Muhammad's Marriages: Difference between revisions

According to Anas ibn Malik, the Prophet [[Muhammad]] used to visit all eleven of his [[Muhammad's Wives|wives]] in one night; but he could manage this, as he had the [[Sex|sexual]] prowess of thirty men.<ref>{{Bukhari|1|5|268}}. See also {{Bukhari|7|62|142}}.</ref> The historian Al-[[Tabari]] calculated that Muhammad [[Marriage|married]] a total of fifteen [[Islam and Women|women]], though only ever eleven at one time; and two of these marriages were never consummated.<ref>{{Tabari|9|pp. 126-127}}.</ref> This tally of fifteen does not include at least four concubines. According to Merriam-Webster, a concubine is “a woman with whom a man cohabits without being married”,  and has a “social status in a household below that of a wife.”<ref>[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concubine|2=2011-09-28}} Concubine] – Merriam-Webster, accessed September 28, 2011</ref> All of Muhammad’s concubines were his [[Slavery|slaves]]. Al-Tabari also excludes from the fifteen several other women with whom Muhammad had some kind of marriage contract but who, due to legal technicalities, never became full wives. It is fairly certain, however, that none of these legally-stifled unions was ever consummated. They were the cultural equivalent of a broken engagement. Finally, there were several other women whom Muhammad wished to marry, or whom he was invited to marry, but for various reasons he did not.

It is often suggested that [[Muhammad]]’s [[Muhammad's Wives|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.

Nevertheless, the widely held view that “Muhammad married poor widows to provide them with a home” is not supported by the available historical evidence from Islamic sources.

{{Quote|Ali, M. M. (1924, 1993). ''Muhammad the Prophet'', pp. 192-193. Columbus, Ohio: The Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha’at Islam Lahore.|The perpetual state of war created disparity between the male and female elements of society. Husbands having fallen on the field of battle, their widows had to be provided for … This is the reason that [Muhammad] himself took so many women to be his wives during the period when war was raging. Nearly all of his wives were widows.}}

Finally, in addition to considering whether Muhammad's individual wives were persons, one must also consider whether Muhammad was himself a man of means who would have been able to well provide for the women whom he married. For, if Muhammad was not himself a reliable source of welfare, then it would be equally difficult to maintain that his marriages were a form of financial relief for his wives, who may, one thinks, just as easily, have encountered great wealth elsewhere among the muslims.

Muhammad married Sawdah in May 620.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 170}}.</ref> It is not known how Muhammad was making his living in his last few years in Mecca, but he does not seem to have been able to re-launch Khadijah’s merchant business. If it is true that ''all'' of Khadijah’s wealth had been expended in the days of the blockade,<ref>Ibn Hanbal, ''Musnad'' vol. 6 pp. 117-118.</ref> Muhammad was now bankrupt. He certainly did not seem to have any resources of his own by the time of the ''Hijra'' in September 622, as it is recorded that all the expenses of his journey were paid by Abu Bakr.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 223</ref>

It appears, then, that the issue of how to provide for single women would not have been on Muhammad’s mind in 620. Rather, the problem was how to find anyone at all who was available to marry him. Indeed, it appears that Muhammad was having some difficulty finding Muslim women for his male converts to marry, for he permitted marriage to polytheists right up to the year 628, and even later retained the permission for Muslim men to marry Jewish and Christian women, but not the other way around.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 509-510.</ref>

Hafsah’s first husband, Khunays ibn Hudhayfa, died of battle-wounds in mid-624.<ref>{{Bukhari|5|59|342}}. Bewley/Saad 8:56: "He died, leaving her a widow after the ''Hijra'' when the Prophet arrived from Badr."</ref> He seems to have been a man of humble means who relied on the patronage of Hafsah’s father Umar.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 218.</ref> This suggests that his death did not make much change to Hafsah’s economic situation. Before, during, and after her marriage, she was dependent on her father. Umar claimed to be “one of the richest of the Quraysh”<ref>Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq 216.</ref> and thus should have had no financial difficulty maintaining his daughter.

Ultimately, it becomes clear that Muhammad could not and did not provide any form of special welfare to Hafsah.

Zaynab’s husband was killed at Badr; he was Ubayda ibn Al-Harith, the first Muslim to die in battle.<ref>Guillaume/Ibn Ishaq 506.</ref> She should have been available for remarriage by late July 624. But she did not marry Muhammad for another seven months.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:82. “He married her in Ramadan at the beginning of the 31st month of the ''Hijra''.”</ref> So there is no reason to believe she had fallen into any sort of immediate destitution. Islamic chronicle further buttress this point.

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.

Hind was born into the wealthy Makhzum clan of the Quraysh, and her husband, Abdullah ibn Abdulasad, was a second cousin from the same clan.<ref>{{Tabari|9|p. 132}}.</ref> Since their family rejected them when they became Muslims,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 169, 170.</ref> it is not clear whether they were still wealthy when, ten years later, they arrived in Medina; but it is known that they owned the camels that transported them.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 213-214.</ref>

When Muhammad repeated his marriage-proposal, Hind gave him a string of reasons for why she wanted to refuse, and he left her house disappointed. Muhammad had, in fact, to argue her out of her excuses and propose a third time before she finally accepted him.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:63.</ref> They were married on or before 6 April 626.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:61.</ref> This raises the question of whether Hind truly wanted to marry Muhammad or whether she simply gave in to the pressure from the most powerful man in the community. Regardless of why she changed her mind, her on-principle reluctance to remarry indicates that she had been managing quite well on her own, and that she had felt no compelling or even trifling reason to get married.

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>

Although it is agreed that Zaynab was economically independent, modern historians sometimes claim that she might have had a social or moral need to remarry. One writes, “Before Islam, the Arabs did not allow divorcees to remarry,”<ref>Abdallati, H. ''Islam in Focus'', pp.177-179, cited in “Rebuttal to Sam Shamoun’s Article Muhammad’s Multiplicity of Marriages” in ''Answering Christianity''.</ref> and that her divorce “made her unfit to marry a status conscious Arab.”<ref>[http://www.scribd.com/doc/133159128/The-Real-Men-of-the-Renaissance-Badreddine-Belhamissi/ Aly, A. (1999). ''The Real Men of the Renaissance'', p. 26. Belhamissi.]</ref> However, there is no evidence that the Arabs forbade divorced women to remarry. On the contrary, Abu Sufyan’s favourite wife, Hind bint Utbah, had been a divorcée.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:165; Al-Suyuti, ''Tarikh al-Khulafa''. Translated by Jarrett, H. S. (1881). ''History of the Caliphs'', pp. 200-201. Calcutta: The Asiatic Society.</ref> Abu Sufyan's clan, the Umayyads, had been the dominant clan of the Quraysh even before Abu Sufyan became the high chief of Mecca;<ref>E.g., see Guillaume/Ishaq 82.</ref> what was socially acceptable for the Umayyads was, by definition, acceptable for everyone. Muhammad did not marry Zaynab to rescue her from social disapprobation; rather, he created significant social disapprobation in order that he might marry her, for while remarriage was not taboo, marrying ones daughter-in-law (even through adoption), evidently was.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 9}}. "The ''Munafiqun'' made this a topic of their conversation and reviled the Prophet, saying, 'Muhammad prohibits (marriage) with the (former) wives of one's own sons, but he married the (former) wife of his son Zayd.'"</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.

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.

Juwayriyah was in a similar situation to Rayhanah. She had become widowed because Muslim raiders had killed her husband.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:83.</ref> Like Rayhanah, Juwayriyah had family members who would have happily purchased/ransomed her given the opportunity. Juwayriyah, in fact, knew that the raiders had only carried off a fraction of her tribe’s wealth and that they had only killed a few of the men. Her father, the chief, had survived the raid, and he was willing and able to pay the ransom set on her head.<ref>Ibn Hisham note 739.</ref>

However, Muhammad, as with Rayhanah, refused to ransom or sell Juwayriyah. Instead, he gave Juwayriyah one of two options: the choice of marrying himself or marrying another Muslim.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 629; Ibn Hisham note 918; {{Tabari|39|pp. 182-183}}.</ref>

Ramlah and her first husband, Ubaydullah ibn Jahsh, were among the early [[converts]] to Islam who emigrated to Abyssinia in 615.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 146; {{Tabari|39|p. 177}}.</ref> “They were safely ensconced there and were grateful for the protection of the ''Negus'' [King]; could serve Allah without fear; and the ''Negus'' had shown them every hospitality.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 148.</ref> It is not known how the exiles earned their living, but they must have found a means of subsistence, for they all stayed at least four years. Forty of them returned to Arabia in 619, only to discover that Mecca was still not a safe place for Muslims.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 167-168.</ref> After the Muslim victory at Badr in 624, however, the exiles realized that they would be safe in Medina, and they began to leave for Arabia in small groups.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 527-529.</ref> About half of them remained in Abyssinia, Ramlah and Ubaydullah among them.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 527.</ref> There is no obvious reason why they could not have gone to Medina, where all of Ubaydullah’s siblings lived,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 214-215. Ubaydullah’s eldest brother was married to Ramlah’s sister.</ref> so presumably their continuation in Abyssinia was voluntary.

Ultimately, and once again, there is no reason to believe Muhammad married Ramlah to improve, let alone rectify, her financial standing.  

[[Safiyah]] was a prisoner of war whom Muhammad captured at the siege of Khaybar.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 511.</ref> She, like Rayhanah and Juwayriyah, was only a widow because Muhammad and his companions had killed [[Kinana|her husband]] (who, unlike Rayhanah and Juwayriyah's husbands, had been tortured prior to his execution), and, like Rayhanah, was poor because the Islamic state had appropriated her people's wealth at Khaybar.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 515.</ref><ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 521-523.</ref> However, her poverty had not reached the level of absolute destitution, for many of her relatives were still alive in Khaybar. They had persuaded Muhammad to let them remain on the land and farm the dates in exchange for giving him half the revenues.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 515.</ref> If Safiyah had remained in Khaybar, she too could have farmed dates.

Muhammad’s family – not only his wives and descendants, but his extended family too – lived off the wealth of Khaybar for the rest of their lives.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 521-523.</ref> Since Safiyah represented the leading family of Khaybar,<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 437-438.</ref> there is a very real sense in which Muhammad’s whole clan was living at her expense. Muhammad was not providing for Safiyah; it was she and her people, rather, who provided for him and his family.

Maymunah was never poor; she was born into the bourgeois Hilal tribe.<ref>Ibn Hisham note 918; {{Tabari|9|p. 135}}.</ref> After her husband died, she became the house guest of her married sister, Lubabah.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:94: “Al-‘Abbas ibn al-Muttalib married her to him. He took care of her affairs.”</ref> Lubabah’s husband was Muhammad’s uncle, Abbas ibn Abdulmuttalib, who was “one of the richest of the Banu Hashim.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 114.</ref> He “used to go often to the Yaman to buy aromatics and sell them during the fairs”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 113.</ref> and was also apparently a banker: “he had a great deal of money scattered among the people.”<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 309-310.</ref> Maymunah offered to marry Muhammad without taking any dower.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:97: “Maymuna bint al-Harith was the woman who gave herself to the Messenger of Allah.” Also: “‘Amra was asked whether Maymuna was the one who gave herself to the Messenger of Allah. She said, ‘The Messenger of Allah married her for 500 ''dirhams'' and the guardian for her marriage was al-‘Abbas ibn al-Muttalib.’”</ref> Muhammad agreed, but this was not acceptable to Abbas, who unexpectedly provided Maymunah with a dower anyway.<ref>Ibn Hisham note 918 says the dower was 400 ''dirhams'', like that of all Muhammad’s other wives. Bewley/Saad 8:97 says it was 500 ''dirhams'', in keeping with Ibn Saad’s other traditions that Muhammad’s wives received 12½ ounces of silver. The higher sum is from the later histories, suggesting that the chroniclers adjusted it for inflation.</ref>

It has never been entirely clear why Muhammad married Maymunah. What is clear, however, is that she was not poor or homeless and so was not in need of any form of rescuing.

In one sense, Mariyah was poor. She was a slave in Egypt, and the Governor sent her to be a slave in Arabia, as a personal gift to Muhammad, from one head-of-state to another.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 653.</ref> She possessed nothing of her own. She was, indeed, herself property.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 194}}. “He had intercourse with her by virtue of her being his property.”</ref>

Mariyah did not, it would appear, “need” to be Muhammad’s concubine.An entire year had passed, demonstrating that it was possible for her to live in his household without having sex with him. Indeed, it was not until one night that the prophet was supposed to sleep with Hafsah, when she had become suddenly unavailable due to a family emergency, that [[Muhammad's Just In Time Revelations#Muhammad and Mary the Copt|Muhammad encountered Mariyah in Hafsah's empty household and decided to initiate intercourse with her]].

Not much is known about Mulaykah’s background, but her father appears to have been at least a minor chief. Although he was killed in battle in January 630,<ref>{{Tabari|8|p. 187}}; {{Tabari|39|p. 165}}; Bewley/Saad 8:106.</ref> Mulaykah had plenty of other relatives to care for her. One of these was a cousin from the Udhra tribe, and he wanted to marry her.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 165}}; Bewley/Saad 8:106.</ref>

This marriage ended in divorce after only a few weeks.<ref>{{Tabari|8|p. 187}}; {{Tabari|39|p. 165}}; Bewley/Saad 8:106.</ref> If, in fact, Mulaykah had somehow benefited materially from her marriage to Muhammad, then it would appear that the prophet shortly decided to discontinue this service - however, it is not at all evident that the marriage was materially advantageous in any special way for Mulaykah to begin with.

Fatima’s father was a minor chief, and he was still alive when she married Muhammad.<ref>Guillaume/Ishaq 570ff shows her father as a military commander of some authority. {{Abudawud|18|2921}} shows that he survived to the caliphate of Umar.</ref> Hence, she was not poor at the time of her marriage to Muhammad.

Neither Muhammad nor any other Muslim leader thereafter showed any interest in saving Fatima from her life of poverty that was, in her own words, "wretched" and "miserable".

Asma was a wealthy princess from [[Yemen]] who had lived all her life in luxury.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 189}}. Her tribe, the Kindah, were the rulers of Yemen.</ref> Her father hinted that he found Muhammad’s standard 12½ ounces of silver a “stingy” dower, but was ultimately forced to accept that this was all Asma would be paid.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 189}}.</ref>

Not much is known about Amrah’s background. But this is not really relevant here, as Muhammad divorced her on the first day,<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 188}}; Bewley/Saad 8:101.</ref> and therefore, whether she was poor or not, he certainly did not provide for her materially.

Like Rayhanah, Tukanah was a prisoner-of-war from the Qurayza tribe.<ref>[http://www.al-islam.org/hayat-al-qulub-vol2-allamah-muhammad-baqir-al-majlisi/ Al-Majlisi, ''Hayat al-Qulub'' vol. 2 chapter 52.] Translation by Rizvi, S. A. H. (2010). ''Life of the Heart''. Qum, Iran: Ansariyan Publications.</ref> She was only poor because Muhammad had embattled her tribe, killed its men and confiscated its property.

Muhammad selected Tukanah as one of his personal slaves. After that he was legally obligated to feed and house her, whether or not she was his concubine. And while the slave life would not have been a glamorous or enriching one, she would still have been living at his expense, even if she was only ever his housemaid. Muhammad, it would appear, did not need to have intercourse with this woman in order to provide for her.

Nothing is known about this woman except that she was a domestic maid (a slave) before she became a concubine.<ref>Ibn Al-Qayyim, ''Zaad Al-Maad'' vol. 1 p. 29, cited in Al-Mubarakpuri, S. R. (2002). ''The Sealed Nectar'', pp. 564-565. Riyadh: Darussalam.</ref> So Muhammad had to support her whether he had sex with her or not. Muhammad, it would appear again, did not need to have intercourse with this woman in order to provide for her.

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