Sayyidatina ‘Aishah bint Abu Bakr’s (r.a.) Age at the Time of Marriage

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) was 50 years old at the time of his wife, Sayyidatina Khadijah bint Khuwaylid’s (r.a.) death, and had, until then, lived a monogamous life.  Sometime after Sayyidatina Khadijah’s (r.a.) passing, Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) married a middle-aged woman, Sayyidatina Sawdah bint Zam’ah (r.a.).  It was 622 CE, when Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) and the Muslims made hijrah from Makkah to Madina.  This migration marks the beginning of the Islamic Calendar.  The Islamic Calendar is a lunar calendar, which is 10 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar, which is significant when we consider the dates, and calculate the age of Sayyidatina ‘Aishah bint Abu Bakr (r.a.).

Imam Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Jarir ath-Thabari (r.a.) wrote, in his Tarikh al-Umam wa al-Muluk, that Sayyidina Abu Bakr ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Utsman asw-Swiddiq (r.a.), Prophet Muhammad’s (s.a.w.) childhood friend, the 3^rd person to accept Islam, and the one that had endured the hardships alongside Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), had four children.  Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) was the youngest.  All four of them had been born during the Pre-Islamic period, prior to 610 CE.  Imam ath-Thabari (r.a.) also wrote, that before the first migration in 613 CE, some of the Muslims were ordered by Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) to go and live in Abyssinia, under the protection of the Christian ruler, in order to avoid persecution by the pagans in Makkah.  Sayyidina Abu Bakr (r.a.) had planned to marry ‘Aishah (r.a.) to Sayyidina Jubayr ibn Muth’im (r.a.), to whom she was engaged.  But fearing persecution from Quraysh, Muth’im ibn ‘Adi refused, and his son, Sayyidina Jubayr (r.a.), had to break his engagement with Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.).  At that time, 613 CE, Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) was ready to take on the responsibilities as a wife, possibly at 9 to 10 years of age.  This would place Sayyidatina ‘Aishah’s (r.a.) year of birth to be 603-604 CE.

Several other historians also place Sayyidatina ‘Aishah’s (r.a.) year of birth to be between 602 to 604 CE.  There is a consensus among many historians about a narration by Sayyidatina Asma’ bint Abu Bakr (r.a.), the older sister of Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.), that she was ten years older than Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.).  It is reported that Sayyidatina Asma’ (r.a.) passed away at age 100, in 73 AH, about 692 CE.  This places Sayyidatina Asma’s (r.a.) year of birth to be 592 CE, and of Sayyidatina ‘Aishah’s (r.a.) to be 10 year later, around 602 CE.  This is found in Imam Shams ad-Din Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad adz-Dzahabi’s (r.a.) Siyar A’alam an-Nubala’; Hafizh ‘Imad ad-Din Abu al-Fida’ Isma’il ibn ‘Umar ibn Katsir’s (r.a.) al-Bidayah wa an-Nihayah, “The Beginning & the Ending”, and Imam Shihab ad-Din Abu al-Fadhl Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Hajr al-‘Asqalani’s (r.a.), Taqrib at-Tahdzib.

Imam Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal (r.a.) reported, in his Musnad, that after the death of Sayyidatina Khadijah (r.a.), Sayyidatina Khawlah bint Tsa’labah (r.a.) came to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) and suggested that he marry again.  She had two propositions for the Prophet (s.a.w.), a virgin, bikr; or a woman who had been married before, thayyib.  Sayyidatina Khawlah (r.a.) named ‘Aishah (r.a.) as the virgin candidate.  The term, “bikr”, in the Arabic language, refers to a well-groomed unmarried lady and not to a little girl.

According to many narratives, Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) participated in the battles of Badr and Uhud that took place during the second and the third year of Hijrah respectively.  These battles were fought outside the city of Madina, when Makkan pagans attacked the Muslims who had taken refuge in Madina.  No one younger than 15 years of age was allowed to accompany the Muslim army when they went out to the mountain site of Uhud, in order to stop the invading army from getting in to the city of Madina.  This applied across the board to all participants, men and women alike.  Had Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) been younger than 15 years of age, at the time, she would not have been allowed to accompany the Muslim army.  Since there were so few Muslims in those days, it was common for Muslim women to accompany the men to provide water and to take care of the wounded.  The battle of Uhud took place during the 3^rd year after Hijrah, about 624 CE.  Sayyidatina ‘Aishah’s (r.a.) marriage with Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) took place at the end of the 2^nd year of Hijrah, 623 CE.

Based upon the historic evidence presented above, there can be no doubt that ‘Aishah (r.a.) was born between 602-604 CE, and was 19 to 21 years old at the time of her marriage to Prophet Muhammad in about 623 CE.

Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) lived for 48 years after Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), and was the greatest teacher of Islam besides the Prophet (s.a.w.).  After the Prophet’s (s.a.w.) passing, Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) continued to teach Islam.  She narrated two thousand, two hundred and ten ahadits of the Prophet (s.a.w.).  Sayyidina Abu Musa ‘Abdullah ibn Qays al-Ash’ari (r.a.) said, “We, the companions of the Prophet (s.a.w.), used to ask ‘Aishah about those matters that were difficult for us to understand.”  Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) passed away in 678 CE at age 74.  This is recorded in Imam Abu ‘Isa Muhammad ibn ‘Isa as-Sulami at-Tirmidzi’s (r.a.), Jami’.

The notion that Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) was 6 or 9 years of age is taken from ahadits.  Ahadits recorded during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) can be divided into the following three groups.  The first is the ahadits dictated by the Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) as his formal orders, like the orders and instructions sent by the Prophet to his governors in Yemen, Najran, Hadramaut, and Bahrain.  This group also includes his important sermons that he delivered at various occasions and the letters that he sent to the chiefs of Arabian tribes, and to the rulers of other states and empires of the time.

The second group is the ahadits that were recorded in the presence of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) and with his permission, like the collection by Sayyidina ‘Abdullah bin ‘Amr’s (r.a.) as-Swahifah asw-Swadiqah, “The Authentic Collection”, and other collections by different companions.  Sayyidina ‘Abdullah (r.a.) wrote, in this collection, “I used to write each and every thing I heard from the Prophet (s.a.w.), so much so that some of the elder companions said to me, ‘The Holy Prophet (s.a.w.) is but a human being, sometimes he is angry and sometimes in a good mood and you write everything,’ so I stopped writing.

The Prophet (s.a.w.) noticed that and asked me why I stopped it. I told him the reason and he said, ‘Write everything.  I swear by Him in Whose Hand my soul is that nothing comes out of this mouth except the truth.’”

The category are ahadits that were recorded by Prophet Muhammad’s (s.a.w.) companions after the conclusion of their meetings with the Prophet (s.a.w.), like the collections of ahadits by Sayyidina Anas ibn Malik (r.a.), Sayyidina Abu Hurayrah ‘Abd ar-Rahman ibn Sakhr ad-Dawsi az-Zahrani al-Azdi (r.a.), Sayyidina Abu Bakr (r.a.), Sayyidina Rafi’ ibn Khadij (r.a.), and many others are the most authentic.

Until the end of the first century of the hijrah calendar, there was no problem about the authenticity of the ahadits literature as majority of the companions of the Prophet (s.a.w.) lived approximately three quarters of that century.  The last companion of the Prophet died in the year 93 AH, approximately 712 CE.  The Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) once said, “My generation is the best generation, then is one that follows it and then is one that follows it, and after that people will start lying and taking false oaths.”  He also said, “There will be liars at the end of time and they will relate such ahadits to you that you and your forefathers would have never heard of.  So, beware of these people.”

It was shortly after the death of the last of the companions of the Prophet (s.a.w.) that some people started fabricating some ahadits, and attributing them to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.).  It was during and following this period that Muslim scholars developed a methodology to validate the authenticity of ahadits.  Now each hadits has to be reliably supported by a chain of transmitters leading directly back to the Prophet (s.a.w.) himself.  The chain must be most stringently examined.  And if the chain is broken, or if any one of its links could be shown to be a weak link, the hadits must be rejected.  Hence a new science of asma’ ar-rijal, the science of the biographies of the transmitters of ahadits, came in to existence, and some 500,000 biographies were written.

The early Islamic scholars established the following criteria for swahih ahadits: the chain of the narrators must be unbroken; all of the narrators in the chain must be people of integrity and piety; all of the narrators in the chain must be either greatly or acceptably proficient narrators; the narration must not contradict stronger reports or narrations; there can be no hidden damaging defect in the chain or in the text of hadits, such as if it were discovered that a mistake was made by one of the narrators; those ahadits that could not meet the above criteria were called dha’if, weak, ahadits and were considered suspect.  And if it was proven that any of the narrators in any chain had ever told a lie, while narrating a hadits, all ahadits coming from that chain were rejected and called mawdhu’, fabricated.

The narration that mentions Sayyidatina ‘Aishah’s (r.a.) age, at the time of her marriage with Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), does not meet the standard of the fifth criteria listed above.  That narration had come from a single person, Shaykh Hisham ibn ‘Urwah (r.a.), narrating the story on the authority of his father, Hadhrat ‘Urwah ibn az-Zubayr (r.a.).  Despite the abundance of information available during the 71 years that Shaykh Hisham (r.a.) lived and taught in Madina, it is rather odd that no one else, not even his famous pupil, Imam Malik ibn Anas (r.a.) reported Sayyidatina ‘Aishah’s (r.a.) age from Shaykh Hisham (r.a.) in Madina.  Furthermore, all the narrators of this hadits were Iraqis, since Shaykh Hisham (r.a.) is reported to have moved to Iraq in his later years.

Imam Ya’qub ibn Shaybah (r.a.) wrote, “Narratives reported by Hisham are reliable except those that are reported through the people of Iraq.”  Imam Malik, in one of the most well-known books on the lives and reliability of the narrators of the traditions of the Prophet (s.a.w.), discredited all narratives of Shaykh Hisham (r.a.) that were reported through the people of Iraq.  This is verified in Imam ibn Hajr al-‘Asqalani’s (r.a.), Taqrib at-Tahdzib.

Imam adz-Dzahabi (r.a.) wrote, in Mizan al-I’itidal fi Naqd ar-Rijal, “It is reported that Hisham ibn ‘Urwah’s memory suffered in his later years to the extent that the traditions reported from him could not be trusted.”

There is no doubt that any narration stating that Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) was 6 to 9 years old at the time of her marriage to Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.), is inaccurate.  On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence that suggests that Sayyidatina ‘Aishah (r.a.) was between 19 to 21 years old at the time of her marriage.