The age of Aisha at marriage is an extremely contentious issue. On the one hand, there are several hadiths which are said to have been narrated by Aisha herself, which claim that she was six or seven years old when betrothed and nine when the marriage was consummated. On the other hand, there is evidence from early Muslim chroniclers like Ibn Ishaq that indicates Aisha may have been 12 to 14 years old, just past the age of puberty, or perhaps even older.
Most Muslim scholars have accepted the tradition that Aisha was nine years old when the marriage was consummated. This has in turn led critics to denounce Muhammad for having sexual relations with a girl so young. Such criticisms may often be found in the context of criticizing the entire religion of Islam, though many Muslims may consider any criticism of Muhammad as equivalent. A response to this criticism has been that Aisha was post-pubescent at nine and that early marriageable ages were an accepted practice in most of the world before the modern Industrial Era.
However, some Muslim scholars point to other traditions that conflict with those attributed to Aisha in this matter. If the other traditions are right, this would imply that Aisha was either confused in her dating, was exaggerating her youth at marriage, or that her stories (which were not written down until more than 100 years after her death) had been garbled in transmission. If we believe traditions that say she was post-pubescent when married—extremely likely in light of practices in other societies where early marriage is common—then these other traditions from Ibn Ishaq and Tabari and others seem much more convincing.
From the viewpoint of the Islamic clergy, the ulama, this explanation, while relieving them of one difficulty, poses another. It values the biographical and historical literature, the sira, over the canonical hadith, or oral traditions accepted by the ulema. However, anything that threatens the value of the hadith, and especially hadith narrated by Aisha, threatens the whole elaborate structure of Islamic law, or sharia. The Shi’a version of sharia is less at risk in this one instance, as the Shi’a deprecate anything sourced to Aisha.
Liberal Muslims do not see any problem with saving Muhammad’s character at the expense of traditionalism. Conservative Muslims, and the ulama, tend to embrace the “early puberty” theories.
Evidence of age nine at consummation
These traditions are from the hadith collections of Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875). These two collections are regarded as the most authentic by Sunni Muslims.
• Sahih Muslim Book 008, Number 3310: ‘Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.
• Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88 Narrated ‘Urwa: The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
• Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64 Narrated ‘Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
• Sahih Bukhari 8:151, Narrated ‘Aisha: “I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah’s Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for ‘Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.) (Fateh-al-Bari page 143, Vol.13)
• Sahih Bukhari vol. 5, Book 58, Number 234 Narrated ‘Aisha: The prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six. We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Harith Kharzraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became all right, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah’s blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage).
Other hadith in Bukhari repeat this information.
Recent Controversy surrounding Muhammad’s Marriage to Aisha
Controversy hit the headlines in June 2002, when former Southern Baptist President Jerry Vines, speaking at the Southern Baptist Convention on June 16, described Muhammad as a “demon-possessed pedophile,” referring to his marriage with Aisha. His source was a best-selling and award winning book (it received the Gold Medallion from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) by Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner, Unveiling Islam (2002) which claims to be “a sympathetic and yet uncompromising presentation of the entire scope of Islam.” Sales have far outstripped that of the most popular scholarly introduction to Islam, John L. Esposito’s Islam: The Straight Path. The Caners did not use the term pedophile, which Vine’s introduced, but wrote, “How a prophet of noble character could wed someone so young, even in the culture of the day, remains a mystery. Many gloss over this act … How could a man consummate a marriage with a nine-year old? This question usually is ignored” (59-60).
Subsequently, sections on pedophilia have appeared on Islamic websites. The site www.answering-christianity.com has a section on pedophilia in which the charge that Muhammad was a child molester is refuted. Author Osama Abdallah argues that puberty began very early at that time for girls. He then cites such Biblical verses as 1 Samuel 15: 3-4 to suggest that the Bible condoned mass murder of children. The debate continues with writers on the rival site, www.answering-islam.net (answering-islam.com takes you to Osama Abdallah’s site which owns that domain name).
In his discussion of Muhammad’s marriages, Esposito comments that polygamy was not only culturally and socially accepted at the time but that a chief was expected to contract ‘political marriages to cement alliances” (1988: 20). He comments that Aisha was the only virgin whom Muhammad married and that she was “the wife with whom he had the closest relationship.” He suggests that to deny or try to obscure the fact that Muhammad “was attracted to women and enjoyed his wives [contradicts] the Islamic outlook on marriage and sexuality found both in revelation and Prophetic traditions.” These emphasize “the importance of family and [view] sex as a gift from God to be enjoyed within the bonds of marriage.”
Indirect evidence of older age
• According to Ibn Hisham’s recension of Ibn Ishaq’s (d. 768) biography of Prophet Muhammad, the Sirat Rashul Allah, the earliest surviving biography of Muhammad, Aisha accepted Islam before Umar ibn al-Khattab. If true, then Aisha accepted Islam during its infancy. She could not have been less than 14 years in 1 A.H.—the time she got married. Sira, Ibn Hisham, Vol. 1, 227
• Tabari reports that when Abu Bakr planned on migrating to Ethiopia (eight years before Hijrah), he went to Mut`am – with whose son Aisha was engaged at that time – and asked him to take Aisha as his son’s wife. Mut`am refused because Abu Bakr had converted to Islam. If Aisha was only six years old at the time of her betrothal to Muhammad, she could not have been born at the time Abu Bakr decided on migrating to Ethiopia. Tehqiq e umar e Siddiqah e Ka’inat, Habib ur Rahman Kandhalwi, 38
• Tabari in his treatise on Islamic history reports that Abu Bakr had four children and all four were born during the Jahiliyyah – the pre Islamic period. If Aisha was born in the period of Jahiliyyah, she could not have been less than 14 years in 1 A.H. Tarikh al-umam wa al-mamloo’k, Al-Tabari, Vol. 4, 50
• According to Ibn Hajar, Fatima was five years older than Aisha. Fatima is reported to have been born when Muhammad was 35 years old. Muhammad migrated to Medina when he was 52, making Aisha 14 years old in 1 A.H. Tamyeez al-Sahaabah, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalaniy, Vol. 4, 377
Note: Muslim tradition generally says that Aisha was six years old when married to Muhammad, and that this marriage took place in 1 A.H. All of the above arguments are based on the hypothesis that —as reported by the original sources —the age at which Aisha was married is wrong, while the time at which she married (in the same sources) is correct.