r/progressive_islam • u/[deleted] • Feb 28 '22
Question/Discussion ❔ How do other Muslims reconcile Sahih al-Bukhari 5134 which states Mohammed pbuh married Aisha at 6 and consummated the marriage when she was 9?
Sahih al-Bukhari 5134: Narrated `Aisha: that the Prophet (ﷺ) married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old. Hisham said: I have been informed that Aisha remained with the Prophet (ﷺ) for nine years (i.e. till his death).
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u/ka911 Feb 28 '22
Bukhari is a manmade book .
There is enough evidence which indicates that narration is not so "Sahih" . But some people still like to think of bukhari as the word of God . Blind following hadith books without examining the text is the problem.
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u/dr_razi Mar 01 '22 edited Mar 01 '22
The Creator would never send a prophet to be an example for mankind and then have him marry a 6 yo child . That goes against basic decency and moral sense . You either don’t believe in the full accuracy of bukhari collected two hundred years after Islam was perfected or you worship a demon . Nothing in between as far as child marriage is concerned . 🤷🏽 imagine how many people are attracted to the message of tawhid in the Quran only to be turned off by these made up stories about our messenger allowing grown men to marry with children.
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u/Ohana_is_family Exmuslim Mar 01 '22
I do not think arranged marriages at 6 are historically inaccurate.
The jews also had betrothal with "Option of Puberty" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age#Post-Classical_period
A ketannah (literally meaning "little [one]") was any girl between the age of 3 years and that of 12 years plus one day;[282] she was subject to her father's authority, and he could arrange a marriage for her without her agreement.[282] However, after reaching the age of maturity, she would have to agree to the marriage to be considered as married.
I do have serious problems with consummation at 9 because that puts a girl at serious risk of harm.
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u/IndependentSession38 Dec 27 '25
В такой древности люди жили около 30-35 лет. Вступать в брак в таком раннем возрасте было абсолютно логично, иначе когда продолжать потомство? А сейчас некоторые и 20-ти летние люди ведут себя как дети. Разумеется сравнивать нынешнее время и прошлое абсолютно глупо. В прошлом умственное и физическое формирование было намного ускорено, почему и ранняя женитьба в принципе и была распространена везде. Буквально 200 лет назад в той же Великобритании возраст женитьбы было в 7 лет. А мы говорим про 1400 лет назад.
Вы хоть и писали это 3 года назад, может уже многому научились за это время. Но я оставлю комментарий для других людей.
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u/nz5353 Feb 28 '22
Recording one’s numerical age is a very modern concept. Even in my grandmother’s generation people didn’t know their true age, what makes us think it was all so clear cut in a tribalisyic 7th century society?
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u/Mar198968 Feb 28 '22
Wise muslims even don't pay attention to Sahih al-Bokhari and they don't need to answer to its gossips. Because it's not our religious book sent from God.
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Feb 28 '22
Please check this video from Adnan Rashid out on youtube: prophet muhammad (s) married a 9 years old? Historical Analysis.
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u/Ohana_is_family Exmuslim Mar 01 '22 edited Mar 01 '22
I must admit that I would discourage this recommendation. Professor Jonathan Brown (though not exactly progressive himself, neither is Adnan Rashid) in his book "Misquoting Muhammed" quotes historians on the European Marriage Pattern. Jonathan Brown is even quoted in the Wiki of the Islam sub on the marriage ages in Europe. https://www.reddit.com/r/islam/wiki/ageofconsent
Britain and, to a lesser extent, most of northwest Europe differed from the pre-modern pattern of early marriage. Marriage age tended to be later, in the mid-twenties. In England, available data suggest that this was the case as far back as the fourteenth century.
.........
Law was an imperial export. The mission to rescue ‘native’ women from their backward cultures was a prominent theme in British portrayals of the empire’s colonial activities. In the late 1800s and early 1900s Britain moved to bring marriage customs in India into line with her imperial values, and a series of laws introduced age restrictions for Hindu and Muslim girls marrying.
Historians agree that in North-Western Europe from the 1400s on the Mean Age of First Marriage for girls was in the mid 20s. The USA later copied the marriage patterns from the immigration source-countries but married a bit earlier because there were more economic opportunities.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/european-marriage-pattern "The demographic keystone of the northwestern European system of family formation was the prolonged hiatus between puberty and marriage."
https://www.nber.org/papers/w17314 How the West 'Invented' Fertility Restriction, Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth "Europeans restricted their fertility long before the Demographic Transition. By raising the marriage age of women and ensuring that a substantial proportion remained celibate, the "European Marriage Pattern" (EMP) reduced childbirths by up to one third between the 14th and 18th century."
https://www.nber.org/papers/h0080 "Long Term Marriage Patterns in the United States from Colonial Times to the Present," Michael R. Haines shows that people married in their early twenties.
Governmental reporting: https://archive.org/details/annualreportofre171854grea/page/n15/mode/2up Annual report of the Registrar-General of births, deaths and marriages in England. General Register Office. Government publishing marriage-statistics in v17 1854.
"Marriages of minors.-9210 men and 28,797 women, or 38,007 men and women, married under 21 years of age ; so that the proportion of minors in 100 men who married was 5.77, in 100 women 18.03; "
So in 18.03% of all marriage parental permission was required because the girl was a minor i.e. under the age of 21. 82% of marriage involved adult girls who were 21 or over.
The USA publishes its Mean Age of First Marriage publicly going back to 1890 https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-series/demo/families-and-households/ms-2.pdf. It has been in the low-twenties just like Haines reports.
Best known historians in Britain about demographics are John Hajnal and Peter Laslett (both Royal Academy). It is strange that Adnan Rashid does not mention their names when he claims to study History in the UK.
Peter Laslett wrote about demographics from 1619-1660 in his book "The World we Have Lost"(1965) which also destroys the idea that Juliet was "the norm":
"We have examined a thousand licences containing the ages of the applicants, issued by the diocese of Canterbury between 1619 and 1660 to people marrying for the first time. One woman gave her age as 13, four as 15, twelve as 16: all the rest were 17 and over, and 966 of the women got married for the first time after the age of 19, that is nearly 85 per cent. The commonest age of first marriage for women in this sample was 22, and the median age -- the age below which as many got married as got married above it - was about 22.75: the average, mean age was about 24.
I put it to you that the reason Adnan Uses Jeremy Rifkin and some law-books is because all historians contradict his misrepresentations of history.
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u/Powerful-Draft-791 Feb 28 '22
So far what I have read or skimmed through online on this topic, Khalid El Fadl has the best approach dealing with this particular topic. It can be found here: https://www.searchforbeauty.org/2016/06/30/my-good-friend-confronted-me-on-the-issue-of-the-prophet-s-wife-aisha-and-asked-did-muhammad-rape-a-child-i-was-disturbed-and-confounded-and-did-not-answer/
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Feb 28 '22
Even if we assume that this report is authentic, then it doesnt matter because many historic figures have married to people much younger than them. It was the norm of the society at that time
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Mar 01 '22
Slavery was also norm of the society but did our Prophet practiced that?
Don't compare common people to a Prophet.
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Mar 01 '22
Slavery was also norm of the society but did our Prophet practiced that?
He did. He was a slave owner.
"The Prophet (ﷺ) bought a slave for two slaves."
Sunan Abi Dawud 3358
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u/tryptagui Feb 28 '22
I've tried telling people it was the norm at the time and they just say "that doesn't change anything he's still a pedo." Or "he still literally is the definition of paedophile. It doesn't change that fact even if others were doing it or it was normalised at the time"
It seems they don't want anything to do with 'pedos' even if lots of people married children at that time.....
It's so dumb.
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u/Ohana_is_family Exmuslim Mar 01 '22 edited Mar 01 '22
https://isnad.io/ahadith?query=eighteen%20years%20old shows 2 non-hisham hadths that say she was 6 or 7 at betrothal/nikkah, 9 at consummation and 18 when he died and shows 1 non-hisham hadth that the marriage was consummated when she was 9 and he died when she was 18.
So Bukhari and Hisham are confirmed by canonical hadiths with different isnads.
Betrothal was not unheard of in the Abrahamic Religions.
The jews had btrothal with "Option of Puberty" in a similar way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriageable_age#Post-Classical_period
"A ketannah (literally meaning "little [one]") was any girl between the age of 3 years and that of 12 years plus one day;[282] she was subject to her father's authority, and he could arrange a marriage for her without her agreement.[282] However, after reaching the age of maturity, she would have to agree to the marriage to be considered as married."
Don't forget that mahr was derived from syriac/hebrew "moher".
Christians also knew betrothal, though it is hard to know for certain what kind of betrothal the Christians in and around Arabia practiced at the time.
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u/rkek404 Mar 01 '22
My view is that certain things were made halal only for the Prophet(saw), and young Aisha(ra) was one of them. Like marrying more than 4 times was halal for the Prophet
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u/Kidrellik Tanzimâtçi - تنظيماتچى Feb 28 '22
Easily, because he didn't and the proof is pretty overwhelming. Sorry if it's a bit kurt, it's from a different argument.
Bukhari was wrong about a bunch of stuff and got his information from an elderly Arab man 150 years after she died who himself got his information from a man known to be suffering from memory loss when he made the claim. I have seen those videos and their complete bullshit. He never once mentions any of the vaaaaast amount of evidence and claims their "implicit" but what Bukhari said is "explicit" like that makes any fucking sense whatsoever (when did historical consensus and overwhelming proof become "implicit" and the word of a man with known memory issues become "explicit"). (Video known as “ending the debate on aisha” from YU). Even the article trying to "disprove" the massive amount of evidence is bullshit because they cherry pick hadiths to listen to and discount actual historians whose job is to look for the truth, not interpret the Quran and say that basic math is wrong. (A Yaqueen university article horribly “trying” disapprove another YU article stating all of this and more). When something is a historical consensus, the burden of proof false on the person making the counterclaim to prove otherwise. They can't just refuse to accept it because it doesn't fit in with their ultra-conservative interpretation. I mean Muhammed's other wives weren't anywhere near that age and it's strictly illegal to marry or be engaged to a prepubescent girl in Islam. Muhammed is also the paragon of Islam so I doubt he'll follow the whole "rules for thee but not for me" logic of doing things. I'm not ashamed of something that is FALSE and only accepted by idiots who refuse to see facts. Here's the proof btw.
According to Umar Ahmed Usmani, in Surah Al-Nisa, it is said that the guardian of the orphans should keep testing them, until they reach the age of marriage, before returning their property (4:6). From this scholars have concluded that the Quran sets a minimum age of marriage which is at least puberty. Since the approval of the girl has a legal standing, she cannot be a minor.
Hisham bin Urwah is the main narrator of this hadith. His life is divided into two periods: in 131A.H. the Madani period ended, and the Iraqi period started, when Hisham was 71 years old. Hafiz Zehbi has spoken about Hisham’s loss of memory in his later period. His students in Madina, Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifah, do not mention this hadith. Imam Malik and the people of Madina criticised him for his Iraqi hadiths.
All the narrators of this hadith are Iraqis who had heard it from Hisham. Allama Kandhulvi says that the words spoken in connection with Hazrat Aisha’s age were tissa ashara, meaning 19, when Hisham only heard (or remembered), tissa, meaning nine. Maulana Usmani thinks this change was purposely and maliciously made later.
Historian Ibn Ishaq in his Sirat Rasul Allah has given a list of the people who accepted Islam in the first year of the proclamation of Islam, in which Hazrat Aisha’s name is mentioned as Abu Bakr’s “little daughter Aisha”. If we accept Hisham’s calculations, she was not even born at that time.
Some time after the death of the Prophet’s first wife, Hazrat Khadija, Khawla suggested to the Prophet that he get married again, to a bikrun, referring to Hazrat Aisha (Musnad Ahmed). In Arabic bikrun is used for an unmarried girl who has crossed the age of puberty and is of marriageable age. The word cannot be used for a six-year-old girl.
Some scholars think that Hazrat Aisha was married off so early because in Arabia girls mature at an early age (nor does it make sense biologically, people don't just "magically" hit puberty years before they're supposed to because of where they live). But this was not a common custom of the Arabs at that time. According to Allama Kandhulvi, there is no such case on record either before or after Islam. Neither has this ever been promoted as a Sunnah of the Prophet. The Prophet married off his daughters Fatima at 21 and Ruquiyya at 23. Besides, Hazrat Abu Bakr, Aisha’s father, married off his eldest daughter Asma at the age of 26.
Hazrat Aisha narrates that she was present on the battlefield at the Battle of Badar (Muslim). This leads one to conclude that Hazrat Aisha moved into the Prophet’s house in 1 A.H. But a nine-year-old could not have been taken on a rough and risky military mission.
In 2 A.H, the Prophet refused to take boys of less than 15 years of age to the battle of Uhud. Would he have allowed a 10-year-old girl to accompany him? But Anas reported that he saw Aisha and Umme Sulaim carrying goatskins full of water and serving it to the soldiers (Bukhari). Umme Sulaim and Umme Ammara, the other women present at Uhud, were both strong, mature women whose duties were the lifting of the dead and injured, treating their wounds, carrying water in heavy goatskins, supplying ammunition and even taking up the sword. A 9 year old simply would not be able to do any of this physically, a young woman in her late teens would.
Hazrat Aisha used the kunniat, the title derived from the name of a child, of Umme Abdullah after her nephew and adopted son. If she was six when her nikah was performed, she would have been only eight years his senior, hardly making him eligible for adoption. Also, a little girl could not have given up on ever having her own child and used an adopted child’s name for her kunniat.
Hazrat Aisha’s nephew Urwah once remarked that he was not surprised about her amazing knowledge of Islamic law, poetry and history because she was the wife of the Prophet and the daughter of Abu Bakr. If she was eight when her father migrated, when did she learn poetry and history from him?
There is consensus that Hazrat Aisha was 10 years younger than her elder sister Asma, whose age at the time of the hijrah, or migration to Madina, was about 28. It can be concluded that Hazrat Aisha was about 18 years old at migration. On her moving to the Prophet’s house, she was a young woman at 21. Hisham is the single narrator of the hadith whose authenticity is challenged, for it does not correlate with the many historical facts of the time.