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| More men than women in Muslim countries: [{{Reference archive|1=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio|2=2012-08-10}} List of countries by sex ratio] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio&oldid=503155592 Permanent link]) | | More men than women in Muslim countries: [{{Reference archive|1=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio|2=2012-08-10}} List of countries by sex ratio] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio&oldid=503155592 Permanent link]) |
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| ==Muhammad married poor widows to save them from destitution==
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| I am struggling to think of even ONE woman whom Muhammad married for that reason. A simple list will show that his marriages didn't happen that way.
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| 1. Khadija - a WEALTHY widow who saved ''Muhammad'' from poverty.
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| 2. Ayesha - daughter of one of the few Muslims who actually had some money. She had to break her engagement to a bourgeois pagan in order to marry Muhammad who, for the first five years, could not even afford to feed her properly.
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| 3. Sawda - a tanner and perfume-mixer who was quite capable of supporting herself. She had a son who was old enough to work, and they lived with her father and brother, who were not wealthy, but could certainly afford to feed them.
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| 4. Hafsa - daughter of just about the only other Muslim who had money. She was widowed at a time when there were more Muslim men than women (the other Badr widows remarried quickly and monogamously); so, had Hafsa not wished to live with her parents, surely one of the bachelors would have agreed to marry this 18-year-old blonde whose father was Muhammad's second-best friend.
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| 5. Zaynab b Khuzayma - when she married Muhammad, her uncle in Mecca underwrote her dower. Doesn't this tell you that her family would have taken care of her? (Her own father was dead; this uncle had been the father of her second husband; and his son - her cousin and former brother-in-law - was the one who negotiated her marriage to Muhammad.) Zaynab just wanted to stay in Medina among the Muslims. The only reason she was single at all was that another of her husbands (the third or fourth), a Muslim "hero", had divorced her for no particular reason. If she had failed to find a fifth husband, perhaps the community could have found a way to pay her for her charity work among the Muslim poor?
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| 6. Hind - she had four children, a rejecting family and no money, but she wasn't as poor as she looked. In the first place, she was a tanner, so she could have supported herself. In the second place, she was pregnant, so perhaps she planned to hire herself out as a wet nurse. In the third place, she REFUSED successive proposals of marriage from Abu Bakr, Omar and Muhammad himself. She didn't want to remarry, and Muhammad had to pressure her into accepting him.
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| 7. Zaynab b Jahsh - she was a tanner, leather-worker and pearl-piercer who was well able to support herself. Her eldest brother lived nearby and supported her initial refusal to marry Zayd. Even after Zayd divorced her, she obviously had no ''economic'' need to remarry. In fact, she continued working after she married Muhammad.
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| 8. Rayhana - she was only a widow because Muhammad had killed her husband. Even so, she did not ''need'' Muhammad's shelter. The Nadir tribe in Khaybar were frantically buying back as many of the Qurayza women and children as they could locate on the slave-markets. Rayhana had been a Nadir by birth, so they would certainly have bought her if Muhammad had allowed it.
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| 9. Juwayriya - she was only a widow because the Muslims had killed her husband. Her WEALTHY father was willing to pay an outrageous ransom to buy her back.
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| 10. Ramla - when her husband died, the Muslim community in Abyssinia was reduced to four married couples, three single women and twelve single men. So Ramla could have remarried monogamously if she had wanted to. When she married Muhammad by proxy, the King of Abyssinia not only underwrote her dower, but carelessly added an extra zero to the amount. This tells us that the Muslims under his protection were by no means destitute. Perhaps that was why they didn't return to Medina until 628, although nothing had prevented their doing so as early as 622.
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| 11. Safiya - she was only a widow because Muhammad had killed her husband, and she was only impoverished because he had stolen her tribe's wealth. Most of what Muhammad owned in Medina after 628 really belonged to Safiya! He could have kept her there as a hostage, at no honest expense to himself, without bothering to marry her. Alternatively, he could have let her stay in Khaybar with her surviving family, who made their living by date-farming.
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| 12. Maymuna - owned some property in Mecca and lived at the expense of her WEALTHY brother-in-law.
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| 13. Mariya - a domestic maid who was already living at Muhammad's expense whether he slept with her or not.
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| 14. Mulayka - she only a widow because the Muslims had killed her husband. Her family was willing to feed her, and she had an alternative bridegroom lined up. Muhammad divorced her within six months, so he obviously didn't really care about her economic condition.
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| 15. Fatima (Aliya) - her father was not poor. Muhammad divorced her within weeks, so he obviously didn't really care about her economic condition. Nor did her father, who remained in Muhammad's (and Omar's) favour for years to come. He abandoned his daughter, and because the Muslim commuity didn't have a better way to support its poor, Fatima had to work as a dung-collector.
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| 16. Asma - a WEALTHY Yemeni princess.
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| 17. Amra - her family must have been able to keep her, since they tried to prevent her marriage to Muhammad.
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| Perhaps another day I'll explain why none of Muhammad's marriages conferred such compelling political advantage that he was justified in breaking the "four wives only" rule.[[User:1234567|1234567]] ([[User talk:1234567|talk]]) 18:10, 14 June 2012 (PDT)
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| :Thanks for that. This page (like the Safiyah page) will be updated/rewritten. So all this extra info is much appreciated! --[[User:Admin3|Admin3]] ([[User talk:Admin3|talk]]) 18:17, 14 June 2012 (PDT)
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| ==Muhammad committed polygamy out of political necessity== | | ==Muhammad committed polygamy out of political necessity== |