Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati And Other Islamophobes' Attack On Islamic Prophet’s Marital Life Will Cease Only When Muslims Change Their Own Belief About Hazrat Aisha’s Very Young Marriage
New Age Islam Staff Writer
4 April
2021
Dasna
Devi temple’s head priest Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati (Twitter- @NarsinghVani)
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Muslims in India are once again outraged over the insulting remarks made against the Prophet (pbuh). This time the culprit is Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, head priest of Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. He made these blasphemous remarks on the Prophet during a press conference in Delhi. His outrageous remarks concerned the Prophet’s marital life, particularly his marriage to a very young 9-year-old Ummul Mominin Hazrat Aisha (RA).
It's very unlikely as the facts being given below will show
that Hazrat Aisha was six when she got married to the Prophet and nine when the
marriage was consummated. Though girls used to get married early in those days,
particularly in Arabia’s tribal society, but still not this young. This is what
makes this narration very unlikely. Yet this is what most Muslims believe in
and hence Islamophobes use this as a handle to beat them with. Muslims believe in this narration because it
has come from Hadith, and Hadith is considered akin to revelation, almost equal
to Quran. Most Muslim ulema do not differentiate much between the Quran and
Hadith. If anything, Hadith has much
greater influence on Muslims than Quran because its narrations and stories are
read and understood more profoundly.
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Also Read:
Was Ayesha A Six-Year-Old Bride? The Ancient Myth
Exposed
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Muslims,
however, are not willing to introspect at their belief system which leads to
Islamophobes getting these opportunities. Howsoever provocative his language
may have been, the fact remains that, in substance, Yati Narsinghanand
Saraswati is merely saying things that Muslims themselves have written in their
Seerat (biography of the Prophet) and Hadith (narrations attributed to the
Prophet in books that are considered authentic).
The Muslim
belief in Hazrat Aisha’s age being nine when her marriage was consummated is so
strong that the Sharia laws followed by Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries
forces nine-ten year old girls to live with their old-aged husbands even when
they run away from marital homes. One Sharia
court in Saudi Arabia forced the father of a ten year old married girl
to take her back to her husband’s home. Another judge said that even one year
old girls can be married off, though consummation will have to wait till she is
nine. All this emanates from the belief in the Hadith narrations about Hazrat
Aisha’s marriage to the Prophet (peace be upon him).
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We can only
hope that some Muslims will now look at the facts given below as well as on
other pages on newageislam.com and at least consider Hazrat Aisha’s age at
marriage controversial and oppose the Sharia laws that perpetrate such horrible
atrocities on young girls in Muslim countries. No matter how many court cases
we file against Islamophobes or beheadings we threaten, the situation will only
improve when we change our own mind-sets and start using rationality, though
our present theology virtually bans use of mind in matters of faith, under the
influence of Imam Ghazali who passed away in 1111 (CE).
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Also Read: DID
SAYYIDA AYESHA (ra) MARRY MUHAMMAD (P.B.U.H), THE PROPHET OF ISLAM, AT AGE 6?
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One thing
is very clear and all the scholars agree with the point that there was no
official registration of births when Hazrat Aisha (may Allah be pleased with
her) was born. Therefore her date of birth and date of marriage cannot be
narrated with full certainty. The Quran does not mention her age but
second-rank sources of Islam speak of her age. These sources are not Mutawatir (Mutawatir is a report narrated by a number of reliable
transmitters, along with other established criteria, to give certainty that the
tradition is not fabricated) but revolve around probability. This is the reason
that her age at the time of marriage should become a subject of controversy.
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Also Read: Saudi
Judge Refuses to Annul 8-Year-Old's Marriage
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According
to a hadith reported in Sahih Bukhari, “The Prophet (peace be upon him) married
her when was she six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was
nine years old”. There are other sources which differ on this age of marriage
but all the scholars agree on the point that the marriage was not consummated
at the time of her marriage contract.
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Also Read: The
Hadith Conspiracy and the Distortion of Islam
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There are
historians, writers, and scholars who have revisited the biography of the
Prophet and Hazrat Aisha. They hold the view that at the time of marriage,
Hazrat Aisha was 16-17 years old, and not 6, and the marriage was later
solemnized when she was 19 years old and not 9. There might be a mistake in
recording the age of Hazrat Aisha and 16 must have been mistakenly recorded as
6 and 19 as 9. This looks like sound research because of the calculation
methods.
The
marriage took place 10 years after the declaration of Prophethood in 620 CE.
Ibn Hisham, a well known biographer of the Prophet, writes that Hazrat Aisha
along with Hazrat Ali (may Allah be pleased with them) were the first children
to embrace Islam. This must suggest that Hazrat Aisha had been born before the
declaration of Prophethood.
Some
historians state that she was born in 605 CE which means she was around 15-16
years at the time of Hijrah and 19 when she moved in with the Prophet (peace be
upon him).
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Also Read: Justifying
child abuse in the name of Shariah
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The
majority of historians have narrated that she passed away at the age of 67. For
example, Imam Al-Usfuri and Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal have recorded that she passed
away 50 years after migration (Hijrah) in 672 CE. If a person calculates it, he
will find that the age of Hazrat Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) at the
time of marriage was around 16 and she was 19 when the marriage was consummated.
To sum up, I must say that though her age is the subject of dispute and
certainty cannot be claimed over this subject, I prefer the view that she was
16 at the time of her marriage.
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Also Read: Controversy
Over the Status of Hadith in Islam: Wrongs from the 'Right' Bukhari
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Some
ill-intentioned people are expressing bad words about the marriage-age of
Hazrat Aisha with the Prophet (peace be upon him). These bad words were not
raised by the vehement enemies of Islam like the Prophet's tribe, Quraysh,
during the time of Prophet Muhammad nor later along with the Islamic history,
as the ethics and morality of that era was very different from today.
Regardless of certainty of her marriage-age, a person should develop good
thinking about a lady whose marriage was based on a divine command as the lady
Aisha narrated that “Angel Gabriel came to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon
him), carrying a green silk cloth with the message of her marriage on it and
said, “this is your wife in this world and in the hereafter” (this hadith was
narrated by al Tirmidhi).
The wisdom
behind this marriage can be observed by the fact that at a young age she could
have memorized all the women-related rulings to forward them to other ladies of
Islam. Her excellent memory at an early age served her well in transmitting and
recording the large prophetic heritage. She became one of the top religious
scholars of her time. Hazrat Aisha was endowed with so many virtues as her
intellectual discernment that the great companions (Sahaba) used to seek her
juristic opinion on difficult issues. She excelled in the practice of independent
legal reasoning (Ijtihad) and was singled out for her unique narrations of
prophetic traditions, mostly about female issues, that could not be collected
by other companions.
According
to a report narrated by Attaa ibn Abi Rabah, “Hazrat Aisha was the top of all
jurists and the most knowledgeable among them and had the best opinion in
public matters”.
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Also Read: Hazrat
Aisha’s Controversial Age at Marriage: Nine or Nineteen?
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Another
tradition narrated by Hisham ibn 'Urwa is that his father said about 'Aisha “I
have not seen any one more knowledgeable about jurisprudence or medicine or
poetry than 'Aisha”.
Imam Zuhri,
a renowned historian said that if all the knowledge of the Prophet's wives were
measured along with the knowledge of all women, the knowledge of 'Aisha would
weigh more.
Muslims who
believe in the traditional narrations of Hadith about her marriage age must
think of such virtues when speaking of the age of her marriage. Once they
change their mindset and stop peddling false and concocted stories and
narrations in Hadith, Islamophobes too will have to stop.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/muslims-islamophobia/yati-narsinghanand-saraswati-islamophobes/d/124647
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