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"Mothers of the Believers": Stereotypes of the Prophet Muhammad's Wives

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THE "MOTHERS OF THE BELIEVERS": STEREOTYPES OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD'S WIVES GHASSAN ASCHA The polygamous marriage of the Prophet Muhammad; his relationship with his wives; and what has been related about his wives' behaviour inside and outside the conjugal house: all these have had an undeniable influence on the position of women in the Islamic system. The beginnings of this development lie in Medina: in the revelation to Muhammad of the Koran, which devotes a few verses to the Prophet's wives. We will see that representatives of various intellectual tendencies still use these verses as a model in order to justify "convenient" standpoints about the position of the Moslim woman in society. We will not enter into the details of Muhammad's marriage with each of his wives. Many books, both ancient and of recent date, have been written about this subject. Some justify the reasons adduced in favour of the Prophet's marriages; others criticize those reasons. For our purposes, we will have to restrict ourselves to an enumeration of the names of Muhammad's wives and of the dates of his marriage with each of them. Against that background, we will then take a closer look at some particular aspects of their portrayal. The first marriage of Muhammad (Mecca 570 - Medina 632 A.O.) was with Khadija hint Khuwaylid, and took place in Mecca in 595. Khadija was then 40 years old; she would remain his unique wife until her death in 619. With the exception of Muhammad's concubine Mariya the Copt (who gave birth to a son who died very young), she was the only wife who gave him children (four daughters). In 620, Muhammad married again: first to Sawda hint Zamc-a, aged 20, and next to Afsha hint abi Bakr, who would come to be known as his "beloved wife". Because of Afsha's youth---she was only six years old--the marriage was not consummated before 623, after his emigration from Mecca to Medina (known as the Hijra) one year earlier. In Medina, Muhammad married also several other women: - Hafsa hint Umar ibn al-Khattab (aged 18), in 625. - Zaynab hint Khuzayma (aged 30), in 626. She died a few months later. - Umm Salama (Hind) hint al-Mughira (aged 29), in 626. - Zaynab hint Jahsh (aged 38), in 627. - Juwayriya hint al-Harith (aged 20), in 627. - Safiyya hint Huyay (aged 17), in 628. - Umm Habiba (Ramla) hint Abi Sufyan (aged 35), in 628. - Maymuna hint al-Harith (aged 27), in 629. 90 GHASSAN ASCHA Apart from these wives, who would come to be known as the "Mothers of the Believers", Muhammad also had two slave-concubines: the above-mentioned Mariya the Copt, who was presented to him by the ruler of Egypt, and Rayhana hint Zayd, a prisoner from the tribe of Qurayza1 • The Divine Intervention The Koran devotes some verses to the organization of the Prophet's life, and to the solution for some problems that occurred in relation with his wives. Two incidents have been reported which have had a direct influence on Islamic legislation. The first incident was Muhammad's marriage with Zaynab hint Jahsh, after her divorce from his adopted son, Zayd. This marriage seems to have aroused a wave of discontent among the Prophet's contemporaries in Medina. In this situation the Koran intervened to settle the matter: it legitimated this marriage while, at the same time, prohibiting the adoption: God has not ... made whom you claim to be as your sons, your sons. That is your saying of your own mouths. But God says the truth and He guides on the path. Call them after their (natural) fathers, that will be more equitable in the consideration of God (Koran, 33: 4-5/. It does not befit a believing man and woman, when God and His Messenger have decreed a matter, that they should have the choice in their affair. And whoever disobeys God and His Messenger, he then shall stray into a manifest aberration. And when you said to him on whom God had conferred blessing, and you had conferred favour, 'Keep your wife to yourself and venerate God', and you concealed within yourself what God would divulge, and you feared people, when it is God's right that you should fear Him. Then when Zaid had consummated her, We married her to you, so that there may be no sin for the believers in (marrying) the wives of their adherents if they consummated them. And God's behest is come to pass (33: 36-37). The second incident, known as "the affair of the lie" (amr al-ifk), was the accusation of adultery directed to Muhammad's wife Afsha. In 627, Afsha had accompanied the Prophet during the expedition against the tribe of Bani al­ Mustaliq. On their way back to Medina, the soldiers stopped their caravan in order to rest for part of the night. When they resumed their trip, Afsha was left behind. She did not join the others because she was looking for a necklace she had lost. The following morning, some time after the caravan had arrived in 1 For more information about Muhammad's marriages, see W.M.Wan, Muhammad at Medina, London 1968, 393-399. 2 For the translation of all Koran verses, I used M.M.Khatib (ed.) The Bounteous Koran: A Translation of Meaning and Commentary (authorized by AI-Azhar, 1984), London 1986. .
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