List of Muhammads Wives and Concubines: Difference between revisions

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|[[Khadijah bint Khuwaylid]]

|July 595.

|She was a wealthy merchant from Mecca who employed the 24-year-old Muhammad and then proposed marriage. She was the mother of six of his children and a key character in the earliest development of Islam. She was Muhammad's only wife as long as she lived. She died in April 620.

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|Sawda bint Zam'a

|May 620.

|She was a tanner who had been an early convert to Islam. Muhammad married her at a time when he was unpopular and bankrupt. He considered divorcing her when, as the oldest and plainest of his wives (described as "fat and very slow"), she no longer attracted him, but she persuaded him to keep her in the house in exchange for never sleeping with her again (she gave up her turn to Aisha).  

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|Aisha bint Abi Bakr

|Contracted May 620 but first consummated in April or May 623.

|She was the daughter of Muhammad's best friend and head evangelist Abu Bakr. Muhammad selected the six-year-old Aisha in preference to her teenaged sister, and she remained his favourite wife. She contributed a major body of information to Islamic law and history. The paedophilic aspect of this relationship has institutionalised such marriages within Islam.

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|Hafsa bint Umar

|January or February 625.

|She was the daughter of Muhammad's wealthy friend Umar. Hafsa was the custodian of the autograph-text of the Qur'an, which was actually somewhat different from the standard Qur'an of today.  

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|Zaynab bint Khuzayma

|February or March 625.  

|She was a middle-class widow known as "Mother of the Poor" because of her commitment to charity work. She died in October 625.  

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|Hind (Umm Salama) bint Abi Umayya

|April 626.

|An attractive widow with four young children, Hind had been rejected by her aristocratic family in Mecca because they were so hostile to Islam. Her tact and practical wisdom sometimes mitigated Muhammad's cruelties. She was a notable teacher of Islamic law and a partisan of Ali.

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|Zaynab bint Jahsh

|March 627.

|An early convert to Islam, Zaynab was the wife of Muhammad's adopted son Zayd ibn Harithah. She was also the Prophet's biological cousin. When Muhammad became infatuated with Zaynab, Zayd was pressured into a divorce. To justify marrying her, Muhammad announced new revelations that (1) an adopted son did not count as a real son, so Zaynab was not his daughter-in-law, and (2) as a prophet, he was allowed more than the standard four wives. Zaynab excelled at leather-crafts.  

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|Rayhana bint Zayd ibn Amr

|May 627.

|Her first husband was one of the 600-900 Qurayza men whom Muhammad beheaded in April 627. He enslaved all the women and selected Rayhana for himself because she was the most beautiful. When she refused to marry him, he kept her as a concubine instead. She died shortly before Muhammad in 632.  

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|Juwayriyah bint Al-Harith

|January 628.

|The daughter of an Arab chief, she was taken prisoner when Muhammad attacked her tribe. Muhammad did not make a habit of marrying his war-captives, but Aisha claimed that Juwayriyah was so beautiful that men always fell in love with her at first sight.  

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|Ramlah (Umm Habiba) bint Abi Sufyan

|July 628 (following a proxy wedding earlier in the year)

|She was a daughter of Abu Sufyan, the Meccan chief who led the resistance against Muhammad, but she had been a teenaged convert to Islam. This marriage offset some of Muhammad's political humiliation in the Treaty of Hudaybiya by demonstrating that he could command the loyalty of his adversary's own daughter. Ramlah was devoted to Muhammad and quick to pick quarrels with people who were not.

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|[[Safiyah|Safiyah bint Huyayy]]

|July 628.  

|She was the beautiful daughter of a Jewish chief, Huyayy ibn Akhtab. Muhammad married her on the day he defeated the last Jewish tribe in Arabia, only hours after he had supervised the slaying of Kinana her second husband. His earlier victims had included her father, brother, first husband, three uncles and several cousins. This marriage was of no benefit to Safiyah's defeated tribe, who were banished from Arabia a few years later; its real political significance was that Safiyah's presence in Muhammad's household was an open demonstration that he had defeated the Jews.

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|Maymunah bint Al-Harith

|February 629.  

|She was a middle-class widow from Mecca who proposed marriage to Muhammad. A placid woman who kept a very tidy house, Maymunah was completely obsessed with rules and rituals.

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|[[Mariyah the Sex Slave of the Holy Prophet|Mariyah bint Shamoon al-Quptiya]]

|c. June 629.  

|She was one of several slaves whom the Governor of Egypt sent as a present to Muhammad. He kept her as a concubine despite the objections of his official wives, who feared her beauty. Mariyah bore Muhammad a son, Ibrahim.  

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|Mulayka bint Kaab

|January 630.  

|Her family resisted the Muslim invasion of Mecca. Needing to appease the conqueror, they gave him the beautiful Mulayka as a bride. When she realised that Muhammad's army had killed her father, she demanded a divorce, which he granted her. She died a few weeks later.   

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|Fatima ''al-Aliya'' bint Zabyan ''al-Dahhak''

|February or March 630.  

|She was the daughter of a minor chief who had converted to Islam. Muhammad divorced her after only a few weeks "because she peeked at men in the mosque courtyard." Fatima had to work for the rest of her life as a dung-collector, and she outlived all Muhammad's widows.   

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|Asma bint Al-Numan

|June or July 630.  

|She was a princess from Yemen whose family hoped the marriage alliance would ward off a military invasion from Medina. But Muhammad divorced her before consummation after Aisha tricked her into reciting the divorce formula. Asma later married a brother of Umm Salama.   

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|''Al-Jariya''

|After 627.  

|She was a domestic slave belonging to Zaynab bint Jahsh, who made Muhammad a present of her. She seems to have been an "unofficial" concubine who did not have a regular turn on his roster.   

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|Amra bint Yazid

|c. 631.

|She was a Bedouin of no political importance. Muhammad divorced her before consummation when he saw she had symptoms of leprosy.  

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|Tukana al-Quraziya

|Unknown, but probably in the last months of Muhammad's life.

|She was a member of the defeated Qurayza tribe whom Muhammad selected as one of his personal slaves. She appears to have been another "unofficial" concubine without a regular turn on the roster. After Muhammad's death, she married Abbas.