# Why do the circumstances of the Prophet's marriage rule out a six-year-old Aisha?

*Mufti Abu Layth's reasons: the ifk rumours, the year of sorrow, and Aisha's earlier engagement*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/ksqksrxndnw/s/10/
- Date: 2020-04-22 · Kind: discussion · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Shaykh Dr. Shabir Ally | Juxtaposing the Quran, Jumbling Aisha's age & Jinn Possession | MindTrap#16 (41:29–48:03)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsQKsrXndNw&t=2489s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/ksqksrxndnw/

**Topics:** The age of Aisha; The wives of the Prophet; Guest conversations

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** The marriage after the year of sorrow was meant to give the Prophet a companion, a carer for his children and a support in the da'wah, which a six-year-old could not provide, and Aisha had been engaged for years to a man whose mother feared she would convert him. Mufti Abu Layth suggests her age was exaggerated downwards after the ifk slander to defend her purity.

## Longer summary

Mufti Abu Layth offers his own contributing explanation for the young age: after the slander of the ifk, which the Quran ended, people hostile to Aisha kept spreading rumours about her and other men for decades, and the transmitter of her young age was her own nephew; he suggests the age may have been pushed down in a hyperbolic defence of her purity and virginity, since a girl of nine could not have known other men. What settled the matter for him, he says, was the backdrop to the marriage: the year of sorrow, in which the Prophet had lost Khadija and Abu Talib, had young children at home, worked for a living, saw the message stalling, was attacked at Ta'if and had lost his protection from Quraysh. When Khawla [?] found him saddened and suggested he remarry, proposing Sawda and Aisha, a wife could have helped him with companionship, the household and children, the da'wah and intimacy, as Khadija had; a six-year-old could meet none of these and would only have been another child to look after, which he calls absurd. The guest adds that it would not make sense for the Prophet to marry a girl younger than his own daughters, who needed the motherly care Sawda could give, so a marriage to a child would have served no reasonable purpose. Mufti notes that the sirah books record Abu Bakr hesitating because Aisha was already engaged, and that the Prophet married Sawda first; the engagement to Jubayr ibn Mut'im [?] was broken off when his mother refused, fearing Aisha would convert her son. He asks how a child could have been engaged for several years, or feared as a converter at six.

## Sources and names cited

- Dr Shabir Ally (guest)
- Aisha
- the incident of the ifk (the slander of Aisha)
- The year of sorrow
- Khadijah
- Sawda bint Zam'a
- Jubayr ibn Mut'im [?]
- Abu Bakr
- the Prophet's journey to Ta'if

## Transcript (machine tier, 41:29–48:03)

[41:20] you're saying just just following on that kind of stream of thought is that there were certain people who you know with the whole Haditha lift kind of thing that carried on even though in the time the prophet Elijah Salem obviously stopped with the verse of the Quran but later on in the decades to come people still at times some people who don't like eyeshadow the along on how they spread rumors about that she used to you know that she had relationships with other men and so on and as some said that oh look at the hadith or if and they kind of like popularized this again in saying that how did she know soft one

[42:00] or whether it was from before now even though obviously she knew from before hijab was kind of mandated but that's not the point so the person who transmits that she was so young when she married the Prophet is her own nephew oh wow and I feel that may have been part of the reason in in a kind of her per belief form of really exaggerating her purity chasing us and virginity in trying to say what are you talking about do you know how young she was even when

[42:37] you know she was just 9 so for example taking it right down to such an age where we'll obviously she couldn't have known other men she was just so young but you know one of the things that really did it for for me as an individual what on this matter of the age of Aisha or the Aloha on her was learning the the backdrop to when the Prophet gets married following our medicine so the year of sorrow and he's lost Khadijah of the one hand he's lost a battalion and it's the worst most

[43:15] tragic year for the Prophet and he's got young children at home and he's got you know he works for a living he's got the message and the message doesn't even seem to be going it doesn't seem to be flowing there's the thought if incident he's getting attacked beaten up he's lost his kind of solidarity with courage or support or at least his indemnity with or age because of Abu Talib no longer being there and then he's approached it when he's sitting quite it was very saddened and he's approached by hala who asks him that because I mean he's he's down

[43:54] she asked him that why don't you get married and and he says well who do you have in mind and she recommends two people she recommends soldier and she recommends Aisha now the interesting thing is that at that time a wife having a wife could have helped the Prophet in several aspect it could have helped him from a personal perspective in he's his feeling down a companionship helping him mentally it could have it could have helped him by taking care of domestic issues taking care of the children at home it could have helped him in the sense of the Dawa in in preaching and

[44:34] going forth and serving like a being a backbone to the Prophet the way khadijah was really long on huh now it could have helped him with with intimacy and just being having somebody to be intimate with and being close with now if the proposition that I shot at this time was a six year old child who is absurd because I mean she could not fulfill a child at the age of six I mean it's she couldn't fulfill any of those categories she in fact if anything she would just be another burden it's

[45:13] like the Prophet has young children at home now he's just brought another child and poor child at home who's gonna take care of the children while he's trying to earn a living and trying to do all of these things this hadith really you know brought the message home for me that wait a minute this doesn't where as it makes sense having a partner somebody who could actually help you in these categories of life yeah I just wanted to kind of Shayla [ __ ] yeah there's a reasonable observation ship that went man the problem was getting married it does not make sense that he would be

[45:52] marrying a girl who would have been younger than his his daughters at the time and of course his daughters were young enough to need a motherly care and Souda would have fulfilled that by virtue of her age to marry Ayesha who would have been so young as described in the hadith would not seem to serve any reasonable purpose at that time yeah and the fact that when the Prophet actually at the time when he mentions a trouble worker of the law on the books of ceará highlight that I shall a worker doesn't actually accept straight away because he

[46:32] because she's already engaged and he says that she's really engaged so we don't know where we stand with that and then the Prophet Murray soda and it's only when the engagement is broken off because he says that she's been engaged for a few years and what's interesting is a deep how Tim I believe she was engaged to the parents of potential enrolls the mother says in the narration that when a buckler goes to check that weight we stand with this engagement so she says that no I'm not interested she says that

[47:09] these people are from this the Saba are from the Saba team from these that's you know they stir cold in early Muslims and she says aksha and to spit ah who she says I'm not marrying my son to him I fear that she will convert him now this alone gives so many like it rates so many question marks that first of all if she was engaged for several years what was she engaged at the age of two or three and the other thing is if she's a six year old child why is Andy Manhattan's family so bothered about her

[47:43] converting him to to a new phase yes I mean I thought some of these things are incredibly noteworthy sure on this thing people might say too I mean they do say they say to me I'm sure they've said this two years well in fact don't don't are you just oh this is just a cry to to appease the the kind of western claims and so on in you know you're just trying to suck up to a certain crowd by saying this now I know that you know how Charlie I know that's not the case

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment KsQKsrXndNw/s/10. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/ksqksrxndnw/s/10/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.