Muhammad's Marriages: Difference between revisions

It is often suggested that [[Muhammad]]’s wives were, for the most part, poor widows whom he [[marriage|married]] to save from a life of destitution. This article investigates the plausibility of such a perspective.

In addition, Hafsah was one of only four Muslim women in the whole of Medina who knew how to write.<ref>Baladhuri, ''Conquest of the Lands'', cited in [http://english.sahartv.ir/media/pdf/The%20Unschooled%20Prophet.pdf/ Mutahhari, S. A. M. ''The Unschooled Prophet''. Tehran: Islamic Propagation Organization.] There were also eleven Muslim men who could write. The other seven names on Baladhuri’s list are of people who did not convert to Islam until after Hafsah had married Muhammad.</ref> If she had wanted (or been permitted, for Umar was famously opposed to this line of female work) to set herself up as a career woman, she would have been in demand as a clerk.

Zaynab was from the wealthy Hilal tribe,<ref>Ibn Hisham note 918; {{Tabari|9|p. 138}}.</ref> and it seems that her branch of the family had as much money as any of them. This family, it appears, also never stopped supporting her; and hence, there was always someone to ensure her subsistence. As we have seen, Muhammad was impecunious and could not afford to feed his wives and even perhaps himself properly.

Whatever may have been Zaynab's motive in marrying Muhammad, it seems unlikely that money played any sort of important role. Indeed, once again, it appears more plausible that Muhammad's financial circumstances would have, through his strengthened link to Zaynab's family, improved as a result of this marriage.

Zaynab bint Jahsh was a career-woman. She was a tanner and leather-worker who was well able to support herself.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:74, 77.</ref> She lived under the protection of her two brothers, Abu Ahmad and Abdullah.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 214-215.</ref> She had no need to remarry unless she chose. It is even said that she proposed marriage to Muhammad and that she offered not to take any dower.<ref>Ibn Hisham note 918.</ref>

Rayhanah was a member of the [[Jews|Jewish]] [[Banu Qurayza|Qurayza]] tribe,<ref>{{Tabari|39|pp. 164-165}}.</ref> whom Muhammad besieged in 627. When the tribe surrendered, Muhammad determined that the Banu Qurayzah's every adult male should be decapitated, every woman and child, [[Slavery|enslaved]], and all the tribe's property forfeit to the Islamic state.<ref>Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq 689-692.</ref> It is thus true that Rayhanah was widowed, impoverished, and a slave, but only because Muhammad had her husband executed and proceeded to appropriate her wealth and person. Indeed, at the very moment Muhammad approved of Banu Qurayzah's brutal sentence, Rayhanah had become Muhammad's legal property. Already, one sees how difficult it would be to maintain that Muhammad's acquisition of Rayhanah was the product of his financial liberality, let alone benevolence.

Indeed, if Muhammad had made enquiries about how to help the Qurayza slaves, he would have quickly realized that Rayhanah was among the least destitute, for she was only a Quraziya by marriage. By birth she belonged to the Nadir tribe,<ref>{{Tabari|39|pp. 164-165}}.</ref> who were currently residing in the date-farms of Khaybar.<ref> Guillaume/Ishaq 437-438.</ref> Thus, if Muhammad sought to provide for Rayhanah, he could have released her to return her own family. The Nadir were making every effort to assist the surviving Qurayza. In fact, they searched the Arabian slave-markets and they bought back as many Qurayza women and children as they found there.<ref>Cited in [http://www.kister.huji.ac.il/content/massacre-ban%C5%AB-quray%E1%BA%93-re-examination-tradition?lang=english/ Kister, M. J. (1986). The Massacre of the Banū Qurayẓa: A Re-Examination of a Tradition. ''Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 8'', 61-96.]</ref> Since Rayhanah was a Nadriya by birth, her tribe would certainly have ransomed her too if only she had been for sale.

There is therefore at least some justification for the claim that, from 627 onwards, Muhammad was in a position to provide a home for the “excess women” who were unable to marry monogamously. What remains to be established, however, is whether or not the particular women whom he married were the ones who would have been otherwise left destitute.