Historical Fact 1. The age of Aishah in relationship to the age of her sister Asma:
One theory involves the relationship of her age to that of her half-sister Asma. There are two fats which, if established, make it impossible for Aishah to have been only six at her nikah. Firstly it is stated that Asma was ten years older than Aishah, and secondly that she died in 73 AH at the very advanced age of 100 years.
Abdur Rahman ibn Arabi al-Zinad (753 AH), for example, was an early historian noted for his knowledge of Arab lineage. He stated that Asma was older than her sister by ten years.6
Ibn Kathir Dimashqui (1373 CE) stated that Asma breathed her last in 73 AH when she was 100 years old, and was older than her sister Aishah by ten years.7
The date was easily fixed in the mind as she died just a few days after her son Abdullah ibn Zubayr was killed in battle. Ibn Abd al-Barr (1071 CE) gives the same facts, though he dates her death a few months (not days) after the death of Abdullah.8
If Asma truly was 10 years older than Aishah, and truly was 100 years old in 73 AH, then Aishah would have been 90 had she lived to that year, and by simple subtraction of dates, since 73 AH is the equivalent of 695 CE (622, the year of Hijrah plus 73), she must have been born in 605 CE.
Furthermore, if – as is claimed – Asma was born 27 years prior to the Hijrah, then Aishah must have been born 17 years prior to it. So, if the generally accepted tradition that Aishah entered the Prophet’s home as his fully married wife in 2 AH/624 CE, she must have been 19 and not 9.9
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6. ‘Siyar-u-A‘la-an-Nubala’ by Muhammad Ali Lahori, p.229)
7. Al-Bidayay wa’n-Nihayah’, published in Egypt, 8/34.
8. ‘Al-Isti ‘ab fi Ma ‘rifah al-Ashab-Asab published in Egypt, 2/5-7.
9. The date of her marriage as 2 AH was agreed by al-Nawawi, Ibn Kathir, Qastallani and Badruddin al-Ayni and many others – ‘Tahdhib al-Asma wa-al Lighat’ by Al-Nawawi, ‘Al-Bidayah wa-al-Nihayay’ by Ibn Kathir, ‘Al-Mawahib al-Ladunniyah’ by Qastallani, and ‘Umdah al-Qari’ by Badruddin al-Ayni.
Historical Fact 2. Abu Bakr’s children were born before the advent of Islam:
Ibn Jarir at-Tabari, an eminent historian of the early era, stated:
‘Abu Bakr married two women in the pre-Islamic era, who gave birth to four children. Abdullah and Asma were by Qatilah, while Abdur Rahman and Aishah were by Umm Ruman bint Amir. All these children were born before the advent of Islam’.10
The advent of Islam was 610 CE; so, if Aishah was born before that, then she must have been at the very least 12 years of age in the year of Hijrah, and at least 14 at the time of her marriage in 2 AH (624 CE).
Moreover, it is not stated that Aishah was born just immediately before the advent of Islam. Tabari talks of her birth as being ‘during the days of ignorance (jahiliyah)’, which seems to suggest that it was not right at the end of that period in history. So, if Aishah was born as much as a year before the end of Ignorance, then it is more likely that she was 15 at the time of her marriage.
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10. ‘Tarikh al-Ummam wa al-Muluk’ (Egypt) Vol IV. pp9-15
Historical Fact 3. Abu Bakr’s marriage to Umm Ruman:
Abu Bakr married Umm Ruman when he was 28. So, if we make the natural assumption that their children Abdur Rahman and Aishah were born in the first 4-5 years of their marriage (assuming that she did not use birth control and breastfed her children), then it would mean that Abu Bakr would most likely have been around 32-33 years old when Aishah was born. The Prophet is known to have been two years older than Abu Bakr, so at this time, he would have been 34-35.
Now, since we know that the Prophethood was bestowed upon him in his 40th year, it once again adds up to the conclusion that Aishah must have been born 5-6 years prior to the Prophethood, i.e. in c 605 CE, and that would make her 19 and not 9 a the time of her marriage.
Historical Fact 4. Aishah was one of the first children to embrace Islam:
One of Ibn Hisham’s statements in his ‘Sirah of the Prophet’ was that Ali and Aishah were amongst the first children to embrace Islam. Although Ibn Hisham sometimes makes rather strange statements – for example, he included Zaid bin Harith as one of the first men – which was a little odd since Zaid was around the same age as Ali, some ten years old – there is no reason to conclude that Aishah was not one of the first children to take the faith.
If Aishah really was one of the first children to embrace Islam, it must necessarily have been after the call to Prophethood in 610. Now, if Aishah was not born until four years after this, and we must surely assume that she must have been at least four years old before we can realistically speak of her accepting a faith herself, then her acceptance of Islam must have occurred in around 618. In that year it is highly unlikely that she could still have qualified as one of the first children to accept it. Many others had done so by then.
However, if she was born some four years before the call, then it does make sense.
Actually, Aishah claimed to have been the 19th person to accept Islam; this would obviously have been impossible if she did not take the faith until around 618. It would still be impossible even if she was born in 614, incidentally.
Historical Fact 5. Some background details of the marriage:
The Prophet became very sad after the demise of his beloved first wife, Khadijah. In view of this, plus the fact that he had four young daughters to bring up, his aunt Khawlah bint Hakim offered to search out a new wife for him, either a virgin or a widow, according to his choice.11
She suggested two possibilities, Aishah the daughter of his closest friend, and the other being one of the earliest Muslims – Sawdah bint Zamah, the widow of Sakran ibn Amr, brother of the tribal leader Suhayl.
Neither the Prophet nor Abu Bakr nor Khawlah raised the issue of Aishah’s minor age. Had she been only six, Abu Bakr might have raised this as an objection, even though he would have obviously been pleased to consider the match. The one objection he did raise was that of his own relationship of brotherhood with the Prophet; he had thought that Aishah could not be married to the Prophet as she was regarded as his niece.
In reply to this, the Prophet made it crystal clear that a person who was not an actual blood relative could never count in law as if he was one, no matter how close they were, unless they had shared the breast milk of the same woman. He sent a message to the effect that Abu Bakr was his brother-in-Islam not a brother by blood, and this could never be a hurdle to settling a marriage.
The much more serious hurdle was that Aishah had long been engaged to Jubayr ibn Mut ‘im ibn Adi, a young man who had not embraced Islam – an engagement which was an embarrassment to both parties. Jubayr’s parents were concerned that their son would be co-erced into accepting Islam once he was married to Aishah. They were happy to end the engagement and release Aishah to marry the Prophet.
Therefore, it is not out of the question that Khawlah could have advised the Prophet to marry a minor; after all, Aishah had already been engaged to Jubayr in the pre-Islamic period.
What it does indicate, though, is that this prior engagement could surely not have taken place after the advent of Islam, as the very fact that Aishah was a Muslim was used as the excuse for breaking it off.
So, if Aishah had been engaged to Jubayr before the advent of Islam, she cannot have been born four years after the advent of Islam, and must have been much older than six when she was subsequently engaged to the Prophet in 619.
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11. ‘Tabaqat’ of Ibn Sa’d (9 vols. Leiden); ‘Musnad’ of Ibn Hanbal (6 vols, Cairo) Vi.409.
Historical Fact 6. Abu Bakr’s concern about the delay of Aishah’s full wedding:
When the Hijrah took place in 622, Aishah did not travel with the Prophet but in a group led by her half-brother Abdullah and Talhah ibn Ubaidullah, a group that included her mother Umm Ruman and her sister Asma.
Meanwhile, the Prophet’s other new wife Sawdah lodged in Madinah with the Prophet and his daughters. Aishah stayed with her parents, first in a house, then in the suburb of Sunh. The mosque was soon constructed, and alongside it the small private apartments for the Prophet’s family.
Sawdah was installed in one of them, but the Prophet said nothing about settling Aishah in one.
This began to worry Abu Bakr, and he inquired the reason for the delay. The Prophet replied that it was because he could not afford his marriage portion to Aishah. Abu Bakr, eager to see his daughter married, paid it for the Prophet himself.12
According to some versions, the marriage then took place in Shawwal of Year 1 AH; others state that it was 7-8 months after their arrival in Madinah, or in the Shawwal of Year 2 AH, or after the Battle of Badr.13
Why should Abu Bakr have been so concerned about the slowness of the Prophet moving his daughter into his household as a wife if she was only a child? If she was not nine but a good deal older, the gentle chiding of his friend would make far more sense.
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11. Ibn Sa’d VIII. 43.
12. Nawawi p.849; Tabari 1.1263.
Historical Fact 7. Aishah was playing on a swing when called to her marriage:
Apparently Aishah was playing on a swing with her friends when she was taken inside and informed that she was now married. The phrase ‘playing on a swing’ is taken to imply that she was indeed a very young child. However, this does not necessarily suggest any such thing. Any household that includes a pleasant swing in its garden or yard will realize that very often teenagers congregate there, and make use of the swing while enjoying their conversations.
She may simply have been relaxing in the garden with young female friends.
Historical Fact 8. The date of the death of Aishah:
Most historians (though not all) agree that Aishah passed away when she was 67 years old. Moreover, Hisham ibn Urwah (763 CE), the grandson of Aishah’s sister Asma, gave the date of her death as 50 AH/672 CE.14
Khalifa ibn al-Khayyat al-Usfuri (854 CE), an authority on lineage and biography, and Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal (855 CE) also tell us that Aishah breathed her last in 50 AH/672 CE.
The importance of this date cannot be underestimated. If she was 67 years old in 50 AH/672 CE, then at the time of the Hijrah in 622 she must have been 17 years old (and born in 605 CE); this again backs up the conclusion that she was 19 at the time of her marriage in 2 AH/624 CE, and not 9.
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14. ‘Siyar-u-Alam-an-Nubala’ by al-Dhahabi, Vol 11, pp.11-12.
Historical Fact 9. The status of the narratives in the Sahih collections:
How is it, then, that the hadith collections of al-Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, an-Nisa’I and Ibn Majah all narrate Aishah’s age at the time of her nikah as being merely six, and that she went to live in her husband’s home at the age of nine?
It seems that they used Hisham’s tradition for confirmation of this. However, it must be repeated again that Hisham’s record is not altogether reliable, even though Hisham got his information from his own father, Asma’s son Urwah. Many scholars, such as Ajurri, Uqayli, Abu al-Aswad and Imam Malik all remarked that none of the narratives Hisham recorded on his father’s reference concerning Aishah were trustworthy – and the given reason is because they all originated in Iraq.
Even the narratives in the Sihah (the Authentic Books of Hadith) about Aishah’s nikah which claim Aishah herself as the source are suspect, because the chain of authorities on which this narrative is based consists entirely of either Basri or Kufi elements.
Yaqub ibn Abi Shaybah, Ibn Kharash and Imam Malik, as also Ajurri, Uqayli and Abu al-Aswad, all maintain that Hisham’s Iraqi references are invalidated, and untrustworthy. The reason is the very serious objection that these narratives were completely unknown to the people of Madinah.
Both Imam Malik and Imam al-Shafi’i declared: ‘Any tradition with no roots in Hijaz has no substance, that means, it is not trustworthy.’15
Therefore, since all the narratives and references related to Aishah’s nikah and wedding, even those alleged to be on the authority of Aishah herself, originated in Iraq and were unknown to the scholars of Madinah, they cannot be trusted even though they fulfill the conditions laid down by some of the compilers of the Six Authentic Books.
The only piece of non-Iraqi evidence to back up the Iraqi material is the reference of Muhammad ibn Shihab al-Zuhri recording a similar statement – also on the authority of Urwah, Hisham’s father. However, it has not been established whether al-Zuhri heard this directly from Urwah. Ibn Hajar, the great interpreter of al-Bukhari, stated:
“There is no proof that Muhammad ibn Shihab attended to Urwah directly, though it has been proved that he gathered references from other authorities, even greater than Urwah.’16
So, if the references all go back to Hisham, what can be deduced from this?
Unfortunately, we can prove quite simply that his records are not consistent, and all hadith scholars agree that when a particular narrator contradicts his own narrative, then it should not be considered trustworthy.17
It was certainly Hisham’s personal opinion (not a matter gleaned from any other source or scholar) that Aishah did pass away in 50 AH/672 CE. He also stated that his grandmother Asma was older than Aishah by ten years. Unfortunately for Hisham, as we have already seen, if Aishah died in 50 AH aged 67, she must have been born 17 years before the Hijrah, in 605. This means that his dates simply don’t add up, for once again it makes Aishah 19 and not 9 at her full marriage.
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15. ‘Tadrib al-Rawi’ (Egypt) p.23.
16. ‘Tahdhib al-Tahdhib’ (Beirut) Vol IX/450).
Historical Fact 10. Sayyid Sulayman Nadvi’s statement examined:
Sayyid Sulayman Nadvi, a great advocate of the view that Aishah was only six when her nikah was solemnized and nine when her wedding took place, is another example of a scholar who also unconsciously offers arguments against his own case. In his book ‘Seerat-e-Aishah’ he states:
“The last phase of Amir Mu’awaiyah’s Caliphate is the last stage of Aishah’s life. At that time, she was 67 years old”.18
In the same book, a few chapters later, he writes:
“Aishah was a widow and in that state she passed 40 years of her life.” (Ibid).
Like so many others, Nadvi cannot have done his mathematics. If Aishah lived to be 67, with a widowhood spanning four decades, this confirms that she was 27 when the Prophet passed away and not 17. Looked at another way, since the Prophethood was a period of 23 years. Aishah must have been born four years prior to its commencement, and not four years after it. Further, it also supports the conclusion that if Aishah was 17 in the year of the Hijrah and entered the Prophet’s home two years later, she must have been 19 and not 9 at her marriage.
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18. ‘Sirat-e-Aishah’ Sayyid Sulayman Nadvi, p.153).
17. ‘Irshad al-Fuhul’ (Egypt).