Date Posted: Wednesday, July 23, 2003

THE CONTENT: Muhammad as Family Man

Muhammad was twenty-five when someone first suggested that he should get married. He was a poor man, a dependent of his uncle Abu Talib. Young men in Makkah were in the habit of frequenting its bars and flirting with the barmaids. Not Muhammad! He led a life of chastity and purity. Nothing of the petulance of youth or the debauchery of adult life in Makkah was known of him. In the last two years of his bachelorhood, Muhammad was in the employ of Khadijah, a widow and a merchant, whose interest he had served well enough to deserve her praise as well as that of Maysarah, her long-trusted and faithful servant. The latter went on the trading trips with Muhammad looking after the interests of his employer. The successful ventures were as much his as Muhammad's; but Maysarah modestly put Muhammad ahead of himself, reporting to Khadijah that the successes were exclusively Muhammad's.

The fact that nobody had spoken to Muhammad about marriage indicates that marriage was not on his mind. That explains his stupefaction when Nafisah bint Munyah, a friend of Khadijah, suggested that if he would entrust the matter to her, she would secure for him the hand of Khadijah with all the wedding expenses prepaid. Muhammad was elated, and he and Khadijah were married. Khadijah gave Muhammad all his children but one: Fatimah, who married Muhammad's cousin Ali and bore him his only grandsons, Hasan and Husayn. Fatimah alone survived her father's two sons, Qasim and Tahir, who died in infancy.  Three daughters, Zaynab, Ruqayyah, and Umm Kulthum, all married and died without children before 8/630. In 9/631, another son, called Ibrahim, was born to Muhammad from his Egyptian wife Maryam. That child also died in infancy. Khadijah remained the only wife of Muhammad as long as she lived. Their marriage lasted until her death in 1 A.H./621. It was during this period that many of the most important events of the life of Muhammad occurred. It was indeed a happy marriage for both.

Khadijah’s wealth relieved Muhammad of the burden of working for a living. It liberated him from material concern for himself and his family, and provided him with the leisure requisite for long meditations, one of which was the occasion for the first revelation. When those first revelations came, Muhammad thought himself sick or possessed. He could not bring himself to believe what the Angel had conveyed to him, that he was to be a prophet. It fell to Khadijah to prop up her husband's spirits, to reassure and inspire him, to help him gain confidence in himself and in those extraordinary experiences. With the repeated return of the vision, Khadijah herself needed reassurance. She sought this from Waraqah ibn Nawfal, a distant uncle of hers, reputed for his religious knowledge and wisdom. After hearing a full report, Waraqah exclaimed, "By Him Who dominates my soul, Muhammad is the Prophet of this nation. The great Spirit that has come to Moses has now come to accept him. . . May he be firm!" Khadijah was certainly encouraged; but it was a tremendous burden that she had henceforth to carry as wife of someone who was to be a prophet. Muhammad loved his wife dearly. He poured on her all the affection of which he was capable. He cried when she died; and he kept her memory on every occasion. Later, his youngest wife, 'A'ishah said, "I have never been more envious than I am of Khadijah, long dead as she may be."

Though Muhammad married eight times after the death of Khadijah, only one of them was a real marriage. That was his marriage to 'A'ishah, daughter of his closest companion, Abu Bakr. The others were marriages for political and social reasons. The Prophet entered into them as an exemplification of a new value Islam taught. A few examples will illustrate. Zaynab hint Jahsh, a cousin of his whom Muhammad knew well, was given by him in marriage to Zayd ibn Harithah, Khadijah's slave whom Muhammad had manumitted. Incompatibility of the spouses made them miserable, and the marriage broke down. This was a double tragedy, since Arab custom made the divorced wife of a slave a social pariah, forever unmarriable. Although this custom was abolished by Islam, no Muslim would condescend to marry the woman despite her young age. To raise her status and teach the Arabs a lesson against social stratification, Muhammad took her in marriage. Hafsah was a widowed daughter of Umar ibn al Khattab, a close companion of the Prophet. She was in her forties and was poor. Her father was even poorer. He offered her to a number of friends and acquaintances, but all declined. It grieved him deeply that his daughter was homeless, unprotected, and liable to fall into trouble. To uplift them both and teach the Muslims that it is necessary for them to give the needed protection to their single women, especially the widows, the Prophet joined her to his household as his wife.

Sawdah was the Muslim wife of Sakran ibn 'Amr, one of the first converts to Islam. The Prophet married the couple when Sawdah converted to Islam. She had to run away from her family to avoid their vengeance. The same had happened to her husband. The Prophet ordered them both to emigrate to Abyssinia. On their return, Sakran died. Sawdah had to choose between staying in the streets or returning to her family and their retribution. Muhammad had to give her the protection due and reassure his other followers that their families would not be left to the mercy of their enemies, should they fall as martyrs in the raging conflict.

Juwayriyyah was the daughter of al Harith, chief of the Banu al Mustaliq tribe. She was a widow, and she fell captive in the war her people waged against the Muslims. The Prophet took her as his portion of the booty, manumitted her in respect to her father, and offered to take her in marriage. Her father left the choice to her, and she decided in favor of Islam and marriage to Muhammad. Her honor was thus kept. She proselytized for Islam with her people and brought them all into the faith a few months following her marriage.

These and other women were elevated through their marriage to Muhammad to the rank of "mothers of the Believers." Each one played an important role in the formative period of Islam and contributed to the social cohesiveness of the new society. Having declared the old tribal ties illegitimate in the new universalist ummah, Muhammad used every other cohesive to consolidate the fledgling society. The honor of belonging to the house of the Prophet or of being related thereto by marriage was part of the great reform Islam had introduced in male-female relations. Prior to Islam, a woman was regarded by her parents as a threat to family honor and hence worthy of burial alive at infancy. As an adult, she was a sex object that could be bought, sold, and inherited. From this position of inferiority and legal incapacity, Islam raised women to a position of influence and prestige in family and society. Regardless of her marital status, a woman became capable of owning, buying, selling, and inheriting. She became a legal entity whose marriage was impossible without her consent, and she was entitled to divorce her husband whenever there was due cause. All religious obligations and privileges fell equally upon women as well as upon men. Adultery being looked upon by Islam as a capital and most degrading crime, Islam protected women and guided them against all that may lead to their downfall. It exempted a woman from having to earn her livelihood by obliging her male relatives to support her at all times. It further decreed that in any matter a woman should be entitled to at least as much as she was obliged to give, and so always with kindness.

All these legal reforms were radical in their day; and they remain radical in much of the world today. Muhammad and his household provided the examples of these reforms, and added to it the embodiment of the new ethic. His wives testified that Muhammad's sympathy for them never waned; that they never saw him except with a smile on his face. And they in turn made his home an abode of peace and contentment. As Prophet and head of state, he did not regard it beneath his dignity to help them in their daily house chores. On the contrary, he made them think of him as their equal. One of them was bold enough once to say to him, "Alright now, it is your turn to speak. But please say only the truth." The remark infuriated her father, 'Umar, who was present and who castigated her severely for her offensive tone. Muhammad interfered, saying: "We did not invite you here for this purpose." Muhammad spent long hours with his children and grandchildren. He lengthened his prostration once in order not to push away a grandchild who saw his position as an invitation to ride on his back. He counseled his followers to be good to their families, declaring that "surely the best among you in the eye of God are the best toward their families." Muhammad called earning a livelihood for one's dependents an act of worship and raised its value to the level of martyrdom. The Qur’an condemned monkery (57:27), and the Prophet used to add: "Marriage is of my sunnah." He encouraged the young Muslims to marry, often contributing to their dowries or reducing those obligations to affordable amounts. The Qur’an condemned killing one's children, whether out of fear for family honor, or out of fear of poverty and famine. The Prophet urged the Muslims to procreate, saying: "Allah will provide for them"; their numbers are "pleasing to God and His Prophet."

This great emphasis on the necessity and value of the family coincided with the destruction by Islam of the tribe and the loyalties and commitments to which it had given rise. First, the family was a matter of nature. Based upon the bond of blood, it harbored feelings of love, of trust, and of concern that may not be violated without injury to the human personality. Hence, Islam acknowledged and girded it with law. Second, by regulating inheritance and dependence, Islam enabled the family to exist and prosper in its extended form, so that three generations could live together and eat from the same kitchen. Third, the large membership prevented any gap from forming between the generations and facilitated the processes of socialization and acculturation of the members. Fourth, Islam made available in any household a wide variety of talents and temperaments so that the members might complement one another; and it disciplined them to adjust to one another's needs.

Beyond the family, there was only the universal ummah, Islam having done away with the tribe and its institutions. The ummah was both the universal community and the universal state. It was an open and egalitarian society that any individual or group could join by an act of decision. Unlike the world empires that are built upon power and designed to exploit the slave and subject populations for the benefit of the elite few, the ummah was classless. The bond holding it together was a rational one, built upon the consensus which members shared in the vision of Islam. It depended upon education in that vision and training in its implementation on the local and universal levels. The family bond, on the other hand, is a blood call affecting humans willy-nilly, regardless of their ethical or rational maturity. Certainly, it can also rise to the level of rationality and carry some of the noblest and most ethical meanings of which man is capable. But there is no denying that without this rationality the family bond is both necessary and universal, unlike the "ummatic" bond which is exclusively acquired and rational.