Topics › History and the Prophet's life › The life of the Prophet
The life of the Prophet
96 segments in 42 recordings · 2017 to 2025 · 0 verified · 77 checked positions · history/sirah · Feed
Segments on this topic per year
Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 18 Oct 2025
18 Oct 2025MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy does Mufti Abu Layth see the Quran-only movement as a reaction of anger?
Mufti Abu Layth sees the Quran-only movement as a reaction of anger, sometimes justified, to hadith that are misused, such as the Bukhari report on Aisha's age, the report on killing apostates and reports used to justify abuse; the question is what Quranists actually mean by rejecting hadith.
machine3 min 12 s7:32on YouTube
Earlier answers · 95 · newest first
2023 · 2
9 May 2023video
Was the Prophet harsh with people?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet was soft and attentive with people and came from mercy, unlike harsh dawah that puts others down.
machine3 min 46 s6:18on YouTube
9 May 2023video
LatestHow did the Prophet balance gentleness and strength?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet was tender, kissing his children, yet firm when safety demanded, riding out alone at night to check on a frightening sound.
machine3 min 05 s10:04on YouTube
2022 · 3
19 Aug 2022video
LatestWhat are the satanic verses in Islamic history?
Mufti Abu Layth explains that the Prophet's recitation of Surah al-Najm and the prostration of everyone present are documented, but that the added story of him praising the three goddesses is false.
machine8 min 45 s1:00:37on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
LatestIs Quran 22:52 about the satanic verses incident?
No: he rejects the link to 22:52, noting that Surah al-Hajj is Madinan, that the Prophet refused the Makkans' offers of compromise, and that the Quran calls the idols mere stone.
machine5 min 18 s1:09:22on YouTube
19 Aug 2022video
Should loyalty to a scholar ever come before the honour of the Prophet?
No: he says loyalty belongs first to the Prophet, so a report that disparages him must be rejected whoever accepted it, citing Imam Malik's maxim that everyone's words can be accepted or rejected except the Prophet's.
machine5 min 21 s1:47:24on YouTube
2021 · 14
15 May 2021video
LatestIs there archaeological evidence for David's kingdom, and how did Jerusalem become holy for Muslims?
Archaeology has not found the kingdoms of David and Solomon, and Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims should apply the same scrutiny to their own narrations, where early scholars differed over al-Aqsa and the first qibla and the Umayyads under Abd al-Malik promoted Jerusalem with fabricated hadith to rival Ibn al-Zubayr.
machine3 min 52 s20:57on YouTube
19 Apr 2021video
Why do Mufti Abu Layth's critics defend Bukhari reports that demean the Prophet?
Critics who defend Bukhari reports Mufti Abu Layth regards as insulting to the Prophet, such as marrying a child, forcing Safiyya, forgetting the Quran or being made impotent by magic, cannot claim to love the Prophet. Mariya al-Qibtiyya was a wife, not a concubine, and the critics' real concern is a fantasy caliphate and power.
machine8 min 01 s0:04on YouTube
6 Apr 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
How was Mufti Abu Layth's video on Aisha's age received?
Mufti Abu Layth is proud of the video: many people, especially women, told him it brought them back to Islam, while most clergy resent it because questioning the inherited ruling threatens their authority and livelihood.
machine8 min 09 s1:42:34on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWas Ali born inside the Kaaba?
It may have happened but is uncertain, and most likely means the homes of Banu Hashim attached to the Kaaba rather than the cube itself; Ali's greatness does not depend on it.
machine6 min 27 s16:03on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Has Islam become a religion about Muhammad rather than the religion he brought?
No: there is a deep human need for a human archetype, not someone to pray to, and for Muslims that is the Prophet. He adds that his own life changed in the Prophet's mosque.
machine4 min 21 s55:37on YouTube
2 Mar 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did Abdullah ibn Abi Sarh leave Islam for a time?
Not doubt about the Quran: he feels the man was incentivised by the Makkans and rewarded for intelligence about Madinah, and he later returned to Islam and governed in Egypt.
machine3 min 53 s1:00:37on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet order a scribe killed for leaving Islam?
Not for apostasy, he says: the scribe was not executed, and the issue was treason, since he exposed Madinah's weak points to its enemies; apostasy laws were treason laws.
machine2 min 33 s1:11:59on YouTube
16 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is Sidrat al-Muntaha a real tree?
Mufti Abu Layth says the lote tree, Sidrat al-Muntaha, is symbolic language and there is no literal tree.
machine1 min 17 s1:48:43on YouTube
9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are the Prophet's parents in heaven or hell?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet's parents are unquestionably among the saved.
machine45 s2:14:22on YouTube
2 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Can men wear gold?
Men can wear gold, in Mufti Abu Layth's understanding; the Prophet discouraged it because Medina needed to stay on a war footing.
machine2 min 56 s16:35on YouTube
2 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is rejecting embarrassing hadith about the Prophet just whitewashing history?
Mufti Abu Layth says the 'they would not invent it' argument is cogent at face value, but a fair critic must also ask who had a motive to fabricate a report.
machine6 min 11 s32:00on YouTube
12 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Does Sahih al-Bukhari really say God dangled in front of the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Bukhari report of God 'dangling' before the Prophet is unacceptable, and any hadith that clashes with reason or the Quran must be rejected.
machine12 min 35 s1:58:33on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
LatestWhy is Yasir Qadhi saying the Prophet was infatuated with Zaynab?
Mufti Abu Layth finds Yasir Qadhi's recent claim, that the Prophet's infatuation with Zaynab was the early normative account, baffling and harmful, and plays clips to show it.
machine9 min 17 s2:30:24on YouTube
5 Jan 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did the Prophet fall in love with Zaynab bint Jahsh?
No: he says the early hadith collections do not carry the love story, and it makes no sense given the Prophet had known Zaynab all his life.
machine7 min2:38:27on YouTube
2020 · 27
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Did angels really fight at the battle of Badr?
The guest says the angels at Badr are a literary description of God strengthening the believers' hearts, since the named Muslims who killed the enemy chiefs are known, and that the same reading applies to earlier prophets' stories.
machine4 min 06 s1:34:56on YouTube
11 Dec 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Who were the riders seen at Badr?
Mufti Abu Layth takes the Badr angels as strength and vigour rather than a physical event and floats a theory that the riders seen were Persian knights of the House of Karen; the guest prefers a purely literary reading.
machine3 min 23 s1:39:02on YouTube
27 Oct 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are there other narrations of Aisha's age besides Bukhari's?
Mufti Abu Layth says every chain on Aisha's age was engineered, with Hisham as the common link and Iraqi narrators throughout.
machine5 min 56 s1:27:50on YouTube
12 Oct 2020video
Why the circumstances of the marriage rule out a six-year-old Aisha
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.
machine5 min 13 s0:00on YouTube
12 Oct 2020video
Writers who place Aisha in her teens, and how narrators exaggerated ages
Several 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.
machine4 min 05 s5:13on YouTube
22 Sep 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Are there enemies of Islam today?
Mufti Abu Layth says some people do hate Islam, but criticising or leaving Islam is not the same as hating it, and he will not engage those driven by hatred.
machine7 min 02 s58:35on YouTube
22 Sep 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Did Patricia Crone accept that the Prophet Muhammad existed?
Mufti Abu Layth agrees with Patricia Crone that the Prophet's existence is certain, since sources document him from his last year or just after.
machine1 min 09 s1:17:16on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Doesn't Aisha's marriage age justify child marriage?
Paedophilia is unacceptable; he says defending the Prophet by comparing him to kings who married children is no defence and, in his view, blasphemous.
machine6 min 28 s1:10:44on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is the hadith that Aisha was married at six authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth holds the hadith on Aisha's young age to be fabricated, since every transmitter is Iraqi, and says sectarian scholars defend it out of loyalty to their teachers.
machine5 min 44 s1:17:12on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Is al-Aqsa really in Jerusalem?
Mufti Abu Layth says Jerusalem was not originally so sacred in Islam and that, in his understanding, al-Aqsa refers to a place in the heavens.
machine2 min 37 s1:54:29on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Was the ifk in Surat al-Nur really about Aisha?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the Quran's ifk verses were revealed about rumours concerning Mariya, though he believes an earlier incident with Aisha also happened.
machine6 min 09 s2:26:25on YouTube
24 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Why did only Mariya bear the Prophet a child in Medina?
Mufti Abu Layth shares Yasmin Amin's theory that Mariya conceived because, living outside Medina, she did not follow the other wives' ascetic diet, and says he is still researching it.
machine2 min 39 s2:32:34on YouTube
4 Aug 2020Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth
Was Aisha a feminist?
Yes, if a feminist means someone who stands up for women's rights, says Mufti Abu Layth; Aisha did, including by rejecting misattributed hadith.
machine4 min 47 s36:32on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Did the Prophet Muhammad ever kill anyone himself?
Mufti Abu Layth is not aware of such a killing and doubts the usual example, though it may have happened in battle; the Prophet's battles were all defensive in essence.
machine1 min 53 s40:56on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Was Aisha really 48 when she married the Prophet?
No: he has never heard of 48, but says it is clear Aisha was in her late teens to about twenty when she married, not six or nine.
machine2 min 25 s52:50on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Where did the idea that Aisha was six or nine come from?
Mufti Abu Layth says the six-and-nine narration seems to originate with Aisha's nephew Urwa, countering rumours spread against her, and that every chain runs through him.
machine4 min 19 s54:44on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Was Aisha Abu Bakr's sister rather than his daughter?
No, she was definitely Abu Bakr's daughter; her being in her twenties during the Prophet's lifetime fits her personality, not her being fifty.
machine3 min 04 s1:04:13on YouTube
14 Jul 2020live stream
Isn't the Prophet clearing the Kaaba of idols a precedent for the Hagia Sophia?
No: removing the idols from the Kaaba was about ending superstition, and cannot justify converting a museum in a secular country, which he calls a political stunt.
machine2 min 36 s1:47:58on YouTube
10 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What is Imran Hosein's approach, and why did he disagree with Israr Ahmed?
Mufti Abu Layth praises Imran Hosein's stand on the age of Aisha but finds his outlook almost conspiratorial; the guest says Imran Hosein and Israr Ahmed fell out over eschatology.
machine4 min 54 s9:38on YouTube
3 Jul 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How reliable is the story of the first revelation in the cave?
The guest doubts the historicity of the cave story, attributing it to al-Zuhri; Mufti Abu Layth says he would take the whole description with a pinch of salt.
machine5 min 38 s57:30on YouTube
26 Jun 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Are any hadith genuine, and what about reports confirmed by history?
The guest says even genuine sayings of the Prophet are not religion and that the hadith paint contradictory portraits of him. Mufti Abu Layth agrees that the Mi'raj negotiation, the child-marriage report and the Uraynah torture reports are false narrations.
machine7 min 57 s41:00on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
How old was Aisha when she married the Prophet?
Writers such as Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood and Jamal Badawi conclude that Aisha was in her teens, and the report that her sister Asma died at a hundred in the year 73 puts her at about eighteen when she moved in with the Prophet. The guest explains the hadith's six and nine as numbers exaggerated downwards, as Khadija's forty was exaggerated upwards.
machine8 min 55 s33:52on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Why do the circumstances of the Prophet's marriage rule out a six-year-old Aisha?
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.
machine6 min 34 s41:29on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
Is questioning Aisha's age just an attempt to please non-Muslims?
The guest says he once made the same accusation, but came to see that a girl of nine is not fit for marriage and that Muslims themselves do not marry girls at that age. A report being in Bukhari does not make it the final word, since scholars have always differed with Bukhari where something more authentic exists.
machine6 min 30 s49:19on YouTube
22 Apr 2020MindTrap with Mufti Abu Layth
What does the Quran mean by 'what your right hands possess', and did the Prophet have a concubine?
The guest reads the Quran's 'right-hand possessions' as a category of wife who was not free, since 4:25 speaks of marrying slave girls, and thinks Mariya al-Qibtiyya may have been a wife misunderstood as a concubine. Mufti Abu Layth says Mariya was a wife, as he has taught, and that under trajectory hermeneutics slavery would have become haram.
machine7 min 13 s1:42:42on YouTube
7 Apr 2020video
Does the Mufti teach disrespect for the Prophet?
No: he says he has repeatedly defended the Prophet, denying that he married a child and rejecting narrations he finds insulting. Those accusing him took none of these stances.
machine4 min 27 s8:19on YouTube
8 Mar 2020From the Mind of a Mufti
Did the Prophet marry his cousin?
Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet's marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh, a relative only through her mother, is unlike families where everyone marries cousins; he also says marriage without a wali is valid.
machine3 min 37 s2:16on YouTube
2019 · 4
31 Dec 2019On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Did angels really fight at the Battle of Badr?
Mufti Abu Layth says many take the angelic help at Badr as symbolic language for strengthened resolve, and the companions' later descriptions as storytelling or what they felt they saw.
machine7 min 42 s0:00on YouTube
31 Dec 2019On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Were the angels at Badr actually Persian knights?
Mufti Abu Layth finds the theory that Persian knights summoned by Salman al-Farisi were taken for angels at Badr interesting but most likely untrue, and harmless even if true.
machine7 min 24 s7:42on YouTube
19 Sep 2019Responding to Refutations
How old was Aisha when she married the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth says the report that Aisha was six or nine is false and that she was in her late teens, about seventeen to nineteen. Promoting the child-marriage story and then taking offence at the charge of paedophilia is irresponsible.
machine4 min 27 s2:30on YouTube
19 Sep 2019Responding to Refutations
Are the hadith about Aisha's young age authentic?
Mufti Abu Layth says every chain for Aisha's young age is flawed, resting on narrators accused of tadlis and all going back to Urwa. Those who defend them put al-Bukhari's sanctity above the Prophet's honour.
machine6 min 10 s6:57on YouTube
2018 · 35
30 Nov 2018Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Was Aisha really nine, as Yaqeen Institute concluded?
Mufti Abu Layth rejects the conclusion that Aisha was six at marriage and nine at its consummation, saying such a marriage would be morally abhorrent and did not happen. He disputes the claim that the question is not a moral one and says the chains of the report are unreliable.
machine6 min 33 s0:00on YouTube
30 Nov 2018Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Why was a marriage suggested to the Prophet after the year of sorrow?
After the year of sorrow, Khawla suggested the Prophet marry and named Aisha and Sawda. Mufti Abu Layth says a wife was meant to help him with the home and children, companionship, intimacy and his mission.
machine3 min 54 s6:33on YouTube
30 Nov 2018Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
What evidence suggests Aisha was older than nine when she married?
Mufti Abu Layth argues that a six-year-old could not have been the help the Prophet needed, and that the battle reports, her earlier engagement, her age at death and her memory of a Makkan verse point to her being at least seventeen.
machine5 min 16 s10:27on YouTube
30 Nov 2018Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Why do some scholars still insist Aisha was nine?
Lacking an earlier authority is no reason to keep the young age, since medieval scholars also accepted slavery and other rulings no one would defend today. No hadith gives certain knowledge, so an inconclusive report that blemishes the Prophet's honour is rejected.
machine4 min 36 s15:43on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Was the Prophet Muhammad poisoned, and did he die from it?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet did not die of poisoning. The report in Bukhari that he felt the poison cutting his aorta in his final illness is, in his view, a fabricated story that contradicts itself and fails on its chain.
machine3 min 25 s0:01on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
How can the same poison kill one companion at once and the Prophet three years later?
The story contradicts itself: the companion who ate the food died at once, so the same poison cannot have killed the Prophet three years later, and the Prophet in Muslim's version says Allah would not let the woman do it.
machine3 min 42 s6:49on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Does the hadith that the Prophet died of poison contradict the Quran?
Yes, in Mufti Abu Layth's view: the Quran promises that Allah will protect the Prophet from the people, and it describes cutting the aorta as the punishment for one who forges revelation, so a report that the Prophet died that way humiliates him.
machine2 min 16 s10:31on YouTube
17 Sep 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Why should Muslims reject the hadith that the Prophet died of poison?
Following Imam Malik, a hadith that contradicts the overall message of the Quran is set aside; Mufti Abu Layth rules the poisoning report false on chain and content and says that calling the Prophet's death a poisoning insults Islam, God and the Prophet.
machine6 min 04 s12:47on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
What does Mufti Abu Layth say about the Bukhari report of the Prophet falling unconscious when he uncovered himself?
The Bukhari report that the Prophet removed his izar while carrying stones for the Kaaba, fell unconscious and was never seen naked again is, in Mufti Abu Layth's words, nonsense that disrespects the Prophet, and he dismisses the scholars' attempts to soften it.
machine2 min 39 s10:23on YouTube
1 Sep 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Does Sahih al-Bukhari say the Prophet pointed to Aisha's house as the source of fitna?
The Bukhari report in which the Prophet points to Aisha's house and says the fitna and the horn of Shaytan will rise there is, Mufti Abu Layth says, disrespectful to the Prophet and to Aisha, and Muslims should question what they pass off as authentic.
machine1 min 20 s28:43on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Problematic reports in Bukhari: the Isra, Moses and the rock, magic on the Prophet
Several reports in Bukhari are factually wrong or disrespectful: the Isra dated before prophethood, a woman spurning the Prophet, Moses chasing a rock, a verse corrected on the spot, and magic making the Prophet forget intercourse. He also holds the night journey to have been a vision.
machine9 min 39 s18:23on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
The marriage to Aisha at six: consent, and the command to pray at seven
The report that the Prophet married Aisha at six dishonours him: Bukhari itself requires a virgin's consent, which a six-year-old cannot give, and the command to separate children's beds at ten contradicts the claim that a nine-year-old had a woman's body.
machine7 min 52 s36:02on YouTube
30 Aug 2018BukhariGate: Issues with Sahih al-Bukhari
Replies to critics: Jonathan Brown, academic dialogue, going public, the Aisha debate
The problems with Bukhari should be discussed openly, because hiding them is what makes people lose faith. He finds Jonathan Brown's response emotional rather than academic and will take up the debate on Aisha's age.
machine7 min 57 s1:40:37on YouTube
3 Aug 2018Responding to Refutations
Why does Mufti Abu Layth call the Sunni Defence channel blasphemous?
Mufti Abu Layth says the group's own words, asking what is wrong with the Prophet being sexually impotent and defending the report of Musa running naked, are blasphemous. That, he says, is why he described them as he did.
machine3 min 50 s0:00on YouTube
10 May 2018Ponderings on the Holy Quran
Did the Prophet ever execute anyone for leaving Islam?
The Prophet never executed anyone for disbelief or apostasy: he spared the hypocrite Abdullah ibn Ubayy, traded with Jews until his death, did not act against Ibn Sayyad and pardoned Abdullah ibn Abi Sarh.
machine3 min 53 s11:49on YouTube
22 Apr 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Why did the Prophet say women should not travel without a mahram?
For their safety: Mufti Abu Layth says the limits tracked how far the safe zone around Madinah reached, widening as treaties spread, not a rule to confine women.
machine4 min 27 s23:01on YouTube
22 Apr 2018Clarifying False Hadith Which Insult Islam
Did the Prophet foresee women travelling alone safely?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth cites the Prophet's prophecy to Adi ibn Hatim of a lone woman travelling from Iraq to Makkah, which Adi lived to see.
machine3 min 11 s27:28on YouTube
9 Apr 2018The Voice of Reason in Islam
Should loyalty to Sahih al-Bukhari outweigh how a report presents the Prophet?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says loyalty belongs to the Prophet, not to al-Bukhari, and cites the age-of-Aisha report, which he holds untrue and disrespectful since Arabs of the time did not marry girls that young, as an example of what must be re-examined.
machine2 min 31 s1:23:36on YouTube
8 Mar 2018Quick Fiqh!
Do Muslim women have to wear the niqab?
Mufti Abu Layth does not consider the niqab part of the religion: it is a cultural measure, sensible only where a woman's safety requires it, and in the West he thinks it should not be worn. The screen rules for the Prophet's wives were specific to them.
machine10 min 32 s0:37on YouTube
28 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Reactions to his Safiyya narrative, and the parable of the wife who is never pleased
Mufti Abu Layth notes that his account of Safiyya was mostly well received, but some critics still found fault, which he illustrates with the story of a wife who cannot be pleased.
machine2 min 27 s0:01on YouTube
28 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
Did the Prophet marry Safiyya on the same night she was captured?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says Safiyya was a Muslim when the Prophet married her and so had to observe a waiting period, which rules out a marriage on the night of her capture.
machine2 min 38 s2:28on YouTube
21 Feb 2018Responding to Refutations
What does he say to critics who accept that the Prophet was impotent, married a nine-year-old or was bewitched into clumsiness?
Mufti Abu Layth says these claims are untrue attacks on the Prophet's honour, resting on reports whose chains he has shown to be defective, and that critics who affirm them to win an argument are themselves being blasphemous. He adds that he does not support capital punishment for such speech.
machine6 min 14 s42:14on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Did the Prophet take Safiyya the night her husband was killed, as the Tommy Robinson clip claims?
No: Mufti Abu Layth says the story conceded by the Muslim debater is false and that, as described, it would be rape, so conceding it and arguing over the word is indefensible. Muslims who have not studied Islamic history should not debate these subjects.
machine5 min 12 s0:00on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Who was Safiyya and why did the Muslims march on Khaybar?
Safiyya was the daughter of Huyayy ibn Akhtab, a chief of Banu Nadir at Khaybar who had organised the coalition against Madinah, while her uncle was a Muslim. After Hudaybiyya the Prophet marched on Khaybar's fortresses, which fell after weeks of fighting in which about eighty Muslims died.
machine3 min 54 s5:12on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
What is the common story about how the Prophet married Safiyya?
The circulated story is that after Khaybar the Prophet executed Safiyya's husband and father, took her from Dihya al-Kalbi for her beauty, gave her the choice of slavery or marriage and consummated it that night. Mufti Abu Layth says every part of this is false.
machine2 min 31 s9:06on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Why do the hadith about Safiyya's marriage contradict each other?
Nearly all the reports come through one companion, Anas ibn Malik, who was a teenager at Khaybar and died decades later, and they contradict each other on almost every detail, so none can be taken as it stands. Only two facts are certain: Safiyya left with the Muslims and later became the Prophet's wife.
machine7 min 52 s11:37on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Could the Prophet have married Safiyya right after Khaybar?
No: she was a widow and the Quran requires a waiting period of four months and ten days, so a marriage at Khaybar would contradict the Quran. The companions only assumed a marriage because they saw the Prophet veil her and took a victory meal for a wedding feast.
machine5 min 15 s19:29on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Why was Safiyya bruised when she came to the Prophet after Khaybar?
Safiyya had told her husband Kinana she dreamt a moon fell into her lap; he accused her of wanting Muhammad and beat her, leaving her eye bruised when she came before the Prophet. Her uncle was a long-standing Muslim and she had spoken well of the Prophet before.
machine2 min 37 s24:44on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Why did Safiyya ride with the Prophet on the way back from Khaybar?
Because others were abusing her, the Prophet freed her and had her ride with him, laying out a cloth and offering his knee for her to mount, and covering her with his cloak when the camel fell. Mufti Abu Layth says this was kindness, not a marriage.
machine2 min 36 s27:21on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Where did Safiyya live when she first came to Madinah?
She did not live with the Prophet but was lodged with Umm Sulaym and others, and the Prophet rebuked Aisha and others who called her 'that Jew'. The feast on the road was a victory meal, not a wedding, and she embraced Islam in the months that followed.
machine2 min 38 s29:57on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
When and how did Safiyya actually marry the Prophet?
She embraced Islam in the months after Khaybar, became interested in the Prophet herself and married him with her consent, not on the night of the battle. Abu Hurayra reported that nothing was taken from Khaybar but clothing, cattle and sheep.
machine2 min 38 s32:35on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
How should Muslims judge hadith that say the Prophet took Safiyya on the night of Khaybar?
Weigh them against the Quran and the Prophet's character: the story contradicts the widow's waiting period, the verse on no compulsion and everything known of his conduct, and all its versions come from one conflicting source. Mufti Abu Layth says relaying it is a lie against the Prophet and the picture it draws is rape.
machine5 min 12 s35:13on YouTube
21 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
If the Safiyya story is in Sahih al-Bukhari, why question it?
Because Bukhari's own narrations of the incident conflict, all rest on Anas, and Anas himself says nobody witnessed a marriage and they only assumed one from her being veiled. Earlier scholars were great but shaped by their times, and loyalty to them should not come before the Prophet's honour.
machine5 min 09 s40:25on YouTube
9 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
Are some hadith about the Prophet actually blasphemous?
Yes: Mufti Abu Layth says reports that the Prophet married a nine-year-old, was bewitched or became impotent are the real blasphemy, and urges scholars to denounce them.
machine7 min 41 s18:41on YouTube
9 Feb 2018On the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ
How old was Aisha when she married the Prophet?
Mufti Abu Layth holds that the evidence shows Aisha married in her late teens, and warns that reports of a child marriage feed Islamophobes.
machine2 min 30 s26:22on YouTube
2017 · 10
29 Sep 2017From the Mind of a Mufti
Is it Islamic to name and shame someone for a sin?
Naming and shaming a person for a sin is a modern tabloid practice with no basis in the Prophet's example, who addressed wrongdoing without naming anyone. Those acting as haram police are mostly unqualified, and Mufti Abu Layth notes they ignore rulings that apply to themselves.
machine3 min 56 s15:41on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The question, Mufti Abu Layth's thesis and premise one: dating in an oral culture
Mufti Abu Layth holds that Aisha married in her late teens, not at six or nine. His first premise is that the early Arabs kept no precise dates, so ages and years in reports often conflict.
machine9 min 08 s7:50on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The reality: the year of sorrow and the proposal to Aisha
Marriage was proposed to the Prophet in the year of sorrow as support and companionship, which Mufti Abu Layth says makes no sense if Aisha was six. A prior engagement and a fear she would convert her fiance also point to an older girl.
machine13 min 08 s33:58on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The reports: Bukhari's six and nine against three other Bukhari reports
The six-and-nine report conflicts with three other Bukhari reports: Aisha as a jariyah at an early revelation, her memory of her parents' Islam and Abu Bakr's migration, and her presence at Uhud when a fourteen-year-old boy was refused.
machine10 min 31 s47:06on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The reports: Hisham's Iraqi transmission, Madinan silence and Asma's age
The six-and-nine report rests on Hisham ibn Urwa's later Iraqi transmission and no Madinan compiler carries it. Asma's reported age makes Aisha about eighteen at her marriage.
machine5 min 12 s57:37on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
The ramifications: jurists on marrying a minor, and the conclusion
Aisha was in her late teens, most likely eighteen or nineteen, Mufti Abu Layth concludes. Jurists from early on held marriage impermissible with a girl incapable of it, and the Ottomans set a minimum age of fifteen.
machine11 min 49 s1:02:49on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Which books argue that Aisha was in her late teens when she married the Prophet?
Several works argue Aisha was in her late teens, including ones by Habib al-Rahman Kandhlawi, Salah al-Din al-Idlibi and Khalid al-Jundi. Mufti Abu Layth has read them and the refutations written against them.
machine2 min 38 s1:14:38on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Why is Aisha's age only being questioned now, and is it just to appease the West?
The age was treated as an issue historically through rulings against marrying girls incapable of marriage, and it is prominent now because Islam faces more scrutiny. Mufti Abu Layth rejects the report with certainty and calls the appeasement charge preposterous.
machine10 min 25 s1:18:33on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
Doesn't the hadith about Aisha playing with dolls show she was a child?
The word 'play' is also used of adults, and the detailed figures described in the report read as figurines rather than a child's toys. The report does not show Aisha was a child.
machine3 min 55 s1:38:13on YouTube
11 Jan 2017Mothers of the Believers: The Wives of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ
If Aisha's age is a problem, aren't polygamy and the Prophet's wars problems too?
Polygamy and the Prophet's wars are not irrational and differ from marrying a child, where consent is impossible. Mufti Abu Layth says the Prophet remains a perfect role model and that he does not accept Aisha was that age.
machine5 min 12 s1:55:11on YouTube