This is soo goot.thanks for the god read.

--- amy jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thought this would make an interesting read, during
> this month of Ramadan.
>
> Amy
>
>
>
> Author:  AbdurRahman R. Squires
>
>
> The marriage of the Prophet Muhammad  to  'Aishah
> bint Abu Bakr when she was at quite a young age has
> been the focus of quite a bit of criticism in the
> West.  Unfortunately, in this Neo-Colonialist Age of
>  smart bombs, MTV, CNN and the Big Mac, some of
> those who profess to be Muslims have themselves
> become critics.  Many Muslims, faced with the
> juggernaut of allegedly "universal"  Western liberal
> values that have permeated almost everyone around
> them, sheepishly avoid discussion of such
> "embarrassing" Islamic issues.  It is a keenly true
> observation that even though the European powers
> have pulled their colonial armies out of Muslim
> lands and granted them "independence", an even worse
> plague continues.  This curse is "Colonialism of the
> Mind" and it is more dangerous since it is much more
> subtle.  Insha'llah, this article will be a
> contribution to making both Muslims and non-Muslims
> aware of not only the objective facts regarding the
> Prophet's  marriage to 'Aishah, but how to
>  understand it in light of Islam and life in the
> "modern" world.
> Regrettably, for those of us trying to spread the
> truth of Islam in the West, we often have to agree
> with the Orientalist W. Montgomery Watt when he
> wrote:  "Of all the world's great men none has been
> so much maligned as Muhammad."1  But here, for a
> change, were are dealing with something that is an
> authentic part of Islamic history, not an apocryphal
> or fabricated event that Westerners have been duped
> into believing is authentic, such as the so-called
> "Satanic Verses" incident.  That a man in his
> fifties would marry such a young girl—especially a
> man who is supposed to be a living example of
> piety—is not only difficult for many "modern"
> Westerners to come to terms with, but it has even
> gone so far as to stir up disgusting "sexual
> misconduct" charges amongst them.  In the face of
> such criticism, Muslims have not always reacted
> well.  In the past century, when so many Muslims
> were so "Westoxicated" and ready to monkey Europeans
> in almost anything, the usual reaction was to deny
> the
>  sources that reported the alleged "embarrassing
> problem".  To Muslim "modernists", who argued that
> ONLY a legal ruling found in the Qur'an was
> Islamically valid, brushing aside this aspect of the
> Prophet's life was rather easy.  They simply denied
> that it had occurred and attacked the sources which
> reported it.  Fortunately for Muslims, the
> apologetics of these "Uncle Toms of Islam" has faded
> into the periphery to a large extent.  However,
> there are still many Muslims out there who try to
> get around what they see as a problem by ignoring
> authentic Islamic sources while claiming to be
> followers of the Ahl as-Sunnah. (which basically
> means "orthodox Sunni" Muslims, for those unfamiliar
> Islamic terminology).  Many other Muslims possibly
> wonder whether the story is authentic and how to
> understand it if it is.
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> THE ISLAMIC EVIDENCE OF 'AISHAH'S AGE
> ---------------------------------
>
> Due to the apparent ignorance of many Muslims,
> possibly due to reading "modernist" apologetic
> literature like that mentioned above, a look at what
> the authentic sources of Islam say about the age at
> which 'Aishah  married the Prophet  is in order.
> This way, before we move on to an analysis of the
> facts, we will first establish what the authentic
> Islamic facts are.  At this point, it should be
> mentioned that it is absolutely pointless from an
> Islamic standpoint to say that the age of 'Aishah is
> "not found in the Qur'an", since the textual sources
> of Islam are made up of BOTH the Qur'an and the
> Sunnah - and the Qur'an tells us that.  For those
> wanting (or needing) to learn more about the status
> of the Sunnah in Islam, please read An Introduction
> to the Sunnah and/or The Sunnah and Its Position in
> Islamic Law.   Now in regards to what the authentic
> Islamic sources actually say, it may come as a
> disappointment to some "modern" and "cultured"
> Muslims that there are four ahadith in Saheeh
>  al-Bukhari and three ahadith in Saheeh Muslim which
> clearly state that 'Aishah was "nine years old"  at
> the time that her marriage was consummated with the
> Prophet .  These ahadith, with only slight
> variation, read as follows: 'Aishah, may God be
> pleased with her, narrated that the Prophet  was
> betrothed (zawaj) to her when she was six years old
> and he consummated (nikah) his marriage when she was
> nine years old, and then she remained with him for
> nine years.  (Saheeh al-Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62,
> Number 64)Of the four ahadith in Saheeh al-Bukhari,
> two were narrated from 'Aishah (7:64 and  7:65), one
> from Abu Hishaam (5:236) and one via  'Ursa (7:88).
>  All three of the ahadith in Saheeh Muslim have
> 'Aishah as a narrator.  Additionally, all of the
> ahadith in both books agree that the marriage
> betrothal contract took place when 'Aishah was "six
> years old", but was not consummated until she was
> "nine years old".  Additionally, a hadeeth with
> basically the same text (matn) is reported
>  in Sunan Abu Dawood.  Needless to say, this
> evidence is—Islamically speaking—overwhelmingly
> strong and Muslims who deny it do so only by
> sacrificing their intellectual honesty, pure faith
> or both.
> This evidence having been established, there doesn't
> seem much room for debate about 'Aishah's age
> amongst believing Muslims. Until someone proves that
> in the Arabic language "nine years old" means
> something other than "nine years old", then we
> should all be firm in our belief that she was "nine
> years old"  (as if there's a reason or need to
> believe otherwise!?!).  In spite of these facts,
> there are still some Muslim authors that have
> somehow (?) managed to push 'Aishah's age out to as
> far as "fourteen or fifteen years old" at the time
> of her marriage to the Prophet .  It should come as
> no surprise, however, that none of them ever offer
> any proof, evidence or references for their
> opinions.  This can be said with the utmost
> confidence, since certainly none of them can produce
> sources more authentic than the hadeeth collections
> of Imams al-Bukhari and Muslim!  Based on the
> research that I've done, I feel that there is a
> common source for those who claim that 'Aishah's age
> was "fourteen
>  or fifteen years old" at the time of the marriage.
> This source is "The Biographies of Prominent
> Muslims" which is published in book form, on CD-ROM
> and is posted in several places on the Internet.
> Just another example of why going to the sources is
> important . . .
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> THE PROPHET'S  MARRIAGES IN PERSPECTIVE
> ---------------------------------
>
> To put all of this in perspective—hopefully without
> undue apologetics—the first thing that one should be
> aware of is that 'Aishah was the third wife of the
> Prophet , not the first.  Prior to this, the
> Prophet's  first and only wife for twenty-four years
> was Khadijah bint al-Khuwaylid, who was about
> nineteen years older than him.  He married Khadijah
> when she was forty and he was twenty-one—which might
> be called the years of a male's "sexual prime"—and
> stayed married ONLY to her until her death.   Just
> after Khadijah's death, when he was round forty-six
> years old, the Prophet  married his second wife
> Sawdah bint Zam'ah.  It was after this second
> marriage that the Prophet  became betrothed to
> 'Aishah, may God be pleased with her.  She was the
> daughter of Abu Bakr, one of the Prophet's closest
> friends and devoted followers.  Abu Bakr, may God be
> pleased with him, was one of the earliest converts
> to Islam and hoped to solidify the deep love that
> existed between himself and the Prophet
>  by uniting their families in marriage.  The
> betrothal of Abu Bakr's daughter 'Aishah to Muhammad
> , took place in the eleventh year of Muhammad's
> prophethood, which was about a year after he had
> married Sawdah bint Zam'ah and before he made his
> hijra (migration) to al-Madinah (Yathrib).    As
> mentioned above, the marriage with 'Aishah bint Abu
> Bakr was consummated in Shawwal, which came seven
> months after the Prophet's hijra from Makkah to
> al-Medinah.  At the time of his marriage to
> ''Aishah, the Prophet  was over fifty years old.
> It should be noted that the Prophet's  marriage to
> 'Aishah was an exceedingly happy one for both
> parties, as the hadeeth literature attests.
> 'Aishah, may God be please with her, was his
> favourite wife and the only virgin that he ever
> married.  After emigrating to al-Madinah, Muhammad
> married numerous other wives, eventually totalling
> fifteen in his lifetime.   Even though we do not
> have time to go into the details of each one of them
> here, each of these marriages was done either for
> political reasons, to strengthen the ties of kinship
> or to help a woman in need.  Quite a few of the
> wives were widows, older women or had been abandoned
> and thus were in need of a home.  Additionally, it
> should be mentioned that the same collection of
> Muslim hadeeth literature that tells us that 'Aishah
> was
=== message truncated ===


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