# Why the circumstances of the marriage rule out a six-year-old Aisha - URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/s/1/ - Date: 2020-10-12 · Kind: discussion · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Aisha was not a child Her age at the time of Marriage | Mufti Abu Layth (0:00–5:13) - Status: general teaching - Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udJveM_S0sY&t=0s - Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/ **Topics:** The age of Aisha; The wives of the Prophet **Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Aisha cannot have been six when the Prophet married her, because the marriage was meant to give him companionship, household help and support after the year of sorrow, which a child could not provide. Her engagement of several years before that, and the fear that she would convert her fiance, point the same way. ## Longer summary Mufti Abu Layth says what settled the matter of Aisha's age for him was the backdrop to the marriage: the year of sorrow, in which the Prophet lost Khadija and Abu Talib, had young children at home, worked for a living and had lost his protection from Quraysh. He recounts that Khawla [?] suggested he remarry and proposed Sawda and Aisha, and lists what a wife could have offered him at that time: companionship, running the household, support in the da'wah and intimacy. He says that if Aisha had been six she could have met none of these and would only have been another child to care for, which he calls absurd. The guest adds that it would not have made sense for the Prophet to marry a girl younger than his own daughters, who needed motherly care that Sawda could provide, and that a marriage to so young a girl would have served no reasonable purpose. Mufti then notes that the Prophet did not accept at once because Aisha was already engaged, and that when Abu Bakr went to ask, the boy's mother refused for fear that Aisha would convert her son; he asks how a girl of six could have been engaged for several years and feared as a converter. ## Sources and names cited - Aisha - The year of sorrow - Dr Shabir Ally (guest) ## Transcript (machine tier, 0:00–5:13) [0:00] uh one of the things that really did it for for me as an individual on this matter of the age of aisha or the allahu anha was learning the the backdrop to when the prophet gets married following so the year of sorrow and he's lost hadith he's lost abu talib and it's the worst most tragic year for the prophet and he's got young children at home and he's got you know he he works for a living he 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 that if incident [0:38] he's getting attacked beaten up he's lost his kind of solidarity with quraish or support or at least his indemnity with quraysh because of abu talib no longer being there and then he's approached when he's sitting uh quite uh very saddened and he's approached by hola who asks him that uh because i mean he's he's down um 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 soda and she recommends aisha now [1:17] the interesting thing is that at that time uh a wife having a wife could have helped the prophet in several aspects it could have helped him uh from a personal perspective in his his feeling down companionship helping him mentally it could have uh 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 da'wah in in preaching and going forth and and serving like being a backbone to the prophet the way khadijah was radhila now it could have helped him with with intimacy and just being having somebody to be [1:56] intimate with and being close with uh now if the pr the proposition that aisha at this time was a six-year-old child what is absurd because the 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 like the prophet has young children at home now he's just brought another child and put a child at home who who's going to take care of the children whilst he's trying to earn a living and trying to do all of these things this hadith really [2:36] you know brought the the message home for me that wait a minute this doesn't um whereas it makes sense having a partner somebody who could actually help you in these categories of life i mean there's a reasonable observations here that uh when the prophet sallam was getting married it does not make sense that he would be marrying a girl who uh 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 sauda would have fulfilled that by virtue of her age to marry aisha who would have been so young [3:15] as described in the hadith um would not seem to serve any reasonable purpose at that time yeah and the fact that when the prophet actually uh at the time when he mentions doesn't actually accept straight away because because she's already engaged and he says that she's already engaged so we don't know where we stand with that and then the prophet mary 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 [3:55] i believe she was engaged to the parents of uh uh of her potential in-laws the mother says in the narration that when abu bakr goes to check that where do we stand with this engagement so she says that no i'm not interested she says that uh these people are from the the sabbath from the sabbath from these that's you know this called in early muslims and she says 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 raised so many question marks [4:35] 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 adida nahadem's family so bothered about her converting him to to a new face you should be afraid and yeah so i mean i thought some of these things are incredibly noteworthy uh one is a sister in the uk rokayawaris maxod her brief treaties on this uh has been published by the islamic propagation center international in birmingham and and that's an excellent summation of ## Cite Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment udJveM_S0sY/s/1. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/s/1/ Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.