Aishah’s age at the time of her marriage to the Prophet has always been the subject of much discussion, with Muslims trying to justify the marriage arguing that the social and climatic conditions make it possible. It was not uncommon for old people in the Makkan society to marry young women. On the other hand, the desert climate of Arabia helped young people to attain puberty at an early age. Both points are valid, but unnecessary, because Aishah was twice the age she is always given when she was the Prophet’s bride.
Those who are hostile to Islam, particularly in our modern times that witness more determined and spiteful attacks against Islam, utilize the report that Aishah was nine years of age at the time of her marriage to paint a false image of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). I have always refrained from answering such attacks on Islam or the Prophet. To engage in refuting the accusations of people who are hostile or prejudiced is a waste of time and energy. No matter how strong the evidence we provide, their hostility and prejudice will continue to dictate their attitude. Our policy is to state the facts as they are. They provide the best refutation of such baseless accusations.
We mentioned last week that the reports of how the very idea of this marriage between Aishah and the Prophet came about provide strong evidence that she was a fully-grown woman at the time of the proposal. The marriage took place three years later. However, we may mention that Abu Bakr, Aishah’s father was 28 when he married her mother, Umm Rawman. This means that their marriage took place ten years before the start of Islamic revelations. Umm Rawman gave Abu Bakr two children, a son and a daughter. Considering the facts that the only method of birth control available at the time was coitus interruptus, which is only moderately effective, and that the Arabs prided themselves on the number of children they had, we may safely assume that Aishah was born within the first four or five years of her parents’ marriage. We need to make this assumption because the Arabs had no record of births and deaths at the time. Indeed, they had no calendar by which to date events. A new bride’s standing in her new family was often based on how quickly she got pregnant and whether she gave birth to sons. When Umm Rawman gave Abu Bakr their first child, a son named Muhammad, he would have liked another. The second pregnancy could not have been much delayed in normal circumstances. All reports suggest that Aishah was born in very normal conditions.
On this basis, if Aishah was born five years into her parents’ marriage, she would have been 19 or 20 at the time of her marriage to the Prophet. There are strong indications and various reports confirming this conclusion. I highlighted several of these on different occasions in these columns, and I have written a paper discussing the issue. Hence, we will not go into further details now. All we need to say is that the Hadith that puts Aishah’s age at nine years when she married the Prophet is questionable on more than one count. Hence, compared to the various points of evidence, some of which are based on authentic Hadiths, it cannot stand.
