4,682
edits
Ages of Muhammads Wives at Marriage: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Ages of Muhammads Wives at Marriage (view source)
Revision as of 23:55, 30 January 2022
, 30 January 2022no edit summary
| [checked revision] | [checked revision] |
No edit summary |
|||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{QualityScore|Lead=1|Structure=3|Content=4|Language=3|References=4}} | {{QualityScore|Lead=1|Structure=3|Content=4|Language=3|References=4}} | ||
The prophet Muhammad had 19 or more [[Muhammad's Marriages|wives or concubines]] according to the traditional Islamic sources.[[Dawah|Islamic apologists and du'aah]] often make the claim that he married many of these women because they were widows, elderly, or otherwise destitute and in need of his aide. | |||
The widows whom Prophet 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. | |||
Muhammad did indeed marry his first wife 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 and several were young enough to be his granddaughters. According to the traditional Islamic sources, he divorced one woman before consummating the marriage<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:111</ref> and broke off another courtship<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:113</ref> solely because he decided that these women were “too old” for him, and he continued to pursue teenagers until the day he died.<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:105</ref> Nor does he seem to have been embarrassed by his own preference.<ref>"''Nothing was dearer to the Prophet of Allah than a horse. Then he said: “O Allah! Excuse me, no! The women!” (i.e., not dearer than women).''" - [http://www.soebratie.nl/religie/hadith/IbnSad.html#Book 90.6/ Ibn Saad, ''Tabaqat'' Vol. 1 Chapter 90:6].</ref> The Islamic tradition bears witness against the idea that Muhammad was in the habit of marrying older women who were destitute and in need of his aide, and indeed shows that he rather preferred to marry women much, much younger than he. | |||
==Introduction== | ==Introduction== | ||