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The
Holy Prophet Muhammad's Marriages [Polygamy] -- Some
Deeper Aspects:
by Maulana
Aftab-ud-Din Ahmad
The Light
(March 24, 1984, pp. 21-25; April 8, 1984, pp. 7-12;24)
Read
a related article!
[The
Holy Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) Marriages]
Negation of
Sensuality:
Much misgiving exists even in
the mind of well-meaning people regarding the plurality of
marriages that the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of
Allah be upon him) contracted during the latter part of his
life. In minds, Western and Westernised, that have no
experience of polygamy, this creates an unwholesome
sensation. And this in spite of the fact that Muslim divines
have given very sound arguments to prove that it is
unreasonable to ascribe this action of the Holy Prophet to
any urge of sensuality. It has been pointed out, for
example, that in a country where sexual immorality was at
its highest and where maturity was attained at a rather
early age, the Holy Prophet lived a spotlessly celibate life
till the age of twenty-five; that at that age when he could
easily marry the most beautiful virgin of Arabia, he
preferred a widow of forty; that with this elderly lady he
lived a devoted life for full twenty-five years, and that he
thought of polygamy only when he was fifty, when the heat of
youth had altogether gone. It has also been pointed out that
his life in polygamy was as ascetic as before it, thus
ruling out all possibilities of self-indulgence. A man who
spends most of his nights in prayers and vigils and most of
his days in semi-starvation cannot be regarded as enjoying
his polygamous life from the sensual point of view. But even
strong arguments such as these leave some minds still
unsatisfied. And it is no use avoiding the issue just for
the sake of modesty. Modesty in the old sense in matters of
sex does not exist in modern minds. And religious preachers
have to face the situation as it is or else they will fail
to carry conviction to minds otherwise well-disposed with
regard to certain vital questions of religion. They should
lose no time in bringing in for an open discussion of
questions that are agitating minds even if convention frowns
at such a discussion. True religious leaders do not stand in
need of any misty hallow of sanctity; they, on the other
hand, invite with a challenge all scientific criticism of
their own personalities. The Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace
and blessings of Allah be upon him, as a true religious
leader, is not afraid of any scientific criticism, however
severe and exacting it may be. I, therefore, propose to
raise one by one all those misgivings that lurk in many
minds with regard to the Holy Prophet's marriages and
resolve them by an open discussion.
A
Psychological Analysis:
To begin with, there is really
nothing to thrill in a plurality of marriages. The thrill,
if it at all comes, is a very short-lived one. By an
analysis of the relevant psychology we can easily understand
that the real thrill of the company of a second-woman lies
in the idea of its sinfulness. The commandment "Do not covet
your neighbour's wife" has its foundation in this vicious
tendency in man. A married wife, however beautiful, charming
and attractive, lacks the attraction of a commonplace woman
with whom one is not legally married. The thrill of sin is
eternal in all unredeemed souls, and in this age almost all
of us are unredeemed. Once we understand this important
aspect of human psychology, more than half of our misgivings
regarding the Holy Prophet's polygamous marriages and
regarding all polygamous marriages for that matter, will
vanish. One may, however, object here by saying that if an
open door is left for divorce and one is allowed to divorce
a woman as soon as she becomes stale, even the short-lived
thrill of having new women as wives may be perpetuated.
There is force in this argument. But it is exactly here that
the Quran and the Holy Prophet's example acquit themselves
admirably. Easy divorce is absolutely banned. The procedure
of divorce is an extremely tedious one in the Quran. And the
Prophet has summarised the whole attitude of Islam towards
the question by saying: "Of all permissible things divorce
is most disliked by God." As for his own self the Quran gave
a still harder ruling. The following verse was revealed in
the seventh year of the Hijrah, i.e., full three years
before his death:
"It is not allowed to thee to
take wives afterwards, nor that you should change them
for other wives though their beauty be pleasing to
thee..." (33:52).
So the Holy Prophet had to retain all
those women - all of them widows and divorced wives of
others, excepting one whom he married. Although the verse
prohibited divorce at a certain point of time, it goes to
the credit of the Holy Prophet and the religion he preached
that he never divorced any wife even before this. Thus once
a woman was married to the Holy Prophet, she continued to be
his wife for all times to come. Neither was he allowed to
marry a new wife after this. This fact should finally
disperse all clouds of doubt that may gather in people's
minds in this connection. As there was no prospect of any
change, there was no thrill to be had, the thrill of a fresh
wife. Further as I have said, a woman, as soon as she
acquires a permanent legal position as a wife and becomes a
fixture so to speak, loses that aspect of her attraction
which tickles the imagination of us of this age. Shakespeare
is very right when he says that sensuality demands an
unlimited supply of fresh food for itself. If one is found,
therefore, to put a stop to his desire anywhere, the
suspicion of sensuality shall have to be ruled out from an
estimate of his character. In the case of the Holy Prophet
the stop was placed on his sex life in a twofold way. He was
commanded not to marry any further, full three years before
his death. Even if he had lived up to the age of, say,
ninety and even if all his wives had died within a year or
two after the revelation of this prohibition order, he was
not to marry any more. Considering the case from the human
point of view, it was an extremely hard ban that could be
placed on a man's sex life. The scientific-minded critic,
even if he is hostile to the religion itself, will find
ample reason here for rejecting the theory that it was
sensuality that prompted the Holy Prophet to take to a
plurality of wives.
Responsibilities
of Conjugal Life:
A very important fact that is
generally missed in understanding the question of sensuality
in relation to polygamy is that it is greediness that
constitutes sensuality. Just as a man of millions may live a
simple life, while a man with very limited means may yet be
fond of luxury, similarly a man with one wife can quite
possibly be less content than a man with a plurality of
wives. Further, all sober married men will agree that
the keenness of sex urge recedes into the background as
other and more serious aspects of conjugal life come into
prominence. It is not so much the flesh that holds the two
together as co-operation in other duties and obligations,
although flesh has some part and a minor part to play all
throughout. Very rightly has that veteran missionary of
Islam, the late Khwaja Kamal ud-Din, remarked that the bed
is not the best part of conjugal life. This is as true of
polygamous life as of monogamous life.
Modern
Concept of Wife:
It is the abnormal modern
outlook on life that sees in the wife nothing but an
incarnation of sex in its gross physical form. In this
outlook, greediness of the flesh reigns supreme, a
greediness which will not stop short of absolute communism
in women, and of gratification at will. As I have said,
sensuality can brook no restrictions on itself. So much so
that if a man can put a stop to his presumed sensuality at
any point, i.e., if he can at any stage of his career cry a
halt to his sex gratification, that person cannot reasonably
be called a sensual man. We have to find out other grounds
for his sex life, monogamous or polygamous. Sensuality and
self-control can never go together. The characteristic of
sensuality is that it increases as it goes on satisfying
itself.
The conception of woman as
impersonation of sex is the very basis of real sensuality
and constitutes a denial of the soul in her. Islam is
violently opposed to such a conception as can be seen from
its teachings and laws.
Confronted with the fact that the Holy
Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) lived a
spotlessly celibate life till the age of 25, and further
lived a life of ideal monogamy for another 25 years in a
country where sensuality and debauchery were regarded as the
strong man's proud privileges, the sceptical critic will
advance the plausible theory that some people may grow
sensual towards the end of their life. Such a theory,
however, is based on a wrong observation of human nature.
The people who go wrong in this way are those that are
really sensual from the very beginning of their lives; only
they do not get an opportunity for an open self-indulgence.
Their sensuality waits for opportunity and resources for an
open manifestation.
In the case of the Holy Prophet, pace
and blessings of Allah be upon him, the opportunity was not
lacking even in the beginning of his life. Polygamy, the
only latitude that he ever allowed himself, was not at all
regarded a sin or a dishonourable act in Arabia, it was
rather sanctioned by the sacred traditions of the race.
Least of all, he could have married a virgin girl when he
first thought of conjugal life. There was no question of
repressed desire in this case that could manifest itself in
an advanced age. As a matter of fact, his own tribe, in its
attempts to dissuade him from his challenging preachings,
itself offered him, for a second wife, anyone he should care
to choose from among the beautiful virgins of the race. His
reply was a flat refusal that shattered once and for all the
half-hearted suspicion of the Arabs themselves that the Holy
Prophet's agitation could have anything to do with some kind
of sex complex. But although the Holy Prophet's contemporary
enemies, after a thorough test, were satisfied that his
career had no tinge of sensuality anywhere, their
counterparts of the 19th and the
20th centuries of the Christian era would
still like to stick to that exploded theory, notwithstanding
their lack of first-hand knowledge about his character. The
irony of the situation, indeed, could go no
further.
Deeper
Aspects of Sex Life:
The falsity of the theory of
the Holy Prophet's sensuality thus proved beyond all doubt,
it still remains for us to assign a befitting purpose to his
plurality of marriages towards the fag-end of his life. For
this we have to go into the deeper aspects of sex life than
we have hitherto been familiar with. We have to realise that
sex life, like any other self-expression, has its culture
and refinement, which, like every other refinement needs
controlling and regulating of the emotion concerned. I make
no apology for saying that sex is devoid of all refinement
in our times. It has gone back to its crude manifestation of
the Stone Age. The sex manifestation even of the best
refined of our times will put to shame even some of the
lower species of animal life. Our sex expression has indeed
been robbed of all grace and culture that beseems us as
human beings, endowed that we are with reason and spiritual
ambitions. And herein will be revealed the importance of the
Holy Prophet Muhammad's life. The Holy Prophet appeared in a
country where sex life had degenerated into utmost
vulgarism, where nudism was practised on occasions of
national fair, in broad daylight and without the least
anxiety for privacy. When the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace
and blessings of God be upon him) left this world he left a
whole nation behind, with whom sex life had attained the
highest level of purity and refinement that the world had
ever seen. I cannot go into the details of the question for
fear of disturbing the conventional and senseless idea of
modesty that the West has developed. I will content myself
with an illustration from another aspect of our life, to
suggest the possibility of refinement in a sphere that has
been most unfortunately discarded by Christianity as a dirty
affair altogether. Let us take the case of eating, an
essentially animal need. And yet what a refinement has been
introduced in its satisfaction! Eating is done by the
unrefined road-digger, with unwashed hands and face and
perhaps with unclean mouth, his food placed on a piece of
newspaper on the bare ground, where dust and flies are too
likely to contaminate it, and he munching it with a sound
that may be heard by every passer-by. How vastly different
is this eating with that of a member of the royal family
taking his/her lunch in a room and with plates and other
necessary things that are paragons of cleanliness, with a
body spotlessly clean and in a manner highly delicate. Both
are eating but the refinement creates such a wide gulf
between the two acts, that they can hardly be regarded as
one and the same. Even so there is such a thing as
refinement and culture in the satisfaction of the sex urge
in man, given which this gross animal need can be elevated
to a point where it may contribute to the deeper happiness
of our spirit. But the West, so long as it persists in
abhorring sex under the spell of Christianity, cannot
conceive of the possibility of this refinement in it. With
all its clinics and knowledge of Eugenics, and will thus not
be able to appreciate the services rendered to this very
delicate but essential side of our nature, by Holy Prophet
Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Among
the many items of refinement that modern sex life lacks,
modesty is one. Devoid of modesty, sex degenerates into an
expression of savageness and the married couple, even of 50
years' standing, are as much in need of it as a young man
and woman that are just thinking of entering into a wedlock.
Sex-expression is designed by nature to be soft like
moonlight. If we force it to assume the character of the
glaring rays of the tropical sun, it is bound to scorch our
mind and soul. Control and moderation should mark every step
of the expression of this most unruly emotion in man.
Refinement and cleanliness should be its unfailing
attendants. To what details this can go, can be realised by
one who has studied the relevant aspects of the Holy
Prophet's instructions.
Refinement
in Sex Life:
The Holy Prophet knew that the
national character of a people takes its shape from the
manner of its sex-expression, and hence his anxiety to
introduce refinement in this matter. Now in this refined sex
life, the woman has to play an equal part with the man. The
Holy Prophet, however, had himself to be the instructor for
the men as well as for the women followers, and he had his
Holy Prophet's dignity and responsibility. Close association
of female disciples with a male master has always been
fraught with dangers to a cause. The danger becomes all the
more glaring if the cause be a religious one. In such a
cause, there should be no room even for rumours as was
unfortunately the case with a previous teacher of religion
-- Jesus of Nazareth. The Holy Prophet being legally married
to a few chosen disciples has raised the moral tone of his
movement rather than lowering it. In the absence of his
regular marriage with these disciples, the question we would
have to face today would be not "Why did the Holy Prophet
marry so many wives?" but "Why did he keep so many
concubines?" Besides, there are certain things which one
cannot transmit to others without an intimate personal
contact. Further, one or even two women were not enough for
the purpose, since it involved not only retaining all those
numerous details of private life, but also spreading them
over the world. All workers in the field know what a
difficult task it is to spread wholesome habits of life
among the generality of mankind. Considering the traditions
of Muslim sex-life spread over the whole world, one can
safely say that the Holy Prophet's training was imparted to
proper persons, as all these traditions have their source in
the wives of Holy Prophet -- all credit to them. One of the
dangers of the modern Western education among the Muslims is
that this glorious tradition is being discarded for a more
vulgar approach to sex life, both in its moral as well as in
its physical aspects, an unintentional disrespect to the
sacred memory of those great benefactors of world womanhood,
rightly remembered by the Muslims by the exalted title of
the "mothers of the faithful."
Perfect
Character Vividly Demonstrates Contact with God:
Now I proceed to discuss still
another aspect of the question, and this will add clarity to
what I am trying to convey. It is man that has brought
religion to mankind. Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus,
Ramchandra and Shri Krishna, Zoroaster and Confucius, and
Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him, and all those numerous other founders of religion, both
those whose names are found preserved either in history or
in traditions and mythology, and those whose names are lost
in the course of history, were all persons belonging to the
male sex. Wherever a man claims to be spoken to by God and
to be His agent and mouthpiece, men wise and critical,
gather round him, anxious to test the truth of his claims
and accept him as a guide if the claims prove genuine. Man
knows where he needs the power from God, what darkness of
his nature He is to illumine, and what weakness of his
character He is to remove by His direct light. Thus, if the
claimant is found to possess a character which a direct
contact with God alone can vouchsafe, the claims of the man
should be taken to be genuine. The claims may be attended by
miracles and signs, but the sign of perfected character, the
miracle of rising above all weaknesses of the flesh, is the
greatest proof of the veracity of the claims of a person
claiming direct contact with God, and indeed the surest of
all tests. The first disciples of a true religious
personality invariably apply this test to the claims of the
master. And it is only when they are fully satisfied in this
regard that they offer their all for the new cause which has
nothing but opposition from the world at large. Holy Prophet
Muhammad's first disciples, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali,
Talha, Zubair, and numerous others like them who pledged
their everything for the new cause, all of them applied this
test to his claims, and were satisfied that he showed
unmistakable signs of God-contact. But when the woman heard
his claims, and even found the wisest men of the realm
testifying to the veracity of these claims, she still had
her own doubts. No woman has ever been known to have the
privilege of being a founder of religion. Man has always
brought religion and woman has to accept him and show him
due reverence and pay him allegiance from a respectful
distance. Nor within historical period has the woman been
able to test the truth of a man's claims of Divine Agentship
from close quarters. Both Jesus and Buddha demanded the
faith of woman in their claims from a distance that the
difference of sex set up. And woman has her own peculiar
test to apply to a man in order to be satisfied that his
whole being has been really illuminated by the light of God,
a transformation without which the claims of Divine
Agentship cannot stand. She is privileged to reach the
regions of man's character which are inaccessible to a man.
And unless she is satisfied therein, she cannot let her soul
to be guided by a man for her spiritual destiny. At least,
the intellectual and spiritual womanhood cannot so surrender
itself to the guidance of a man on behalf of God. She knows
how a man whom man of unquestionable critical observation
may pass as a redeemed man, may yet have certain weaknesses
lurking in him which can be detected by woman alone. The
last remnant of the greed in man, his concealed beastliness,
can deceive manhood but not womanhood. So womanhood has
rightly her peculiar doubts about the genuineness of a man,
even when the whole world of manhood is satisfied with
regard to his prophetical claims. And let there be no
mistake about it that unless womanhood receives her full
satisfaction, it cannot be spiritually redeemed. Whatever
Neitzsche might have meant when he said that it was only
when man was man enough that he could redeem the womanhood
in the woman, his statement can be cent per cent correct in
this particular sense. To resolve finally the doubts of
womanhood with regard to the existence of God and His active
interest in the affairs of humanity and its ultimate
destiny, is the hardest of all tasks that man has ever
attempted. Maybe, that it is because of this difficulty that
most of those that try to pass for Godly men keep themselves
at a safe distance from the intimate approach of womanhood.
But Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him, was the manliest of men that have ever tried to
reform mankind. He was as much anxious to redeem the woman
as he was to redeem the man. He was confident of his own
powers. He knew that he could demonstrate even to the
shrewdest woman the absence of any greed in his soul. He
thus purposely summoned not one woman, who very possibly
might be of the believing and uncritical type, but a
representative body of women, to come and examine him from a
close range where no simulation was possible, and see for
themselves if God-realisation was not the supreme fact in
his life. He so invited them in order that womanhood through
them might be redeemed through a perfected faith in the
revelation of God.
A New Moral
Universe:
The women whom, he so invited
were not slow to understand the purpose of their relation
with him. The shrewdest and most youthful of them, Ayesha,
has a telling evidence to give on the subject. It is
recorded in Bukhari that, asked about the Holy Prophet's
conduct during a certain kind of illness of his wives,
Ayesha related that he used to be in close contact with them
and significantly added, "Who is there among you who has so
much control over his self as the Holy Prophet had over
his?" It is remarkable that the same observation is related
of another wife of the Holy Prophet -- Maimuna.
This is no small matter. The woman has
an intuitive knowledge of the weakness of man in a certain
matter and the woman's instinct, it is agreed, is very
strong indeed in certain things. All those women therefore,
that came to the Holy Prophet as his wives, no doubt they
came with a regard due to a religious personality, but they
had all the same their traditional conception of man which
had a good margin for the peculiar weakness which the best
of men betray in his intimate relation with the opposite
sex. They had, no doubt, an extraordinary measure of
devoutness and sincerity for religion, but this was nothing
compared to what they experienced after their experiences
with the Holy Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him.
A new moral universe, so to speak,
opened before them as they came to know a person in whom
God-realisation had removed the last shred of greediness,
which, in the judgement of universal womanhood, man was
incapable of shedding. Thus, womanhood was religiously
redeemed as never before. The religious experience that came
to it through this channel was unprecedented in the
religious history of mankind. The wives of the Holy Prophet
were, so to speak, a jury sitting in judgement on behalf of
world womanhood on the sex life of the Holy Prophet and
privileged to witness a new manifestation of human religious
character. The impression which they so received went down
to the very depths of their consciousness and brought
redemption to womanhood in the most absolute sense of the
term. From the ordinary womanhood of the then Arabia they
rose to the highest levels of human consciousness. They came
to constitute a band of saintly figures after the death of
the Holy Prophet, the like of which world had never seen
before. The increasing material prosperity of Islam brought
immense wealth at the feet of these "mothers of the
faithful", but the end of each day would find them
penniless, as a result of their unbounded charity. Owners of
no mean wealth, they still considered barley-bread a luxury,
that it was in the days of their Holy Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allah be upon him) husband and denied
themselves all worldly comforts. They spent their days in
charitable works and in the discussion of the Book of God
and His Prophet and their nights in silent devotions to the
Lord of life and existence.
Eschewing
Worldliness:
Prophet Jesus is reported to
have said that it was easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
heaven. It may or may not be a true statement to make, but
it will be absolutely true to say that the impossibility is
greater in the case of a woman rising above the attractions
of wealth and comfort. It was, therefore, nothing short of a
miracle for the Prophet to have so entirely changed the
nature of so many women at a time. Some of them were quite
young when they became widows and lived up to the ripe old
age of eighty, but they ended their lives in the same way as
they had begun it, in eschewing everything that might be
called worldliness and in applying themselves heart and soul
to the remembrance of God and His revealed words. Such a
redemption was possible only by the impact of the Holy
Prophet's self-effaced, flesh-subdued personality on their
character. The Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be
upon him) thus created a tradition of womanhood which was
unknown to the world before. This tradition, in spite of
many disturbances in the course of history, continues to our
own days, when it seems to be imperilled by the inroads of
Westernism.
But just as the living personality of
the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)
and the living word of the Holy Quran have survived all the
moral blows of the West and today, in their turn, hope to
lend it a helping hand in the midst of its difficulties, the
glorious traditions of redeemed womanhood established by the
Holy Prophet's wives will also survive its trial and stand
up boldly in the world in the not very distant future to
save dissipated womanhood, whose plight has its origin in
the lewd conception of sex, persistently preached by the
Christian West.
Read
a related article!
[The
Holy Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) Marriages]
Top
Accusations
Answered Section
> The Holy Prophet Muhammad's Marriages
[Polygamy] -- Some Deeper Aspects by Maulana
Aftab-ud-Din Ahmad
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