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The age of Aisha
27 segments in 16 recordings · 2018 to 2025 · 0 verified · 18 checked positions · history/sirah/age-of-aisha · Feed
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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 · 26 · newest first
2021 · 2
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 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
2020 · 14
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
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
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
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
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
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
2019 · 2
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 · 8
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
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
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
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