A question to Muslims: age of Aisha when she married the Prophet?

Question

I am reading a Lebanese book about the Prophet's wives and daughters. It says that when he married Aisha she was six. Could pls someone Muslim clarify this? should this be taken literally or it is just to say that she was pretty young? thank you for your help.

Answer 1

She was six but the marriage was consummated when she was nine. In her own words in the hadiths.

Sahih Bukhari

Narrated Aisha: The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, "Best wishes and Allah's Blessing and a good luck." Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah's Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. Volume 5, Book 58, Number 234

Narrated 'Aisha: I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah's Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for 'Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.) (Fateh-al-Bari page 143, Vol.13) Volume 8, Book 73, Number 151

Answer 2

Muslims could make it much less complicated on themselves in the event that they renowned that the Hadiths are fake..yet they do no longer. If Aisha improve into some significant interior the life of the Prophet, then why improve into she no longer pronounced interior the Quran? So possibly Mohammad under no circumstances married a six year previous newborn...yet Muslims glorify Mohammad for having intercourse with a 9 year previous newborn; yet having pronounced that, in addition they glorify him for committing homicide and marrying the spouse of a guy he had killed. i don't comprehend the reasoning of Muslims here; could the only genuine God sanctify the marriage of a 50 year previous guy to a six year previous newborn? could the only genuine God command Mohammad to kill a guy then marry his spouse? i do no longer think of so.

Answer 3

According to saheeh (the most sound) Bukhari hadeeth narrated by Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) herself she was 6 when they married, 9 (this would be the age she 'became a woman'~got her period) when she went to live with him and the marriage was consummated.

Answer 4

I am stunned by some answers here and I believe some of the authors are sincere.I cannot believe that Mohamed was a prophet like the others, especially Jesus.

Answer 5

well, some have answered this but don't get it wrong. How old was Mary when she became pregnant with Jesus. 20-30? NO! She was 11-14 years old. It was common back then to marry in early age. At 40 they were old enough. You are talking about a culture one millennium, 4 centuries and two decades old.

Answer 6

6.

Girls still get married in Afghanistan as young as age 4 to this very day.

Answer 7

Better yet, I can give you the actual scripture from the most popular Islamic website:

“the prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old” http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/sunnah/bukhari/062.sbt.html#007.062.064

Muhammad was in his fifties. Muslims often excuse Muhammad's pedophilia by claim that "everyone did it back then" but under Islam, everything Muhammad did doesnt just apply to "back then", its applys today, and is considered the very best conduct for all humans to follow...forever!

However, its also false to imply that "back then" every old man married a little child. While it was common for young to marry young...I know of no culture of that time, outside Islam, where it was common for old men to marry children.

Answer 8

she was 9. At 6 she was about to marry someone else, then a mutual friend of her's and the Prophet's (Khola) said that they would be a good match, and Aisha agreed to marry the Prophet , they didn't actually get married until she was 9 though. She had hit Puberty, which according to Islamic teaching: if a woman or a man hit Puberty then he/she have the option to marry if they Want to. So as it was her wish, she was according to islam, and the customs of that time, legally able to. Their marraige was a perfect one, Aisha has told numerious Hadith about the Prophet, and she never spoke anything negative about him. The Prophet had initially Married Khadija who was MUCH older than him, she was his boss at work, and he was about 15 years old (she was around twice his age), after she died the Prophet (pbuh) married Aisha as she was at that time legally legitimate for marraige, and she had shown her consensus. Btw Aisha was already engaged to someone else before the Prophet, but she chose him instead. Remember Societies think that they are fit to judge what is right and what is wrong, and yet we see everyday that these values that we judge upon change, before Islam had come girls who had not even hit puberty yet would be Forced into Marraige, Islam gave women of that era rights that they had never known before, there was not A single woman in Arabia who stayed single after she hit puberty, that was the rule of that time, Aisha first had to become an Adult (according to the Law at that time that meant to hit Puberty) and when she did she was able to marry whomever she wanted to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNgqqtXIBxI

Answer 9

She was a supposedly precocious 9, and the marriage was arranged by her cunning and brilliant father Abu-Bakr, close adviser to Muhammad, at her urging. Brilliant in the politics of her day, her father trained her to hate and take a pivotal role in keeping Ali, Muhammad's cousin/son-in-law, out of the role assigned to him by Muhammad -- that of succeeding Muhammad -- as Abu-Bakr was of the Umayyad clan, traditional enemies of the Banu-Hashim, the clan of Muhammad and Ali. She must have been a spit-fire.

By comparison Chinese promised in marriage their children before birth to other carefully chosen families. After weaning, daughters were married into the husband's family to be properly raised for him. Rich old Chinese men often married very young girls, as long as they had reached puberty. Arabs weren't the only people in history to marry very young people.

Answer 10

I did hear that, but I also heard that he did that to give her a home and a lifestyle because she was poor.