Aisha's Age: Difference between revisions

In the narrations of this incident which almost led to Muhammad divorcing her, Aisha is repeatedly referred to as a girl of young age (jariyatun hadithatu s-sinni جَارِيَةٌ حَدِيثَةُ السِّنِّ), twice by herself, and once by her slave-girl, Buraira. Aisha states "At that time I was a young lady", and "I was a young girl and did not have much knowledge of the Quran" (both use the same arabic phrase just mentioned). Buraira says, "I have never seen in her anything faulty except that she is a girl of immature age, who sometimes sleeps and leaves the dough for the goats to eat."

The same phrase occurs in narrations about Muhammad screening Aisha with his garment when some Ethiopians were playing (e.g. {{Bukhari|7|62|163}}). One version of a hadith about Aisha experiencing menstruation while on pilgrimage to Mecca too describes her uses the same phrase ({{Muslim|2|2773}}) though the other narrations of that hadith do not include the phrase (one explicitly points out its absence: {{Muslim|7|2774}}).

There is some evidence that Hisham did not originally extend the isnad of most of his versions back to Aisha herself, but rather only to his father 'Urwa, Aisha's nephew, and that they were narrated in the 3rd person, not in her own voice.<ref>Ibid. p. 305 including footnote 996</ref> It is even clearer that such isnad "raising" occured for transmissions by others back to Aisha by other routes.

Hisham seems to have transmitted the hadith after he moved to Kufah in Iraq. There are a few transmissions ascribed to his Medinan students, though these are each dubious for various reasons (though one is difficult to explain away<ref>Little struggles somewhat to discount Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād's transmission from Hishām as having occurred in Medina (see pp. 426-433). The Medinan, Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād, is a confirmed partial common link from Hishām, and the (generally unreliable) Medinan historian al-Wāqidī is one of those who report it from him. In order to place the transmission as having occured in Iraq, where (if biographical sources are to be trusted) Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād moved from Medina, though to a different Iraqi city than Hishām and did so only after Hishām's death, or at most shortly beforehand, and where al-Wāqidī also moved from Medina but only after Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād's death, Little requires both that al-Waqidi did not transmit directly from Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād and that the latter did not transmit directly from Hishām. Incidentally, al-Wāqidī separately reports a distinct but isolated Medinan narration about Aisha's marriage (pp. 215-6).</ref>). Little argues that the hadith was unknown in Medina, as it is not mentioned in the biographical works of Ibn Ishaq nor (it seems) Musa b. 'Uqbah, nor does it feature in Maliki legal texts, where Little believes it would be expected to feature had it been circulating in Medina. Some early Kufans are ascribed as transmitting the story to the Kufan common links before Hisham arrived in Iraq, but these isnads are doubtful according to Little because the marital age hadith does not occur in early Kufan legal hadith compilations, nor in early versions of Kufan hadiths narrating the virtues of Aisha. Rather, these Kufan references to Aisha's marriage too seem to have originated with Hisham's formulations.

In July 2005, [[Gibril Haddad|Shaykh Dr. Gibril Haddad]] responded to Moiz Amjad's polemics with, "Our Mother A'isha's Age At The Time Of Her Marriage to The Prophet."<ref name="Haddad">Shaykh Gibril F Haddad - [http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=7&ID=4604&CATE=1 Our Mother A'isha's Age At The Time Of Her Marriage to The Prophet] - Sunni Path, Question ID:4604, July 3, 2005 [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fqa.sunnipath.com%2Fissue_view.asp%3FHD%3D7%26ID%3D4604%26CATE%3D1&date=2011-05-05 archive 1] [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?2925-Our-Mother-Aisha-s-Age-at-the-Time-of-Her-Marriage-to-the-Prophet-saw&date=2011-05-04 archive 2]</ref> Shaykh Haddad was listed amongst the inaugural "500 most influential Muslims in the world"<ref name="The 500">Edited by Prof. John Esposito and Prof. Ibrahim Kalin - [http://thebook.org/books_pdf/500Muslims_2009.pdf The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World (P. 94)] - The royal islamic strategic studies centre, 2009</ref> and is considered a Muslim scholar and muhaddith (hadith expert).<ref name="The 500" /> Haddad included many facts that are easily verifiable for those who have access to the hadith and sira literature. For example, his analysis highlighted the fact that many of the arguments were based solely on faulty assumptions taken from hadiths completely unrelated to Aisha's age, or were misrepresenting the sources that were being cited (i.e. hadiths actually in support the idea that Aisha was 9). His reply has not yet been answered by Moiz Amjad.  

Zahid Aziz</ref> Alternatively there is no reputable source that claims this chapter came about 9 BH.  

Furthermore, Shaykh Gibril Haddad says that the initial passage mentioned is misinterpreted, stating "Al-Tabari nowhere reports that 'Abu Bakr's four children were all born in Jahiliyya' but only that Abu Bakr married both their mothers in Jahiliyya, Qutayla bint Sa`d and Umm Ruman, who bore him four children in all, two each, `A'isha being the daughter of Umm Ruman."<ref name="Haddad" />

This argument draws on [[Sira|al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah]] (Biography of the Prophet) to claim that since Ayesha converted to Islam before Umar she could not have been born during the first year of Islam.<ref>According to Ibn Hisham, Ayesha (ra) was the 20th or the 21st person to enter into the folds of Islam. While `umar ibn al-khattab was the 41st.  

Besides disputing the claim that Ibn Hisham reported that Aisha accepted Islam quite some time before `umar ibn al-Khattab, Shaykh Haddad also casts doubt on the claim stating:  

This argument claims that al-Tabari states that when Abu Bakr was planning to migrate to Abyssinia (Ethiopia), he spoke to Mut`am, with whose son, Jabayr, Aisha was engaged. This migration occured eight years before hijrah, at which time Aisha had only just been born if she consumated her marriage to Muhammad at the age of 9 or 10.

However, the word أَعْقِلْ means thoughts or reasoning, but the translator, Muhsin Khan, has used the word 'puberty'. The meaning rather is simply that 'Aisha was aware that her parents were following Islam. A literal translation would be "I was not aware of my parents other than that the two of them both acknowledged the religion". The exact same Arabic phrase is translated correctly by the same translator in another narration of the same hadith.<ref>Narrated Aisha:

===Hadith in which Aisha mensturated===

The hadith itself does not state which migration it relates too.

However, critics note that unlike in the early Islamic polity, the minimum age of marriage or consummation for girls in the neighbouring Byzantine and Sasanid empires was significantly later at 13 or 12, albeit still very young (see above). Further, they argue that it is objectively the case that adolescent pregnancy brings signicantly greater risk of serious medical complications for both the mother and baby as noted for example by [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-pregnancy The World Health Organization]) and that this would be no different a thousand years ago, especially in the case of a nine year old girl. Moreover, critics question whether it is legitimate to complain of presentism, given the Islamic concept of Muhammad as al-Insān al-Kāmil (the perfect human) and [[Uswa Hasana]] (an excellent model of conduct). Indeed, Muhammad's marriage to Aisha has been cited by Islamic scholars opposed to the introduction or raising of the minimum age of marriage which has occurred in most Muslim majority countries in recent decades.

Some argue that life expectancy a millenium ago was considerably lower than today, so there was an imperative to start a family at a young age. Critics note that such claims are often exaggerated for these purposes by including infant mortality in the calculation of average lifespans. A study of skeletal remains from the Mexican city of Cholula showed that between 900 to 1500 CE, most people who made it to adulthood went on to live beyond the age of fifty. Another study showed that in medieval England those who reached the age of 25 had an average life expectancy of another 25 years.<ref> Sharon DeWitte [https://www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2022/08/conversation-old-age-is-not-a-modern-phenomenon.php Old age isn’t a modern phenomenon – many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too] - University of South Carolina website, 10 August 2022</ref> Both Muhammad and Aisha died in their sixties. Furthermore, critics point out that the risk of maternal and infant mortality was relatively high among girls enduring pregnancy in early adolesence (traditionally, Muhammad commenced intercourse with Aisha when she was nine), which itself would reduce life expectancy, while in other cases permanent reproductive damage can be done. On that point, it may be noted that Aisha did not bear Muhammad any children.

===Earlier puberty and menarchy in the past===

Another common argument is that puberty occured earlier in the past or in hot climates. Puberty is a process which takes place over a number of years, while menarchy (first menstruation) is a distinct physiologial event which is the culmination of the anatomical processes of puberty. Apologetic websites typically cite books or articles which mention that the onset of puberty can occur today from as early as the age of eight. An article by Jesse Gamble is commonly quoted for saying that "Menarche affected Paleolithic girls between the ages of 7 to 13".<ref>Jesse Gamble, (2017) "Early Starters: Girls are entering puberty at every younger ages. What are the causes, and should we be worried?", ''Nature'' 550, S10-S11</ref> A journal article by Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson gives a similar range and is commonly cited for their argument that in the simpler societies of the past, psycho-social maturity was better aligned with the age of physical development.<ref>Gluckman, P. and Hanson, M. (2006) "Evolution, development and timing of puberty", ''Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism'', 17(1)</ref>  

However, critics have noticed that this is only half the story. The opening sentence of Gluckman and Hanson's paper begins by saying, "The age of menarchy has fallen as child health has improved". The paper explains that menarchy begins ''later'' when childhood health and nutrition is poor, such as in the neolithic period, when as a result of "settlement, childhood disease and postnatal undernutrition became common and therefore the average age of menarchy was delayed" in contrast to the paleolithic hunter-gatherers. In Figure 2 of their paper the authors indicate the likely age ranges of menarchy 20,000 years ago (c. 7-14 years old), 2,000 years ago (c. 10-17 years old), 200 years ago during the industrial revolution (c. 13-18 years old) and today, when it has fallen back down (c. 9-15 years old). The authors argue that "With modern hygiene, nutrition and medicine, these pathological constraints on puberty have been removed and the age of menarchy has fallen to its evolutionarily determined range. But now the complexity of society has increased enormously and psychosocial maturation takes longer." Hadiths narrated by Aisha suggest that her mother struggled to make her gain weight before sending her to live with Muhammad (see {{Ibn Majah||4|29|3324}} and {{Abu Dawud|28|3894}}).

The average age of menarchy today in Europe and the United States has fallen to around 13 years old, while the average is about 14 years old in Yemen in the south of the Arabian Peninsula (coming down from 14.44 years old in 1979 to 13.8 in 2013, standard deviation of 1.36 years). The average age is very similar (13-14) across a large range of low and middle income countries.<ref>Tiziana Leone and Laura Brown [https://www.niussp.org/fertility-and-reproduction/trends-in-age-at-menarche-in-low-and-middle-income-countries-evolution-de-lage-a-la-menarche-dans-les-pays-a-revenu-faible-et-intermediaire/ Trends in age at menarche in low- and middle-income countries] - niussp.org, 1 March 2021</ref>