Marriages of Rusool Allah (saw)

Rusool Allah (saw) was known as chaste in an environment that was corrupt, and the reason why this is important to mention is because the professional enemies of Islam, try to attack Rusool Allah (saw) as a person. They talk about his marriage to Aisha (ra), they say that he married 12 women and they try to accuse Muhammed (saw) of being a womanizer. So let’s look at the marriage life of Rusool Allah (saw).

1.           In an environment where adultery and fornication was widespread. There was this hadith narrated by Aisha, in which she talks about the four different types of relationships that existed between men and women at that time. One was the traditional marriage, legal brothels in Mecca which had flags for anybody who is interested, another type was where a woman could sleep with a group of men upto 10 and then if she becomes pregnant then she can call these men and choose anyone to be the father, they also had a relationship in which a man would allow his wife to sleep with another man for noble lineage.

      So it was quite a corrupt environment, Rusool Allah (saw) managed to stay away from any kind of relationship till the age of 25.

2.           At the age of 25, he chooses to marry a woman, who is 15 years older than himself, and she is a widow, or divorced. Rusool Allah (saw) being a member of a noble family could have chosen for himself any woman in Mecca. If he was interested in these desires, he would have chosen for himself a young woman to marry, rather than marry a lady who is 15 years older than him.

3.           Rusool Allah (saw) remains with Khadija (ra) until the age of 50. We know that men with strong desires towards a woman would be from a young age till around the age of 50. That is when the desire remains the strongest. Rusool Allah (saw) remained only married to Khadija (ra) till she was alive, and lived a very happy married life with her. So for Rusool Allah (saw) to be only married to Khadija from the age of 25 to 50 completely destroys any absurd accusations.

4.           After Khadija (ra) passed away, Rusool Allah (saw) remained a bachelor for 2-3 years. Later on he marries another widow, Sawdah (ra). The reasons for him marrying her, was because Sawdah (ra) was in Abyssinia, she came back to Mecca and her husband passed away. Rusool Allah (saw) out of his care for his companions married her. Sawdah (ra) too was very old in age, we know this because later on in Medina, Sawdah (ra) ended up giving up her night to Aisha (ra), because she was very old.

5.      Umm e Habiba (ra), she is the one who migrated to Abyssinia, and her husband Ubaidah bin Jahsh converted to Christianity, and she went through a miserable time being the daughter of Abu Sufyan.   Later on her husband passed away, Rusool Allah (saw) sent a letter with Amr bin Umayya Ad Dhamri, to An-Najashi, asking An-Najashi to marry him (saw) to Umm e Habiba (ra). Rusool Allah (saw) wanted to marry her, because he (saw) had sympathy for her, he (saw) wanted to marry her even though she was hundreds of miles of away. He (saw) wanted to take care of her, and also she was the daughter of Abu Sufyan, so Rusool Allah (saw) wanted to bring the staunchest enemies of Allah closer to Islam, he wanted to soften their stance. When Abu Sufyan heard of his daughter’s marriage to Rusool Allah (saw), he was happy that this marriage took place even though he was the leader of the Quraish. He said, “And who is better to marry than Muhammed (saw).” Abu Sufyan knew the lineage of Muhammed (saw), and that is how he looked at it. He was proud that his daughter is married to a member of Banu Hashim. His issue with Muhammed (saw) was because of religion, so that softened Abu Sufyan.

6.      Another marriage was to Umm e Salama (ra). Umm e Salama (ra) also was one of the ones, who made hijrah to Abyssinia, when they came back they went to Medina. Later on Abu Salama passed away; Rusool Allah (saw) married Umm e Salama. So he would take care of the wives of his companions who died; these are old women but Muhammed (saw) is the father of this ummah. He (saw) was a caretaker of this ummah, even though he didn’t have a direct blood-relation with anyone, he (saw) still felt that he’s their father. He would take care of the needy, the hungry, and the helpless.

     Within the last ten years of Rusool Allah (saw), he ended up marrying many women, to the extent that when he died he left behind nine widows. So why did this change occur?

1.           To forge alliances with different tribes. The Messenger of Allah (saw) devoted ALL his efforts for the promotion of Islam. Everything that he would do, even his decisions in marriage would be based on the benefit of Islam. Whatever Rusool Allah (saw) did in his life was to promote the religion of Allah, he wouldn’t do anything to purely satisfy his desires.

     So Muhammed (saw) often married to bring different tribes closer to Islam, like in his (saw) marriage to Juwairiya. The entire tribe of Banul Mustaliq ended becoming Muslim.

2.      Caring for his companions: like the example we gave of Sawdah (ra).

3.           Rusool Allah (saw) wanted to strengthen his ties, with his closest companions. Rusool Allah (Saw) had a strong brotherly feeling towards his companions, so he (saw) wanted to add family ties to this Islamic brotherhood. Rusool Allah (saw) and his (saw) companions were together in moments of ease and hardships, they had spent time on the battlefields, and traveled together.

     So Rusool Allah (saw) married the daughter of Abu Bakr (ra) and he (saw) married the daughter of Umer bin Khattab (ra). Rusool Allah (saw) wedded his own daughter to Uthman bin affan, and when this daughter of Rusool Allah (saw) passed away, he wedded Usman (ra) to another of his daughters. Later she passed away, Rusool Allah (saw) said, “If I had 99 daughters, I would marry them to Uthman bin Affan one after another.” And Rusool Allah (saw) married his daughter Fatima (ra) to Ali bin Abu Talib. So now he had family ties with all 4 khalifa.

4.           Conveying the religion: We are to follow the sunnah of Rusool Allah (saw). He had a sunnah as a statesman, as a teacher, as an Imam, as a military leader, as a family man, as a husband! We have 100s of companions to narrate to us what sort of a leader he was, or how he was at battlefields, or as a teacher or an Imam. But how many do we have to tell us how his family life was? Rusool Allah (saw) did not have many children that survived, only Fatima.

     So who would convey to us his family life? His wives of course, if Rusool Allah (saw) only had one wife,

·        it would be very difficult for her to recall every aspect of the family life, if one forgets the other rmembers.

·         Since she is only one, she could have been easily discredited, because there is only one source. There are many vicious attacks being directed at Abu Huraira (ra), because the enemies of islam know that if they destroy the credibility of Abu Huraira (ra) then they can easily destroy over 5000 saying of Rusool Allah (saw).

·        The family life of Rusool Allah (saw) is one of the most important aspects of his sunnah because it relates to everyone of us. Not every one of us, will be an Imam, or a statesman, or a teacher. But almost every person in the ummah will be a member of a family. So how will they learn how to conduct their lives with their family without knowing how Rusool Allah (saw) was with his (saw) family?

     Therefore had many wives, so they could convey to us this body of knowledge of how Rusool Allah (saw) acted in his private life. Many of the sunnah narrated relating to how Rusool Allah (saw) ate, sat, treated his servants, spend his nights, or how he treated his wives were narrated by his wives.