Islam Under Scrutiny by Ex-Muslims

Muhammad and Islam: Stories not told before, Part 11

Part 10 <<<

Before concluding our presentation of Muhammad’s life, we will like to examine his conjugal life, for without this, his biography, whatever its length, will remain incomplete.

Subsequent Marriages

Despite all the progress mankind has made thus far, all societies on earth still remain in one way or another under men’s dominance. It is more so in the East, where a proverb says: behind every successful man, there is a woman. The word “woman” in the proverb strictly denotes a “woman,” and not a wife, mother, sister or a daughter. In other words, the “woman” spoken of is a “woman,” who has a relationship with a man without being married to him.

Additionally, the proverb also does not apply to monogamous men due to the fact that many of them were able to achieve stellar successes with the active encouragement, help and whole-hearted cooperation of their wives and other female relatives.

A promiscuous man in the East and other parts of the earth can technically have a number of women in his life, but he traditionally bestows the status of wifehood only on a single woman – the one he is married to. This he does in order to divide the role of his women in two categories: one that of a wife, who is required to bear children for him and is responsible to look after his household affairs. The other role is that of a girlfriend, paramour or a concubine that he allots to his other “women.” Normally, such women are not required to perform the job or the duties of the “wives.”

Technically speaking, most promiscuous men tend to have much less responsibility towards their girl friends or concubines than they have towards their wedded or “contracted” wives. As such men do not normally remain fully committed to their girlfriends or concubines, they feel much relaxed and comfortable in their company. Their meetings or rendezvous often take place in congenial atmosphere where the usual and regular household concerns do not interrupt their pleasure. Because most men do not like their girlfriends or concubines to bear children, as such, their encounters remain free from discussions that generally occur in situations where men have children from their wives. Consequently, many men prefer the company of their girlfriends or concubines to that of their wives.

There is another group of men who marry a number of women to meet their political needs. This is what at least one historical fact points us to. Emperor Akbar is said to have married no less than 5,000 women[1] from different Indian communities in order to create his sway over the communities his wives came from. His policy of marrying women from different Indian societies paid him a high dividend: he was able to rule India longer, and more effectively, than any other Mogul Emperors.

There is a third group of men who take a number of women - as wives; girlfriends or concubines - to satisfy, among others, one of their psychological deficiencies. Those men lacked patting in their childhood, especially, from their mothers, to recoup which, they collect around them a large number of women to pat them in their married life, a necessity, if left unfulfilled, modern scientific findings tell us, many among such men find themselves in disadvantageous situations later in their lives.[2]

The fourth group of men – though their number cannot be described as huge - collects a large number of women as wives, girlfriends or concubines around them to fulfill their sadistic desires. They derive immense pleasure from the sexual, physical and financial torments they inflict on them. The act of sexual torment consists not only of overindulgence in violent sex with those women; it also consists of denying them sexual pleasure as well as the pleasure of motherhood.

Muhammad belonged to the fourth group of men we have described above. His mother abandoned him, when he was five years old; the women of the families in whose homes he spent his childhood and a part of his young life not only refused to give him love and affection, they also mistreated him on account of his misfortunes.

Having discussed briefly the probable causes that induce a man or men into taking a multiple of women as wives, girlfriends or concubines, we will now revert to Muhammad’s conjugal life. We are indulging in this exercise in an attempt to determine why he took so many wives; why he treated them so badly and also, why he issued those commandments, which were intended to degrade and injure them, and all other women on earth. Our discussion on Muhammad’s conjugal life is based on the information we have gathered from his biographies, written by various Muslim as well as by non-Muslim writers.

According to some of his biographers, the number of wives that Muhammad had taken cannot be determined with certainty. Some conservative writers limit their number to fifteen, though some make it as many as twenty five.[3] Ali Dashti, an Iranian scholar of our time, has named twenty-one women, who he says were Muhammad’s wives.[4]

Muhammad’s first wife, Khudeija died in 619 A.D. He took his second wife in 620 A.D., when he was fifty. He married his last wife two years before he died in 632 A.D.

Second Wife

After returning to Mecca from Taif, Muhammad married Sawda. As we have mentioned earlier, Muhammad was facing acute financial hardships after the death of his first wife. He desperately needed someone to help him survive until he found a permanent solution to his economic difficulties.

Sawda was a widow of Sokran, who had left behind some wealth for her to live the rest of her life on. She was neither young nor beautiful. On top of it, she was very tall for a woman and also had an excessively corpulent physique. Her physical shortcomings notwithstanding, Muhammad went ahead and married her due, perhaps, to either of the following two considerations:

-Having lost his ability to engage himself in penile intercourse with woman, Sawda’s age, physique and ugliness, at that crucial time of his life, worked to his advantage. He could hide his weakness by claiming that her unwomanly physique and unattractiveness prevented him from having sex with her.

-All that he wanted from her was her money.

Once his purpose was served, Muhammad announced his intention to expel her from his house, using her unattractiveness as a ground for her expulsion. Faced with the grim prospects of starvation and death on the street, she implored him not to proceed with his plan, pledging that she would not divulge to anyone the state of his sexual life. Satisfied with the bargain, he allowed her to live in his house for the remainder of her life.

Third Wife

Aisha was the daughter of Abdullah ibn Abu Qahafa, alias Abu Baker, the future Caliph of Islam. A good friend of her father, Muhammad had the privilege to visit her at anytime he chose to do so. In course of his frequent visits, the child Aisha became accustomed to him, whose presence, as she narrated later, gave her delight and brought to her “something of the joy of the Paradise.” In his “miraculous touch, the sensation of joy,” she narrated later, “was even tangible.”[5]

We believe that over a period of time, Muhammad became infatuated with baby Aisha, and saw no wrong in developing a sexual relationship with her. For doing it, he, at first, he used threats to control the child’s mind. Her whole-self gradually overtaken by the fear of retaliation he was successful in planting in her tender mind, coupled with the “sensation of joy” that his “touch” gave her, she refrained all along from divulging either to her parents or to anyone else what Muhammad had been doing to her for a long time

Her parents might have had sensed what had been going on between their baby and Muhammad, and they might also have made her to confess the truth to them, but his strong influence over them as well as their own future plan prevented them from taking any action against the molester of their child.

A time came, when Muhammad was finding it difficult to live his life without him being able to ‘play with her and she with him.’ This confession on Muhammad’s part led some writers to infer that he had a physical relationship with Aisha long before she became his wife.[6] Fed up with the secrecy and the fear with which he had been satisfying his lascivious nature, he decided to marry Aisha, when she was hardly six years old.

The Arabian traditions permitted child marriage, but the marriage of a baby-girl with a fifty-plus year old man was unheard of. With a view to overcoming people’s criticism and their contempt of him, Muhammad came up with a brilliant idea. It was a dream, which he made use of to justify his otherwise unpardonable marriage with a child.

One day, he told his people that he had a dream in which he saw a man carrying in his hand someone wrapped in a piece of silk. The man said to him” “This is thy wife; so uncover her.” He lifted the silk and, lo! There was Aisha.”

Inadvertently, the narrator of the story left for us a clue that indicates Aisha’s real age at the time Muhammad had developed his sexual infatuation for her: she was a baby in her cradle, hence the man he saw in his dream carrying her in his hand!

Muhammad interpreted the dream to be a divine command for him to marry the child. Complying with it, he betrothed her, when she was a six-year old baby. The betrothal removed the difficulty that he faced before in engaging the child in acts that gratified his sexual fantasies. To shut off the mouths of his critics, he also permitted them to marry baby girls, if that was what they needed to satisfy their own sexual lust.[7]

Following the betrothal, Muhammad’s non-penile sexual relationship with Aisha continued for over two years. It had a brief break, when he migrated to Medina. Within a year of his arrival there, Aisha also moved to Medina along with her family members. Soon after her arrival, Muhammad formalized his marriage, and took Aisha to his house. Aisha was nine and her husband fifty-three years old, when he consummated his marriage with her.

The young age of the bride notwithstanding, Muslim writers maintain that Muhammad had married Aisha because she was clever and learned.[8] He had judged her qualities with his prophetic eyes. After being convinced by her extraordinary qualities, he decided that he should marry her first, and then equip her with his teachings, which he had expected her to relate to the Muslims after his death. Because Muhammad had reposed his complete trust in her, she is universally referred to as Ummul Momenin, the mother of the Believers. Most Muslim theologians, scholars as well as their ordinary cotemporaries consider her to be an authority not only on hadiths, but also on the details of her husband’s entire life.

Not knowing what level of learnedness a six year old child could have acquired in an environment in which facilities for imparting education did not exist at all, we assert that what we have stated in the foregoing paragraphs of this presentation was the only reason for which Muhammad had married Aisha at such a young age. It was all about fulfilling his sexual lasciviousness. Her presumed intelligence and learnedness had played no role whatsoever in Muhammad’s desire to marry her in such a tender age.

After she grew up, Aisha, we believe, resented not only her childhood marriage with Muhammad; she also hated him for not being able to satisfy her sexual needs. The fact that she supported Hafsah in her confrontation with him on a supposedly sex-related dispute lends credence to our theory.[9] She stood on Hafsah’s side to vent her anger at what he had done to her in her childhood, as well as for what she was going through then in her sex life.

For so long as Muhammad and other fearful stalwarts of Islam lived, she dared not revolt against all those who supported all the misdeeds of her husband. Ali’s assumption of the power of the Caliph gave her the chance. She revolted against him, and fought a pitch battle against the Muslim forces. Though she was defeated, yet she is believed to have caused more trouble among the Muslims than all the Pagan Quraishites combined.[10]

Reader would be confused by our above assertions. With a view to putting his perplexity to rest, we need to mention the following historical fact:

Muhammad is said to have had six children with Khudeija. Three of them were boys and they died in their infancy. Subsequent to Khudeija’s death, he took at least ten wives. Almost all of them were in their childbearing ages. Despite this fact, none of them bore him a child. In our judgment, it was his impotency that had prevented his wives from conceiving, and enjoying the pleasures of motherhood.

Muhammad’s sexual impotency has always remained a well-guarded secret. To prevent it from ever becoming a public knowledge, he forbad his followers from marrying his wives after his death. His sycophantic followers buried his embarrassing condition for ever by including his slave-girls and concubines in the same prohibition.[11]

As to the question of his having a son from Maria Qibtia is concerned, we shall dwell on this issue later in our sub-chapter titled, “Concubines.”

Fourth Wife

Hafsah was the daughter of Omar, an intimate friend and a close confidant of Muhammad. Her father became the second Caliph of Islam after the death of Abu Bakr.

Hafsah was married to Kunays, but became a widow when she was eighteen years old. Her father offered her in marriage to Othman, the widowed son-in-law of Muhammad, but he refused to marry her. She was then offered to Muhammad’s father-in-law, Abu Bakr, who answered the request in an evasive manner that hurt Omar’s pride.

Finding no willing groom, Umar went to Muhammad to seek his advice as well as to vent his anger at Uthman and Abu Baker. Counseling patience, he told Omar that he would give him a better son-in-law than Othman, and give Othman a better father-in-law than him (Omar).

Some time later, Muhammad gave his daughter Umm Kulthum in marriage to Othman, and he himself married Hafsah, thus fulfilling the promise he gave Omar earlier.

Afterwards, Abu Bakr explained his evasiveness to Omar by divulging the secret: Muhammad himself had harbored a desire to marry Hafsah; therefore, he had to be evasive, when Omar asked him to marry his daughter. Had Abu Bakr accepted his offer, it would have upset Muhammad – a situation that would not have been good for him and for his future ambitions.

Fifth Wife

Zainab was the daughter of Khuzaima and was married to Ubaydah. She had become a widow when her husband was killed in the battle of Badr. She was rich and had a generous disposition. Her generosity had earned her the title of “the mother of the poor.” She died few years after her marriage with Muhammad.

Muslims claim that Muhammad had married Hafsah because her husband had been killed in the battle of Badr (others say he died in the battle of Uhud), and she needed a man to look after her. To us, it does not appear to be an honest explanation of what must have tempted Muhammad to marry her. Let us explore:

Eight Muslim men had died in the battle of Badr. In the battle of Uhud, sixty-five Muslim men, including his uncle Hamza, were killed. We do not know if all of them were married. But if it is assumed, for argument’s sake, that only two of the martyrs of both the battles were married, then we should have no difficulty in concluding that they had left at least two widows behind them.

So, if Muhammad had married one of those two widows, the question is: what had happened to the other? Islamic history does not tell us that any of the Muslim stalwarts of Muhammad’s time had married, or given shelter to, those women who had lost their husbands in the battles of Badr or Uhud or in any other battles they had fought for Islam.

The truth is: Muhammad had no compaction or sympathy for women; it did not matter to him whether they were widowed or otherwise. He simply hated them from the core of his heart. He took so many wives only for satisfying his sadistic desires The Quran itself alludes to this fact.[12]

The facts, narrated in the above two paragraphs, prove convincingly that Muhammad had married Zainab either for her wealth or for her youth and beauty in order to satisfy his beastly lust. His alleged piety had played no role in this or other marriages of his life.

Sixth Wife

Umm Salama, whose real name was Hind, was the daughter of Abu Ummaya. She had a son by the name of Salama, hence the appellation of Umm Salama. Four months after her husband’s death, Muhammad asked her to marry him. Despite the fact that she was no more than twenty-eight years old at the time, she declined his proposal on the ground that she was too old for him and that she had a jealous nature, which would disrupt his conjugal life. At this time, Muhammad had a number of wives and slave girls at his disposal.

Umm Salama married Muhammad after he assured her that her age was not a factor and that he would have her jealous nature cured by Allah soon after their union! History, however, does not tell us, if she was ever cured of her jealousy or not.

Seventh Wife

Zainab, the daughter of Jahsh, was a young and beautiful girl, coming from a respectable family of Quraish. She was a virgin cousin of Muhammad. We shall describe the circumstances which brought her to Muhammad’s harem, while commenting on the verses of Sura 33, called Ahzab or Confederates.

Eighth Wife

Jawayriyah, also known as Barra, had become a captive in the hands of the Muslims. She belonged to the clan of Bani Mustalek. A woman of great beauty, she fell to the lot of a Helper from Medina who, not appreciating her beauty, fixed a high ransom for her freedom. Muhammad learned of her predicament and, being highly charmed by her beauty, paid the ransom and added her to his harem.

Ninth Wife

Umm Habiba was the daughter of Abu Sofian, Muhammad’s uncle and his inveterate foe. She was married to her cousin, Ubayd Allah ibn Jahsh. While in Abyssinia, Ubayd reverted to Christianity and died. She remained a Muslim.

Once she saw a dream in which someone addressed her as the “mother of the faithful,” which she interpreted to mean that she would marry her cousin, the Prophet of Islam. After her marriage with Muhammad, Abu Sofian, her father, is reported to have remarked: “By heaven, this camel is so rampant that no muzzle can restrain him.”

Tenth Wife

Safiya, a Jewess of great beauty, belonged to a tribe of Khaybar. She was married to Kinanah, when she was seventeen years old. A few months after her marriage, Muhammad reached Khaybar on an expedition against her tribe. At this time, Safiya had a dream. She saw a brilliant moon hanging in the sky and knew that beneath it was the City of Medina. Then the moon began to move towards Khaybar, where it fell into her lap. When she woke up, and told her husband what she had seen in her sleep, he struck her a blow in the face and said, “This can only mean that thou desirest the King of the Hijaz, Muhammad.”

After the fall of Khaybar to the Muslims, Safiya’s husband was beheaded, and she was brought to Muhammad as a captive, still bearing on her face the mark of the blow. He asked her the cause of the injury and she told him the story of her dream. Flattered, he took her as one of his wives. Their nuptials took place while the remains of her murdered husband was still awaiting a burial.

Eleventh Wife

Maimuna was a widow. Her full sister, Umm al-Fadl, was married to Muhammad’s uncle al Abbas. He offered his sister-in-law in marriage to his nephew, when he came to Mecca to perform his lesser pilgrimage about two years before his death. He accepted the offer and married Maimuna while still wearing the pilgrim’s Ihram.[13] He consummated the marriage at Sarif, a few miles outside of Mecca. Ordinary Muslims are not permitted to marry while wearing their ihram.

Twelfth Wife

Esma was the sister of a princely desert chief of Najd. She was given in marriage to Muhammad in order to protect his estate from being taken over forcibly by Muhammad, the King of Hijaz.

Realizing that he was impotent, she left him the night they were married. Muslim Apologists narrated the incident with a twist. They tell us that as she was young and very beautiful, Aisha and Hafsah developed in them a sense of insecurity, fearing that Esma’s youthfulness and beauty might force Muhammad to pay her more attention than he was in the habit of paying them. Consequently, they hatched a conspiracy in order to prevent their husband from approaching her sexually. Their plan worked well and Esma forestalled all of his attempts to engage her in a sexual act on the night she joined his harem. Her persistent refusal to copulate infuriated Muhammad. He divorced her without consummating the marriage.[14]

Maxime Rodinson speaks of another wife whom Muhammad divorced on the ground that she, too, had denied him sexual access.

According to many of Muhammad’s biographers, only nine of his wives ever lived together in the quarters, which he had built on the grounds of the Mosque of the Prophet of Medina. These quarters also housed an unknown number of slave-girls. They catered to all of his needs, which included sexual intercourse as well. For them to deny him sexual pleasures would have tantamount to displeasing Allah, thereby earning for them a severe punishment on earth, and the fire of Hell in the world hereafter.

Concubines

Apart from his wives and an unknown number of slave-girls, Muhammad also owned a number of concubines. Two of them deserve a brief introduction here:

Rihana: Rihana was a Jew from Bani Quraiza. She was the most beautiful female of her tribe. After Muhammad put most of the male members of her tribe to sword, he chose her for himself before distributing booty among his followers. Some writers maintain that Muhammad married her after she became a Muslim. Others say that she remained a Jew and died a Jew, five years after her enslavement. They add, however, that once when her master discovered that she had not become pregnant, he asked her to embrace Islam. She is said to have declined his suggestion saying, “O Messenger of Allah, leave me in thy power; that will be easier for me and for thee.”

Maria Qibtia: We have mentioned earlier that Muquaqis, the ruler of Alexandria, had sent Muhammad two Coptic sisters, called Maria (or Mary) and Shiren Qibtia as gift to him. Of the two, Maria was a great beauty. Both the sisters captivated Muhammad, but since his own law forbade him from marrying or having sex with two sisters “at one and the same time,”[15] he reluctantly gave Shiren away to his close friend and poet Hasan ibn Thabit. She bore him a son, whom they named Abdul Rahman. Later on, Hasan became Muhammad’s poet laureate.

Maria bore a son for Muhammad whom they named Ibrahim after the patriarch Abraham. According to most biographers of Muhammad, Ibrahim died when he was fifteen months old.

The death of Ibrahim caused Muhammad great pain, for he, according to his biographers, had reposed his hope in the child for transmitting his name to posterity. Consequently, he cried uncontrollably as he bent over the bosom of his heart. He was bathed in tears as he laid his child’s little body down into the ground.

The lamentations reportedly exhibited by Muhammad on the death of Ibrahim were in contradiction of his earlier conduct, viz a viz, the death of his three sons, born of his first wife Khudeija. All of them had died in their infancy. He neither cried, nor expressed any grief at their death. Similarly, he remained nonchalant at the death of his wife Khudeija. We have no historical record that indicates that he had cried or expressed grief at the loss he had suffered due to the passing away of his so-called beloved wife. Could his indifferent attitude towards his sons be the cause of their death?

We have our doubt on Ibrahim’s paternity. We submit hereunder the reasons, which are responsible for causing the doubt in our mind:

Traveling to distant places, in 7th century, was not an easy task. It used to be more so, when one had to undertake his journey from and through the deserts of the Middle East.

Many people of the Arabian Peninsula did travel, in the seventh century, to Syria, Persia and Egypt etc., on trade, but those travels were infrequent. They used to take long time in organizing their caravans, and only after preparing themselves in all respects, did they embark on their journeys. Advance preparations were inevitable for the reason that traveling in those days entailed great risk to lives and properties. Due to the perilous nature of their journeys, the Meccans traveled, only once in a year, to Syria and to other distant lands for conducting their trade. Traveling alone to long distances through the deserts was almost unheard of in those old days.

As long-distant travels caused great hardships, women and elderly people always avoided them. Those among them who had to go somewhere, they usually traveled on camels’ back. Otherwise, the group of travelers almost always consisted of young and strong individuals, who were willing to walk great distances, whilst their camels provided rides to those men who walked, and became exhausted, before them.

In view of the perils and risks they expected to face during their long journeys, the Meccans always sent small caravans to distant countries. The small size of their caravans served them two purposes: It helped them not only save lives; it also prevented their caravans from becoming the target of the highway brigands.

Considering the fact that long journeys, in his time, caused great hardships to the travelers, Muhammad selected Hatib b. Abu Balta’a to go to the court of Muquaqis, the ruler of Alexandria for asking him to accept Islam. Hatib was a young man, who was willing not only to undertake the hazardous journey, but also to complete it successfully. Muhammad must have given him a horse or a mule to cover the distance between Medina and Alexandria.

On his journey back home, this young man had, in his company, two young and beautiful damsels. They were Maria and Shirin Qibtia. They traveled together; ate together and slept together in the same tent. Hatib, an Arab, most of whom could not survive without sex, felt tempted by the girls and he made his move. Knowing well that they were in the midst of a desert where Hatib’s help and cooperation were as essential as a few drops of water, the girls could not repulse his approach; rather, they indicated their willingness and cooperation.

Hatib established physical relationship with both of them, which continued until their arrival at the gate of Medina. He delivered them to Muhammad. He was highly impressed by their beauty and would have possessed both of them, had he not decreed earlier that to have sex with two biological sisters at the same time was a sinful act. Thus prevented, he chose Maria, who was prettier than Shirin, to become one of the newest members of his harem, without knowing that she was pregnant.

Muhammad, nay, Allah, permitted Muslim men to have sex with their female slaves without marrying them.[16] Muslims are required, under the decree, to accord a bastard child or person (Dictionary definition: bastard: a person born of unmarried parents) the same care, privileges, respect, honor and opportunities they accord to their legitimate children. It was this Islamic spirit that had enabled many bastards not only to live their normal lives; it also enabled many of them to attain high offices and respect in the past. Wasiq was one bastard, who became a Caliph in 842 A.D., after succeeding his father Must’asim. He was the son of a Greek slave girl Karatis.[17]

Muhammad had three sons from Khudeija. All of them died in their infancy. We do not know the exact time period in which those boys were born, nor do we know the cause of their death. However, we surmise that Khudeija must have given birth to them either in the period, when Muhammad was undergoing his training in the cave of Hira or in the time he was struggling to establish his apostolic mission among the Pagans. In either case, his pre-occupation did not allow him to take good care of his children. Also the obsession that he had developed for his mission prevented him from understanding the important role that a son, in the orient, is called upon to play during his father’s lifetime or after his death.

Initially, Muhammad was not much confident of his success, nor did he know that he was going to become the virtual ruler of the Peninsula. Consequently, he did not realize the importance of having a son, whom he could entrust the responsibility of carrying on his mission after he was dead. By the time he realized his mistake, it was already too late.

After being in Muhammad’s company for sometime, Maria disclosed that she was pregnant. He was shocked by the news, for he as well as Maria knew well that he was not her impregnator. Their respective secrets thus exposed, but convinced by their expediencies, both of them agreed to play a game of deception, hoping that the child when born would be a boy. In the birth of a boy, Muhammad pinned his hope of having a successor; Maria on the other hand, had a great hope in Muhammad’s successor to bring her freedom and a good and happy life as well. The boy’s death in his infancy dashed their hopes and they were devastated.

Muhammad’s manipulation of Maria’s pregnancy created uproar among many of his lukewarm supporters. Having some inkling of what was going on in his sex life, they did not believe in his claim. Unable to contain their discontentment and to divert their attention from her, he put Maria up in a separate house, though it was his custom to have all his women reside in the quarters he had built for them beside the mosque, now famously known as the “Mosque of the Prophet.” The child’s untimely death, at fifteen months, rescued Muhammad from many of his suspicious followers.

But before the birth of the boy, putting way Maria in a separate house had failed to solve one of Muhammad’s major problems with her, as she continued to blackmail him over the paternity of her child so as to force him to bring her back to his harem. He tried to subdue her, but failed. Consequently, he brought her to his harem, where Hafsah found her in Muhammad’s company in her own room. That was the event that led him to threaten all of his wives with mass divorce.[18] We shall talk about it shortly.

In their vain attempts to defend Muhammad’s lascivious deeds, some modern historians of Islam disagree with the accounts of the earlier writers, such as Waqidi and Ibn Ishaq et al. They give us the following account:

Maria and Shiren were the daughters of Simon, one of the most respected Coptic leaders and these two girls were sent to Muhammad by the Archbishop of Alexandria with the request to treat them with all the honor due to them. They were, therefore, not slaves as stated by Waqidi et el.[19]

Modern historians, however, do not explain why the Archbishop had sent those girls to Muhammad, and what was he supposed to do with them. Without answering these basic questions, the scholars insist that Muhammad had married Maria and also had her sister Shiren married to his friend, Hasan Ibn Thabit.



[1] India Journal, p. D20.

[2] Thomas A. Harris in his book, I’m Ok, You’re Ok.

[3] Washington Irving, op. cit. p. 197.

[4] Twenty-three Years, pp. 123-125.

[5] Martin Lings, op. cit. p. 133.

[6] Thomas W. Lippman, Understanding Islam, p. 54.

[7] Cf. The Quran; 65:4.

[8] Abdullah Yusuf Ali, op. cit. vol.2, p. 1113.

[9] The Quran; 66:4.

[10] R.V.C. Bodley, op. cit. p. 147.

[11] Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi, op. cit. pp. 1088-9.

[12] Verse 33:50.

[13] Bukhari, book 62, vol. 7, number 49.

[14] R.V.C. Bodley, op. cit. p. 266.

[15] The Quran; 4:23.

[16] The Quran; 4:24.

[17] Prof. Masudul Hasan, History of Islam, vol.1, p. 228.

[18] The Quran; Sura 66- al Tehrim.

[19] Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, op. cit. p. 53.


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