I would have posted this earlier, but people usually are quicker to criticize others than to gain some actual facts regarding their false criticism. The Hadith regarding the age of Hazrat Ayesha at the time of marriage, to be 9 is widely held among scholars as a ' Not the Real presentation of facts, quotation out of context,'.
In the time before Islam, Abu Bakr married two women. The first was Fatila daughter of Abdul Uzza, from whom Abdullah and Asma were born. Then he married Umm Ruman, from whom Abdur Rahman and Aisha were born. These four were born before Islam. [5]
Being born before Islam means being born before the Call of Islam.
The life of Hazrat Aisha (Radhiyallahu-Anha) is proof that a woman can be far more learned than men and that she can be the teacher of scholars and experts. Her life is also proof that the same woman can be totally feminine and be a source of pleasure, joy and comfort to her husband, to negate the status of Hazrat Aisha RA by designing a conspiracy against her age, a hadith had been floated after specific alteration to prove the false claim that she was married with Muhammad SAWW (PBUH) around 9 years of age .
According to the Scholars the hadith reporting Hazrat Aishas age are weak. ( chain of specific narrators not verified)
There is material from both the hadith writers (Sahih and Muslim) and earlier Islamic histories suggesting Aisha must have been much older than nine when married.
1) According to the generally accepted tradition, Aisha was born about 8 years before Hijrah( Migration). However, according to another narrative in Bukhari (Kitaab al-Tafseer) Aisha is reported to have said that at the time Surah Al-Qamar, the 54th chapter of the Quran , was revealed, I was a young girl. The 54th Surah of the Quran was revealed nine years before Hijrah. According to this tradition, Aisha had not only been born before the revelation of the referred Surah, but was actually a young girl, not even only an infant at that time.
So if this age is assumed to be 7 to 14 years then her age at the time of marriage has to be between 14 to 21.
2) According to almost All the Historians, Asma; the elder sister of Aisha, was 10 years older than Aisha. It is reported in Taqreeb al-Tehzeeb as well as Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah that Asma died in the 73rd year after migration of Muhammad when she was 100 years old. Now, obviously if Asma was 100 years old in the 73rd year after Migration to Medina, she should have been 27 or 28 years old at the time of migration. If Asma was 27 or 28 years old at the time of hijrah, Aisha should have been 17 or 18 years old at that time.
Thus, Aisha if she got married in 1 AH (after Migration to Medina) or 2 AH was between 18 to 20 years old at the time of her marriage.
3) The hadith regarding her age has several aspects. First, the Prophet could not have gone against the Quran to marry a physically and intellectually immature child. Secondly, the age of Hazrat Aisha can be easily calculated from the age of her elder sister Hazrat Asma who was 10 years older than Hazrat Aisha. Waliuddin Muhammad Abdullah Al-Khateeb al Amri Tabrizi the famous author of Mishkath, in his biography of narrators (Asma ur Rijal), writes that Hazrat Asma died in the year 73 Hijri at the age of 100, ten or twelve days after the martyrdom of her son Abdullah Ibn Zubair. It is common knowledge that the Islamic calendar starts from the year of the Hijrah or the Prophets migration from Mecca to Medina.
Therefore, by deducting 73, the year of Hazrat Asmas death, from 100, her age at that time, we can easily conclude that she was 27 years old during Hijra.
This puts the age of Hazrat Aisha at 17 during the same period. As all biographers of the Prophet agree that he consummated his marriage with Hazrat Aisha in the year 2 Hijri it can be conclusively said that she was 19 at that time and not 9 as misinterpreted/alleged by the perpetrators of that thought.
Ever since I can remember (or understand things) my parents were following the religion of Islam. [8]
This is tantamount to saying that she was born sometime before her parents accepted Islam but she can only remember them practising Islam. No doubt she and her parents knew well whether she was born before or after they accepted Islam, as their acceptance of Islam was such a landmark event in their life which took place just after the Holy Prophet received his mission from God. If she had been born after they accepted Islam it would make no sense for her to say that she always remembered them as following Islam. Only if she was born before they accepted Islam, would it make sense for her to say that she can only remember them being Muslims, as she was too young to remember things before their conversion. This is consistent with her being born before the Call, and being perhaps four or five years old at the time of the Call, which was also almost the time when her parents accepted Islam.
Two further evidences cited by Maulana Muhammad Ali
In the footnotes of his Urdu translation and commentary of Sahih Bukhari, entitled Fadl-ul-Bari, Maulana Muhammad Ali had pointed out reports of two events which show that Aisha could not have been born later than the year of the Call. These are as follows.
1. The above mentioned statement by Aisha in Bukhari, about her earliest memory of her parents being that they were followers of Islam, begins with the following words in its version in Bukharis Kitab-ul-Kafalat. We quote this from the English translation of Bukhari by M. Muhsin Khan:
Since I reached the age when I could remember things, I have seen my parents worshipping according to the right faith of Islam. Not a single day passed but Allahs Apostle visited us both in the morning and in the evening. When the Muslims were persecuted, Abu Bakr set out for Ethiopia as an emigrant. [9]
Commenting on this report, Maulana Muhammad Ali writes:
This report sheds some light on the question of the age of Aisha.
The mention of the persecution of Muslims along with the emigration to Ethiopia clearly shows that this refers to the fifth or the sixth year of the Call.
At that time Aisha was of an age to discern things, and so her birth could not have been later than the first year of the Call. [10]
Again, this would make her more than fourteen at the time of the consummation of her marriage.
2. There is a report in Sahih Bukhari as follows:
On the day (of the battle) of Uhud when (some) people retreated and left the Prophet, I saw Aisha daughter of Abu Bakr and Umm Sulaim, with their robes tucked up so that the bangles around their ankles were visible hurrying with their water skins (in another narration it is said, carrying the water skins on their backs). Then they would pour the water in the mouths of the people, and return to fill the water skins again and came back again to pour water in the mouths of the people. [11]
Maulana Muhammad Ali writes in a footnote under this report:
It should also be noted that Aisha joined the Holy Prophets household only one year before the battle of Uhud. According to the common view she would be only ten years of age at this time, which is certainly not a suitable age for the work she did on this occasion. This also shows that she was not so young at this time. [12]
If, as shown in the previous section above, Aisha was 19 at the time of the consummation of her marriage, then she would be twenty years old at the time of the battle of Uhud. It may be added that on the earlier occasion of the battle of Badr when some Muslim youths tried, out of eagerness, to go along with the Muslim army to the field of battle, the Holy Prophet Muhammad sent them back on account of their young age (allowing only one such youngster, Umair ibn Abi Waqqas, to accompany his older brother the famous Companion Sad ibn Abi Waqqas). It seems, therefore, highly unlikely that if Aisha was ten years old the Holy Prophet would have allowed her to accompany the army to the field of battle.
