabari explicitly states Aisha’s age several times.

These are Tabari’s direct accounts. He reported it at least five times, making it clear that this was what he deemed authoritative.

Ninth Argument: Time of Umar's Conversion to Islam

Muslimhope shows that even if we were to believe that Aisha accepted Islam before Umar, it doesn’t mean this took place during the first year of Islam since Umar converted in 617AD, about 4 years after Aisha’s birth in 613AD. Thus, Amjad had made a miscalculation here.

Besides disputing the claim that Ibn Hisham reported that Aisha accepted Islam quite some time before `umar ibn al-Khattab, Shaykh Haddad also casts doubt on Amjad’s logic.

Tenth Argument: Abu Bakr's Migration to Habshah

Muslimhope shows that Amjad’s logic is wrong and not based on fact.

Shaykh Haddad also casts doubt as to the veracity of Amjad’s Tabari evidence, admittedly derived from a secondary reference that Amjad never checked.

Eleventh Argument: Meaning of Bikr

Sina has refuted this argument.

And Amjad has agreed:

Shaykh Gibril Haddad also adds:

Twelfth Argument: Fatima's Age Difference

Amjad has deceptively combined and quote-mined two different versions of Fatima's age reported by Ibn Hajar. Shaykh Gibril Haddad shows that Ibn Hajar was merely reporting what some narrators reported, not his own conclusion. The first version he reports says that Muhammad was 35 when Fatima was born. The second, which mentions the five year age difference, says that Fatima was born when Muhammad was 41.

Using Fatima’s age difference with Aisha to refute the Aisha’s Age sahih hadiths is a logical fallacy because the biography of Fatima is conflicting. Nobody knows for sure when Fatima was born (when her father was a nobody) nor her age difference with Aisha, and though her death was well-recorded her age at death is not known for certain.

The traditional account is that she was born on Friday, 20th jumada ` th-thaaniyah in the fifth year after the declaration of the prophet - hood (615 AD), which means she was about the same age as Aisha.^[12][13] Another account reports that Fatima was born when Muhammad was 41, one year into his prophetic career.

So we have already seen conflicting accounts that Fatima was born when Muhammad was 35, 41 (and Aisha born 5 years after), and 45.

In conclusion, Fatima’s birth date is uncertain. The traditional account matches well with the established facts. Despite this, Amjad combined Fatima's birth date in one account, with her age difference to Aisha from another account that gave a conflicting birth date. He presented this combination as if it were a single account and hid the conflict between them.

Thirteenth Argument: Arab Tradition

Although we agree there is no evidence to support the claim (usually made by Muslims in defence of Muhammad's pedophilia) that it was an Arab tradition to give away pre-pubescent young girls in marriage to old men, no credence should be given to mere ‘opinion’ of Aisha's age of consummation when there are sahih hadiths that explicitly state that Aisha married and had sex with Muhammad when she was aged only nine.

Although an ad hominem, this neatly summarizes what an actual Muslim scholar thinks about Moiz Amjad’s scholarship.

Other Arguments

Hadith Saying 'Aisha Had Reached Puberty

'Aisha lived with her parents before her marriage to Muhammad was consumated at the age of 9 (Sahih Muslim 8:3310). The following mistranslation is used to claim she reached puberty while she still lived there.

The word أَعْقِلْ means to use thoughts or reasoning, but the translator Muhsin Khan has used the word 'puberty'. The meaning rather is simply that 'Aisha was never aware of a time when her parents were not Muslim. A literal translation would be "I was not aware of my parents other than that the two of them both acknowledged the religion" (لَمْ أَعْقِلْ أَبَوَىَّ إِلاَّ وَهُمَا يَدِينَانِ الدِّينَ).

The same Arabic phrase is translated as follows in another hadith by the same translator:

See also the two other occurrances, Sahih Bukhari 3:37:494 and Sahih Bukhari 5:58:245.

Conclusion

Apologists have presented a series of arguments as to why the generally accepted understanding of Aisha’s age (i.e. nine-years-old) when she married and had sex with Muhammad, based on commonly known narratives, is erroneous and contradictory. However, on closer inspection, we find they have produced arguments that can be broadly categorized into these categories:

A. Unjustified slanders against Hisham ibn Urwah and the Iraqi narrators.

B. The use of non-sahih information to refute otherwise sahih hadiths.

C. The use of secondary, indirect sources in preference of direct testimonies.

D. The use of ‘imprecise’ dating in preference to specific dates and statements of age.

E. The use of misquoted references and erroneous information.

F. The use of incorrect logic.

G. Personal opinion.

When one examines their claims, one sees that their arguments contradict and debunk each other. Argument No. 5 says she was 14 to 21 years old. However, argument No. 6 says she was 15+, argument No. 7 says she was 17 or 18, argument No. 8 says Aisha was 14+, argument No. 9 says she was 12+, and argument No. 12 says she was 12. In other words, each and every one of the evidences contradicts and debunks all the others. Which of these so-called arguments is correct? They cannot all be correct. Clearly the apologists do not have a clue.

They have used doubtful data and assumptions for their calculations. In reality, all the arguments are false. Instead of using sahih hadiths, they use non-sahih source material. Instead of using specific and clear age testimony, they use events that cannot possibly be dated with any degree of accuracy. Instead of using traditions of acknowledged authenticity, they prefer to believe unsubstantiated slander and misquotations. Hardly a solid foundation for establishing facts. No wonder they cannot provide a consistent answer to the question of Aisha’s age.

Their argument appears to be that because they themselves, using spurious information, derive multiple conflicting ages for the one specific event in Aisha’s life, then we must throw out what we know about her age at this event. In effect, they are saying that just because they are using rubbish data, we have to throw out the sahih hadiths. However, this is not the logical outcome. A reasonable person would note that whilst their arguments debunk each other, all of the sahih hadith in regards to Aisha's age of consummation are in perfect harmony. Thus, rather than discarding the good with the bad, we will merely throw out the bad; in this case, the weak apologetic attempt to obfuscate our understanding that Aisha was aged nine when she married and had sex with Muhammad.

See Also

• Muhammad and the Clinical Definition of Pedophilia
• Responses to Apologetics: Muhammad and Aisha

Translations

• A version of this page is also available in the following languages: Czech. For additional languages, see the sidebar on the left.

External Links

• Shaykh Gibril Haddad - Biography of Shaykh Gibril Fouad Haddad at SunniPath, The online Islamic Academy
• Evidence Muhammad was a pedophile - FFI forum thread which deals with further apologetics
• Really, really wishing Aisha weren't nine - Robert Spencer debates a typical non-Muslim apologist for Islam
• Responses to "The Learner" (Moiz Amjad) and others - Collection of Answering Islam articles

Acknowledgments

References