Age of Aisha (ra)- Mufti Abu Layth

they were not a people of documentation they generally had what we would call an oral culture there have been people that have felt if a Hadith comes it is absolute we are not concerned about anything we must take it as an authority but that was opposed heavily by countless Scholars who believe that the Hadith was always relative to the greater context to the greater picture and principles of Islam was not six or nine at the time of

her marriage and she was in her late teens right this is a response to a question raised

by an individual sarason 786 uh who's asked for any Scholars within the Muslim Community to engage him so I'm taking this opportunity to do that I do uh believe that the questions being asked at the very least are genuine and I also feel that these kind of questions really reflect a greater Echo that's throughout the Muslim communities and also non-muslim communities right so the question is to do with the age of uh and when she married the prophet

sallallahu alaihi wasallam but before we get into that I was asked by sarason 786 uh to to highlight some of my credentials that am I a scholar of Islam and what have I actually studied um just so it can give some weight to this argument and there's no harm in doing that in fact it's transmitted that Rush alud the grandfather known as the heavyweight within the Maliki maab on one of his travels was trying to shed some light on a ruling and people people weren't taking him too seriously so what he did

was he went and wore hisi robe which was a specific robe that the judges within Al andalus war and that all of a sudden just changed the entire tone of this discourse and people took him seriously so although I don't have a robe to wrap around myself but what I will do is share some of what my studies and credentials so I forly began to study Islam in 1997 I studied abroad initially in Damascus the fundamentals of Islam the Arabic language the basic Sciences of Shar Hadith uh tap I continued to

study in Pakistan where I memorized the Quran I completed what is called an course now this involves studying all the major Islamic Sciences so that will be studying the Quran with its with its its principles the theory behind it studying Hadith with the actual content but also how to what are criticisms of Hadith what are the actual books of Hadith what is what is what we have the science the nomenclature of Hadith which is legal Theory um the diverse opinions

of different schools of law how these schools evolved the Arabic language uh whether that's and grammar and morphology studying rhetoric literature which we call adab Islamic history uh theology studying these all to uh from a fundamental to an elementary level to intermediate and an advanced in many of them but an intermediate to all of these through all of these uh subjects which includes covering differences of opinions and and depth to them so that's in terms of the Islamic

Studies uh the Das that is then concluded with what we call in uh that part of the world uh the East uhi a year in which you study the major books of Hadith from cover to cover so you go through each chapter you're learning what the differences of opinions were how people understood the Hadith who accepted them who did not accept them and on what grounds you complete all of those the entire collection uh of Hadith especially the major six books in addition to book books like the m and some others now you are uh then tested as you are in every

year and the tests usually uh take place three times a year and once you do graduate you are given Ana a with you are authorized to teach with a continued uh chain of transmission going right back to the authors themselves and then from them to the messenger of Allah s alaihi wasallam so that's uh the which I did complete also during the test just for in case you think if anybody's asking whether I just floated right through them I did actually score in the top three in my class so just to add that uh there was follow that was

followed by uh to become a Muti what does that involve how it teaches you how to issue rulings within uh within Islam how can you contribute to the jurist Prudence of Islam uh so we were taught that that was a 2-year course uh once again going through the finites the intricate rulings of giving fatwa what's involved how different gave fatwa how you must look at the context of your age um and all of these kind of things and then studying actual fatawa and nail to um to some to some deep degree so studying

that covering those things uh following that you are then authorized as a Muti so I did complete that I also gained an in the Quran uh which after IID memorized it so these were some of the studies I then pursued uh personal study after having graduated and kept my own revision going maintain contact with I've also received authorization uh through through and some of his great teachers ABD katani who has uh amazing authoriz ations to all the major books of f especially within the school of

Medina and also amongst his teachers was so so these are some of the authorizations that I have uh been granted in addition to that I did um when I had completed my religious Islamic Studies I did uh also pursue General academic studies so teaching qualifications followed by a a bachelor's in science and psychology I completed that I did teach religion and philosophy to a uh at a college level and also completed a Masters in Education so that's some of the

background to my credential just to give you an idea if it helps in taking my words a bit more seriously then um I believe it should be highlighted so right moving on to the actual question the discourse what was the age of when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam married her now this is very important because it's led to um a lot of uh attacks if you like uh insults to hold at Islam and the messenger of Allah

sallu alaihi wasallam somebody who we believe uh to be the the Pinnacle and the at the heights of perfected character so how do we reconcile this and many Muslims are also confused uh at this kind of question so that's what I want to shed some light on today what was her age and what is transmitted in bukari the what the question that has been asked that it states that she got married contractually at the age of six and moved in with the messenger of Allah Sall alaihi wasallam at the age of nine I do believe that to be absolutely

inaccurate and incorrect married the messenger of Allah s alaihi wasallam in her late teens and I will demonstrate that during uh this this this discussion I will highlight that so that's some of the important things but just before getting into that I have to highlight two premises because this question did marry the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam at that age rests upon two premises which we have to understand one one is to do with the historicity the the date logs the kind of date logging culture

that used to exist or did not with the with the Arabs and into early Islam and the second rests on our understanding of Hadith so to understand these two things as as a as a premise to engage this dialogue so first of all the first premise we have to grasp the historicity and Le that documenting whether it was dates ages logs any events basically that took place we have to understand that the Arabs um what the Arabs of the time of the

messenger of Allah s alaihi wasallam especially prior to prophethood they did not they were not a people of documentation they generally had what we would call an oral culture that they uh they kind of transmitted reports they did not used to they were not a people of scripture or of writing in general that's not what they were they also did not even generally refer to an annual calendar they did not have an annual kind of calculation and they would base their

events on um they would base their kind of events on major kind a major event that may have occurred so as an example they would say the messenger of Allah s alaihi wasallam was born in the year that the Kaa was attacked so now this becomes a major event and now people will say so and so did this 3 years after the Kaa was attacked or so and so did this in the year of famine or so and so did this uh in the year that the Kaa was being renewed and things like so key uh situational events became the kind of anchor points around which dates were

logged that's the that's very important for us to grasp we have to also remember that logging dates or ages and things like this the this led to a huge disparity not having not being such a strict tradition not having a a kind of very strict tradition on logging dates led to disparity so so you have huge differences the age of AA is relatively a minor uh recording compared to major events so let's just see some major events like when was the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam actually

born Muslims disagreed on the date when did he pass away I mean you would think that that they would have that there would be and although there is a lot more uh of a if you want to call it a consensus or an agreement on when he passed away but there is still a difference of opinion if you want to look at how long did the messenger of Allah spend in mekah before migrating to Medina they disagree in years some say it was popularly they would say 13 years some people transmitted it was actually 10 years a difference of opinion how old was the messenger of Allah when he became a prophet when he received

prophethood some people have popularly we we hear 40 people have said 43 highlights there has been a difference of opinion why because they did not have this culture of being of of meticulous Precision when it came to logging dates speaking of marriage we can take as an example something which is relevant here the marriage of khad which is much more popular I mean you can ask you can ask people today uh okay now today this has become a bit of a popular topic but generally you can ask Muslims

how old was when she married the prophet they may say oh she she was young but they don't have an idea of the exact generally the general public perhaps won't have an idea of exact kind of dates or age but when you ask about Khadijah the first wife of the messenger of Allah everybody seems to know that was a much more kind well-known event and what is popularly taught what would you think is the was the age of Khadijah people will say 40 and yes that was transmitted by W but the more accurate transmission through Abbas and through is and others was actually she

was 28 now look at that massive disparity she was actually 28 years old not 40 and that is the age of Khadijah you have events of and and when we're logging events when the prophet married maymon and and that's something uh and that's a report in sah Muslim yet it says he married her whilst in many of the clearly stated that that was inaccurate an inaccurate description because he did not but that's something we'll discuss shortly but just to show that when it came to transmitting

dates and logs and events the the early Muslim culture the first community were not of a a background that was of calculations and it's in this light that the messenger of Allah says in theith we are an unlettered kind of nation referring to the early community that we do not write we are not people of scripture and neither and some people here say counting no it was not counting we are not people of

maintaining calculation that was what uh and records that was what the messenger of Allah was saying and another good example here is you can think look these are events that don't even concern everybody as in a marriage is taking place or that is happening everybody is not involved in that they're not really so maybe concerned about oh I wonder how old you are or not but let's take an example of um a battle or the uh the incident of the trenches the siege of Medina okay now which occurs in fifth

hij in the in the fifth year of Hy now this was a major event coalition to a coalition took place between major tribes of Arabia to lay Siege to Medina and to completely annihilate the Muslim uh so Muslim civilization the Muslims of Medina were all involved this impacted every everybody that was present it lasted a while and the Muslims were not capable I mean there was some tragedies minor casualties as well but the Muslims were not capable of of actually uh of Turning

Away these armies and these forces it was because of uh just the natural kind of sandstorms and things that took place they had to dissipate but this was such a tragic and traumatizing event for all Muslims that were present and yet they differ on when it occurred when they came to report it some people said it happened in the fourth year some people say in the fifth year so this is to give you an indication of when we're talking about date logs or years or events there was never this meticulous

Precision in their reportings amongst the early community and they did not even have a calendar prior to Islam the calendar I don't mean the months of the year but an annual calendar they didn't even have an annual they never used to even refer to any number of years that had passed so keeping that in mind that is the first premise the second premise for us to understand is this is to do with Hadith okay a Hadith that is in sari and several questions questions will be asked here that look this is considered

the most authentic book after the Quran and Muslims you know they consider this book to be meticulous and so this is transmitted in bukari how can this be inaccurate and we will deal with a lot of this later on but as a premise in understanding Hadith we have to understand that the Muslim approach the attitudes of Muslim Scholars towards Hadith has been divided from the very onset so you've had Hadith absolutism versus Hadith relativism so although there have been some people who and they and and I suppose that mentality that kind of

attitude still continues there have been people that have felt if a Hadith comes it is absolute we are not concerned about anything we must take it as an authority but that was opposed heavily by countless Scholars who believe that the Hadith was always relative to the greater context to the greater picture and principles of Islam and that included the school of Medina namely Imam Malik and it does include other schools as well School of kufa and and other Scholars but namely we're speaking about Imam Malik and we

have to understand who was Imam Malik he wasn't just he was a scholar that that was Undisputed regarding his Mastery of Hadith and he is an absolute legend in the Islamic tradition he's somebody that we have a proverb today it's proverbial to

say it's become a proverb that nobody can speak or give a ruling if Malik is in Madina so it's important to understand these things now this tradition it's Imam Malik and other people they inherited it from this from the companions of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam so let's see as an example we see a Hadith that is that uh that is transmitted that any if if a person was in prayer and a dog or a donkey or a woman walks in front of

them it invalidates their prayer what did AA say the wife of the Prophet when she heard somebody transmitting this she was heavily offended and rebuked them said what is wrong with you you know like you you know you you make us equal to a dog and a and a donkey she said this is nonsense and she refused that and she did not accept it and neither do any of the major schools of law accept that so Imam Malik IM Abu these people did not accept that by just simply a uh a dog

walking in front of somebody praying that their prayers invalidated although the Hadith was there right you have Abbas a major companion of the Prophet a cousin to the prophet a person who the prophet said this is this is the translator of the Quran he is the he is the hab of this umah he is The Scholar of this

um when he's being told by Abu that there is a Hadith that the messenger of Allah said that you must do W you must a an ablution a ritual ablution washing from anything that has touched fire anything that has been heated in other words he says to him he says so what would you say about water that we heat up in order to wash ourselves do we have to wash ourselves from that washing and and this then

annoys Abu hura who who storms off he gets upset he says to him that if I said to you that the messenger of Allah said something don't you dare try to reason about it so you can see this Abu hura having this understanding of Hadith is absolute and categorical but and I know other Scholars have said this Hadith was abrogated but the pro but the thing here is how does Abbas reason with it he actually teaches us to reason he says well look well that doesn't actually make sense so I don't accept it because

well if you if anything made contact with fire well what about water which we heat up to wash then we would have so this is nonsensical and redundant so this is where this understanding was coming from you see on countless occasions the scholars of this tradition that saw Hadith as Hadith relativism they made a distinction between Hadith and Sunnah they said that we are about preserving the Sunnah and that is the way of the messenger of Allah sallu alaihi wasallam quite often that is caught and captured within Hadith Transmissions but not

always Imam Malik when he was told a certain Hadith he said when he was told about thean a certain Hadith about thean he said he says I don't know maybe that is a chain a valley chain about an incident that happened as a oneoff he says but I don't accept it to be the Sunnah there's a popular Hadith about the uh if a a dog licks the bowl a kind of a bowl with water in it that you have to wash it seven times and do so so on and so forth in order to because it's impure Imam Malik when he was uh told

about this he actually responds he says he says we know this Hadith has come he says we have no idea what it's on about what what does it mean what we cannot accept it he says because we are taught by the Quran the general narrative teaches us that you can that all life is pure and that you can use hunting dog and things like this so the point is he found this problematic but on its content alone looking at the content of a Hadith he knew this was problematic and there's several examples uh uh you

will see IM there is a once again uh it's in sah Muslim about if a person is traveling and uh he can wipe over leather socks as part of the ritual ablution and he can do this for 3 Days Imam Malik clearly responds in in in relationship to that he says that as to us he says in our town in Madina we have seen there are no limitations applied to this even if the Hadith is there he says we do not act according to that IM Malik in his M which is one of the most authentic books considered by many people to be more authentic than bukari

bring several Hadith himself and then says we don't act according to them it's a very popular Hadith known as that when people two when when a consumer and a seller are in a transaction it it refuses to allow closure for the consumer it says as long as they stay within the context they can always he can recall that sale this contradicted with the general understanding that once you buy something you've bought it Imam Malik refus he says we do not act according to this that is a Hadith in his own book he

was asked you know uh sham transmits IM Malik was asked that why did you bring this Hadith if you weren't going to act according to it and so what does he say he says he says and in some Transmissions somebody like you or an ignorant person like you so he can know that that we left it because we're Don not quite but we left it upon knowledge knowing that this we don't it does not make

sense there is aith in sah Muslim one a the that's Inari that's a very absolutely I believe it's in bukari and Muslim days but that's in sah Muslim that that one's in sah Muslim now the thing is there there's a Hadith another Hadith in sah Muslim and I'm trying to show sah examples of sah Hadith this culture of Hadith relativism there's a Hadith where a woman asks the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam about her father who is of old age and he can't he can't ride a camel well or a horse well

and so he can't seem to go to do the Hajj the pilgrimage so she asks the messenger of Allah can I perform the Hajj on his behalf and the prophet says yes Imam Malik in relation to that said no he said that this makes no sense because it is not an obligation and one person cannot perform an act of worship on behalf of another now somebody may say okay these are to do with actions what about to do with something to do with like I don't know meaning or uh well there's a clear Hadith in sahkari where the the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam has said that God created Adam In His

Image that's in sahkari and Imam Malik ref he not only refused to transmit this Hadith but he rejected this Hadith and ABD in the highlights that IM Malik rejected this because he saw this as being anthropomorphic like trying to say well God has an image like humans and so just based on the content he rejects this Imam Malik's own teacher I shab who is an absolute reliable Authority within Hadith he's he's from the transmitters of uh of

of of Rel of Muslim and so on very absolute reliable scholar I mean he has his criticisms but he's a reliable transmitter Imam Malik himself says I have transmitted many Hadith I have I've learned many Hadith from shab he says and I will he says I do not transmit them because because there is no action upon them we do not act according to them also reminds us of the saying of who says that you are not going to teach a people a certain

Hadith right that they cannot understand with their intellect except it will turn out to become a huge a huge problem and Calamity for some of them at the very least so I think that that kind of shows and highlights that yes there has been a tradition and there continues to be within Islam of Hadith absolutism of people who do see Hadith as it doesn't matter if a Hadith comes it's an authority and so on yet it has

been contrasted and opposed by huge Traditions within Orthodox Islam like the school of Madina Imam Malik who on many occasions countless occasions would they would reject Hadith because they did not believe it to be the Sunnah even if the chain was another key point just before we uh move away from this topic is to understand that it is undeniable that the books like sahkari and sah Muslim it is undeniable that they have unacceptable Hadith in them this is very important to understand as

an example let me tell you there is a Hadith in sahkari uh which comes under and it speaks about is the night journey of the Prophet Sall alaihi wasallam it is reported by anus and it states that the messenger of Allah went on this night Journey three years before he even became a prophet that is UN I mean that is unanimously wrong inaccurate and

false all these people have declared it to be other Scholars just said that means fabricated other Scholars just said this is just inaccurate nobody disputes that point there there is a Hadith as an example in sah Muslim that uh Abu sufyan after he became Muslim uh he was kind of suffering a backlash so he approaches the prophet and says look allow me these three and amongst them he says that allow me to marry you to my daughter omab all the scholars accept that that Hadith is false and inaccurate because

the prophet had already married umab over almost two years before that event so there is no dispute about that this is to make us understand that that yesah uh do contain well preserved Hadith these books of Hadith do contain but this process of sanctifying them this was something that took place much later on in the centuries that followed and it was not the attitude of all Muslim scholarly thought in fact huge Traditions like the school of Madina

never even the school of kufa they never really went down that road they always saw that a Hadith would be analyzed from two perspectives it would be analyzed by its chain but even by its content if it did contradict reason and the greater narrative of Islam it was immediately problematized and left rejected they would not accept it and they would reason with Hadith and a good example of that even with uh within the school of kufa you see Imam tahawi when he's uh commenting on the Hadith of a uh of a of a black dog being a devil a

demon and he says when we look at this from reason this makes no sense because every other dog is normal it's not a and the color black in other animals has no impact so he says and dogs generally share the same rulings in everything so this clearly is an inaccuracy so he highlights that and we can see once again this reasoning approach of Hadith relativism so it's important to understand that okay so we've got the historicity of how the Muslims early Muslims would love

things how they would log dates years things like that and also what is the perspective and approach towards Hadith okay when it'sah now with that in mind we can now engage the question first of all just to clarify once again to reiterate uh that was not six or nine at the time of her marriage and she was was in her late teens and that's something we'll demonstrate shortly but also as part of the question somebody who rejects that understanding that's in bukari of 6 and

N they are of course they are muslim okay and you would not leave Islam by simply questioning the content of certain Hadith okay so just to clarify that question but let's get some detail let's understand how do we know this and I want us to to take this in layers okay so we're going to take a look at three layers we're going to go through the reality the reports and the ramifications okay so these three layers of uh of this this event of the marriage of AA so let's begin with the

reality I want us to grasp The Narrative of what was happening at that time so we need to kind of time travel back to the time of the messenger of Allah s alhi wasallam it was what is referred to as theen okay having moved on 10 years since Revelation it is reported by the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam himself means the year of Sorrow the prophet described it as the most tragic and traumatizing part of his

life in in this year the prophet sustained several losses huge immense tragedies for the prophet personal tragedies he lost his uncle Abu Talib who was very dear to the messenger of Allah and he wasn't just dear he was a social support and means of protection and and kind of guardianship for the messenger of Allah he lost his wife Khadijah

somebody who the prophet Sall alaihi wasallam had spent who he had married since the age of 25 he' spent considerable years with khad she was the mother of of of all his children she was somebody that was not only a companion but she was a source of personal strength for the messenger of Allah when you see the the kind of description of prophethood when the prophet received prophethood uh and he

he he receives Revelation he is traumatized by this event and he goes home and he's very shocked and and and trying to make sense of what's Happening his source of assurance is khad and she is his strength through these very difficult years that he faces she tells him reassures him stands by his side right through this this whole kind of trial of anra at the same time she's supporting uh him whether it's at home whether she she was already uh she had a business

and so she had she she was socially very aware very astute and intelligent she was the mother of his children managing his home she was helping him on a personal basis with emotional support with with kind of affirmation to his mission all of these things are taken away from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in that year and we have to remember as well that the prophet living in meccah was hated by many of the kind of chiefs of mecah they hated the messenger of Allah

they hated him and many of them wanted to afflict him with with harm they wanted to hurt him harm him kill him if possible all these things that this was these were their aspirations a question why did they why couldn't they do that why couldn't they kill the prophet why didn't they why didn't they constantly try to I know there was a an attempt later on but why didn't they try at this point because the prophet had protection from his uncle Abu Talib who was one of the major kind of chiefs if you like of

Makkah so this was a whole kind of holistic protection and and and comfort if you like for the messenger of Allah obviously his wife and his uncle both of them within this year are taken away from the prophet sallu alhi wasallam it has a huge devastating impact the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and then what the Prophet this is followed by the event known as the the the event of T there was a small kind of settlement a town not too far from mekah called T it's still there today I mean much more developed town

but the prophet visits thif in the attempt that to gain some kind of external support because the support from Makkah has been taken away from him and he had some distant relation he was related to certain people in so he goes there with Great Hopes and aspirations when he gets there he is received by one of the most shocking kind of uh treatments that the messenger of Allah ever

received a very kind of disparaging uh a uh an insulting but also an offensive kind of response from the people of T they attack him not only H abuse they H Stones projectiles harm him beat him chase him out of T the messenger of Allah leaves T he he is certain parts of his blood are certain parts of his body are dripping with blood in some of the reports how his sandals and shoes were stuck to his feet with uh with the amount of

of blood blood loss and this just adding an astronomical like kind of psychological mental effect Not only was the prophet already suffering he's now met with this a huge blow you can imagine massively demoralizing it is at this time like in this year you with these things going on and you have to remember the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam by profession would was a Tradesman he has children several children at home who he he takes care of he manages his children making sure they

have food taking care making sure their needs are met his work life the mission prophethood all these tragedies all of these things are going on and the prophet is immensely distressed at this time he is a approached by a a distant paternal Aunt as says her name was now this incident is is transmitted in several books ofth it's in the it's in theed other books that H comes to the prophet and says she realizes she's this kind of distant

paternal aunt she realizes that look the distress is going through and she asks him look why don't you consider getting married it would be a sense of support for you an emotional support a sense of companionship helping at home with the duties so he asks her who do you have in mind and she says well I can she says well two people come to my mind straight away she says one is a divorce and one is an unmarried woman so unmarried girl and she and he says well who and he and she tells him that well uh

s this solda this lady who was uh at that time of a similar age to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and she says and there's Aisha the daughter of Abu Bakr so the prophet says why don't you go ask them if they're ready if they will accept this proposal and the interesting thing is that when she she asks uh soda soda was obviously delighted to accept the proposal but she had initially gone to ask AA and AA the reports

mention that uh abak at the time when she comes to ask him and tell them that look you know I've got good news that how would you feel about a proposal from the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam Aisha's mother says that but AA is already asked for by for his son she's already asked for so so she and she says well I don't know because Abu Bakr you know is a man of his word and you know they've had this kind of informal this kind of chat conversation so she then H leaves that situation and she asks soda and soda

accepts and hence the prophet sallallah alaihi was marries soda and during that time obak actually goes to ask M and M at that they're very reluctant because they say well and and his wife the mother of juade says well I don't know because you guys have now embraced you guys seem to have embraced this new religion and she says and I fear that she will convert my son now and then based on that they kind of back off and then abak then approaches the prophet in saying well actually you

know they're not they're not interested we did have that conversation but I'd love for for for this proposal if it still stands and the messenger of Allah s alaihi wasallam does marry uh AA now I want us to consider this reality does this make any sense that she was six years old at that time the prophet is going through all this struggle and marriage can take place fora suggests marriage which could offer it could offer comp companionship with intimacy it could offer emotional

support it could offer uh taking care uh domestic a division of domestic labor so it could help out at home and it could offer a help with your social like as in the prophet's Mission this is what marriage in essence could could offer for the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam marrying a six yearold would be entirely count counterproductive I mean not only is it nonsensical it would be counterproductive for all of the it wouldn't makes it would offer no I mean there would be no companionship or uh kind of intimate uh Comfort there would

be no a six-year-old wouldn't offer any emotional support she wouldn't be able to take care of domestic duties in fact she would if anything be more burdensome you just have to take care of her as well in addition to your children she wouldn't be able to uh speak about the the mission and enhance the mission because she's only six years old and so well some people may say here no well you know but the prophet marries her when she's nine no but H is suggesting her at that stage so why is she suggesting her if she was six if she

really wasn't even capable of marriage what is how is she going to alleviate and bring ease to the struggle of the year of Sorrow for the prophet unless she was as we will demonstrate in the other reports will show and we'll take a look at that that she was actually in her late teens at that time so taking all of these things into consideration the just take a look at the

reality could this make any sense that the prophet is contemplating to marry a a child could that even make any sense I mean we're not talking we're going we're going to look at the reports in a moment but could this make any sense from that perspective okay also worth mentioning before we move on to the reports is that a had already been asked for so it's it's something to contemplate that if she was six and the reports indicate she'd been asked for it been a few years I mean what was she asked for when she was three or I mean what was the purpose

of that and the response of ju's mother the wife of is and we fear that she will convert him I mean what kind of conversion could a six-year-old do so I mean just just think about these things for a moment suspending the reports because we're going to view that in a moment but just looking at the reality I want us to understand this Narrative of where what was affecting the prophet sallallahu alhi wasallam and why marriage was going to be so helpful in alleviating the stress of the year of Sorrow okay so Okay so we've got that

we've understood that let's move on to the second layer the report so we've understood the reality the reports okay now keeping I I want us to keep in mind the backdrop which I discussed the first premise of historicity that the Arabs generally documenting dates and age and events they it was never a conclusive matter never at times it may have been good at times it was conflicting but it was never conclusive and certain now right so with that in mind I

know there is this Hadith that we're we're going to discuss which is in bukari okay this famous Hadith of six and nine okay the prophet married her at six and at nine now I know uh that is transmitted by a uh by one of the the people known as Hisham and I'll come back to that and there is some some questions raised there and I know people will say that look uh this has other reportings as well it's not just in bukari it's in sah Muslim but in sah Muslim I want us to understand it uses a different number it says seven it does not say six uh some kind of conflict even when we look at this whole event

there's a difference of opinion in terms of uh when the prophet when the marriage actually took place after Hijra how how long after the migration did they get married it's a difference of opinion uh when Aisha speaks of how much money uh was exchanged in terms of the DAR or the Mahar there's a different reporting on whether you know whether it was 50 or whether it was in the hundreds of Dirhams and uh where the actual marriage took place the actual house in an event in one reporting she says oh I remember it I was taken to a strange house I did not know it belonged to you know it's this house of sah and we went there and and I was told well this is the house

now and in another report she says it's transmitted as oh no it was Abu Bakr her father's house and what I'm trying to highlight here is all the the the differences that the the kind of uh conflicting reports around the actual event okay but even if we do look at well somebody may say but this is a clear Hadith here you know in saying that I was married AA is saying I was married at the age of six and nine and moved in with the prophet at nine but then I would say well okay well first of all that clashes with at least three other Hadith

inkari so when you've got that already straight away you've it it clashes with three other Hadith inkari okay so you have a Hadith inar where is saying oh I remember when the verses when the verse of was revealed that that when this verse was revealed I was a jar and a jar in Arabic is used for uh it is used for a girl that is approaching adolescence I mean you could say

anything between I don't know the minimum 78 to about 13 around 12 13 in between that is called a jaria and the opposite for for a male is called a younger than that they refer they can refer to them as younger than AAR and then you can have a and so on and these are the different stages that they have of an absolute uh you know infant and so on and toddler and different ages so she says I was a and when was revealed so they

sayar right was revealed s years before the the Battle of bad which was into the second H so you can go back and we're looking at eighth hij okay eighth sorry eth the eth year of re uh after Revelation and it's the 10th year that the proposal of the Prophet takes place so if if Aisha was well only two I mean if she was six sorry at the time of the 10th year uh if she was when the prophets apparently proposing to her

then two years earlier she's what four years old three four and she says oh I remember this verse and when it was revealed and everything and I was a Jia I was she doesn't say I was a young uh a little infant but she's saying a Jia of an older age and some people may there could be a criticism here people say oh wellar was revealed gradually and some verses were revealed later but Imam says no he transmits from Abbas this verse he says this Ayah was revealed seven years at least seven to eight years before Battle of bad there's another Hadith in

bukari let's take a look at this Hadith that says as far back as I can remember that my parents uh thatl that they were upon practicing Islam she says as far back as that I could that I could reason when I was at an age of being able to reason my parents I remember my parents being upon Islam and she says that and if there would not be a day or a night except the messenger of Allah would visit our house and then she says and when the Muslims began to get

persecuted AB Bakr migrated to um he he migrated to abisinia now we know the migration took place in the fifth year of Revelation okay so this is five years before the proposal of the Prophet to Aisha so if she was six then she would have been at most one now if we go by this narration which is ridiculous she's saying she's not just saying she was a child she's saying I could understand use my intellect and understand religion now kids don't

understand what religion is now some people have tried to critique this by saying oh well the migration to ABIA continued all the way till the Muslims migrated to Medina which is true it did continue but the wording of this Hadith in bukari seems to contradict that because it says and when Muslims began to get persecuted and we know know that persecution began immensely and was the key part of it was in those years so when you look at the actual wording this is what it

supports you could take a look at another uh uh Hadith inkari and that is to do with the Battle of and I think this is also an interesting one because in this Hadith uh the companions are describing the events of and we know from the Battle of many Muslims were wounded and the companions say that oh uh we remember the chaos and they describe and we remember how and would were rushing in between the wounded and trying to Aid them and see to them and help

them and they describe Aisha's how she was going in between uh and helping the wounded and and those who had been struck now you think well why is that interesting well that's interesting because there is also a Hadith in bukari where Omar the son of Omar approaches the prophet for the Battle of and he says can I go to the Battle of and the prophet says how old are you and he says I'm 14 and the prophet forbids him says no you're too young to come on the

battlefield what's interesting is it mentions that over a year and a half later right when he's approached uh for another battle the prophet is approached byar and the prophet asks him then how old are you and he says I'm over 15 the prophet says okay now somebody could ask here well okay but Omar was actually asking to go to fight he was asking to go to fight and that's why he was too young well that doesn't actually make any sense because we know in the battle

of the Muslims were desperate for as much help as they could get right so the prophet forbade om did not even attend the battlefield so you tell me who would be more helpful in doing things like providing whether it was getting the artillery to the to the fighters removing the injured dragging whether it was having to move bodies would a N9 or a 10-year-old girl be more helpful in running around dragging bodies moving things or at least a 14-year-old

boy so at the very least the prophet could have said okay look you can't fight but we need all the help we can get so why don't you come and at least help those who who are participating with with their weapon or prepare things or move the wounded or why didn't you help with that I mean he could definitely have done more than allegedly a 10-year-old girl on a battlefield but he's prohibited altogether he's forbidden from from being present so that is this is not just oh right that is actually quite that is very interesting and compelling so these are

some of the Hadith of uh that that this that the Hadith inkari of aa's age at Mar clashes with let alone the fact that this Hadith Inari is transmitted by who is the son of the nephew of Aisha but what is and Hisham is criticized by people like Imam Malik for hisi that he that are transmitted by people of Iraq because it's known that he went there although he went there on certain occasions but the the many scholars of Hadith including haar

say what he transmitted in Iraq if it's solely outside of Medina it has been problematized because they say his memory was affected at a later age now this Hadith generally of IAM is transmitted mainly by Iraqi students or Iraqi kind of transmitters now somebody here could say well look uh you know well it does have other chains and and and that's true it does and somebody could highlight that wait a minute isn't there people like I shab who is from Medina and so on transmitting this

Hadith they are but no Medina now this is an important concept no Med documentor of Hadith transmits this Hadith at all and this was the city of the Prophet no person who produces Hadith I don't mean a person in the chain but who produces Hadith in Medina reports this that Aisha's age at the time of a marriage it's only predominantly or it's only people outside of Medina that transmit this that report this I know I shab is in the chain but I shab has countless students of Medina including

Imam Malik is one of his key students does Imam Malik transmit this no do any other people from Medina transmit this that are producing and documenters of Hadi no somebody could say yeah but what about there is another Medan uh person in this chain known as uh umn ab zad and he transmit this transmits this and I know that people have criticized him but what's interesting is he is also the person who transmits Aisha's age in another uh reporting in relation to her elder sister

Asma and he says that AA was 10 years younger than Asma and that's an important thing to go to that when we look at the age of her elder sister right Asma it is reported that she was born 27 years before the migration because she's one of the before the Hijra because she is one of the people that helps the prophet during his migration she brings him food and Abu Bakr food and she's very helpful she's referred to as in in the Islamic kind of history as well now she was 10 years

older than AA and we know as Abdul and other people say she passes away in the year 73 hij at a 100 years of age and you backtrack and you take away 10 years and it makes Aisha you're talking in her late teens at the time of her marriage whether she was approximately around 18 now that is something important to see also the fact that certain people have documented that AA was one of the first people to have uh become Muslim that her

Islam was before the Islam ofar there's reports about that too there's a report which I the when we were looking at the reality I highlighted that when Abu Bakr went to speak to mut and say look do you still want to we are we with this engagement he actually and this is in uh this is in the of he says he refers to her then as AAR and aaria we know from the Arabic language is an elder girl now you now people could argue oh this is all

metaphor but why is this metaphor like yes there is this this report that has come we're not denying that this report hasn't come but there are several other Hadith as I highlighted in the premise which are in these books which the refuse to accept that are to do with dates or to do with marriages like the marriage of the prophet in sah Muslim the scholars say that's a mistake Abu sufyan did not they refused to accept this Hadith the Hadith of is they refuse to accept that Hadith they they categ

orally say the Hadith is false then we have this whole tradition that if something contradicts or clashes with the greater narrative then that is problematic now with that I want us to move to the final layer which is the ramifications because you might ask well why does this clash with the greater narrative so let's move to the final layer that we can take a look at the ramifications of this the ramifications are well what apart from this being an anecdote that the messenger of Allah married uh AA at this age in bukari

let's say whether it was six or nine what lessons could be taken from this one ramification could be well does that mean you can marry young girls now this also is an answer to how Scholars viewed the this whole Nar this whole event because you see very early on people like from the school of kuf people like clearly declaring it haram for anybody to marry an underage girl people followed byman there were other people from

slightly you know removed Traditions like abak but even within the main Orthodox Islamic movement people like Imam Malik they voice their concern concern in saying it is impermissible to have a relationship to engage in a nikah relationship with any girl that they said that was not newb and that means that is of an appropriate age for marriage and is capable of being in a sexual relationship that's what the term nual means and and that that view was that

voice was also expressed by IM sha and any other people now somebody here might say yeah well uh isn't that uh uh isn't that the same as a girl reaching her menstration and and sometimes a girl could be young and reach not at all does not have to be the scholars did not say that the scholars Imam Malik very clearly said that she was capable he did not say that a girl just if she has her menstruation he said that a girl if she's capable and to that if she's capable of being in a sexual relationship this was their ruling their

fatwa that they gave to to shed light on this and this continues Through the Ages you have people like IAM picking up on this discourse following through right through to our recent times people like um you have UHD arguing you even the likes ofin even the likes of albani all these people when they spoke about under marriages they refuse to say that you can marry that it is acceptable in Islam to marry an underage girl none of them accept that so when you look and when we

look at our historical context let's take a look at the the the ottoman caliphate they had legislated made it part of their actual the actual imposed Islamic law under the guidance of great mutis of the time that it was uh illegitimate and illegal for anybody to marry a girl under the age of 15 they had said and this is going almost two over two centuries back they had legislated that and many great sh

like Muhammad Aladar and others Al and many other people followed suit and and argued uh for that as well to show that look this is impermissible so when we're looking at the Practical ramifications okay and why is this important well this is important because people find this problematic they find to say that first of all from by by two angles one they find it problematic in general people would not accept for their six-year-old or 9-year-old daughter to be married Muslims wouldn't accept these

that's the truth and so let alone non-muslims so the point is that this is highly problematic and the second angle at this is that this is referring to the messenger of Allah who for Muslims is at the height of perfection and a role model for all time and all people so it is incredibly important okay to to understand what what is being said here so so this when we look at the ramifications we see many scholars had spoken out against that so somebody may ask well if they spoke out against that

why didn't they just criticize the Hadith why didn't they just say well I don't accept the Hadith in bukari well some Scholars s they kind of didn't they did not engage in necessarily criticizing that Hadith but what they said was yeah but what about like what about the Hadith in bukari that young girl cannot get married until you consult her what is the purpose of Consulting a an underage girl what is the purpose I mean Consulting a six-year-old is is meaningless on a matter of marriage and

when we look and they said when we look at the verses of the Quran because we can draw a parallel with this to uh what is called in when you hold on to somebody's money if they are underage because they're not capable of spending it the verse in the Quran says that when the that when the sorry when that when the orphans reach uh nikah that they've reached an age suitable of being married at that

if you see see that they are mentally capable that they have developed that maturity then then you can surrender to them their wealth The Scholar said otherwise you cannot give their wealth you must hold on to it till they become mentally mature some said that is at the age of 18 some even went into the 20s so if that's money how do you think the attitude attitude would be towards towards them their whole well-being being married which could jeopardize and compromise their actual safety so it's important to to

recognize this whole greater picture to see it in terms of well H how did the scholars actually treat this issue on the ground now a question once again is well but what about the Hadith in terms of why didn't they critique that well some of them like Dudi and other people said oh that's because we are told that though the the girls of that age developed so much faster than the girls today and this once again was those kind of myths that were circulated and people didn't know any better generally

anthropologically so they most Scholars accepted they were told in the same F books oh pregnancies can last four to 5 years and they said well we were told so and so and so and so witnessed it so they were like well okay that's in most of the books of f they write that oh well pregnancies can last that long because they did not know with certainty to the contrary which we do today and anthropologically we do know that look if anything nutrition and food in the time of the Prophet was actually scarce it was less available than it is today the prophet and many people at many times would they were you know they would tie things to their stomach they

uh many companions at certain times out of dire circumstances would they would boil leaves and eat like that they would eat dates and drink and drink water and their nutrition generally to survive was not this uh something that would if anything it would lead it would you know they would suffer on many an occasion rather than being you know developing twice the speed that that people would so it is important to look at these ramifications once you understand that you look at the reality which I highlighted that what was actually going on what makes

sense does this actually make sense and the scholars later on spoke out against any kind of uh ramif any kind of practicality to this Hadith they didn't just allow you know people to do things like that generally speaking so it is important to understand I'm not denying that whether any person somebody may say well well people did used to get married to gu younger people generally may have I'm not denying that but the discussion here is about the prophet and it's not about uh did anybody ever do something like

this I'm not engaging that discussion I'm engaging the fact about the prophet and when you look at yes there is this Hadith inkari but there's a whole tradition of just because it's in bhari does not make it uh valid okay it may have a connecting chain but it's problematic because it conflicts with several other Hadith in bukari and the greater reality okay so that with that I'd like to summarize um and conclude on this that Aisha was most certainly not six or nine at the time of her marriage she was in her late teens most likely uh

around 18 to 19 and people say at the time of her marriage but she was in her late teens that is clearly demonstrated by these Hadith in bukari and most importantly it's demonstrated by the reality of what the prophet was going through and why that was meaningful for him at the time okay and we've seen the reports although they do exist but they are conflicting and they don't tie into the greater reality so okay so I hope that answers the question Okay so we've covered now this topic we've taken a look at the different arguments the conflicting reports uh the re ity and the

ramifications we've understood how it does not make sense to accept that Hadith which is Inari and the truth being uh very different that was in her late teens okay so now let's look at some follow-up questions uh that's a good question there have been quite a few Works written on this topic and more so uh in recent times because it's become a Hot Topic and I am aware I have actually been through quite a few of the the

discussions and the the kind of dialogues the back and forth between several so um I know beginning a very early discussion was by uh abas and and he's has a reputation by uh she Ahmed Shak and that is available as well they have been other people um you've got molana Habib Rahman kandel uh a graduate diand schola who's also written on this there's been another book written by uh

molana Ned on the the age of there's also a work a critique of this whole discussion of bukari written by she uh uh Salah Al a uh once again a a very hadii perspective and he is a specialist in Hadith a student of the very famous M ABD fat so his work on this is is interesting as well he's taken a very similar approach there have also been uh

other works produced Manana Faruk Khan has a piece on this sh khid Al jundi who is an aari scholar has written on this uh once again taking a very similar approach towards the Hadith as I've highlighted he's also one of the member of the in Egypt now I am aware of uh AB Al's reputation of khundi and his work and some of the other reputations I have read through these so it's not that I'm not aware I'm also aware of uh

refuting uh Dr uh Adan ibraim on on this point as well and referring to his hadithi mistakes so it's not so first of all quite a few things have been written on this are available maybe not not exhaustively but several of these I have taken a look at them read from them listen to them I do not find the argument uh as taken by people like Al uh compelling I do not find that convincing that they argue for the this R of bukari to be Supreme and the

underlying the underlying gist or the what this what their whole thing rests on is Hadith absolutism they're simply trying to state that because the Hadith isah inkari it should override any argument and that has been sufficiently answered uh in our uh section on Hadith relativism and people like Imam Malik in the school of Madina not accepting this argument and so and many other Scholars so um so these things are available you can refer to them if you if you want to expand your research on this

top that's a good question why is this an issue now um as in our recent time as in this recent Century uh the century before why wasn't this an issue before firstly I don't accept holistically completely that this was never an issue before okay uh based on two parts one that not everything that hasn't reached us means that it was not never an issue we see this in in other

topics as well so what happens at times unfortunately descent is drowned drowned out of the discourse and on many occasions out of the books as well until it's discovered at certain times by bringing certain Works in so I I don't believe that necessarily it was was not an issue and we definitely see this point through the fact that the scholars did argue this from a ramification perspective so okay this is an anecdote anecdotal kind of data if you like it's just in it's just descriptive how could this have any actionable value and so they said well

people might infer that you can have a sexual relationship with underage girls and so they did argue and I've answered that they said no you cannot and many of them beginning with and many many others saying it's Haram and and and and Imam Malik and other people making this condition of the girl being new while sexually capable of a relationship to have a relationship and so I do feel that they did uh find this an issue okay the other thing is that well is this being done to kind of appease the

West I think that's preposterous from that perspective if that question means that well in our heart of hearts we don't accept this we don't we actually believe what's in bukari so we believe that oh she was actually six and I'm only doing this to suck up to pretend to people in the west then that's not true I in my heart absolutely with certainty and this is at a personal level reject that re I do not believe it to be accurate I believe it to be wrong and I believe this to be impacting Muslims primarily and then non-muslims by extension you see

the fact that this may have not been an issue previously does not take away from the fact that it is an issue now so for whatever reason I mean there may have been multiple reasons that this was not an issue before but it is an issue now and when you say well non-muslims well of course non-muslims are going to criticize this of course they are this is like I mean what has been referred to as the the flying the M kind of analogy or what I like to call the the kind of car consumer scenario where a person who's going to buy a

car that person is looking for any blemish you could take a person on a a test trial test drive and all of a sudden he's saying well wait a minute what's that sound what's that Creek what's this scratch what's why is why is the tire like that then that sound you may have owned that car for 5 years and never paid attention to that sound so but that's because a person who's about to take something on or is looking at it they are looking for any kind of faults they want to see consistency they want

to see that it's worth the value that people are claiming so when people say Islam is a perfect religion now you see you've set the bar so high you're saying this is from God so people will now look for any kind of shortcoming they will say well ah well this doesn't sound very perfect to me you know you're saying well the prophet married a a six-year-old girl that's not very perfect is it so yes of course it's become a problem because Islam has become more and more exposed to

non-muslims over the last 100 200 years before that Islam was exposed it's not that there was no exposure but there wasn't this level of interaction now we know that obviously there were the whole colonialism and things like this took place and non-muslims began to study Muslim literature internally so yes people are finding problems but and there may be malicious and malign intent behind that but there may also be genuine intent people may say well you set the bar so high I didn't set it high you said this is perfect answer

this so now it has become an issue and Muslims must reflect so Muslims will think well let's evaluate well that's interesting because it happens to clash with so many other interpretations now people previously like you see daudi and other people they previously said oh well ah or maybe one answer was maybe anthropologically they were different oh they you know they uh people people say that they were so developed at Young ages we don't know any better but today we would know anthropology is much more developed today I mean our science of our

knowledge of of physiology of human development of things like this are much more certain today I mean much improved so we would know those things not to be accurate so I don't think this is a matter of sucking up I I believe this is a matter of consistency and the irony here is people this question are you doing this to suck up to the West as an are you being insecure that's actually very ironic because when these evidences are presented to these same people their reaction is very insecure that oh no uh

if the Hadith the proph if the prophet did it then it must have been correct and we don't want to accept anything from uh any critics and especially since this discourse has been popularized by the West we definitely don't want to accept it I would say that's an insecure reaction a secure confident reaction would be well okay let me see your criticism that's interesting because you're right that that is definitely uh something worth reflecting over that can this be true that you're saying well uh you know

if you are so confident in your faith if you are so secure rather than saying oh uh no no no I don't need I don't need your criticism I don't need your thing uh all I know is this said that the prophet did it if if it says the prophet did it if the prophet did it then the prophet is infallible and this is from God and therefore it's okay and some have gone to the extent oh therefore it must be permissible to act on that is a very insecure reaction and and I completely dismiss miss this this this kind of approach and saying well oh this is just to kind of suck up to people or it's this is actually a very I

feel a a very a consistent and a truly Islamic response in engaging the discussion in saying well okay let's take a look at this because I don't believe that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam ever did that and it's worth noticing that the Muslim sentiment in general in the Muslim world is very very dismissive of anything that comes from the West even if that complements Islam so when we take a look at things like human rights human rights in essence most human rights generally this whole discourse on human rights is actually very complimentary to Islamic teachings

the whole Mak of preservation of Life preservation of of of Reason preservation of progeny and of wealth and things like this is the of the Shar yet something that's speaking about preserving human welfare and human rights Muslims as soon as they hear this word in the Muslim World they the first thing they do is dismiss it because it's coming from the West even though the Hadith says that any word of wisdom is is the Lost Property of the believer wherever he finds it he's more deserving of it yet Muslims dismiss that

and that's positive how do you think they will react to criticism when it's criticizing Islam so they say no way on Earth I I don't I don't want to listen but the truth is well let's listen and you're right that that's that's a critical point because this means this means that the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam is not a perfect role model for Muslims today or for human beings today in this part of the world because people find these actions unacceptable and even Muslims find these actions is unacceptable so Muslims today will not accept to marry

their daughter off at the age of six or 9 and I'm not and neither will people in general I'm not speaking about some you may say well one person here or there but generally speaking people will not tolerate that so this response of engaging this and actually viewing it with the reality and realizing well actually this didn't happen is more in line with the message of the Quran and it serves Humanity as a whole and Muslims

specifically that's definitely a good question why is this uh Hadith of six and N so popular then if we're saying and and other narratives although implicitly there that they're not they're not so they're not that popular well first of all I would disagree to the extent I mean I would partially accept that to be a some truth in that question I don't believe that this data of six and N is necessarily popular at a

whole on a general Muslim scale so Muslims before um before this discourse has become so popular now in the West on media and things like this prior to this if you asked Muslims generally when do they think the prophet married AA they would say yeah she was young but I don't believe Muslims generally I I know the scholars and the Specialists were aware of this tradition but I don't think this was something so popular on a on a ground level okay that's uh that's that's just a point to make but yes it definitely is more popular now with this

whole media approach and people really trying to the reaction the Muslim reactionary approach of kind of like super affirming this uh this narration in bukari and trying to consolidate this view of sanctifying uh bukari and everything so why did this happen now we have to understand this is an extension of the Hadith absolutism approach and that is a view that that said that Hadith in themselves are always authoritative they did not draw distinction between Hadith and Sunnah

like IM Malik and the school of Madina did they believed in just Hadith absolutism and this this kind of attitude this approach really comes uh a few hundred years after the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and then continues to solidify and gain strength uh and most of the people that were on this view initially and gen generally were maab who believed if a Hadith was it was always an authority now yes they did this uh in contrast with certain sectarian movements to kind of quash

certain sectarian uh difficulties that they were facing so some people were questioning Hadith Al together some people were coming up with certain angles certain other sects and denominations so this the M the scholars of Hadith they started to reaffirm this view of Hadith absolutism and as a byproduct you ended up with the the kind of sanctification of books like bukari and Muslim and people likeah uh these people really put this into place and then you have other Salah and other people saying what is in

bukari and Muslim is absolutely certain and conclusive and and all these other M who follow suit do do that but you have to see that this view of popularizing these two books was a byproduct to that phenomenon of Hadith absolutism which in its time as the movement was Rising served a function it was to kind of Safeguard uh the main Orthodox Islam against certain denominations and we see parallels in other in other kind of uh with other movements too so you can see things like uh the rise of the tasw

movement as an example uh you know post I don't know 7th Century Islam it becomes it rises and then becomes almost very common place with it as a byproduct uh the understanding that b there is a division of B that B can be divided into good and bad B I'm not saying people before did not have that view they did but after the rise of tasa generally especially into the 600 7 00 H and onwards this becomes the view to the extent that only Islam is identified through this understanding and you would

think boy there must have never have been a time when Muslims did not accept any Al alternate view yet prior to the 600s and the 500s this you know this was an absolute this was a minority view so similarly we see with the cam phenomenon mut the theologians as certain kind of uh views start to emerge Muslim contact with I don't know with kind of Greek literature and other things as well we see a rise in the whole Theologian phenomenon and Muslims uh you know we

see groups emerging this whole thing of the and these schools of theology emerge and they emerge to safeguard Islam but as a byproduct you end up with dogmatism now now we have a list of fixed dogma and every person must believe this and they must and if you don't believe this you are now uh no longer part of the Orthodoxy of Islam and but I mean prior to that movement prior to this kind of phenomenon people in the early times just believed you know they didn't list out so Imam Malik did not list out his

belief the sahabah did not list out their beliefs the T did not list out their beliefs and so on it was just kind of a natural organic understanding of Islam but once certain problems arose they were met with this Theologian phenomenon the cam kind of movement and it was done to safeguard Islam but as a byproduct it ends up with this so similarly this Hadith absolutism and the movement of the M was done to safeguard the tradition of Islam of mainstream Orthodox Islam and to preserve the the Hadith but as a byproduct it ends up

with the sanctification of certain books like bukari and then some people start to exaggerate in this sanctification especially of that movement people like the absolutist uh the Shafi School in general and Other M Salah and other people start to say well this is absolutely certain anything that is in this in this book it is conclusive and then to the extent that other people become influenced that they they almost forget that there was a time that this was not the mainstream kind of view and so on so I I think you are right that this has become common but

that is as a byproduct of certain phenomena phenomena that had occurred I don't believe that this was always the view you are right that the ethics of a society of a civilization do continue to develop and we definitely 21st century ethics seems very different um from even 20th century ethics let alone 19th 18th century ethics so that is true um the question if we're understanding this well look you're you're saying this today because it doesn't sound right and

it doesn't fit in but what if 50 years from today people change and they start saying this is okay firstly I do not believe that that will happen in that sense ever because human beings are working towards the betterment and the preservation of uh of benefits to humans and the prevention of harm so I feel at an as an underlay we all universally do accept certain uh kind of like like base ethics

like we accept that harm is bad and we accept that the prevention of harm is good now yes societies dis disagree on the permutations that these things have and the details but we accept this Universal base as human beings so this issue rests upon the concept of consent and how can there be consent from a girl who is a minor and since she can't reason so the opposite of that is then

harm and assault so you're saying well sexual assault so I do not agree that human Societies or generally especially human civilization as we see it today because we are in an age today whether people accept wholeheartedly or don't but we especially in this part of the world we are in a society where human beings men women uh the elderly disabled children animals the environment all have more rights than they have ever had preserved throughout human

history so we are in an that is undeniable I'm not saying it's perfect I'm not saying it's it's wholesome I'm saying but it is more uh positive and more preserved the rights for all of these things for people for the sick for the disabled for uh you know for all sorts for minorities for animals for pets for the environment for plants for trees then has ever occurred on a societal level throughout human history so if you're telling me well okay human beings seem to be working towards a trajectory now this trajectory will work towards okay eliminating

consent and eliminating and the advocacy of harm then firstly I don't believe they will and secondly I don't Advocate that and I do not accept that harm is acceptable and I do not accept that that it's okay to occasional inflict harm like that and and if you're going to tell me some people in the future may well I feel that they have wrong if they will so that's my

understanding right that's a good question there is a Hadith in bukari and few other narrations this comes down to language and interpretation okay uh the term play language ties in with our social understanding even today if you're going to use the term play this can be used like playing video games adults play video games it can be used to say for example somebody's mucking about they're just playing around it can be used as a child somebody's playing I mean but when we look at these narrations

of with these kind of uh what could be I mean you could try to sway it towards saying these uh uh Duma these kind of little Idols or whatever that she had these little dolls you could you could say Well they're dolls and therefore she's playing with them therefore it's childlike she's a child it could be interpreted I mean it could be understood equally from the actual text as as as figurines because they're very detailed they're not like uh in fact the Hadith in bukari says the prophet sallallahu Ali wasallam comes in and he can and he sees a structure and there's a wall and there's a tree and and

there's a horse and it has wings and if it was just a kind of stub with something coming out it could have been any it could have been a cow it could have been a lion it could have been a blob with some wings coming out for the prophet to immediately recognize it as well defined as a horse not a mule not a donkey Mony not oh a horse and he says oh does a horse even have wings and he laughs at that the structure was clearly well defined these were clearly in my understanding figurines and and yes you know AA was preoccupying part of her time you know her friends and and they had and you

even get today you get adults um you get several adults sometimes preoccupied even obsessed with these kind of soldier figurines and they have like uh sets and and you know countless kind of soldier toy soldiers and they collect them and they set them up and and and these are grown men and and they lay them out and that doesn't mean that they're children but it just means that yes you know they take that as a hobby that's their hobby so I believe that's how you superimpose a context Upon A Hadith the Hadith does not mean she was a child yes it does use the word play but play could be interpreted for adults as well it doesn't not mean that we have to

infantilize the person that is playing adults do you know they have hobbies where they play as well right I think that's definitely a good question that does this mean because from what I've demonstrated that there's this whole tradition of rejecting that allows to reject Hadith whilst upholding the Sunnah now do I believe common people can do that well first of all there is an understanding here that that is rejected in light of the greater narrative that

is provided by Islam now Common People General people may not have an understanding of the greater Narrative of Islam so there's some things to understand here and that is uh that you see many of times the these Hadith may be part of a greater Hadith that have already been answered so the example of something which um like something being abrogated within Islam or something being specified or it was only for a specific incident and these have already been

explained in other Hadith uh so it's important to always refer to Scholars it is always why and why I say this is because a great deal of this Dean has been transmitted through the uh through the Sunnah the way of the messenger of Allah so it has come to us which has been preserved through Hadith now I did say that not every Hadith reflects the Sunnah but a several Hadith do I mean now you could as the quranists would say well I find this Hadith problematic I know let's throw the whole thing out but with that you

are throwing away the tradition the Sunnah so what we would do is we would first of all oh it is important to refer this back to the people of knowledge so they could they would be more aware of the greater narrative that said if something was very clearly problematic against universals that are well understood so there could be a ruling for example on a brief matter which people are not aware of so it could be to do with the intricacies of do or the intricacies of buying and selling or I don't know there's an issue within Salah it says something like this

now normal people may not be aware of these issues so to them just saying oh just when they see a Hadith I reject this Hadith well you know you don't need to kind of take a sledgehammer and open up a book of Hadith that's not you know the common P it's not the duty of every common Muslim to do that that's not how Islam is learned or taught it's learned organically through people but if they came across a Hadith that went against a universal understanding that we have so as an example there's a Hadith in uh uh

which is which is found it's a found in sah Muslim found in sahkari uh about and in other books of Hadith about uh the lizard now that this lizard uh we should that the prophet is in instructing to kill a lizard and the explanation is given in the sahith as well that oh uh in one narration that if you kill it in the first strike you get a 100 rewards if you kill it in the second strike some say 70 Rewards or 50 rewards and if you kill it in the third and he mentions up to three strikes also in some narrations the

explanation of why because apparently when ibraim Alam was thrown the prophet ibraim was thrown into the fire uh the lizard was kind of encouraging the fire by TR trying to blow into the fire now this is uh this is this is absolutely nonsensical this approach because this would not make any sense first of all animals are not kind of M they are not taken to task you know they're not uh they're not reasoning beings or creatures of reason

uh to say well the the lizard did this because out of kind of Envy for the prophet Abraham secondly even if we're to accept such a redundant hypothesis let's for a moment suspend our reason and accept that that lizard somehow had cognitive faculties and managed to kind of breathe out of hatred for the prophet Abraham into this fire why would that involve now killing all lizards on the face of this globe that that wherever we see a lizard we should kill it and you get religious

rewards for killing lizards geckos uh this I mean I could understand that this Hadith of killing lizards in light of them being pests and harmful that it does make that can make sense and does make sense however to justify as it is in some of these s Hadith with uh it's because of the fire of Abraham now that that's absolutely nonsensical now and it clashes with other understandings we have in Islam where the Prophet said every living creature

in it is a reward if you take care of it all right Fe that in every living creature there is a reward that you take care of it so and the general understanding of creatures and life the sanctity of life in general the prophet he told people he told people off for trying to trying to harm animals and he said that even when hunting it must be done as perfect as possible to minimize the suffering so does this make any sense no it doesn't this is specific that that's how they answer it the the

lizard right if somebody was to say well this Hadith is specific to the the age of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam well the same applies that what would the lizards in the time of the Prophet have to do with the lizard in that specific this alleged lizard in the time of Abraham Salam it makes notes and it clashes with the greater Narrative of Islam so this Hadith is not is inaccurate now yes so if a normal person came across something with such a universal truth that they would know that for them them to problematize and refuse to act upon this Hadith is fine because it goes against the

universal teachings of Islam as to intricacies and finite detail of saying well this is how you do ablution or this is how this ritual is performed or or this is a buying and selling transaction or this is a Hadith from me these things most people probably wouldn't have a universal understanding of so if they find something strange uh I mean I think in all circumstances they should refer this back to Scholars anyway but where something is so obvious and as broad as daylight and it clashes with our our general Universal kind of Islamic teaching then that they do not need to act according to and they can uh refuse

to accept that as an as a sah as an acceptable Hadith but the normal ones yes uh at many times the prophet may have been speaking through metaphors he may it may have been allegorical speech it may have been abrogated it may have been specific for a particular people when the prophet or a particular person sometimes the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he uh he spoke to somebody specifically this was for you as in you go and do this okay so so I think that um answers uh that it is it is important to refer but at the same time Universal narratives of ISL of Islam are accepted

but to take a sledgehammer to the books of Hadith and say well let me just my job is to go through Hadith one by one and if it doesn't make any sense to me I'll throw it away that's not the duty uh of Muslims and they should not be doing that okay because they're not skilled in Hadith in general I've heard some people raise that question in saying well this was a latterday uh late Sunni kind of juristic tradition tradtion that people are

superimposing uh I'm if they mean by that that this is a modern approach like of late modernity that Muslims seem to be reasoning away things reasoning away the rulings and and rejecting Hadith just based on reason well I would like to say well this is not modern this is part of this actual tradition dating right back to the companions who have taught it to their students the people who learned it from the prophet people like who is who is who is termed the the

translator of the Quran by the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam who is referred to as the scholar of this umah the grand scholar of this umah by the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam he himself uh when engaging with Abu hura on the Hadith which I've discussed of that you must do wo every time you've uh made contact every time you uh you uh from anything that has made contact with fire that's the wording of theith and he says really well what about what about hot water that you've used to uh to heat up for woodoo let's

say and you and it's made contact with water do you need to do woodoo from that water which has done woodoo uh which so this is nonsensical and his approach was of Reason his approach was not hey I know I heard another Hadith which contradicted this Hadith he relied solely upon reason then you have people like Imam Malik uh the grand uh scholar of Medina the person who the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam people have said the have said is that the prophet Sall alhi wasallam prophesies that when people start seeking knowledge and this becomes a mass tradition that they will

not find anybody more knowledgeable than the scholar of Madina and most Scholars understood that to refer to Imam Malik because in his time he was the Undisputed IM of Medina he himself is saying look here's a sah Hadith right here is this Hadith of if a dog licks the bowl of of of of any of you then you should wash it seven times he says what is that talking about he says we don't know what it's talking about he says we don't accept it because it clashes with our general understanding when Imam Malik was told about the Hadith of doing ha on behalf of somebody it clashed with the general

understanding we all conduct our own actions when he's told about the several Hadith like this the Hadith he transmits himself he says that that a transaction cannot be complete until he says we do not act on this sah it isah it is authentic but not valid we will not so the authenticity is there but it is not part of the Sunnah we will not act upon it so what I'm trying to say is this is an ongoing tradition yes at times this tradition there may have been certain kind of um

subversive some attempts to kind of displace this by Hadith absolutist kind of uh I don't know attitudes and that they may have had their reasons I mean one that they obviously disagree with this approach anyway but two it may have been at a certain era it helped Safeguard The Message of Islam better and so so these views may have been displaced for some for some time and then they reemerge and they they may have kind of there's been um a kind of fluctuation but this has been part of this tradition from the very beginning okay so I don't believe

this is a modern approach I believe this is at the very core of our de to to always view things in light of Reason firstly I do believe that the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam is a a a great role model a perfect role model for all times I do believe for this for our day and age as well and I do not believe that that necessarily clashes if

we take this this age of AA first of all I do not accept as I've highlighted that the age of Aisha was like that secondly multiple marriages that's a good question that okay Society uh certain societies today do not accept multiple marriages but yet still parts of these societies do on the ground maybe not as a legal framework but yet open relationships are not uh unheard heard of I mean in fact even uh reports uh certain research demonstrates that they're actually very healthy amongst people that participate in them in these very same societies the

philosophy behind them when you look at what science shows scientific data does show people the human instinct especially the male instinct to still be even today on on samples today Within These Western societies to be polygamous by Nature now I accept that at a legal level at a kind of statutory level those things are not acceptable uh so people will not accept and that's because of the history of this part of the world coming from a very Christian kind of background seeing monogamy as the only way I don't believe on the ground people

necessarily see that so on the ground people may uh today so for example the ideal they don't see like one relationship to just last I mean they may have an ideal like I wish one relationship generally lasts right throughout my life but the normal practice is that it doesn't most relationships will will last for whatever while you know a few years and then they'll move on a new relationship a new and many people will engage in multiple relationships at once whether it will be on the sly or not or openly or in open relationships or covert relationships or but people are doing this so whether they openly are

accepting this uh or not uh this is definitely the reality now somebody could say well okay well people do all kinds of wrong things uh you know on the sly and they do it does not justify that's true but if we go back to this issue of underage girls the issue here is the the concept of reason and consent not being able to materialize like the child is too young to conceptualize what's going on which is then identified as

abuse okay that's not the same as saying well look if we're in a relationship that has that is pluralistic so I know we're uh we want to be in an open relationship or we want to be in a plural relationship people if they come to that understanding they if they come to it then they will uh they will accept that I do not believe that necessar to be irrational it's not an irrational concept uh I do believe the concept of saying that a child does not have like that somebody does not have the reason they do not have the capacity and yet

something is superimposed on them forced against them I do believe that to be irrational so there is a difference regarding the wars of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam if we look through the S almost all of the wars that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam engaged in right the Wars that the prophet himself engaged in they were all uh they were all usually begun by the third by the opposing party the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam although he may have set off but it's only once he heard that so and so has kind of amassed an army at a particular point and they may attack let's go so they were all construed as defensive I'm

not saying that the concept of an offensive uh uh kind of military strategy did not exist in Islam it did but we're talking about the life of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and even military kind of strategies these are not irrational so today people countries do accept that at times there are preemptive kind of military strategies there are things like this so as a philosophy that's not irrational I don't believe it's irrational at all so just linking this back so when you say where does this stop I don't believe I believe that's a false question it's a it's a kind of question trying to set up somebody for faith failure because when we look at examin the life of the

Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam it's all in line with reason it was all firmly based on reason and Welfare whereas trying to say Well about uh a child that has no uh concept or cannot conceptualize reason so therefore I know the advantage can be taken of the child I do not believe that to be acceptable especially in our day and age that's actually a very good follow-up question that has been raised by people um that okay when we look throughout Islamic F you know I've highlighted yes

that Imam Malik and all these great imams said that a girl uh she can only be married when she is newal she's capable of marriage capable of a sexual relationship now I've said these things and other imams and so on but why is it right throughout uh right throughout F and throughout these different diverse opinions we see that we see people like uh Imam Malik and and Imam sha and all these other Scholars and many scholars saying yes that the father can without the will marry off his daughter his young daughter now we have to understand

something first of all because I think that's a very important question that's been raised we have to first of all before even answering this say that make it very clear that this is impermissible in our understanding in light of our age absolutely impermissible to do that right in in our context now let's go back to that question because I do think that question is a very good question this is not when people like Imam Malik or these other imams had said that they had not said that in light of a very clear conclusive verse of the Quran there was no verse of the Quran clearly saying something like that or a

clear Hadith saying something like this they said this based on the their understanding and it can and is better viewed actually not like that like this that nobody can force a young girl and they made a tiny exception for the father to be able to superimpose and override that will why the Imam Malik and the scholars had highlighted they said if if there was to have been such an overwhelming welfare and I will explain

and they said and this is key as well that IM Malik believed that the compelling the overwhelming compassion of a father would only seek welfare and would never abuse the child and this is important why because we see with Imam Malik there is a parallel uh for example in in in the situation of murder and you see this thing emerging again that Imam Malik said that if it was to have transpired that a child was killed and the father was responsible Imam Malik's fwa was

that it was inconceivable that that would have been murder because in his time his understanding was that per a father could never have done something like this therefore it must have been an accidental killing although he said if it was the other way that a father had been killed it was very conceiv it was conceivable that a child could have murdered that uh that somebody could murder their father but he felt it was inconceivable that the father could murder his his own child now obviously in later time it's very conceivable in our time it's very

conceivable so this fatwa was very uh restricted to Imam Malik's understanding of what was going on so we see this as a reality looking at how Imam Malik is trying to understand this is what could a musl be what could the welfare be now let's take a look at that time there it was obviously there was huge many people were poverty stricken many people were vulnerable so for example a situation may have a and this this where a father May override the

will of his child and engage and it's important to understand this was a contractual only contractual ncah that the person may engage in a contract not in any intimate or sexual relation because Imam Malik clearly says that the that he can only have a full that full Consortium and a full sexual relationship if the other person is capable of being in such a relationship so this was a contractual NE somebody might ask well what is the purp what could be the benefit of that well in that time for

example uh let's say if somebody did not have an ear and and and they had a certain amount of Fortune and somebody and you had poverty stricken families and they thought well I know if I could contractually uh marry my daughter to this old man and you know that will at least stabilize for her her future and ensure a a kind of prosperous survival for her so he may have kind of said I know I will and she's too young to have reason so that's what overriding reason means or against her will it means her

not being capable of developed reason so she's young and he's he's done the contract on her behalf it may have also included situations where people for example was so vulnerable in a certain place that um that people may kidnap or forcefully abduct uh women or children and so they think well to safeguard her to safeguard to safeguard lives right I know I will contractually marry her to so and so who nobody would mess with because they don't want to mess with that person he's quite established

and therefore she will not be abducted killed or violated or any of these things right she would be her life would potentially be saved by having these things and you have to remember that 12200 years ago these things not even that long we don't even need to go that far back but 1200 years ago these things were a reality that people were worried about saving the lives of the children this was an ERA where there was no s such thing as the Poli police you didn't have policemen

policing things people did attack the vulnerable so when Imam Malik and other Scholars said well nobody can force an override the will because they saw the the term force is simply to say well this person has no will so to override their will is a kind of forc and they said nobody has that Authority Imam Malik said but then he left the window of saying well if there was welfare that contractually the father could superimpose or override the will of the child for the contract only Imam Malik made it very clear that they could not

be sexual relations okay he made that very as did many other so I want to clarify that I think it's a very good question also I want to clarify that this does not mean that uh first of all this this this thing of overriding the will it does not mean that was the norm it definitely was not the norm but it simply means that it was not uncommon as in like sorry it was not unheard of that's what it simply means yes it may have occurred but it was not just as today we may say uh kind of like underage pregnancies for example

like you know a 12-year-old being pregnant 13y old being pregnant it's not the norm but it's not unheard of it's not that nobody's heard of these things so in a similar light this fatwa of IM Malik was for in light of the understanding of his age in light of these circumstances to safeguard lives and this would change with time okay just as to just as somebody could pick the fatwa of IM Malik or these imams on slavery but that Islam had set just as it did with many things a trajectory in line with trajectory hermeneutics that in time to come when

human civilizations would rise above certain things that these things would be forbidden and you could not do them so that's to kind of give that holistic understanding that yes if you want to dig deep and just kind of quote mine certain quotes from imams then you might find these kind of fatwas but it is not in first of all it is impermissible Impractical in our age and secondly it was restricted to their understanding of their circumstances and that's what it was in light of saving lives okay and so it's very important to remember those