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The wives of the Prophet
29 segments in 13 recordings · 2018 to 2021 · 0 verified · 20 checked positions · history/sirah/wives-of-the-prophet · Feed
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Click a year to jump to itLatest answer · 5 Jan 2021
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
Earlier answers · 28 · newest first
2021 · 1
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 · 10
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
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
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
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
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
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
2018 · 17
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
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
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 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.
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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