Ages of Muhammads Wives at Marriage: Difference between revisions

There is some discrepancy in the sources about Hafsah’s exact age but there they agree concerning her approximate age.

This was the year from 30 January 605 to 19 January 606, so the median birthdate for Hafsah is 26 July 605 according to the traditional sources. Muhammad’s daughter Fatima was born in the same year.<ref>{{Tabari|39|p. 166}}.</ref>

An approximate birth year that emerges from the sources 605; but it should be borne in mind that she might have been two years younger than this.

It can thus be surmised from the sources that Hafsah was between 17 and 19 years old, an adult but very young woman.  

Zaynab’s life is not well documented, which has led to conjecture about her age.

Tabari and S'ad both report similar ages for her though:

According to the above sources Zaynab was therefore married on or soon after 18 February 625. She died on or just before 11 October 625. If she was “about 30” in 4 AH, she was born in October 596, plus or minus a few years.

Zaynab married five times.<ref>Ibn Hisham note 918; Bewley/Saad 8:82; {{Tabari|9|p. 138}}; {{Tabari|39|pp. 163-614}}.</ref> Her fifth choice, it seems, fell on a high-status and already-married man old enough to be her father when she was in her late 20's.  

Thirty-five years before 5 AH brings us to a birth-year of 31 BH (20 June 592 - 8 June 593), a discrepancy of three years. Probably Umar ibn Uthman was giving a round number when he said she was married at 35; to be conservative, for the sake of calculation an earlier fate can be assumed. However, we must bear in mind that Zaynab might have been some three years younger than this.

Modern commentaries claiming that Zaynab was “in late middle age”<ref>[http://www.ispi-usa.org/muhammad/appendix2.html/ Akhter, J. (2001). “The Prophet's Marriages and Wives”] in ''The Seven Phases of Prophet Muhammad's Life''. Chicago: ISPI.</ref> thus seem to be off the mark. While her contemporary community might not have considered her “a young woman,” this is relative. She was still young enough to have been Muhammad’s daughter.

Juwayriyah’s age is only mildly disputed.

This makes it very clear that Muhammad was already married to Zaynab during this controversy, which arose before the warriors had even arrived home from the al-Muraysi expedition. He married Zaynab in late 5 AH, so Ibn Ishaq’s date of 6 AH for the raid seems to be the correct one. It does seem odd that Aisha would give the wrong sequence for two such dramatic events as the raid at al-Muraysi and the Prophet’s marriage to Zaynab. However, it is more likely that, when asked for a date, she accidentally named the wrong expedition than that, recalling what could be considered 'the crisis of her life', she could not remember whether she had been veiled or who had been spreading gossip about her; either that, or the traditions related here may have been fabricated by someone other than she.  

Nevertheless, for the sake of calculation, a two-year range for Juwayriyah’s birthdate, between 9 January 607 and 17 December 608, will be used. The median is 28 December 607. She was married in Shabaan 6 AH, a median date of 2 January 628.

So another one of Muhammad's wives, Juwayriyah, was young enough to be his granddaughter when she married him at just around 20.  

[[Safiyah]] is given with unusual precision, down to the month:

The Muslims therefore began the march to Khaybar in late May or early June 628 and were back in Medina before the end of July according to ibn Ishaq. So Muhammad married Safiyah early in Rabi-Awwal 7 AH (mid-July 628). Safiyah apparently knew that she had been born in Rabi'-Awwal 17 years earlier, though she did not know whether it had been late or early in the month and therefore did not know whether she had reached 17 full years on the particular night when she married Muhammad. The Rabi'-Awwal of 17 years earlier fell between 14 January and 12 February 612, giving Safiyah a birthdate of 28 January 612, plus or minus a fortnight.

Safiyah was yet another bride who was young enough to be Muhammad’s granddaughter, most likely still being in her teens while Muhammad was in his 50's.  

Ibn Kathir makes Muhammad 25 years older than Ramlah. This is not a serious contradiction. If Muhammad was 53 in 1 AH, then he was only 59 and not 60 in 7 AH; so calling Ramlah’s age 35 rather than 36 may also be an approximation, much like Tabari’s “thirty-odd”. Since Ibn Kathir is a source far removed in time from the life of the prophet, for calculation it will be assumed that “thirty-odd” means 36 and that Ramlah was born in 30 BH.

Ramlah was young enough to be Muhammad’s daughter. although older than many of Muhammad's other wives.  

The traditions about Maymunah are hard to reconcile:

But in fact the death-date of 61 AH might have been a mistake. Other sources indicate that she could not have been the last survivor of Muhammad’s widows, for Aisha outlived her, and Hind, of course, outlived Aisha.

This doesn't seem to be correct, as not one, but four or five of Muhammad’s widows were still alive in 51 AH (Hind, Aisha, Sawdah, Safiyah and perhaps Juwayriyah) according to other sources. Ibn Kathir, writing 700 years after the event, was either trying to harmonize the conflict without considering all the facts or merely restating the words of someone else who likewise failed to consider the facts. If Ibn Kathir (or his source) guessed at which part of his original text was the error, he might also have been guessing at the year of Maymunah’s death. Thusly neither 51 n''or'' 61 AH can be confidently taken as her death date. The only consistency amongst the reports is that Maymunah lived to be about 80.

While we do not really know Maymunah’s death-date, and therefore her birth-date, for the purposes of calculation Ibn Kathir’s more conservative tradition will be accepted here. According to this, she was born in 30 BH, i.e., between 9 June 593 and 28 May 594 (median = 2 December 593). This would make her about 35 when she married Muhammad in February 629, although she mind that might have been many years younger.

Sir William Muir’s unsourced comment that “Maymunah is said to have been at this time 51 years of age”<ref>[http://www.answering-islam.org/Books/Muir/Life4/chap22.htm/ Muir, W. (1861). ''The Life of Mahomet'' vol. 4 p. 89. London: Smith, Elder & Co.]</ref> is thus shown to be extremely doubtful. Muhammad was around 20 years older than he when they married.  

This makes sense in the light of the fact that Mulaykah found a new fiancé within days of her divorce from Muhammad, before she had completed her three-month waiting-period<ref>Bewley/Saad 8:106; {{Tabari|39|p. 165}}.</ref>, indicating that the marriage was likely not consummated. It looks as if this man had already been a suitor before it became politically necessary for Mulaykah to marry Muhammad. If she had been courted but not married, this also suggests that she was very young.

The year 8 AH did not end until 22 April 630 CE. But in fact Muhammad must have married Mulaykah earlier than this. Her tribe lived near Mecca; they had resisted him at Mecca on 14 January; and Muhammad left Mecca on 28 January to fight the Hawazinites and Thaqifites.<ref>{{Tabari|9|pp. 2-3}}.</ref> It seems that he married Mulaykah during his fortnight of residence in the city, i.e. in the second half of January 630.