Recordings › Aisha was not a child Her age at the time of Marriage | Mufti Abu Layth · 12 Oct 2020 › Segment 2 of 2
Writers who place Aisha in her teens, and how narrators exaggerated ages
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith muftis dalil daleel adillah adilla proof shaikh sheik shuyukh shaykhs salam as-salamu alaykum assalamu alaikum assalamualaikum salaams salam alaykum wa alaykum as-salam greeting
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This segment5:13 to 9:18 · 4 min 05 sA view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenSeveral modern writers conclude that Aisha was in her teens at marriage, and the speakers explain the hadith's figures as numbers garbled and exaggerated downwards by narrators. Khadija's age, by contrast, was exaggerated upwards from about twenty-eight to forty.
In more detail
The guest lists work arguing that Aisha was much older than the hadith states: a short treatise by a sister in Britain, Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood [?], published in Birmingham; a Turkish author's recent book on Aisha's life; a shaykh in Pakistan named Amjad [?] writing on an Islamic website; and a one-hour lecture by Jamal Badawi in Australia that analysed the famous hadith and concluded she was in her teens. He says the age in the popular hadith was misstated, and that other hadith show narrators mixing up numbers, so that 'she was young' was exaggerated downwards as the story was retold. By contrast, he says, Khadija's age was overstated: she bore the Prophet several daughters and at least two sons, which fits a younger woman than the forty of the usual account, and the orientalist Lawrence Conrad as well as a report from Ibn Abbas put her at twenty-eight. The segment closes with the summary that Khadija's age was exaggerated upwards and Aisha's downwards, which the speaker calls a better overall explanation; the transcript does not make clear whether Mufti Abu Layth or the guest speaks this conclusion.
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Position stated
This segment presents a view in order to discuss or respond to it. It is recorded as quoted, never as held, and no position is attributed from it.
Kind: a view quoted in order to be discussed, not a position held Speakers: host and guest; guest speech is labelled and excluded from positionsTranscript
machine5:13 to 9:18 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
A guest speaks in this segment. Guest speech is labelled and is excluded from the positions layer.
This segment states a view in order to discuss it. It is recorded as a quoted view, not as a position held.
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
uh the evidence that goes to show uh that aisha must have been much older than the ages which are mentioned in in the hadith that that is most uh notorious about this and um a sister recently a turkish sister has written a book on the life of aisha the mother of the believers uh more more generally and she has devoted a large section to dealing with similar details and um there is a shaykh in in pakistan um amjad who has written extensively about this on the understanding
islam.com website uh moreover i happen to have the good fortune to be together with sheikh dr jamal badawi in australia where we were both speaking at a conference and his lecture his entire lecture for one hour was about this subject and he went into great detail analyzing the hadith that is so quite famous about this and giving an alternative view uh reaching the same conclusion that aisha delawan would have been in her teenage years when she got married to the prophet peace be upon him rather than the sixth and nine that are mentioned in
in the traditional um narrative about this uh the the age that is reported in that popular hadith has been misstated and this is not uh surprising that this happened we can cite other uh evidence in hadith where a number has been stated incorrectly and we know this because one hadith says one number and the other had he says a different number and we know that the narrators somehow mixed up the numbers of things so she was young but when people related to each other she was young and another person says well wait a minute young how young and then the other person says well let me tell you how young and then
of course they start exaggerating the the age downwards to me age younger and younger and we can see that by contrast the age of uh the first wife of our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam our mother khadija um her age seems to have been overstated because we know that she was the father she was the mother of uh several children of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's eight daughters fatima and rokaya omokusum
yeah so um and then at least two boys we know their names to be uh tahir and uh and cause him after whom the prophet so for her to have given birth to that many uh children uh with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam it means that she was married at at an age that would be conducive to that the narratives therefore which say that she was married to the prophet salallahu when she was 40 uh it now can be received with some skepticism and lawrence conrad and orientalist has actually actually studied this in great detail and he has
shown as though the details of how he has shown it now escapes me and he has shown that she would have been some more uh likely to have been 28 years old at the time that is actually the rewire of ibn abbas is actually that she was 28. okay so you can see how it's possible that uh because she was older than the prophet saw salaam he was 25 she was 28.
uh you know it got banded about that she was old and then how old let me tell you how old she is and then it gets exaggerated upwards so her age ironically was exaggerated upwards whereas on the other hand by contrast the age of eyeshadow was exaggerated downwards this seems to be a better overall explanation
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2020-10-12b-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/s/2/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2020, October 12). Writers who place Aisha in her teens, and how narrators exaggerated ages [Video, segment 2020-10-12b-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/s/2/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2020. "Writers who place Aisha in her teens, and how narrators exaggerated ages." Video, segment 2020-10-12b-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded October 12, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/s/2/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2020-10-12b-S02, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Writers who place Aisha in her teens, and how narrators exaggerated ages}}, year = {2020}, month = {10}, date = {2020-10-12}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/s/2/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/udjvem_s0sy/s/2/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2020-10-12b-S02, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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