How old was Aisha when she married the Prophet (PBUH)?

Clarifying a weaponized topic.

I am not a scholar, but I enjoy research and learning. Only Allah SWT is infallible, and may he forgive me for any inaccuracies or shortcomings of the following.

Many Muslims have begun to understand the likely inaccuracy of the claim that Aisha was six years old when she was engaged to our Prophet (PBUH) and the likely fallacy that she was nine when they were married. But due to persistent Islamophobia as well as powerful and conservative strains of Islam that refuse to re-evaluate problematic hadith, thoughtful Muslims must educate themselves on this issue from a wide variety of sources.

I am going to outline seven reasons why I believe it is more likely that Aisha was much older than six at the time of her engagement to the Prophet; this won’t be a complete explanation as I want to keep this essay fairly short and readable, but I will provide sources at the end for those who desire a deeper understanding. As always, I keep foremost in my mind these verses from the Quran:

"And when it is said to them, 'Follow what Allah has revealed,' they say, 'Rather, we will follow that which we found our fathers doing.' Even though their fathers understood nothing, nor were they guided?" Surah Al-Baqarah (2:170)

1. At the time of the Prophet, most were unlettered and did not follow any recognized calendar. This makes exact age determination difficult, if not impossible.

   The Arabs marked years by notable events rather than using a formal calendar. For example, the year the Prophet was born became widely known as the Year of the Elephant, named after the failed invasion of Makkah by Abraha's army, which famously included elephants. This dramatic event made it easy for people to recall the Prophet’s birth year. If nothing significant happened the following year, it would simply be called "the year after the Year of the Elephant." But not every year was named or recorded, especially if nothing notable happened. In fact, dating itself changed after every major event. There was no registry of births or deaths, thus ages must be taken as approximate. As an example, the Prophet’s first wife, Khadijah, is often stated to be 40 years of age when she married Muhammad, yet she bore six children over the next 10 years, which seems unlikely (although not impossible). Many other instances of people living to 120 years of age or longer are likely due to the lack of birth records and should not be taken as exact. Even Khadijah herself was assigned different ages by different sources at the same time.¹

2. Can we determine the year of Aisha’s birth?

   As mentioned above, trying to pinpoint exact dates is challenging because at the time we are looking at, there was no fixed reference point by which Arab people determined dates for important events, nevermind for the birth of an unimportant girl. But here are some salient points:

   1. al-Tabari mentions that Abu Bakr, Aisha’s father, had four children (two from each of his wives), and writes in Tārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk that all four children, including Aisha, were born before the beginning of revelation.

   2. Ten years after the beginning of revelation, Khadijah, the Prophet’s beloved wife, passed away.² Sometime after this date, the Prophet contracted to marry Aisha. Three years after Khadijah’s death the Prophet migrated to Medina; Aisha was still not married to the Prophet and did not travel with him.

   3. Finally on this point, it is generally understood that Aisha was 10 years younger than her elder sister Asma, whose age at the time of the hijrah was about 28. Aisha would therefore be about 18 years old at migration. She would begin living at the Prophet’s house when she was a young woman of 21.

3. How could she have been engaged to Jubayr ibn Mut'im prior to Muhammad if she wasn’t yet even born yet?

   1. Before the advent of Islam around 610 CE,ʿ Aisha was engaged to marry Jubayr ibn Muṭ’im. But when her father Abū Bakr embraced Islam at the very start of the prophetic mission (610 CE), the engagement was broken off as Jubayr’s family opposed Islam. This indicates that Aisha was already born and old enough to be engaged before Islam began. Al Tabari also states that Aisha’s father Abu Bakr wanted to migrate to Habshah eight years before the hijrah, and he asked Mut’am to take Aisha in as his wife. But if Aisha was only 6 at the time of her engagement to Mohammad, she wouldn’t have even been born yet!

   2. If the Prophet consummated his marriage with Aisha when she was nine years old, in 624 CE, she would have been born in 615 CE. So how could she have been engaged prior to 610 CE? How could she have been engaged to ibn Mut’im if….she wasn’t even born yet?

   3. Even if Aisha were a mere 5 years old at the time of her engagement to Jubayr, this still means she had to have been born at least 5 years prior to the Revelation (circa 605 CE). And we know that she didn’t marry the Prophet when he was in Mecca, a time period of 13 years, but rather was engaged to Muhammad sometime in the last two years of the Meccan period after Khadijah’s death. If we assume she married the Prophet one year after hijrah, she would have been 19 years old.

4. The primary source of hadith regarding the age of Aisha is Hisham ibn ‘Urwah, and all narrators are from Iraq, with none from Medina.

   Tehzibu'l-tehzib, one of the most well known books on the life and reliability of the narrators of the traditions of the Prophet, states that according to Yaqub ibn Shaibah: "Narratives reported by Hisham are reliable except those that are reported through the people of Iraq". Even the renowned scholar Malik ibn Anas objected to any narratives of Hisham which were reported through people of Iraq.

5. If Aisha were six or nine, she would not have been an appropriate match to the Prophet based on his emotional needs and the ummah’s strategic needs at the time.

   When his beloved wife Khadijah died in 619 CE, the Prophet grieved the loss tremendously. He had lost the most important woman in his life, one who provided him with stability, groundedness, mature insight and encouragement. In hopes of relieving his sorrow, Khawlah bint Hakin, one of Islam’s earliest followers, suggested to the Prophet that he find himself a new wife to support him and advise him. She asked him “would you prefer a mature woman or a young virgin?” and she suggested two women.

   The term Khawlah used to refer to Aisha was “bikrun”, which generally refers to a female who is a virgin, not yet married but mature enough to marry and take on the responsibilities of a household. Notably, she could have chosen to use the term “jaariya” which refers to a girl aged 9-12, or “sabiya”, an even younger girl. Aisha refers to herself as a “jaariya” at the time of the revelation of Surah Al-Qamar, which was revealed nine years prior to the hijrah itself. This would have made her 19-22 at the time of her marriage to the Prophet.

   The Prophet chose at that time to marry Sawdah bint Zim’ah, who was older. He also proposed marriage to Aisha, but did not marry her for 3 years. Would Khawlah, knowing that the Prophet was suffering from the loss of his insightful and mature wife Khadijah, really suggest a six year old as a marriage partner? A six year old would be more of a burden to the Prophet than a help. Why would she even suggest a six year old, when she clearly understood what the Prophet (and by extension the ummah) needed at the time? While this is certainly not evidentiary, it is pretty hard to believe that a six year old would be able to fulfill the many roles of the wife to a powerful leader like Mohammad.

6. The age at which Aisha accepted Islam, and its recording, point to someone older.

   In the earliest detailed biography of the Prophet, Ibn Ishaq includes a list of people who accepted Islam at its beginnings. No children are included in this list, but Aisha’s name is. Ali ibn Abi Talib, one of the Prophet’s earliest adherents, was around 10-12 years old at the time, was not on the list. If Aisha were indeed 9 years old at the time of marriage to the Prophet, she would have been a mere 12 months old at the time this list was written.

   According to Ibn Hisham, Aisha accepted Islam before Umar ibn Khattab. Ibn Khattab likely accepted Islam six years after the beginning of Revelation. So let’s say she accepted it in Year 1 after the Revelation. She didn’t marry the Prophet until one or two years after the hijrah (which took place thirteen years later) so if this is correct, Aisha would not have been nine when she married Mohammad, but at least 15-16 years old.

7. The age of Aisha at the time of the Battle of Uhud points to someone older.

   Aisha is recorded to have been present at the Battle of Uhud, delivering water and aid to the soldiers. The battle took place in the month of Shawwal of the third year of settling in Madinah, which would have been no more than two years after the marriage of Aisha and the Prophet. This means that if she were 9 at the age of marriage, she would have been about 11 years old at the time of the Battle of Uhud.

   Yet shortly before the Battle, the Prophet inspected his troops and ordered everyone under the age of 15 to return to Medina.³ Why? Because the Prophet thought they were too young for battle. And if the prophet refused to accept boys under the age of 15 in the battle, is it likely that he would allow his bride of two years to be present were she a mere 11 years old?

I will be adding and editing this (and noting the dates and changes) as I learn more information, but hopefully this will provide some fodder for thought.

Sources:

• Adil Salahi, Muhammad: Man and Prophet: A Complete Study of the Life of the Prophet of Islam, Appendix

• Joshua Little: https://islamicorigins.com/the-unabridged-version-of-my-phd-thesis/

• Islam Awareneness: https://www.islamawareness.net/FAQ/what_was_ayesha.html

• Niofar Ahmed: https://www.dawn.com/news/696084/ofaishas-age-at-marriage

• Kashif Hussain: https://thewiseword.co.uk/the-age-of-aisha-at-the-time-of-her-marriage/

• Dr. Adnan Ibrahim:

• Mufti Abu Layth:

1. See the works of Al-Bayhaqī, Ibn al-Jawzī and Ibn Ḥazm.

2. This date is notable because it was also the year that Abu ibn Abu Talib died, and as such it is called The Year of Sorrow.

3. Narrated by Ibn ʿUmar in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (2664): “I presented myself for battle to the Prophet when I was 14, and he did not allow me. I came again when I was 15, and he permitted me.”