Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Bismillahir rahmanir raheem. Alhamdulilahi rabbil alameen. wa ala adwani illa ala al-dhalimeen wa ala al-aqeebatu lilmuttaqeem. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa baraka ala abdika wa rasulika Muhammadin salallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim wa taslimin kathiran. So alhamdulillah we've moved into a different set up, but I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes it more beneficial, it's more conducive to a classroom environment, it is better to have people packed in, and hopefully inshaAllah ta'ala being regular in some of the classes that we have here. But obviously this is a very unique lecture that we have here tonight. It's not one that's in response to any sort of emergency, it's actually one that compliments, is meant to compliment, the collection that we just released, which has been in the works for months alhamdulilahi rabbil alameen, on the age of A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha. And the name of the collection was more than just a number. And the idea was to make sure that we don't only contextualize the age of A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha in broader context, using an interdisciplinary approach as did Asadullah, along with Dr. Brown, or looking at what the definition of a child has been, and is today, and will be in the future. But instead to actually reclaim the entire narrative about A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha. And I've told this story in the past before about an incident that I had with a woman at University of Florida, who could not come to terms or grapple with this particular issue of the age of A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha. But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed her through knowing the person of A'ishah radiAllahu anha, to actually come to Islam through that knowledge of A'ishah as a person. And actually to name her daughter A'ishah once she gave birth to A'ishah. Because one thing, if you just pay very close attention to, if you attend Jum'ah khutbahs, if you attend Islamic lectures,
the amount of mentions that A'ishah radiAllahu anha gets, is more than any woman in the lifetime of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, and as much as any man in the lifetime of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. In fact the last khutbah that I gave here, I ended off with a story about A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha, because through A'ishah we know the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, through A'ishah we know our religion, and through A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha, we develop not just a greater appreciation and love for the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, but we actually develop a greater love and appreciation for her, and she is our mother. And so I want you to, first and foremost, understand that we're talking about your mom, my mom. She is as beloved to us as our own biological mothers would be. And she is our mother because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave her that distinction, when he gave that distinction to the wives of the Messenger salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, and she is our mother in that she is the access that, had we not had, we would not know our religion in the way that we know our religion today. Can you imagine how much we'd be deprived from were it not for A'ishah radiAllahu ta'ala anha, and the wisdom of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in placing a woman like A'ishah radiAllahu anha in the life of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, and by extension in our lives through her example, and through her entrance into the example of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. So where does the debate about the age of A'ishah radiAllahu anha come into? And it's very interesting because the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam came 1450 years ago. So we're talking, you know, centuries ago. And over the years there have been different attacks on the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, and obviously there's an agenda behind the attacks on the Prophet peace be upon him,
starting from the time that he lived himself salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. And as you go through generation after generation, you see the evolution of those attacks on the person and the character of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam. This particular topic, which is a favorite talking point of Islamophobes today, was not just a minor point or a footnote in the talking points of Islamophobes over 13 centuries. It was completely non-existent. Meaning you cannot find in the hundreds and hundreds of books of attacks on the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam's character, from Quraysh to the Orientalists to the early European writers on the character of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, you cannot find a single attack on this particular facet of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam's life. Not one person takes objection to it. In fact it is not even an item for discussion within the Islamic tradition itself. There are no lengthy discourses about the age of Aisha radiAllahu anha that exist from Imam al-Ghazali or Shaykh al-Islam bin Taymiyyah. So both the defense as well as the discourse, not necessarily in the context of a defense, both of those are contemporary issues that have been brought up. So when we say not only was this not an issue in the time of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, in the 7th century where Quraysh employed every attack they possibly could on the character and the person of the Prophet peace be upon him, it was not an issue until the 21st century. Yet somehow it's become the favorite talking point to try to portray the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam in a certain way. And there are numerous ways that we can approach the issue. You can approach it and say, well look at marriages in the past. And you could point to how unfair the uniqueness of the critique of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam is in this regard,
because if you took from Christian tradition or Jewish tradition or completely secular tradition, you will find people that were married with much larger age gaps than that of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and Aisha radiAllahu anha, including for example those that believe that Maryam alayhi wa sallam was married to Joseph, and the age gap being almost twice as much as the age gap between the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and Aisha radiAllahu anha, with Maryam alayhi wa sallam being in her teens and Joseph being in his 80s. But that not being a discussion, not being an issue to be brought up. And I remember, it was interesting to me when I first started studying the biographies of people in the time of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam as a whole. And I'll never forget something that actually happened with me, and it wasn't in the context of an attack or a discourse, I was just reading in the tabaqat and the isaba about Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As. May Allah be pleased with him and his father. And it listed Amr ibn al-As and the mother of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As as 12 and 10 when Abdullah was born. And I went, hmm, that must be a typo. Then I realized it wasn't because I started cross-checking all the sources, like wait, they had 12 year old parents back then? Could you imagine a 12 year old walking around with a child? A 12 year old man and a 10 year old woman walking around in the masjid, and you'd be like, wait, what is this? That's because human beings looked so decidedly different 1400 years ago than they do today. And subhanAllah you find Imam al-Shafi'i talking about a 50 year old grandmother with a 13 year old grandson, and you're just like, what's going on here? How is this all evolving? And cases of law that took place at the time, and you realize right away that this was a very different society, and these things were spoken about without issue at all, with no discourse to accompany them whatsoever.
So the question, and the paper is doing an excellent job of talking about this from the perspective of the anthropology of it, and the sociology and psychology of what would be deemed child marriages today, but not necessarily so in the past, which is why you won't find intelligent people actually critiquing the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, on this using any type of data sets. It's just a matter of using something that they know can rock our boat a little bit. So the question, I'm not going to go into all that data because it exists in the papers, but I will say this, why frame the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, like that? Why would Islamophobes employ this tactic to frame the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, in that way? It's all about invoking a certain imagery. One that is a portrayal of vicious Muslim men that are in need of restraining. It's the same image that you get through Hollywood of angry Muslim men, angry Arab men, that are violent, old, and brutal, and abusive towards young children, particularly young girls. So it's to portray Muslim men by extension of portrayal of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, that way, as these violent men that are in need of being restrained. And it also goes to the women's side. Why frame Aisha radiyaAllahu anha as a child bride? Because it fits the portrayal of Muslim women in need of rescue. So Muslim men are inherently in need of restraint, Muslim women are inherently in need of rescue. Therefore, as part of the colonial project, portraying that entire side of the world as being bred like this, allows for us to not only attack the Muslim identity in the West, but to pillage the Muslim world in the East. So these things are intricately connected, and you cannot separate them.
And many academics have written about that, the portrayal of the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, in a certain way, that fits with the derogatory portrayals of Muslim men today. Because that is, at the end of the day, how people envision or how people encapsulate the dynamics of the Muslim world as a whole. So we then ask ourselves another why. Why do we have a problem with it? Why does it not settle with me when I hear the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, married a young Aisha radiyaAllahu anha? Why is it going to rock me? We have to be willing to, first and foremost, acknowledge our own biases, our own cultural conditioning, that every single person is hostage to the norms of the society that they live in. And that's okay. It's okay to be hostage to those norms, because that's how Allah created you. We are conditioned in certain ways based upon how we interact with the norms that are around us. The problem is not that. The problem is when we try to assign those norms to other societies. Not just back in time, but even horizontally to other societies that exist today. Because there are vastly different circumstances that exist in every single one of their societies. So why do we have a problem with it? Well, first and foremost, the issue of child marriage. To completely look at or to view child marriage in a holistic fashion. And again, child marriage as it exists today, and what child marriage meant in the time. So first and foremost, why would I have a problem with the marriage of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and Aisha radiyaAllahu anha? Well, first and foremost, why do we have a problem with child marriage? And how do we assign that dynamic to the time of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam? There is the physical dimension of that, the physical element of that.
And so the image of a child, and it is perfectly understandable and it is perfectly rational and reasonable to say that a child today, at the same age would have been an adult 1400 years ago in a different society. That people biologically and physically matured at different rates. And another thing to assign in that dimension, so again the first one is physical. Was Aisha radiyaAllahu anha pubescent? Did Aisha radiyaAllahu anha reach the age of maturity? And we know that from the ahadith of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam and from the ahadith of Aisha describing her marriage herself, that Aisha radiyaAllahu anha did indeed reach the age of maturity. That when she went to the house of the Messenger salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, she reached the one universal biological mark of a transition from childhood to adulthood. Before she went into the home of the Prophet peace be upon him. So the first one is again physical, the physical biological dynamic of it. The second one is the psychology of it. The imagery that is evoked in our minds when you think of a child marriage. You think of a young abused child, a young child whose self-esteem has been taken away. A young, quiet, blank child who does not have any way of articulating the devastation of their lives and their circumstances. And when you look at Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, what do you see? You see the exact opposite of that in both ways. Number one, the confidence she had in herself. You cannot say about Aisha radiyaAllahu anha that this was a woman that was not confident in herself. A very self-confident and assertive woman, more so than any of the wives of the Prophet peace be upon him.
The character, the confidence of Aisha radiyaAllahu anha was absolutely unmatched by any woman of her time. And the second thing is the love that she had for the Prophet peace be upon him. The way that she loved the Prophet peace be upon him, and the way that she viewed the Prophet peace be upon him, and spoke about him in glowing terms and in a loving way. The physical dimension is out. The psychological dimension is out. Another dimension in relationships that we rightfully talk about, which is the power dynamic. It evokes a certain power dynamic, and that's something that's being brought up. I'm not going to comment on Hillary Clinton's comment about Lewinsky and Bill Clinton and how there was no power dynamic there. But intelligent people would recognize a power dynamic. There's a certain power dynamic that would arise if there's an adult that's married to a child. And how do we reckon with that in the time of the Prophet peace be upon him, if Aisha was indeed, may Allah be pleased with her, a child? Well, if you study the life of Aisha and the Prophet peace be upon him, and no marriage comes under the microscope in our tradition, more so than the marriage of the Prophet peace be upon him and Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. If you were to attend any marriage seminar, or to attend any lecture in the Muslim community about emotional intelligence or about how we should be kind and generous with one another and how we deal with situations in our own marital lives, the examples that you'll go to immediately are the examples of the Prophet peace be upon him and our mother Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. And those of you that have been exposed to any of those facets of that marriage of the Prophet peace be upon him and Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, how does the power dynamic look? Is it the Prophet peace be upon him, bullying, abusing, putting her in her place, right?
Not letting her voice her opinions, showing disregard for her opinions or for her own values or showing disregard for her emotions or shutting her down in arguments, right? Or stowing her away. Are any of those things present? No. You have a woman who gives us an intimate look into the arguments that she had with the Prophet peace be upon him. And not just that, but the way the Prophet peace be upon him dealt with those arguments. You have a woman that would challenge the Prophet peace be upon him. You had a woman that would challenge anybody in her society, right? If she felt like she was transgressed or if she felt like a falsehood was expressed. You had a woman that was willing to challenge all of those things in her times. You had a woman that the Prophet peace be upon him said, I can tell when you're mad at me because when you're pleased with me, you say, you swear by the Lord of Muhammad. But when you are upset with me, you swear by the Lord of Abraham. So I can tell when you're angry with me and I can tell when you're pleased with me. We have the last khutba that I gave, the last sermon, truly that beautiful story of Aisha breaking a plate in the house of the Prophet peace be upon him. The Prophet peace be upon him saying, غارة أمكم, your mother has become jealous. Even referring to her as your mother, saying that to the elders amongst the companions, your mother has become jealous and speaking of her in that beautiful way. Do you see an imbalance of power? Do you see an older man who is oppressing a younger woman or diminishing her in any way, in any of the interactions? We have the interactions of Aisha and the Prophet peace be upon him. In good times, in average times and in bad times, in any of those situations, do you see a power dynamic that switches or a pendulum that swings too far into the direction of the Prophet peace be upon him?
And I mean the power dynamic, just for the record, would exist when you have any non-profit, P-R-O-P-H-E-T, not non-profit the way we understand, but a person that's not a prophet married to a prophet. I mean, that's a pretty difficult relationship to navigate in the first place. It's pretty intimidating if you'd be married to someone who receives divine revelation. But do you ever see the Prophet peace be upon him abusing how Allah favored him, not just over mankind, but favored him over Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. Absolutely not. Well, what about then, number four. So we already covered, again, the idea here is if you think child marriage, the imagery that comes to mind, or the things that would evoke a discomfort in you, would be number one, physical, biological, number two, psychological, number three, the power dynamic, number four, the educational dynamic. Because the discussions about child marriage across the world are inevitably linked, always, to education. Where there is rampant child marriage, there is a gross imbalance of education between children, who are boys, and children who are girls, right? Those things are always linked together. In the educational dynamic, do you find in Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, a woman who suffered in some educational dynamic because she was married to the Prophet peace be upon him at a young age? Actually, no, she was the most knowledgeable of the wives of the Prophet peace be upon him. She was the most knowledgeable of the women of her time. She was the most knowledgeable of the men of her time as well, which we'll get to some of the specific narration. So clearly she grew into being a great scholar in the Islamic tradition, in the community of the Prophet peace be upon him. And that's something that's very important.
If you were to walk into Medina in the year 630, and you saw Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, speaking and giving a lecture, what would be the impression that you would take of this woman? A woman that later on in her life would lead an army, a woman that would, and not too far removed from the death of the Prophet peace be upon him, only a few years after, that occupied the highest positions and the highest pulpits. So do you see an educational dynamic that exists in that time? What about abuse? Obviously that's one of the most important things that comes up, is the concept of abuse. When you think of a child marriage, you think of an adult that is abusing a child. So it was Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, that says that the Prophet peace be upon him... never, never abused her. Never once beat a woman, or beat a servant, or beat anyone, or laid his finger on anyone. And she said about the Prophet peace be upon him that... The Prophet peace be upon him was the most exalted person that I'd ever seen in regards to his moral standard, in regards to his character. And she spoke glowingly, not just of the public life of the Prophet peace be upon him, or of the knowledge of the revelation of the Prophet peace be upon him, but of the private life of the Prophet peace be upon him, particularly in how the Prophet peace be upon him dealt with situations where an argument could have escalated to something worse. So you don't see the element of abuse. And so the question that comes after all of this, because we said again, the idea of portraying this marriage in this way, in such an unprecedented way that's never happened over 14 centuries, is not just to portray the Prophet peace be upon him as a way, but to portray Muslim men as violent men that are in need of restraint, and Muslim women as victims that are in need of rescue,
and therefore that's why we have an entire policy that is built on taming the rest of the world. So portraying the Prophet peace be upon him in that way is really meant to portray the Muslim, the ideal Muslim in a certain way, or the Muslim society in a certain way. And so a question then comes up, wait, so are you saying that you support child marriage? Right, so that's the catch at the end. Are you saying you support child marriage? And the answer is no, I'm saying that characterizing Aisha as a child is wrong, empirically wrong, can be proven wrong and inappropriate. In fact, our scholars understood throughout history that it was okay, not only okay, but it's encouraged to put safety protocols in place for the welfare of society. So no, there is absolutely nothing of that sort, there is absolutely no justification, and I can hold without any conflict in my identity that Aisha, the age that's been assigned to her, would be considered a child's age in my time, but not so in her time, and be against the abuse of children through children marriage as it exists today. But if there is no norm, and there are many ways, and I don't want to go too much into detail, because I actually want to talk about the story of the marriage of Aisha and the person of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, since we're talking about letting the discourse die. But if you think about this, the fact that 50 years ago in the United States, the average age of marriage was significantly less in America than it is today. Like my grandmother got married when she was 14 years old in Palestine, right? And that was completely normal, there was absolutely nothing with it,
that doesn't mean that I support the marriage of a 14 year old today. But that the age of marriage changes so dramatically over time, and across states there is no consensus, even in the United States, about what the appropriate age of marriage is. And let's face it, if we're talking about the definition of a child changing, due to life expectancy, due to environment, due to education, and how we view education in our societies today, then it could be that in our lifetimes, there could come a time, where the minimum age of marriage is 20, or 21. And maybe at that time we'd be like, you know what, 19 year olds are children, they shouldn't be married. So that age will fluctuate probably in our own lifetimes, not only that, but if you think about the obsession with characterizing the Prophet, peace be upon him, in a certain way, and characterizing the Muslim world in a certain way, and then you ask yourself, well at what age are people taught, are children taught to experience, to experiment, and experience in intimate fashions? So then how does that factor into the way we view the age of marriage, in different parts of the world, and in this part of the world here? The point being that these are things that require much more intelligent discourse, and Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, in herself, who is an extremely personal person, Aisha gave us access to very personal elements of her life, never once hinted at any single form of abuse, that could potentially come, or manifest in an imbalanced marriage, never once hinted at any of the dynamics, or any of the features, that are prevalent in a child marriage, as being prevalent in her interaction, not just with the Prophet, peace be upon him, but in her interaction with larger society. The position that she held in larger society, is just as significant in combating that narrative,
that Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, was some child that was forced into a situation. So what is the story of Aisha radiyaAllahu anha's marriage to the Prophet, peace be upon him? Well first of all, one of the things that doesn't get spoken about, is how normal was the engagement of Aisha to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the marriage of Aisha to the Prophet, peace be upon him, she was actually engaged before him. She was engaged to Jubair ibn Mut'im, a man by the name of Jubair ibn Mut'im, and Aisha was not sought out by the Prophet, peace be upon him, for marriage, but instead suggested to him, both by a human being and an angel. And Jubair ibn Mut'im, after a human being. Who was the human being that introduced Aisha to the Prophet, peace be upon him, or suggested the marriage of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and Aisha radiyaAllahu anha? It was Khawla, may Allah be pleased with her. And she came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and she said to the Prophet, peace be upon him, as he lost his only wife for the first 53 years of his life, the only woman he had ever married up until 53 years old, in a society that had unrestricted polygamy, and the Prophet, peace be upon him, is grieving, the one woman that he was ever married to in Khadija, may Allah be pleased with her. And Khawla, may Allah be pleased with her, trying to get the Prophet, peace be upon him, remarried, and she introduces to the Prophet, peace be upon him, Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, and she introduces Aisha to the Prophet, peace be upon him, in this way, she says, بنت أحب خلق الله إليك. She didn't even introduce her as Aisha. She said, what about the daughter of the most beloved person in the world to you? Abu Bakr, her father. What about the daughter of the most beloved person in the world to you? And the Prophet, peace be upon him, immediately knew who she was talking about. So she went to Umru Mam, the mother of Aisha radiyaAllahu anha, and she says, ما أدخل الله عليكم من الخير والبركة. What an amazing blessing that Allah has entered upon you.
So Umru Mam said, وما ذاك, what is that? She said, أرسلني رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم أخطب عليه عائشة. That the Prophet, peace be upon him, sent me to you so that I could carry out the engagement of the Prophet, peace be upon him, to Aisha. Umru Mam was ready to lock it up then. She said, I wish I could just go ahead and do this now, but I gotta wait for Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu to come home. Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu comes home, and Khawla was waiting. She tells Abu Bakr that the Prophet, peace be upon him, has agreed to marry your daughter and sent me to convey that. You know what Abu Bakr's first reaction was? It was not, oh, she's young. It was not even that she's engaged. He goes, wait a minute, وهل تصلح له وهي بنت أخي? Is she fit to marry him when she is the daughter of his brother? Because Abu Bakr and the Prophet, peace be upon him, were that close. So wait a minute, but he's my brother, right? So that was the first concern that he had, that the closeness of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and Abu Bakr was closer than the closeness of a blood relationship. So Khawla went back to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the Prophet, peace be upon him, said أنت أخي في الإسلام وابنتك تحل لي that you are my brother in Islam, not my brother as in a blood brother. So those relationships don't hold when we're talking about marriage. So then Abu Bakr said, well, I'm in an awkward situation because she's already engaged to Jubayr ibn Mut'im. Now engagement back then was simply a promise to marry. There wasn't actually any physical interaction or anything that manifested itself except that she was engaged to Jubayr ibn Mut'im. So Abu Bakr said, I've got to find a way, because Umar said that Abu Bakr is never a man that's gone back on his words.
Abu Bakr said, I want to find a way to get her out of that engagement anyway, because Jubayr ibn Mut'im and his father are actually hostile to the Prophet, peace be upon him, in this regard. So Abu Bakr went to Mut'im's house, and when he went there, the wife of Mut'im was there, and she said that, if we marry our son to your daughter, then she's going to divert him away from his beliefs and introduce him into that religion of yours. So before Abu Bakr could even say a word, the wife of Mut'im expressed objection and said, well, if Aisha goes through with this marriage with Jubayr, then he might become a Muslim, and we'd hate for that to happen, we'd hate for him to become a Muslim. So Abu Bakr turned to Mut'im and said, what is it that she's saying? And she says something that I can hear and I can agree with, meaning I agree with what my wife is saying about Jubayr marrying Aisha and potentially becoming a Muslim. So Abu Bakr said, well, that's unfortunate, and just kind of gave a few words, and then he left the house and celebrated as soon as he left the house and the engagement was broken between Jubayr and Aisha. May Allah be pleased with them. And Jubayr was a fierce enemy of Islam, he was the owner of Wahshi who threw the spear at Hamza radiAllahu anhu. So subhanAllah, this man was engaged to Aisha and ends up being the one that frees Wahshi, along with Hind of course, on the condition that she murders the uncle of the Prophet, peace be upon him. So Abu Bakr comes back home, celebrating, praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and he says to Khawla, please hurry up and invite Allah's messenger here. Khawla goes to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and invites him to Abu Bakr's house, and that's where the engagement took place.
Three years later, the marriage took place when she reached the age of marriage. So again, from a societal perspective, there was once again an engagement, and when she reached that one marker, which was known at that time, which was biologically reaching the age of maturity, then she married the Prophet, peace be upon him. And Aisha radiAllahu anhu described that day when she comes home, and Aisha was a very active girl, which is why the Prophet, peace be upon him, and Aisha radiAllahu anhu used to foot race, even as they were married. She was very active, she describes the way that she comes home after playing, and she's called, and she's informed at that time about the engagement, and she sees the Ansari women that are celebrating, and she then says that she was prepared for marriage, and all of these things start to take place, and they go into motion where she's going to marry the Prophet, peace be upon him. And how did she describe the look of the Prophet, peace be upon him? Again, the characterization of an Islamophobe is that this is a woman that's being forced into a marriage with a man that she doesn't want to marry. Of course we know later on that she's extremely jealous and protective of the Prophet, peace be upon him. But how does she describe the Prophet, peace be upon him? She said, if the ones who condemned Zuleikha and cut their hands upon seeing Joseph, Yusuf alayhis salam, in amazement, right? The story of Yusuf alayhis salam, when the women saw Joseph, peace be upon him, and cut their fingers, she said, if those women who condemned Zuleikha and cut their hands upon seeing Yusuf alayhis salam, were to see the blessed smile of Allah's messenger, they would cut their hearts without even knowing it. So she described that image of the Prophet, peace be upon him, as a beautiful man, as a handsome man, as a pleasing man, and as one that she would fall deeply in love with, and would be extremely protective over as well.
And how was the Prophet, peace be upon him, with Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala anha? Well, when he was asked by Amr ibn Aas, who is the most beloved person to you? In front of all the men he was asked, who is the most beloved person to you? He said, Aisha. Then he said, then who? He said, then Abuha, then her father. And how did Aisha radiAllahu anha regard the Prophet, peace be upon him? Except in love, and in mercy, and in complete admiration. And it's really interesting here because, again, we call our collection about Aisha radiAllahu anha, not just a number. And this is really important because the irony is that those who claim that she was dehumanized in her marriage to the Prophet, peace be upon him, are actually guilty of dehumanizing her. They actually reduce her to a number. And try to force us to ignore her entire life, her entire person, her entire character, and somehow championing an issue that was not even present in the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him. To say that this was some sort of oppression, and some sort of misdoing, and to bring up an objection that was not raised for 1400 years, in order to characterize the Prophet, peace be upon him, and Muslim men by extension in a certain way, and characterize Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, and Muslim women in certain ways. But she's not just a number, so let's just talk about her qualities for a bit. Some of the narrations about her, the wife of the Prophet, peace be upon him, Musa ibn Talha, he says, مَا رَأَيْتُ أَحَدًا أَفْصَحُ مِنْ عَائِشَةٍ He said, I have never seen a woman more eloquent than Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. And he even mentioned, he said that her narrations of hadith, when she narrates a hadith, she never makes a grammatical error, she's always poetic in the way she even speaks about an incidence. That Aisha was so eloquent and so in control of her language, that when she spoke, when she just narrated stories and incidents, there was clarity, there was eloquence, there was beauty,
and the Arabs were big on making sure that there was no grammatical issues, and nothing that was set out of place. So he said, I've never seen a woman more eloquent than Aisha. Ahnaf ibn Qais, he says, I've heard Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, the first four Khulafa, the first four Caliphs, I've heard them speak, and I've never heard anything more eloquent than that which would come from the mouth of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. And he said, من فم مخلوق, from the mouth of a creation, he said, I've never seen the mouth of a creation of God more eloquent than the mouth of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. Masrooq, may Allah be pleased with him, Masrooq radiAllahu anhu says, رأيت المشايخ من أصحاب رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم يسألونه عن الفراد. He said, I saw the elders of the Prophet, the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, gathered around Aisha, asking her the difficult questions about inheritance. Like think about that image, right, if you walked into Medina, and you saw Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, you're seeing a woman that is teaching the elders from the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, on the most difficult issues in Islamic jurisprudence. She's one of the seven, they had the seven companions who used to give fatwa the most frequent, she's considered one of the seven. It's reported that women in particular used to come and they used to surround her house, and she used to have, you know, you can just imagine the imagery, between 40 and 70 women at any given time surrounding her hujrah, surrounding her house, so that they could come in and they could learn from her, and attend her classes, and ask her questions. Muhammad Zuhri, may Allah be pleased with him, who's the first man to take, Zuhri was the first man to take, to be commissioned to officially collect hadith. Zuhri says that when I asked about who I should go to, everyone pointed first to those that studied with Aisha, and those that were with Aisha, and of course Aisha herself, and Amrah, the student of Aisha, and he said, when I saw Amrah, he said, when I went to her,
I found her to be a boundless sea of knowledge and comprehension. She was a giant, an ocean of knowledge, being the student of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. Abdullah bin Umar reports that when the time of hajj used to come around, that there used to be a tent where Aisha used to sit in, and she would just answer everybody's questions. And the men and the women used to go to Aisha with their questions. Abu Musa al-Ashari, who is amongst the scholars of the Companions, says that when the Companions of Allah's Messenger, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, faced any difficulty, they would refer to Aisha, and she always had some knowledge about that which perplexed everybody else. So when we couldn't figure something else out amongst ourselves, we're talking about the scholars of the Companions, we went to Aisha, the scholar, and she always knew how to answer that question. Urwa ibn Zubair, he says that I've never seen a woman more knowledgeable than Aisha. In halal and haram, meaning that which is lawful and that which is prohibited. In poetry, in medicine, in history, in ancestry, than Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. So she was not just a scholar in regards to Islamic knowledge, she was a scholar in regards to everything. In fact, Urwa says that one time, I actually asked Aisha radiyallahu anha, I said, you know, I can understand how she's so knowledgeable about different things. Like, I get, he said, I can understand how she's knowledgeable about the revelation, I can understand how she's knowledgeable about the practices of the Prophet, peace be upon him, because of the proximity, right? It's like, how are you so knowledgeable in medicine? How do you get medicine more than anybody else? And she said that because when the Prophet, peace be upon him, became sick, she would learn and study cures. SubhanAllah, that's the genius of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her.
And just in studying medicine, when the Prophet, peace be upon him, was sick, she actually elevated herself to being a scholar on medical issues in that society of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and of the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Al-Imam al-Zarkashi writes a book called Al-Ijabah, which is the response, and it's all of the times that Aisha corrected other companions. Mastadrakatu Aisha ala sa'ir as-sahaba. All the times that Aisha corrected all the other companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the objections that she raised. When she raised, when she reconciled, when someone had a narration about one of the private practices of the Prophet, peace be upon him, or how he worshipped, Aisha was able to come and correct that. Some of the ways that some things, some texts were interpreted in a way that wasn't favorable to women. Aisha radiyaAllahu anha would correct those ahadith, or correct the understandings of those narrations. So she challenged people's narrations, she challenged people's opinions in fiqh, their jurisprudence. She challenged what she felt were unjust practices at the time. So he said that, so Urwah, again he described her, he said I could get her knowledge of medicine, I could get her knowledge of Quran, I got her knowledge of hadith, I got her knowledge of lineage and history and ancestry, because her father was Abu Bakr, so she learned all that from Abu Bakr, but how did this woman know even medicine that way? It's because Aisha's mind was unparalleled in that time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, even amongst the male companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him. And Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, again a woman of great confidence and great stature, she said that Allah favored me with ten things that he didn't favor anybody else with. And this was as she was an old woman about to pass away. So the first thing is that I was never married to anyone but the Prophet, peace be upon him, and I'm the only one that could claim that.
She's the only woman who never married anyone but the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Because the Prophet, peace be upon him, everyone else that he had married was either a widow or a divorcee. So she's like, I'm the only person that was only married to the Prophet, peace be upon him. No one before him, no one after him. Again, she was engaged to Jubair. She said both of my parents were muhajireen, meaning they were, muhajireen are the people that migrated from Mecca to Medina, escaping persecution. She said, number three, Allah declared my innocence from above the heavens. Allah revealed 16 verses of Qur'an defending her when people made remarks or people accused her of her innocence. Number four, she said, Jibreel, the angel Gabriel, proposed on my behalf to the Prophet, peace be upon him. How is that? Because the Prophet, peace be upon him, saw a dream of Jibreel, alayhi salam, after Khawla suggested Aisha to the Prophet, peace be upon him, he saw a dream of Jibreel, alayhi salam, showing, lifting the veil on Aisha, radhiyaAllahu anha, and saying, nahadhihi zawjatika fiddunya wal akhira, this is your spouse in this life and the next. So she said, Jibreel proposed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, on my behalf. She said, I drank and bathed from, this is number five, I drank and I bathed from the same container as the Prophet, peace be upon him. Number six, she said that the Prophet, peace be upon him, used to pray at night while I was laid in front of him, while I was sleeping in front of him, and the Prophet, you know, their home was so small, the Prophet, peace be upon him, didn't live in a palace, lived in a tiny little chamber, right? And so she said that when the Prophet, peace be upon him, used to do his night prayer, when he used to prostrate, he would tap her legs so she could move her legs inward, so that he could fit his head in the room, right? So she said, I used to lay in front of the Prophet, peace be upon him, while he would pray at night.
Number seven, she said that revelation used to come to him while he was in my home. Just true that many times the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, in the home of Aisha, radiyAllahu ta'ala anha. Number eight, she said the Prophet, peace be upon him, died on my chest. No one else can claim that, right? The Prophet, peace be upon him, died on my chest. The Prophet, peace be upon him, was reclined on the chest of Aisha when Jibreel, alayhi salam, came to him and took his soul. Number nine, she said the Prophet, peace be upon him, died on my night. And number ten, she said the Prophet, peace be upon him, was buried in my room. Right? So this was a woman that understood her space in Islamic history. She was a hafidah of the Qur'an, she memorized the Qur'an, she narrated over 2,000 ahadith, 2,000 narrations about the Prophet, peace be upon him. 2,000 narrations that give us a look at who this man was behind closed doors. Who this man was as a husband, who this man was as a father, who this man was in times when most people fail at the standard that's been set upon them. And it's really interesting because one of the great scholars said that Allah revealed 16 verses in her defense. And she narrated hadiths, she narrated traditions about the Prophet, peace be upon him, in his defense even if that made her look back. What that means is that when she narrates a saying about an argument she had with the Prophet, peace be upon him, and he's always right, and she's the one that lost her temper, she's the one that raised her voice, and the same people that would mock Aisha would use narrations that she narrated herself, which is just sheer ignorance. She narrates these ahadith about the arguments, the hadith I used in the last sermon, the
last Jumaa Khutba, she narrates the hadith. All of those things, why to defend, to show the supreme character of the Prophet, peace be upon him, even if that means that she could potentially make herself look bad. But a mother is interested in teaching her children, so she taught us through her interactions with the Prophet, peace be upon him, about who the Prophet, peace be upon him, was. Urwah, who was the nephew of Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her, he said that no one's prayer resembled the prayer of the Prophet, peace be upon him, like Aisha, may Allah be pleased with her. If you watched her pray, she looked exactly like the Prophet, peace be upon him, she resembled the Prophet, peace be upon him. In the way that he would pray, in the spirituality, in the khushu' the humility that she had in her prayer. Urwah says that one time I came to visit her and she was my aunt, and I saw her standing up and praying, and she was crying and reciting the verse, that Allah was kind to us and He removed from us and He spared us from a grievous punishment. Allah was kind to us and spared us from a grievous punishment. So he said that I stood behind her, on the side of her, as she prayed to try to get her attention and she didn't stop her prayer, she was so immersed in that one verse of the Qur'an that he said that I decided I'm going to go shopping and come back later. He said I went shopping and came back later and she was still standing in the same place reciting the same verse, crying and remembering her Lord. So this was a woman that was a sage, a worshipper. A woman whose worship resembles the worship of the greatest worshipper, in the Prophet peace be upon him. This was a woman that many people don't know was distinguished in her charity. He says that Abdullah bin Zubair said I know no two people more generous than my mother and my aunt.
His mother was Asmaa bint Abi Bakr, his aunt was Aisha bint Abi Bakr. He said Aisha used to gather her money until it was of a certain quantity and then she'd give it away. Asmaa used to give it away right away. So he said I know no two people more generous than my mother and my aunt. He said that Aisha never used to keep anything except that she gave it away in charity. Once a poor man came to her to ask her for her wealth, she went inside her home and all she found were grapes. And she even gave those away and that was her meal for the evening. She gave away the grapes that she had. And the man said is that all? And she said, وكم في هذا من مثقال ذرة? How many atoms of good deeds are within these grapes? So that's all I have to give you but I'm not, you might belittle it but I hope Allah doesn't belittle it. Right? Because that's all I have to give you. Once she was given a gift of 100,000 dirhams, she gave all of it away. She was once given 70,000 dirhams. This was in the Khilafah Umayyah, the Umayyad Khilafah. They sent her large financial gifts, she gave all of it away. Umar radiAllahu anhu, who used to allocate 10,000 dirhams every single month to the mothers of the believers, he allocated 12 for her. And Umar radiAllahu anhu, he said that, إنها حبيبة رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم. She's the beloved one of the Prophet peace be upon him. The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam compared her to all other women in the world as the likeness of Thareed to all other dishes which was the most beloved dish of the Arabs. And she would give that away in charity too. And she used to take so many orphans and poor children into her home that if you walked into the home of Aisha, you would wonder how many children she actually had. Because you just saw so many children around her, orphans and poor children. She emancipated over 60 slaves with her own wealth, freed over 60 people from slavery.
Emancipated over 60 slaves. Anas ibn Malik describes that beautiful narration of Aisha. Because when you think of Aisha, how many times do people think of sadaqah, charity? And this is actually why I want to just focus on this for a moment. Because if you walked into the Madinah, the society of the Prophet peace be upon him, you knew Aisha by her knowledge and her eloquence on one hand, and you knew her greatest public act that she was known for was her charity. But most people would never associate that with Aisha. There's a very famous narration that a woman came to Aisha and Aisha gave her the only three dates that she had in the home. So she gave two dates to her children and then as she was about to eat the one date that was given to her, her children started to grab for that date and she tore that date into two halves and she gave it to her children. And Aisha told the Prophet peace be upon him about that because she was amazed by that. And the Prophet peace be upon him said, Allah will show her mercy because of the mercy towards her children, because of the mercy she showed towards her children. Verily Allah will show her mercy as well. Bareera, who was a free servant of Aisha, she tells this story about how there was a beggar that came to the door once at the house of Aisha and knocked on the door. Because Aisha's house was known to be a house of charity. She'd give whatever she had in her cabinets, everything in charity. And Bareera said, we've got nothing. So Aisha stopped her and said, no, no, I think we have some barley. She scrapped in the house until she found a bag of barley and she gave it away. Bareera laughed at her and said, you know you're fasting, right? Like how are you even going to break your fast? You imagine the wife of the Prophet peace be upon him, the greatest scholar in that time, this sage, this woman who occupies the position of mother of the ummah, and there was a fear that she wouldn't have anything to break her fast on. Think about that, right? And Bareera says, well how are you going to break your fast? And she laughed at her and Aisha simply smiled and said, Allah will provide.
And she went back to her prayer. And then just right as she started to pray Maghrib now, she hadn't broke her fast, someone knocked on the door and gave gifts and gave a goat, an entire goat as a gift to Aisha. May Allah be pleased with her. And Aisha smiled at Bareera and she said, I swear by Allah, none of you truly believes until you trust Allah more than what you trust that which is in your hands. No one of you truly believes until you trust Allah more than you trust that which is in your hands. I had more trust in Allah that he would provide for me than a person who actually has the food sitting on the table. That was a woman that was a sage. What was her fasting like? Qasim, the grandson of Abu Bakr, the nephew of Aisha, Qasim said, كانت عائشة تسوم الدهر. Said Aisha fasted like every single day. She was always fasting. You'd never find Aisha not fasting. So this woman that narrated about the fasting of the Prophet peace be upon him, her nephew says I never found her not fasting. She was fasting every single day of her life pretty much except for the days that it was prohibited to fast. And Qasim said, though she was the most knowledgeable of the companions, she was also the most humble of the companions. And if she did not have an answer, she preferred other people to answer a question. So when someone came to her for example and asked her once a question, she said, ائتِ عليا فإنه أعلم بذلك مني. She said, go to Ali because Ali understands that particular mas'ala, knows that particular issue far better than I do. So these are the quotes or these are the stories that we have to tell about this mother of ours, of this great woman. Don't dehumanize her by reducing her to a number and don't fool yourself by accepting
an ignorant simplistic narrative that mischaracterizes her marriage, not just against all of the religious knowledge that we have about the Prophet peace be upon him, but literally against every intelligent anthropology study about how societies function at the time and how they function today. It just doesn't make sense for us to allow that narrative to reduce her. And so we presented, and I have to come to the conclusion now, we presented this collection alhamdulillah where we had four essays, four publications about the age of Aisha addressing it from different angles. And someone says, well there is one publication which we allow, and someone says, well what about the opinion that she was older? What if she was actually much older than we think and we just didn't know better? And I want to actually address that for a moment. First of all, let's acknowledge that the desire to readily accept an opinion that she was actually much older is not grounded in reality, but grounded in our own insecurities and how much we always want to ward off any criticism about our faith. Even if that means accepting opinions that are minor or sometimes even outright dishonest and saying we just want to ward off any criticism about Islam, we have enough to fight off already. Not recognizing that this framework of our religion and of Muslims is one that has been put forth for the sake of political gains and for the sake of cultural exploitation and many other things. So that's the first thing. We have to acknowledge that most people, it's confirmation bias. You want to find what you want to find. It's like, you know what, I don't want to have to even deal with the question as a whole,
let me just go ahead and find the articles and the opinions that she was older. Secondly, it is a minor opinion in that it is as new as the criticism of the Prophet peace be upon him for marrying her at a young age. I'm going to say that again. It is as new as the criticism of the Prophet peace be upon him for marrying her at a young age. So proponents of an opinion that Aisha was actually a lot older than is suggested in the narration of Bukhari, they would say that that's because her age was never a topic of discussion in the past. So just like the criticism is new, the entire discourse about her age is new. So they would say that's why we don't find this opinion in Islamic history because the discourse didn't exist in Islamic history in the whole. But nonetheless, it's a minority contemporary view that arises out of implicit evidence against explicit evidence to the contrary. So even if it is a view, a legitimate view, it would be a minority view, a contemporary view that arises again based on implicit evidence against and explicit evidence to the contrary. Thirdly, and this is actually something very important because sometimes some brothers and sisters like, no, we can't entertain any discussion about her age or what her age was and things of that sort. And I really want to make this, I think it's an important point to make. Looking at this view, by rejecting the tradition is not acceptable. So there are some thinkers out there that would throw doubt on the entire authenticity of Sahih al-Bukhari and try to uproot the tradition to prove this point, which is a much bigger problem than believing that Aisha radiAllahu anhu was a lot older than what we find in a narration of Bukhari. That's a much bigger issue. If you try to uproot the tradition to where you can actually throw out anything that you don't feel like matches with that which you'd like to believe about the tradition. So the thinkers that are out there that cast dispersions on hadith as a whole and the authenticity
of hadith as a whole and the collection of the Sunnah and Bukhari as a whole, it's deeply problematic. So their opinion would be rejected. However, the paper that we published as an alternate view, again one paper out of four, says through a minority view that employs proper usool, the proper derivatives of coming to an opinion, it doesn't uproot the entire tradition to arrive at the conclusion, so it's okay to entertain a discourse so long as it doesn't uproot the tradition as a whole. But still recognizing that, again, the reason why the majority opinion is as it was, the explicit opinion is as it was, because this never was an issue and so we have to kind of walk back to that. And so I'll read just the conclusion that I think is very important. One of the paragraphs was in the conclusion of Sister Nooruddin Knight's paper, what was the age of Aisha at marriage? Simply put, old enough. Marrying near the onset of puberty is not possible or preferable for most of us in our Western cultural context and that's okay. We are not obliged to marry young or to get our daughters married young. We can hold our own cultural and individual opinions about the age one ought to get married but we must stop pretending that this is a moral position rather than one that's based on circumstances. And she says at the end of it, portraying Aisha as a child is meant to portray the Prophet peace be upon him in a certain light, a light that attempts to fit Aisha radiAllahu anha into a larger narrative of Muslim women as meek, submissive and oppressed and Muslim men as oppressive, abusive and unjust. A narrative that is both malicious and dishonest. The controversy around her age prevents us from discussing her legacy and contribution to Islam, her life and marriage to the Prophet peace be upon him, her knowledge and her wisdom. Aisha is so much more than the quote, child bride, the enemies of our beloved Prophet peace be upon him attempt to paint her as. She was a saint, a sage and a scholar.
Can we please make that the legacy, can we please make that legacy the bulk of our discourse around this amazing woman. We ask Allah to be pleased with her and to join us with our mother in Aisha radiAllahu anha and to join us with the Prophet peace be upon him and the Prophets and the righteous in the highest level of Jannatul Firdaus. We ask Allah to allow us to rise to a moral standard that has been set in the standard of the Prophet peace be upon him. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to perfect our khuluq, to perfect our characters and to allow us to not just love the Prophet peace be upon him but to emulate the Prophet peace be upon him in his worship and his character in the way that Aisha radiAllahu anha did. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala be pleased with the family, the companions of the Prophet peace be upon him and join us with them. Ameen
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