Microsoft Word Marriage Guide doc

Source: 
www.al-islamforall@org
 
18
women is obligatory for all men, since he is the model of perfection whose sunnah is the 
duty of Muslims to try to copy in their own lives. 
 
 
5 The Blessed Prophet and his Wives 
'And We sent messengers before you, and We assigned to them wives and offspring.' 
(13:38) 
It is well-known to all Muslims that the wives of the Blessed Prophet, the 'Mothers of 
the Believers,' were saints. In fact, they might usefully be compared to the twelve Disciples 
of Jesus (P.B.U.H) because of their closeness to him and their role in spreading his teaching. 
But it is also true that they were conspicuously happy and fulfilled human beings. Some 
people misguidedly take the point of view that sex is basically worldly (and not a blessing of 
Allah), and that the Prophet (P.B.U.H ) was not interested in it, and all his marriages were 
contracted for purely pious or political reasons, in order to look after unfortunate widows or 
war captives. But this is no more than a half-fact, applying to only a few of his wives. One 
can only seriously hold the mistaken view that it applies to all his later spouses if one has 
not read the hadiths! Anyone who has studied the authentic collections of hadiths can see 
straight away that these are the thoughts of the type of Muslim that the Blessed Prophet 
actually disapproved of-those who would really prefer to be celibate. 'The worst among you 
are your bachelors!' (Hadith from Abu Ya'la and Tabarani.) 
Allah has taught that the foundation of society is marriage, and that marriage, 
along with physical intimacy, was the Prophet's way. 
Others, equally misguided, read about the number of the Prophet's marriages and 
assume that he was some kind of sexual athlete, and wonder how a man with such an 
appetite can be seen as one of the great Prophets. This again betrays ignorance, for 
most of the Prophets that came before him of whom we know also had many wives: 
Sulayman, for example, had three hundred, plus seven hundred concubines! None of this 
implied that they were not real Prophets, or were obsessed with sex at all; it was the 
normal practice of good men to take into their households more than one woman if they 
could afford this. It was regarded as a generous practice! 
The Prophet (P.B.U.H), by contenting himself with the love of one wife for 
twenty-five years, was considered positively abstemious! After the death of Khadijah he 
went on to marry many other women; but as we have seen, he did not take a second 
wife until he was over fifty, and the ladies who subsequently shared his life were not all 
tempting young beauties, but women with stories of their own. 
We will note in passing here their names, and their ages and status when they 
married the Prophet(P.B.U.H) Sawdah bint Zama'a ibn Qays (widow of Sakran, aged 55); 
A'ishah bint Abi Bakr (virgin bride aged either 9 or 19); Hafsah bint Umar (widow of 
Khunays ibn Hudhayfah, aged 19); Zaynab bint Khuzaymah (divorced by Tufayl ibn 
Harith, and widow of his brother Ubaydah, aged about 30); Hind bint Abu Umayya (Umm 
Salamah, the widow of Abdullah ibn Abu'1-Asad her cousin, the Prophet's foster-brother, 
aged either 25 or 29); Zaynab bint Jahsh (daughter of Amina, the sister of the Prophet's 
father Abdullah, divorced by Zayd, the freeman, aged about 39); Juwayriyyah bint Harith 
(real name Barrah, widow of Musaffa ibn Safwan, aged about 14 or 17); Ramlah bint Abi 
Sufyan (Umm Habibah, widow of Ubaydullah ibn Jahsh, aged 36-37); Safiyyah bint Huyayy 
(real name Zaynab, a Jewess, divorced by Salm ibn Mishkam al-Qurazi the poet, widow of 
Kinana ibn Abi'1Huqayq, aged about 17); Maymunah bint al-Harith (real name Barrah, 
divorced by Amr, the widow of Abd alRahim ibn Abd al-Uzza, aged 51; her father's wife Hind 
ibn Awf was the mother of the Prophet's uncle al-'Abbas's wife Umm Fadl); Raihanah bint 
Shamum, a Jewess, the widow of al-Hakam al-Qurazi, age unknown but young). There is said 
The Muslim Marriage Guide: Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

---