Real age of Hazrat Aisha

[Zechariah]

Real age of Hazrat Aisha

Some people claim the Bukari and Muslim hadith reporting Hazrat Aisha’s age are “weak” (I won’t call them weak hadits, in reality they are attack on our prophet pbuh.)

There is material from both these hadith writers and earlier Islamic histories suggesting Aisha must have been older than nine when married.
According to hadith in Bukhari and Muslim, Aisha is said to have joined Muhammad on the raid that culminated in the Battle of Badr, in 624 CE.

However, because no one below the age of fifteen was allowed to accompany raiding parties, Aisha should have been at least fifteen in 624 CE and thus at least thirteen when she was married following the Hijra in 622 CE.

Ibn Hisham’s recension of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rashul Allah, the earliest surviving biography of Muhammad, records Aisha as having converted to Islam before Umar ibn al-Khattab, during the first few years of Islam around 610 CE. In order to accept Islam she must have been walking and talking, hence at least three years of age, which would make her at least fifteen in 622 CE.

Tabari reports that Abu Bakr wished to spare Aisha the discomforts of a journey to Ethiopia soon after 615 CE, and tried to bring forward her marriage to Mut`am’s son. Mut`am refused because Abu Bakr had converted to Islam, but if Aisha was already of marriageable age in 615 CE, she must have been older than nine in 622 CE.

Tabari also reports that Abu Bakr’s four children were all born during the Jahiliyyah, the pre Islamic period, which could be said to have ended in 610 CE, making Aisha at least twelve in 622 CE.

According to Ibn Hajar, Fatima was five years older than Aisha. Fatima is reported to have been born when Muhammad was thirty-five years old, meaning Aisha was born when he was forty years old, and thus twelve when Muhammad married at fifty-two.

Most of these narratives are reported only by Hisham ibn Urwa reporting on the authority of his father. All the narratives of this event have been reported through narrators from Iraq, where Hisham ibn Urwa is reported to have shifted after living in Madinah for seventy-one years. It is reported in one of the most well known books on the life and reliability of the narrators of the traditions ascribed to the Muhammad reports that Yaqub ibn Shaibah said, “narratives reported by Hisham are reliable except those that are reported through the people of Iraq”. It further states that Malik ibn Anas objected on those narratives of Hisham, which were reported through people of Iraq. Another book on the narrators of the traditions of the Muhammad reports that when he was old, Hisham’s memory suffered quite badly.

According to the generally accepted tradition, Aisha was born about eight years before Hijrah. However, according to another narrative in Bukhari (Kitaab al-Tafseer) Aisha is reported to have said that at the time Surah Al-Qamar, the 54th chapter of the Qur’an , was revealed, “I was a young girl”. The 54th Surah of the Qur’an was revealed nine years before Hijrah. According to this tradition, Aisha had not only been born before the revelation of the referred Surah, but was actually a young girl, not even only an infant at that time. So if this age is assumed to be 7 to 14 years then her age at the time of marriage would be 14 to 21.

According to almost all the historians, Asma the elder sister of Aisha, was ten years older than Aisha. It is reported in Taqreeb al-Tehzeeb as well as Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah that Asma died in the 73rd year after migration of Muhammad when she was 100 years old. Now, obviously if Asma was 100 years old in the 73rd year after Migration to Medina, she should have been 27 or 28 years old at the time of migration. If Asma was 27 or 28 years old at the time of hijrah, Aisha should have been 17 or 18 years old at that time. Thus, Aisha - if she got married in 1 AH (after Migration to Medina) or 2 AH - was between 18 to 20 years old at the time of her marriage.

According to many Ahadith in Bukhari, it is believed Aisha participated in the battle of Badr and Uhud.Also in Bukhari (Kitabu’l-maghazi) Ibn `Umar states that the Prophet did not permit me to participate in Uhud, as at that time, I was 14 years old. But on the day of Khandaq, when I was 15 years old, the Prophet permitted my participation. So if it was not allowed to participate in Uhud for people younger than 15, then Aisha would be atleast 15 in those battles, making her age atleast 13 to 14 at the time of marriage.

Tabaqat ibn Sa’d, 8:58; Ansab al-Ashraf, 1:410. Opinions are in disagreement concerning her marriage with Muhammad. Their marriage seems to have taken place either two of five years after the Migration (Usd al-ghaba, 5:501).

-End-

Age of Aisha at time of marriage with Holy Prophet Muhammad

It is believed on the authority of some Hadith reports that the marriage ceremony (known as nikah, amounting to betrothal) of Aisha with the Holy Prophet Muhammad took place when she was six years of age, and that she joined the Holy Prophet as his wife three years later at the age of nine. We quote below from two such reports in Bukhari.

“It is reported from Aisha that she said: The Prophet entered into marriage with me when I was a girl of six … and at the time [of joining his household] I was a girl of nine years of age.”

“Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed [alone] for two years or so. He married Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old.” [3]

As to the authenticity of these reports, it may be noted that the compilers of the books of Hadith did not apply the same stringent tests when accepting reports relating to historical matters as they did before accepting reports relating to the practical teachings and laws of Islam. The reason is that the former type of report was regarded as merely of academic interest while the latter type of report had a direct bearing on the practical duties of a Muslim and on what was allowed to them and what was prohibited. Thus the occurrence of reports such as the above about the marriage of Aisha in books of Hadith, even in Bukhari, is not necessarily a proof of their credibility.

Determination of the true age of Aisha

It appears that Maulana Muhammad Ali was the first Islamic scholar directly to challenge the notion that Aisha was aged six and nine, respectively, at the time of her nikah and consummation of marriage. This he did in, at least, the following writings: his English booklet Prophet of Islam, his larger English book Muhammad, the Prophet, and in the footnotes in his voluminous Urdu translation and commentary of Sahih Bukhari entitled Fadl-ul-Bari, these three writings being published in the 1920s and 1930s. In the booklet Prophet of Islam, which was later incorporated in 1948 as the first chapter of his book Living Thoughts of the Prophet Muhammad, he writes in a lengthy footnote as follows:

“A great misconception prevails as to the age at which Aisha was taken in marriage by the Prophet. Ibn Sa‘d has stated in the Tabaqat that when Abu Bakr [father of Aisha] was approached on behalf of the Holy Prophet, he replied that the girl had already been betrothed to Jubair, and that he would have to settle the matter first with him. This shows that Aisha must have been approaching majority at the time. Again, the Isaba, speaking of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima, says that she was born five years before the Call and was about five years older than Aisha. This shows that Aisha must have been about ten years at the time of her betrothal to the Prophet, and not six years as she is generally supposed to be. This is further borne out by the fact that Aisha herself is reported to have stated that when the chapter [of the Holy Quran] entitled The Moon, the fifty-fourth chapter, was revealed, she was a girl playing about and remembered certain verses then revealed. Now the fifty-fourth chapter was undoubtedly revealed before the sixth year of the Call. All these considerations point to but one conclusion, viz., that Aisha could not have been less than ten years of age at the time of her nikah, which was virtually only a betrothal. And there is one report in the Tabaqat that Aisha was nine years of age at the time of nikah. Again it is a fact admitted on all hands that the nikah of Aisha took place in the tenth year of the Call in the month of Shawwal, while there is also preponderance of evidence as to the consummation of her marriage taking place in the second year of Hijra in the same month, which shows that full five years had elapsed between the nikah and the consummation. Hence there is not the least doubt that Aisha was at least nine or ten years of age at the time of betrothal, and fourteen or fifteen years at the time of marriage.” [4] (Bolding is mine.)

To facilitate understanding dates of these events, please note that it was in the tenth year of the Call, i.e. the tenth year after the Holy Prophet Muhammad received his calling from God to his mission of prophethood, that his wife Khadija passed away, and the approach was made to Abu Bakr for the hand of his daughter Aisha. The hijra or emigration of the Holy Prophet to Madina took place three years later, and Aisha came to the household of the Holy Prophet in the second year after hijra. So if Aisha was born in the year of the Call, she would be ten years old at the time of the nikah and fifteen years old at the time of the consummation of the marriage.

Later research

Research subsequent to the time of Maulana Muhammad Ali has shown that she was older than this. An excellent short work presenting such evidence is the Urdu pamphlet Rukhsati kai waqt Sayyida Aisha Siddiqa ki umar (‘The age of Lady Aisha at the time of the start of her married life’) by Abu Tahir Irfani.[4a] Points 1 to 3 below have been brought to light in this pamphlet.

1. The famous classical historian of Islam, Ibn Jarir Tabari, wrote in his ‘History’:

“In the time before Islam, Abu Bakr married two women. The first was Fatila daughter of Abdul Uzza, from whom Abdullah and Asma were born. Then he married Umm Ruman, from whom Abdur Rahman and Aisha were born. These four were born before Islam.” [5]

Being born before Islam means being born before the Call.

2. The compiler of the famous Hadith collection Mishkat al-Masabih, Imam Wali-ud-Din Muhammad ibn Abdullah Al-Khatib, who died 700 years ago, has also written brief biographical notes on the narrators of Hadith reports. He writes under Asma, the older daughter of Abu Bakr:

“She was the sister of Aisha Siddiqa, wife of the Holy Prophet, and was ten years older than her. … In 73 A.H. … Asma died at the age of one hundred years.” [6]

This would make Asma 28 years of age in 1 A.H., the year of the Hijra, thus making Aisha 18 years old in 1 A.H. So Aisha would be 19 years old at the time of the consummation of her marriage, and 14 or 15 years old at the time of her nikah. It would place her year of birth at four or five years before the Call.

3. The same statement is made by the famous classical commentator of the Holy Quran, Ibn Kathir, in his book Al-bidayya wal-nihaya:

“Asma died in 73 A.H. at the age of one hundred years. She was ten years older than her sister Aisha.” [7]

Apart from these three evidences, which are presented in the Urdu pamphlet referred to above, we also note that the birth of Aisha being a little before the Call is consistent with the opening words of a statement by her which is recorded four times in Bukhari. Those words are as follows:

“Ever since I can remember (or understand things) my parents were following the religion of Islam.” [8]

This is tantamount to saying that she was born sometime before her parents accepted Islam but she can only remember them practising Islam. No doubt she and her parents knew well whether she was born before or after they accepted Islam, as their acceptance of Islam was such a landmark event in their life which took place just after the Holy Prophet received his mission from God. If she had been born after they accepted Islam it would make no sense for her to say that she always remembered them as following Islam. Only if she was born before they accepted Islam, would it make sense for her to say that she can only remember them being Muslims, as she was too young to remember things before their conversion. This is consistent with her being born before the Call, and being perhaps four or five years old at the time of the Call, which was also almost the time when her parents accepted Islam.

Two further evidences cited by Maulana Muhammad Ali
In the footnotes of his Urdu translation and commentary of Sahih Bukhari, entitled Fadl-ul-Bari, Maulana Muhammad Ali had pointed out reports of two events which show that Aisha could not have been born later than the year of the Call. These are as follows.

1. The above mentioned statement by Aisha in Bukhari, about her earliest memory of her parents being that they were followers of Islam, begins with the following words in its version in Bukhari’s Kitab-ul-Kafalat. We quote this from the English translation of Bukhari by M. Muhsin Khan:

“Since I reached the age when I could remember things, I have seen my parents worshipping according to the right faith of Islam. Not a single day passed but Allah’s Apostle visited us both in the morning and in the evening. When the Muslims were persecuted, Abu Bakr set out for Ethiopia as an emigrant.” [9]

Commenting on this report, Maulana Muhammad Ali writes:

“This report sheds some light on the question of the age of Aisha. … The mention of the persecution of Muslims along with the emigration to Ethiopia clearly shows that this refers to the fifth or the sixth year of the Call. … At that time Aisha was of an age to discern things, and so her birth could not have been later than the first year of the Call.” [10]

Again, this would make her more than fourteen at the time of the consummation of her marriage.

2. There is a report in Sahih Bukhari as follows:

“On the day (of the battle) of Uhud when (some) people retreated and left the Prophet, I saw Aisha daughter of Abu Bakr and Umm Sulaim, with their robes tucked up so that the bangles around their ankles were visible hurrying with their water skins (in another narration it is said, ‘carrying the water skins on their backs’). Then they would pour the water in the mouths of the people, and return to fill the water skins again and came back again to pour water in the mouths of the people.” [11]

Maulana Muhammad Ali writes in a footnote under this report:

“It should also be noted that Aisha joined the Holy Prophet’s household only one year before the battle of Uhud. According to the common view she would be only ten years of age at this time, which is certainly not a suitable age for the work she did on this occasion. This also shows that she was not so young at this time.” [12]

If, as shown in the previous section above, Aisha was nineteen at the time of the consummation of her marriage, then she would be twenty years old at the time of the battle of Uhud. It may be added that on the earlier occasion of the battle of Badr when some Muslim youths tried, out of eagerness, to go along with the Muslim army to the field of battle, the Holy Prophet Muhammad sent them back on account of their young age (allowing only one such youngster, Umair ibn Abi Waqqas, to accompany his older brother the famous Companion Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas). It seems, therefore, highly unlikely that if Aisha was ten years old the Holy Prophet would have allowed her to accompany the army to the field of battle.

We conclude from all the evidence cited above that Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) was nineteen years old when she joined the Holy Prophet as his wife in the year 2 A.H., the nikah or betrothal having taken place five years previously.

-End-

http://www.muslim.org/islam/aisha-age.htm

 

[Wazeeri]

Zechariah

You are taking the wrong approach to this debate. The only conclusion that we can come to is that we don't know the exact age.

How can the above article conclude on the age of Hadhrat Aisha(Ra) is 19 when most of the sources they site put the age at less than 15?

A girl of 19 in those times was way past her sell by date. Hadhrat Fatima(RA) was married at the age of 18 after years of the Prophet(pbuh) refusing proposals for her.

 

[Zechariah]

19 is just a guess Wazeeri by the writer but many scholars agree that correct age cannt be determined exactly but correct age comes between 14-21, not 9.

 

[irfan]

which scholars? proof?

 

[Zechariah]

There are more scholars in the world than what you follow my friend. Scholars are deeply divded but not one sensible scholar has claimed that she was in fact 9. They have said we dont know the age and yet we hear that she was 9, this is an attack on the prophet (PBUH) only the Bible talks about young girls getting married to kings and patriarchs, which btw is a corrupted book i wonder how these thigns made thier way into Islam, of course through hadeeths.

 

[Wazeeri]

Zechariah

9 is the most reported age so we cannot say that people are wrong to assume the age to be so. Most scholars do not say that the age is in between 14-21. Infact Hadhrat Aisha being over 15 is pretty much out of the question.

The normal age for a woman to get married in those times was 12. It is still 12 in a lot of communities now a days and in the UK about 4 generations ago it wouldn't have been out of queston for young teens to be married.

 

[Zechariah]

But we are talking about Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) here not some normal person.

All of the marraiges in his life not pointless, they all had some important motive behind it for the progress of Islam.

Saying he married a kid, bing a prophet himself is nothing but a Biblical lie attributed on Prophet Muhammad(PBUH).

You wrote in the other thread:

The Prophet(pbuh) wasn't just an ordinary human. He was there to set an example and in his capacity as a prophet(pbuh) he married widows to fulfill the ayat of Surah An-Nissa which requests us to look after the affairs of widows and orphans in our society.

Like you said he set an example for all of us, so we are preaching here that he left us an example of marrying 9 year old? This is a huge lie.

 

[Wazeeri]

Islamically there is nothing wrong with marrying someone who has reached puberty. Just remember that your great grand mother was only 14 to 16 when she got married. Just because the concept of childhood has changed due to the extension of academia and delay of marriages doesn't mean that we have changed biologically.

 

[Zechariah]

Wazeeri 14 to 16 is fine. I agree with you here. But I dont agree with one thing.

She was 9 year old, she may be 14, but 9, no way, impossible.

 

[Wazeeri]

Why are you happy with the number 14 but not with the number 9?
Do you know what Hadhrat Aisha(RA) looked like at that age?


Did you read my link I posted on the other thread?
If not here is another one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_pregnancy

Sorry about the picture on the side.

 

[Zechariah]

Because my Prophet was a graceful man and he would not do such a thing to create just an example.

She must have been mature enough to be married with. She was a young woman not a young kid.

 

[Wazeeri]

I think the example left is that we should not force laws according to numbers but according to biology. Late Marriages are a big reason for the moral decline around the world.

I don't know how old Hadhrat Aisha(RA) was but she was a woman when she got married.

 

[Zechariah]

I don't know how old Hadhrat Aisha(RA) was but she was a woman when she got married.

Now we are on the same page. I hope others understand this as well what you have just said, she was a young women not a young kid.

 

[Mercenary]

Because my Prophet was a graceful man and he would not do such a thing to create just an example.

She must have been mature enough to be married with. She was a young woman not a young kid.

If you even suggessted that someone's father, uncle or brother had gotten engaged to a girl of 6, there would be bloodshed.

Yet most people are happy to say it about the Prophet despite the fact that not all the Hadith agree on the age of Aishah. There's a lot of inconsistency in the Hadith in regards to this subject but Islam today is in the hands of those whom are more concerned with the promotion of Hadith as being infallible than with establishing the truth of a matter!

No matter whether that be to the detriment of any person, Prophet or not!!

 

[Wazeeri]

Mercs

Please establish the truth of the matter.

The answer is that the evidence for any particular age is inconclusive. The only exact age provided for us is 9 or maybe 12. Times have changed, in those times you would have bloodshed on other taboos.

 

[mumtaz]

Agreed 100% with Zechariah. A 9 year old kid cant decide what is best for himself/herself and just the thought that a person of Prophet's (PBUH) character could marry someone as young is absolutely despicable.
IMO, when there is contradictory evidence to suggest that Hazrat Aisha's age could have been between 14 and 21 at the time of the marriage, then there is no reason to accept 9 as her age.

BTW, the following article from understanding-islam.org raises similar points.

http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.asp?type=question&qid=375

In fact, it also questions the popular belief that it was common in the Arab peninsula at that time for 9 yr olds to marry.

 

[mumtaz]

Mercs

Please establish the truth of the matter.

The answer is that the evidence for any particular age is inconclusive. The only exact age provided for us is 9 or maybe 12. Times have changed, in those times you would have bloodshed on other taboos.

Can you provide historical evidence to suggest that it was common at that time in the Arab culture to marry at age 9.

 

[irfan]

It's amazing how you totally disregard Sahih Hadith when it suits you & the apparent truth seems unpalatable to you. A 21 yr old would not be playing with dolls etc

 

[Zechariah]

Let us start small and simple.

Irfan will you marry a 9 year old woman, sorry I meant 9 year old kid?

 

[irfan]

Totally irrelevant question.

 

[Zechariah]

Then why would you say that Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) even thought of marrying someone that young?

 

[irfan]

Geez how many more times? I'm not saying it ; numerous authenticated Hadith are saying it as are classical scholars through Islamic history who have pretty much agreed on the age. Why would any of these lie as you claim? So why do you reject these hadith but readily accept others?

 

[Zechariah]

Because saying Prophet marries a 9 year old is very sickening to say the least. The scholars have no idea about the age but happily say it was 9! And we follow them like sheeps.

Great Ummah we are.

 

[Zechariah]

The Bible on marriage of young girls with much older men

As it is Christian evangelists and other believers in the Bible who have been bitterly reviling the Holy Prophet Muhammad on account of his marriage with Aisha, we put to them the practices of the great patriarchs and prophets that are recorded in the Bible itself in this connection. The main accusations regarding the marriage of Aisha are that she was too young in age while the Holy Prophet was a much older man, being fifty years of age, and that consent to marriage was either not obtained from her or she was not capable of giving it.

Abraham

In the book of Genesis in the Bible it is recorded about Abraham:

“Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, ‘The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. … So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.” (Genesis, chapter 16, verses 1–4, and 15–16, New International Version. Bolding is mine.)
Firstly, it is evident that as Abraham (who then had the name Abram) was 86 years old, Hagar must have been some fifty years younger than him, and probably even younger, to bear a child. Secondly, the Bible speaks of Sarai giving her maidservant Hagar to Abraham. So Hagar’s consent was not obtained but rather she was commanded by Sarai to go and become Abraham’s wife.


David

The first book of Kings in the Bible begins as follows:

“When King David was old and well advanced in years, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him. So his servants said to him, ‘Let us look for a young virgin to attend the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm.’ Then they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful girl and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The girl was very beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no intimate relations with her.” (1 Kings, chapter 1, verses 1–4, New International Version. Bolding is mine.)
So there seems nothing wrong, according to the Bible, in procuring a young virgin, again apparently without her consent, whose duties include lying with the elderly king in bed. The intention was certainly for sexual enjoyment, otherwise there was no necessity of looking for a young, beautiful virgin. A much older woman, perhaps a widow, could have performed all these duties, including lying with the king to keep him warm.
Mary and Joseph

The most famous marriage in Christianity is no doubt that of Mary, Jesus’ mother, with Joseph. While the following details are not in the canonical Gospels in the Bible, it appears from other early Christian writings (known as apocryphal writings) that Mary was twelve years old when the temple elders decided to find a husband for her. They selected the husband by drawing lots, and Joseph whom they chose was an elderly man, being according to some accounts ninety years old. The husband was selected and Mary was handed over to him, and she played no part in his selection.


These accounts are summed up in the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913 edition, which is available online, as follows:

“It will not be without interest to recall here, unreliable though they are, the lengthy stories concerning St. Joseph’s marriage contained in the apocryphal writings. When forty years of age, Joseph married a woman called Melcha or Escha by some, Salome by others; they lived forty-nine years together and had six children … A year after his wife’s death, as the priests announced through Judea that they wished to find in the tribe of Juda a respectable man to espouse Mary, then twelve to fourteen years of age, Joseph, who was at the time ninety years old, went up to Jerusalem among the candidates; a miracle manifested the choice God had made of Joseph …” [13]

Although these apocryphal accounts are not now accepted by many Christians, and the Catholic Encyclopedia says that they “are void of authority”, yet it also speaks of their influence as follows:

“they nevertheless acquired in the course of ages some popularity; in them some ecclesiastical writers sought the answer to the well-known difficulty arising from the mention in the Gospel of the Lord’s brothers; from them also popular credulity has, contrary to all probability, as well as to the tradition witnessed by old works of art, retained the belief that St. Joseph was an old man at the time of marriage with the Mother of God.”
However, these accounts are accepted by the Eastern churches.

The website of the Ukrainian Orthodoxy has an article on this subject entitled An Elderly Joseph which agrees with the presentation in the apocryphal writings “of Joseph as an elderly man, a widower with adult children”. It concludes:

“The Christian East’s picture of Joseph as a courageous, faithful, God-centred elderly widower rings true.” [14]

We give below, as Appendix, a quotation from one of these apocryphal books, The Infancy Gospel of James, describing how Mary’s husband was selected.

While the Western Christian churches may not accept these accounts as authentic, the Eastern churches in Europe do accept that Mary was 12 years old and Joseph a widower 90 years old when they married. Moreover, there is nothing in the Gospels of the New Testament to contradict these accounts, and the Gospel stories are not at all inconsistent with these ages for Mary and Joseph.

 

[Mercenary]

The answer is that the evidence for any particular age is inconclusive. The only exact age provided for us is 9 or maybe 12. Times have changed, in those times you would have bloodshed on other taboos.

Times have changed?

So are the hadith no longer relevant? Are Islam's teachings out of date?

Muhammad was the Final Prophet sent to all of mankind till the End of the world.

His precedents (Sunnah) are binding upon us (unless specifically stated otherwise) till the end of time.

So we're left with two choices. Get our girls engaged from the age of 6 and marry them off as young as 9 years old or question any precedent which requires us to do so!

You cant say I completely accept the Hadith on Aisha's age and then refuse to follow the precedent.

Hands up how many fathers here would marry their girls off at 9 years old? I'm only an uncle and there'd be bloodshed if anyone suggested that about my niece.

 

[Mercenary]

It's amazing how you totally disregard Sahih Hadith when it suits you & the apparent truth seems unpalatable to you. A 21 yr old would not be playing with dolls etc

Does that mean you'd marry off your daughter when she was 9? Or would you say that 'times have changed' in which case you yourself are picking and choosing which Hadith to follow.

Blind following of a religion does funny things to people. I was having a debate with someone on religion once and I said 'so you're happy to be a hypocrite are you?' and he replied 'If my religion wants me to be a hypocrite then I'll be a hypocrite. That's the sort of mentality that has taken over modern Muslims and it's sad to see.

 

[Amir_rulez]

I do not believe she was 6 or 9 at the time of her marriage. This is another attempt by Ummayyad dynasty and its paid authors to incorporate false trash in Hadiths books, to ridicule Prophet (SAWW) for many years to come.

 

[irfan]

Does that mean you'd marry off your daughter when she was 9? Or would you say that 'times have changed' in which case you yourself are picking and choosing which Hadith to follow.

Blind following of a religion does funny things to people. I was having a debate with someone on religion once and I said 'so you're happy to be a hypocrite are you?' and he replied 'If my religion wants me to be a hypocrite then I'll be a hypocrite. That's the sort of mentality that has taken over modern Muslims and it's sad to see.

Just for the record I don't believe in Islam or any other religion.

 

[the Great Khan]

interesting..personally i couldnt care less what her age was since as mentioned we're not 100% sure..there is enough evidence for various arguments..I believe the prophet pbuh knew what he was doing and Hazrat Abu bakr pbuh knew what he was doing..there is enough evidence to say she had reached puberty and was a women not a kid..the age is then disputed..thats enough for me..I believe the age is probably 12 or 13 maybe 14..and I think the nikah could have been 9 hence why this number is brought up..zachs argument is compelling and I think we should take it into account..but i agree the west is keen to show any aspect of our religion in a bad light so we should at least look into this matter in order to defen the Prophet pbuh and his family pbut

 

[Zechariah]

If the age is 14 or 15, let's say yes then I have no problems with it, but saying that the greatest persoanlity on earth married a 9 year old is the greatest attack on the prophet anyone can think of. A person who completed Islam and was the greatest general, father, leader, friend, he would do such a thing by marrying a girl aged 9? Impossible..

 

[pak4life]

allah and his messenger knows best.

 

[Zechariah]

Allah gave us the power to search ofr the truth, we cant let people join lies with Sunnah yaar, this is my whole point.

 

[The Blazer]

If the age is 14 or 15, let's say yes then I have no problems with it, but saying that the greatest persoanlity on earth married a 9 year old is the greatest attack on the prophet anyone can think of. A person who completed Islam and was the greatest general, father, leader, friend, he would do such a thing by marrying a girl aged 9? Impossible..

So because he was our Prophet that means that it's totally out of the realm of possibility that he married a nine year old girl?

Like someone stated above, you decided to ignore the hadith that stated that Aisha was playing with dolls at the time.

 

[Team Slayer]

Young Ayesha (radia Allaho anha)

33:6 The Prophet is closer to the believers than their own selves, and his wives are their mothers.

 

[Invictus]

My belief on history is that history is all perspective. You can go back to events in our life times and read different accounts of the same event written by different authors. 9/11 and 7/7 happened not even a decade ago and depending upon who you believe and where you are located the account of the event will be different. So much so that the good guys and the bad guys will be different. So how can we be sure about the age of Hazart Bibi Aisha. There is no way in hell that we will be 100 % sure of her age no matter what we do. I believe that the prophet can do no wrong so she was not a kid but a woman.
However I would like our scholars to do proper research into such topics and establish facts instead of denounching the evil hidden hand behind everything.

 

[Zechariah]

The Blazer,

you are claming that greatest man that walked on earth married a 9 year old sickening to say the least. I wonder if you would marry a 9 year old girl right at this age and ur claiming prophet did it at an advanced age

you people really need a reality check on hadiths. Some guy talks about dolls and you guys agree with it? No wonder our Ummah is in trouble so much for constructive thought !

There is no solid proof about the age of Hazrat Aisha and no girl is a woman when she is 9, really am surprised by the thinking of some people here.

 

[batter]

The Blazer,

you are claming that greatest man that walked on earth married a 9 year old sickening to say the least. I wonder if you would marry a 9 year old girl right at this age and ur claiming prophet did it at an advanced age

you people really need a reality check on hadiths. Some guy talks about dolls and you guys agree with it? No wonder our Ummah is in trouble so much for constructive thought !

There is no solid proof about the age of Hazrat Aisha and no girl is a woman when she is 9, really am surprised by the thinking of some people here.

Your reasoning is extremely childish. You presume that something is wrong and then refute the contrary evidence based on this premise.

This is not the way sensible arguments are placed forward.

 

[Zechariah]

Your reasoning is extremely childish. You presume that something is wrong and then contradict the contrary evidence based on this premise.

This is not the way sensible arguments are placed forward.

I am not a sheep who will believe that she was 9 becasue Bukhari wrote a book that said so!

We are talking about a Prophet here, and Bible is full of lies against propehts and only way to corrupt islam is through hadiths and this is one example

Real Sunnah is no where to be fouind but we have such lies floating around...

 

[batter]

I am not a sheep who will believe that she was 9 becasue Bukhari wrote a book that said so!

We are talking about a Prophet here, and Bible is full of lies against propehts and only way to corrupt islam is through hadiths and this is one example

Real Sunnah is no where to be fouind but we have such lies floating around...

If you don't believe in this Hadith then you should refute the whole of Bukhari and Muslim.

Stop saying your prayers too. Quran doesn't specify how to say your prayers.

 

[batter]

Also all the great imams of fiqh agree that based on prophets example one could consummate his marriage if the bride is 9 years old.

Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi'i, Imam Malik, imam Ahmed bin Hanbal all agree on this. Don't tell me u have greater knowledge of Islam than all the great classical imams of the early islamic period.

 

[Zechariah]

If you don't believe in this Hadith then you should refute the whole of Bukhari and Muslim.

Stop saying your prayers too. Quran doesn't specify how to say your prayers.

Ok let set the record straight. I am not Anti-Hadiths. I am just talking about this particular hadith only.

This is surely a lie against the prophets as there are many other lies!

Its funny people like who defend the Prophet and Quran are called Munkere Hadeeths or what nots..

 

[mumtaz]

Ok, hold on for a second. The people who are saying that Prophet indeed married a 9 yr old are saying as if there is no contradictory evidence to suggest that Hazrat Aisha was anywhere between 14-21 yrs old. The fact is that in the very books of Bukhari and Muslim which are reporting this Hadith of her being 9 yrs old, there exists contradictory evidence to suggest otherwise.
Secondly, as is commonly perceived, there was no tradition in Arab culture of those times of marrying 9 yr olds.
Thirdly, even if there was, Islam came as a religion to change the status quo. For the first time, women were given voice in the society and among other things, were given free will as far as marrying is concerned. Surely, a 9 yr old cannot decide for herself if she wants to marry a particular person or not. It goes against the very message of Islam.
Fourthly, the four Imams, although were great scholars, yet were not Prophets and as such their opinion cannot be taken to be true in all cases. Other established scholars, coming after them, have written critiques on their opinions in a number of issues including this one.

 

[batter]

No one ever doubted her age for some 1300 years. It is only in the past 50 years that some 'modern' muslims who feel embarrased have started to question her age.

Why didn't any muslim scholar doubt her age for 1300 years ? Please answer this question

 

[The Blazer]

I am not a sheep who will believe that she was 9 becasue Bukhari wrote a book that said so!

We are talking about a Prophet here, and Bible is full of lies against propehts and only way to corrupt islam is through hadiths and this is one example

Real Sunnah is no where to be fouind but we have such lies floating around...

Stop attacking the Bible. You don't have any right to badmouth another religion.

 

[irfan]

Ok, hold on for a second. The people who are saying that Prophet indeed married a 9 yr old are saying as if there is no contradictory evidence to suggest that Hazrat Aisha was anywhere between 14-21 yrs old. The fact is that in the very books of Bukhari and Muslim which are reporting this Hadith of her being 9 yrs old, there exists contradictory evidence to suggest otherwise.
Secondly, as is commonly perceived, there was no tradition in Arab culture of those times of marrying 9 yr olds.
Thirdly, even if there was, Islam came as a religion to change the status quo. For the first time, women were given voice in the society and among other things, were given free will as far as marrying is concerned. Surely, a 9 yr old cannot decide for herself if she wants to marry a particular person or not. It goes against the very message of Islam.
Fourthly, the four Imams, although were great scholars, yet were not Prophets and as such their opinion cannot be taken to be true in all cases. Other established scholars, coming after them, have written critiques on their opinions in a number of issues including this one.

can you highlight the hadith of bukhari & muslim which which contradict this age? And there was an Arab tradition and custom of marrying young girls.

 

[MMA]

Mother of the Believers


Listen to this and the discussion wil be closed

 

[Hash]

And anyone who marries (and has sexual relations) with a 9 year old is a paedophile, no two ways about it.

I don't believe the Prophet of Islam is a paedophile.

 

[Rudi hater]

I think this debate is totally out of order. What are you guys trying to prove. Islam is the natural religion. I think this thread should be locked. Ahyesha R.A was 13 according to some Hadiths but he stayed with Hadrat Abu Bakr and moved to Prophet SAW a little later.

 

[Zechariah]

Anything that's said in name of hadiths is automatically correct even its a lie but its correct?

heck Bible puts blames and sins of prophets, just as we have done through hadiths

Stop attacking the prophet, no one marries a 9 year old kid, ever thought about this in ur life? how disgusting and sickening it really is that u guys beleive that our prophet married a 9 yead old?

No one has made more fun of Propeht Muhammad(PBUH) the greatest man to walk on earth than the Muslims themselves.

This thread is not about Hazrat Ayesha, it concerns the fact Muslims are happy to join lies with her propehts, and they are responsible for destroying the very good image of our prophet.

Allah's propehts whoever they were, were great human beings and taught the world the right way, joining any lie with them is wrong and a sin, a massive sin, Bible did it by corrpting it, muslims did it by false hadiths.

Quran - what a great book, it opens the eyes of people, in this case people who believe that hazrat ayesha was 9, are living in a false world.

hazrat ayesha was 9
stoning to death
woman made from ribs
and other lies against prophets are nothing but an attemtp to corrupt islam

Judgement day will expose this truth if not in my life time.

having that said, am out of here, u guys want to believe prophet would mary a 9 year old? Be my guest!

He was a graceful man, a reformer, a general, a great leader, a great dad, a great scholar, a great everything but we have disgraced him ourselves by making sound differnet through hadiths.

Funny how people like me who defend the Sunnah and Prophet are the decievers and hypocrytes when the fact of the matter its the scholars themselves who are our biggest enemy.

And inshAllah in the end Quran and true Sunnah will win, we will get rid of these lies against our propehts and Allah helps people who try, he dislikes people who are sheeps following others in name of religion.

Please guys open your eyes stop disgracing the prophet.

Amen!

 

[Wazeeri]

Can you provide historical evidence to suggest that it was common at that time in the Arab culture to marry at age 9.

Yes I can. There are quotes of people suggesting Hadhrat Aisha(RA) was 9 at the age of the marriage and there are no comments from the time which oppose the view. Which suggests to me that it is possible for a 9yr old to be married,

Like I said earlier that as there are opposing views we cannot be sure but to disregard something because you don't feel comfortable is not "The search for truth" as some of you have put it.

 

[Wazeeri]

Zechariah

Creating a common enemy ie the christians is not going to get us on your side of the argument. I don't believe any christian has participated on this thread so it completely irrelevant what they think.

 

[Wazeeri]

Times have changed?

So are the hadith no longer relevant? Are Islam's teachings out of date?

You are quoting me out of context. The time have changed statement was to answer your question regarding people's view of this practice not the legitimacy of it. You said that if something like that is said about someone's uncle or father there would be bloodshed. This is the case now, not necessarily then,

We have been programmed to find this repulsive and that is what I meant by times have changed. Allah knows his creation better than anyone else. Anyone who needs to have sex should be allowed to do so under marriage regardless of their age and that is where I stand.

Doesn't matter whethere Hadhrat Aisha was 9 or 50, she was past puberty and that is all that matters.

 

[mumtaz]

Yes I can. There are quotes of people suggesting Hadhrat Aisha(RA) was 9 at the age of the marriage and there are no comments from the time which oppose the view. Which suggests to me that it is possible for a 9yr old to be married,

Like I said earlier that as there are opposing views we cannot be sure but to disregard something because you don't feel comfortable is not "The search for truth" as some of you have put it.

Of course I meant other than Hazrat Aisha(RA) which is the very incident I am doubting. So is there any other evidence in Arab culture of the time to suggest that 9 yr olds were married.

Secondly, what would become of the Islamic concept of free will in marriage. Surely, a 9 yr old cannot decide for herself what is best for her, heck, she wouldnt fully understand what marraige would mean for her. Are you suggesting that asking a woman at the time of Nikah is just a ritual and has no other significance.

 

[Wazeeri]

Of course I meant other than Hazrat Aisha(RA) which is the very incident I am doubting. So is there any other evidence in Arab culture of the time to suggest that 9 yr olds were married.

Mumtaz

That is what historic evidence is. The hadiths which we mentioned have surviving manuscripts from within 2 centuries of the prophet(pbuh)'s passing away. As we find no other quotes which oppose this incident as taboo we can conclude that people had no reservations against such marriages.

The other thing which may point to early marriages is the fact that when Hadhrat Fatima(RA got married at the age of 18 she was considered to old to marry.

Secondly, what would become of the Islamic concept of free will in marriage. Surely, a 9 yr old cannot decide for herself what is best for her, heck, she wouldnt fully understand what marraige would mean for her. Are you suggesting that asking a woman at the time of Nikah is just a ritual and has no other significance.

In a time and place where children start working with their parents as early as the age of 5 when girls are left home to look after their siblings, cook and clean, where 7 year old sons accompany their fathers/uncles on business voyages to learn trade, I would like to believe that maturity comes early.

And why would you believe that mental and social development has to pass some numerical age barriers?

 

[Zeenix]

Does that mean you'd marry off your daughter when she was 9? Or would you say that 'times have changed' in which case you yourself are picking and choosing which Hadith to follow.
Blind following of a religion does funny things to people. I was having a debate with someone on religion once and I said 'so you're happy to be a hypocrite are you?' and he replied 'If my religion wants me to be a hypocrite then I'll be a hypocrite. That's the sort of mentality that has taken over modern Muslims and it's sad to see.

Merc in this particular instance this isn't binding. Since the Prophet (SAW) married women of different ages, hence muslims are free to marry spouse of varied ages.

I am also surprised that some people consider that 'Since THEY DON'T FEEL RIGHT ABOUT A PARTICULAR DECISION' hence they conclude that it was wrongly quoted. This quotation might be true or false, but the thinking process of some posters needs to be questioned. Just because you feel that it isn't right, it doesn't allow us to question the validity of the quote.

 

[K2]

make something a belief without questioning the validity of it because it is written in books(except Quran) is something i disagree. ppl who wrote things associated with Prophit(pbuh) were humans and could do some errors. best way to judge the biases of a writer is to know as much as u can about him.

 

[mumtaz]

Mumtaz

That is what historic evidence is. The hadiths which we mentioned have surviving manuscripts from within 2 centuries of the prophet(pbuh)'s passing away. As we find no other quotes which oppose this incident as taboo we can conclude that people had no reservations against such marriages.

To me, we find no other quotes which oppose this incident as taboo is because it didnt happen this way, not because it was perfectly normal in Arab society.

However, what perplexes me is why would you want to believe that Hazrat Aisha was 9 yr old at that time when there is clear evidence available that contradicts this.

 

[Joseph K.]

Merc in this particular instance this isn't binding. Since the Prophet (SAW) married women of different ages, hence muslims are free to marry spouse of varied ages.

I am also surprised that some people consider that 'Since THEY DON'T FEEL RIGHT ABOUT A PARTICULAR DECISION' hence they conclude that it was wrongly quoted. This quotation might be true or false, but the thinking process of some posters needs to be questioned. Just because you feel that it isn't right, it doesn't allow us to question the validity of the quote.

First our own stupidity and blindness had us labeled 'terrorists' now we are going to be labeled pedophiles because of the same blindness and stupidity. Times have changed, don't even dare mess with a 9 year old in this time and age just because a dodgy hadith told you to.

 

[Wazeeri]

To me, we find no other quotes which oppose this incident as taboo is because it didnt happen this way, not because it was perfectly normal in Arab society.

This hadith was being circulated close to the time of the prophet(pbuh) and we would have had an uproar if people felt the practice was taboo. As there wasn't I am concluding that it was acceptable.

However, what perplexes me is why would you want to believe that Hazrat Aisha was 9 yr old at that time when there is clear evidence available that contradicts this.

Mumtaz

Look at the thread where this issue started off. I was the first to provide this so called clear evidence. The only hadiths which specifically state the age are the ones which say she was 9. All others are using different sources and assumptions.

All I am saying is that I don't think we can discount it just because we don't like it. Please read through my earlier posts to see where I stand on the issue.

 

[irfan]

First our own stupidity and blindness had us labeled 'terrorists' now we are going to be labeled pedophiles because of the same blindness and stupidity. Times have changed, don't even dare mess with a 9 year old in this time and age just because a dodgy hadith told you to.

With all due respect you can't dismiss it as a dodgy hadith. It is not one, but a number of Bukhari & Muslim hadith which have the distinction of being Sahih which state this age. The overwhelming evidence points to age 9. Now if you state that these Sahih hadith are actually dodgy then why would you accept the rest of Bukhari & Muslim and therein lies the problem.

Wazeeri is the only one who is actually debating this issue from an Islamic angle ie accepting the Sahih hadith and providing reasons why this was acceptable eg she had reached puberty at age,which may or may not be true, and therefore sex between a 9 yr old girl & a 54 year old man is acceptable; I don't share that opinion.

I agree that morality is relative and is a function of the time you are in and your location in the world. This is the reason why many Muslims in the 'modern' age especially in the West wish to dismiss this as they can't accept & are ashamed to admit that their Prophet could do such a thing.

We have been programmed to find this repulsive and that is what I meant by times have changed. Allah knows his creation better than anyone else. Anyone who needs to have sex should be allowed to do so under marriage regardless of their age and that is where I stand.

Doesn't matter whethere Hadhrat Aisha was 9 or 50, she was past puberty and that is all that matters.

This is where we disagree and something I can't accept. Sure it is possible a 9 yr old can reach puberty, although it is rare but various hadith tell us she was still a child:she was playing with dolls with her friends, was playing on swings etc What you are saying is at the first sign of a girl's menstruation it's ok to marry her & have sex with her no matter whether she is emotionally or psychologically ready to deal with the rigours of marriage.To me that constitutes abuse.

 

[Joseph K.]

First we put ahadith above Koran, now we are defaming the Prophet himself (SAAW) using ahadith. Why do we give so much importance to all this claptrap collections of later day so-called research scholars? Why do we have to brag about our knowledge of this pseudo-science even at the cost of our prophet's reputation? Remember the Danish cartoons? One depicted the wives of the prophet, one of them had a school bag on her shoulders. Who gave the ammunition to these mockers and p**s-takers? Why can't we simply say that because of the controversy and and contradictions involved in Bukhari's account of Ayesha's (RAA) age, he made a mistake? He made a hash of this one and we should drop these ahadith as self-contradictory and sacrilegious. Why can't we edit all such crap now? Is Sahih Bukhari Koran?

 

[irfan]

I don't believe there are any contradictions in Sahih Bukhari on this matter, shall we also drop Sahih Muslim as that points to a similar age as well?

 

[Joseph K.]

I don't believe there are any contradictions in Sahih Bukhari on this matter, shall we also drop Sahih Muslim as that points to a similar age as well?

I wouldn't mind dropping the lot if it brings us closer to Koran and makes our religion less of a complicated ritualistic mess that it has become.

 

[MMA]

People People what the hell are we discussing.

First :some people only thing they have to say is the hadith are wrong.

Mostly these people don't know arabic.

Second: Have you checked the chain of narrators .for everybody in this forum the answer is NO

Have you checked that there is any Sahih hadith which contradicts Qur'ân .The aswer is again NO because else if it did it wouldn't be sahih.

People are discussing the age of a women.

If she is 9 would you become a Kafir

Would you not believe in Allah, their Messenger s.a.w; the last day, the books , the angels , the djinn, hellfire and paradise.

Please if you can't proof any hadith wrong with serious arguments.Please JUST SHUT UP!!!!!

Thanks now please put these argumenst in the Forum rules.

And please close this tread

 

[Joseph K.]

People People what the hell are we discussing.

First :some people only thing they have to say is the hadith are wrong.

Mostly these people don't know arabic.

Second: Have you checked the chain of narrators .for everybody in this forum the answer is NO

Have you checked that there is any Sahih hadith which contradicts Qur'ân .The aswer is again NO because else if it did it wouldn't be sahih.

People are discussing the age of a women.

If she is 9 would you become a Kafir

Would you not believe in Allah, their Messenger s.a.w; the last day, the books , the angels , the djinn, hellfire and paradise.

Please if you can't proof any hadith wrong with serious arguments.Please JUST SHUT UP!!!!!

Thanks now please put these argumenst in the Forum rules.

And please close this tread

) ) ) Such threads always bring out this kind of 'intelligent' responses. That's the only reason I tried to keep out for two days. Not worth it, simply not worth it

 

[irfan]

Actually MMA's response is a measured and intelligent one as it questions people's faith whereas you wish to reject all of the Hadith, as the Submitter sect does, as some of it offends your modern sensibility. You wish to edit Islam to fit into the modern age thereby inferring that it can't have been a religion for all times.

 

[aliff]

Hmm.. I dont know if this probably has already been posted or not, but early marriages were very common even just 200 yrs ago. Even our ancestors (my grandmother/grandfather got married at very early age.. something like 12 yrs old, and previous generation prob. got married more earlier, around 9-10 yrs).

Infact, even Joseph was 90 when he married Maryam (r.a.), the mother of Jesus(pbuh), at that time Maryam/Mary (r.a.) was ~12 yrs old, and this is according to Christian encyclopedia.

Source:- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08504a.htm

(scroll down and read the marriage section).

 

[Wazeeri]

This is where we disagree and something I can't accept. Sure it is possible a 9 yr old can reach puberty, although it is rare but various hadith tell us she was still a child:she was playing with dolls with her friends, was playing on swings etc What you are saying is at the first sign of a girl's menstruation it's ok to marry her & have sex with her no matter whether she is emotionally or psychologically ready to deal with the rigours of marriage.To me that constitutes abuse.

Playing with toys is not a sign of being a child. I still play laser quaser with my younger brother along with video games, knuckles...etc. I am not a child and similarly you can't say that Hadhrat Aisha(RA) wasn't emotionally and psychologically not ready for marriage based on this alone.

Hadhrat Aisha (RA) was mature at whatever age she was. If you read through some of the other hadith in which she engages the prophet(pbuh) in dialogue you will find that she possessed the capability to understand and interact as an adult, which she was.

No it isn't OK to have sex with a girl as soon as she reaches puberty but it is more of a judgment call made by the parents as to when their child has become an adult. This indeed leaves a dangerous archetype such as irresponsible parents marrying their children of to pedophiles and for that reason we now have age restrictions. These laws are used as controls over this possibility.

But these rules are not natural and thus should not be used as the yardstick for measuring morality.

 

[Wazeeri]

JosephK

No one puts the ahadith above the Quran. If the Quran stated the age of Hadhrat Aisha(RA) trust me the person who lied about it would have been told about it (probably through violence).

You can't disregard a statement just because you have reservations about it or because you fear what others would say. These people who are mocking the prophet(pbuh) will mock him no matter what. If you began changing islam to their sense of morality than we would have to get rid of the ayahs in the Quran which speak of fornication, adultery, theft, shirk and pretty much everything else.

 

[MMA]

JosephK i know why my earlier post makes you laugh, because it completly shuts you up.
You don't have any argument and then you label it as a joke.Really pathetic

 

[Joseph K.]

I will not come to this thread again as I have seen enough of these threads to know that they never bring out the best in people. Still I owe you an answer:

Mostly these people don't know arabic.

I know enough Arabic to understand what I read and I have read enough of Koran to know that such sunnah and ahadith contradict Koran. Koran is about two things and two things only:

• It forbids shirk
• It teaches compassion.

In short (i) haqooq Allah and (ii) haqooq al ibaad
Now, by not showing compassion to our fellow human beings we do shirk as we take over something that even Allah does not do himself, i-e. cruelty. Any hadith that allows cruelty is in contradiction to Koran and is an invitation to shirk. Having sex with a 9 year old is pedophilia plain and simple. A child of that age is not intelligent enough to make a right decision and hence not able to decide her own future husband or wife. Islam gives us the right to decide our future in these matters, hence this hadith is against Islam and Koran. I was reading the Koran with Dr Hilali and Dr Muhsin Khan's translation the other day. Some ayaat were described as 'later abrogated'. We are willing to accept such things about Koran but no one would like to hear anything against Sihah i Satta. Even Allah changes his stance on things according to changes in circumstances (as in the example about Alcohol where it was forbidden but gradually). We are not willing to tolerate any change in hadith although hadith is not divine, it is human and hence subject to the influence of time and space.

Have you checked the chain of narrators .for everybody in this forum the answer is NO

Another attempt at belittling people's intelligence. Don't want to be a part of a pseudoscience based on hearsay.

Would you not believe in Allah, their Messenger s.a.w; the last day, the books , the angels , the djinn, hellfire and paradise.

I believe that cruelty is kufr, it is the way of the Pharaohs and Nimrods of this world and is against the message of Koran. I can't believe that my prophet was a cruel pedophile.

Please if you can't proof any hadith wrong with serious arguments.Please JUST SHUT UP!!!!!

Serious argument about what? Something written and attributed to some one two hundred years after his death and the whole thing took place above a thousand years ago? Now find a good dictionary and look up the word hagiography.

Thanks now please put these argumenst in the Forum rules. And please close this tread

How very intelligent! This bit made me laugh! What would you do to me, matey? Burn my computer? Burn my effigy on Mall Road? How very MMA. I can visualise a dusty beard shaking in anger. We have been there before. Threads have been locked, and even unlocked after being locked. Doesn't change a thing. That's why I don't bother with religious threads any more. I raise my hands and accept my mistake. I shouldn't have bothered with this thread. Don't bother answering my post as I am not coming back to this thread again. Pointless, absolutely pointless wastage of time.

 

[MCMLXXXII]

One thing I have noticed is that when people look back at history they look at it with a superiority complex. Everyone believes that the present times are much better than the old days because we have technology. This technological arrogance has caused for our perspective on history to be heavily biased. You cannot judge any culture based on your own views and culture. You have to be culturally relativistic. Sociologists and anthropologists are better at taking this into account but historians on the other hand ignore this most of the time. History looks very different in retrospect and it gets even worse when you uses different tinted glasses. You have to look at history in the proper cultural context.

Lets look at an analogy. When you look at a movie that involves a bit of fantasy, lets take the matrix as an example. When you are watching it in the beginning and Trinity jumps across the road from one rooftop to another, it is hard for you to believe it. But later on, when the rules of the matrix have been defined and we understand that this is a different context we accept it perfectly well when Morpheus makes the jump. The important difference there was the correct context in which something which might seem unimaginable at one instance seems perfectly acceptable.

We come back to the question of the thread here. I am not here to argue if Hazrat Aisha was in fact 9 years old at the time she got married or not, but despite all that, we cannot say that it was morally incorrect because we don't know about the morals of that time. Look at similar issues such as Slavery. Islam did not abolish slavery and there is no such commandment in the Quran. Yet we accept it because in that context, slavery was common and Islam made lives for slaves much better then what was the norm at the time. But scholars today agree that is would not be permissible for someone to own slaves in this day and age.

A similar issue is marriage between first cousins. In the west it is considered incest yet elsewhere in the world it is completely normal. People don't even know that it is looked down upon until they step outside of one culture and step into another.

When looking at cultures, you must remember that you cannot say that one culture is superior to another culture and also that all rules cannot be applied universally to all cultures.

You are all entitled to your views but also be respectful of the views of others on this thread.

 

[Wazeeri]

A similar issue is marriage between first cousins. In the west it is considered incest yet elsewhere in the world it is completely normal. People don't even know that it is looked down upon until they step outside of one culture and step into another.

MCPPQWER

That is a brilliant example especially as this new moral code has come into place only in the last century. Albert Einstein was married to his first cousin and many people in Europe and USA still do.

 

[MMA]

Another attempt at belittling people's intelligence. Don't want to be a part of a pseudoscience based on hearsay.

Serious argument about what? Something written and attributed to some one two hundred years after his death and the whole thing took place above a thousand years ago? Now find a good dictionary and look up the word hagiography.

How very intelligent! This bit made me laugh! What would you do to me, matey? Burn my computer? Burn my effigy on Mall Road? How very MMA. I can visualise a dusty beard shaking in anger. We have been there before. Threads have been locked, and even unlocked after being locked. Doesn't change a thing. That's why I don't bother with religious threads any more. I raise my hands and accept my mistake. I shouldn't have bothered with this thread. Don't bother answering my post as I am not coming back to this thread again. Pointless, absolutely pointless wastage of time.

I don't get it Because you don't accept some facts and can't prove them wrong .you are accusing me of belittling people's intelligence.

Brother first check what effort Imam Bukharee rahimullah made to check one hadeeth and then come back.

Well people like you make me laugh can't prove something wrong can't accept some facts .and we start making fun of the people.Because we don't have any real response .

If you go to jannat and you meet the Noble Prophet s.a.w and he tells you that Aisha r.a was 9 then you will ask ALLAH subhan wa tala to throw you in the hellfire because thats wat makes or breakes you iman!!

Brother you want my opinion here it is.

If aisha r.a was 9;10;20;25 it doesn't matter to me the message is more important than the age.

That's why i want these treads to be banned because it's not about the message but just about insignificant things which are of no use if you look at the deen.

And by the way brother MMA stands for Muslim Mumin Abdullah.(3 names that ALLAH subhana wa tala gave to the believers)

 

[Jayed]

Hazrat Aisha was 9.
1. She was taller than most women
2. Physically in shape more than most woman.
3. Wast fastest runner female athelete.
4. Her memory and mental capacity expanded beyond all women then.

We are taking things in scientific context too deeply.
Hazrat Aisha was mature. End of.
Prophet DID Not have you know what with her till she was senior.
He used to treat her like a daughter, buying her clotes.

Her age doesn't matter. Dawud was around 10 or 15 when he killed Goliath. Does age matter? No, just the fact that he put so much bravery at such a young age. that is the example we should adopt.

btw, for the aisha matters, google dr. mohar ali, and find his book on answering atheists on the life of muhammad (saw).

 

[from_da_lost_dim3nsion]

why did Prophet(P.B.U.h) married hazrat ayesha when she was 9 ?

i know there must be some good explanation for this but every time i have an argument with my non-muslim friends , they bring this up and i don't know what to say ?.and BTW this is not disputed since its also mentioned in sahi bukhari.So what was the reason behind Prophet Mohammed in marrying a 9 yr old?

 

[SUPERSAMI]

Some sources have her at 13, some a bit older but I believe marrying young'uns was a norm in those day and the marriage wasn't consummated till she was of age, as far as I know.

 

[from_da_lost_dim3nsion]

according to Sahi Bukhari The Prophet consummated the marriage when hazrat Aisha was nine

volume 7, Book 62, Number 64:
Narrated 'Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamen...ml#007.062.064

 

[Hash]

Some sources have her at 13, some a bit older but I believe marrying young'uns was a norm in those day and the marriage wasn't consummated till she was of age, as far as I know.

but if the Prophet did it, is it not a sunnah to marry 9 year old girls?

The 'times have changed' argument doesn't apply, because otherwise the same thing can be said to just about everything the Prophet did.

 

[aashiqmizaaj]

Why are people arguing over and over and not discussing the very first post which points out quite clearly albeit through a series of inferences what the age was?

She was not 6 when the nikah happened. She was not 9 when the marriage was consumated. All this talk about women becoming more mature in the past is based on absoluytely no understanding of biology. Girls nowadays are reaching puberty earlier because of richer diets and more availability of food. Are people suggesting that 1400 years ago Arabia was a land of riches so that children were reaching puberty earlier?

I've also noticed no one able to come up with an explanation as to whether this was a common practice. What other 6/9 year olds were getting married at that time? So if girls were becoming mature earlier then why wasn't this happening with other girls?