BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Question: What can I say to the enemies of Islam about Hz. Aisha and her marriage to the Prophet (S). They bring up the fact that the Prophet (S) was a lot older than Aisha (ra). How do I explain their age gap?
There’s nothing to explain about their age gap. There was an age gap. Are we going to apologise for it? No we are not. Why we have to apologise for it?
If, the Prophet (asws), because the intention now is to show the Prophet, hasha astaghfirullah, is a pervert, isn’t it? He likes little girl. That is the intention. Wrong intention! Don’t even discuss with garbage people like that. No. Why should you?
But if people are really, sincerely wanting to know, that is something else. If the Prophet (asws), his concern was that, his desire was that, the whole of Arabia belonged to him then. Why only one Hazreti Aisha that he married at that young age?
He could have married ten, twenty, thirty, at that young age. Kept Jariahs. Why do you look at all his wives, that’s another issue that they are saying, ‘he has so many wives.’
‘Oh, he puts a limit to muslim men to marry four, but he has thirteen. He’s exception,’ they are saying. Because now, people are dirty minded, garbage mind people!
They are not understanding how the Prophet (asws), his marriage was a command from Allah swt, number one. Number two, majority of the women that he married, starting from Hazreti Khadija, majority of them, they were old, they’ve been married before. Either they are widows, or he’s marrying them to take care of them.
If it’s for pleasure that he is marrying, you would have seen not one Hazreti Aisha, you would have seen ten or twenty or thirty of them.
Which, if you ask them, ‘Look to your own Bible, how many wives Daud (as) had? King David? how many wives Soloman had? How many wives that the earlier Prophets, they had?’
So many. Hundreds!
We are not saying anything. We are saying, those are Prophets, we cannot touch them. Whatever Allah allows them to have, there is a reason for that. You see, Muslims have respect, for your Prophet. Non-Muslims, they have nothing but insults (not everyone), they have nothing but wrong things to say about our Prophet (asws).
So, now, Holy Prophet did not do that. If you look at the Prophet’s life, the Prophet (asws), did not marry Hazreti Aisha as his first wife. Who was his first wife? A young lady? Did he marry his first wife, second wife, third wife, fourth wife… within a few weeks, six month from each other? One year from each other?
He was married to Hazreti Khadija (ra) and she was fifteen years older than him. Fifteen years older than him! He was twenty five and she was forty. And he remained with her, one wife, until she passed away on the tenth year of Prophethood, a few years before the immigration to Medina. So we are talking decades he was with her. Because now, when he got married at twenty five, Prophethood was revealed when he was forty, so fifteen years, another ten years, twenty five years. Twenty five years, he was married to her. One. Not two, not three, not five. One.
Eh, so now, you see, when people are sincere, they will understand, they will try to understand the context, the situation. When people have garbage intention, they will not take into consideration the context, the situation, the surrounding facts of that particular situation. They will not. They say it doesn’t have anything to do with anything. It has. So many of his other wives who were old, he has to take care of them, and he is at the top position of his power. He could have done that but he didn’t.
Hz Aisha (ra), she was betrothed to the Prophet (asws), and they were married. Yes, she was nine years old. The physical situation of a woman, of a girl, at that time 1400 years ago is completely different from now. At that time, it was considered a woman. And he did not go and take little girl from the enemies. Hazreti Aisha was a daughter of his best friend, Hazreti Abu Bakar Siddique, and she was the only virgin that he married. Only virgin. Out of thirteen wives, only virgin, when he could have had the whole of the women!
He was offered women. Before he emigrated to Medina, he was offered women. By who? By the Musyriks, by the unbelievers. They say, “Stop your preaching. Stop declaring. Stop saying. Stop making people to say, ‘Ashadu an-la ilaha il Allah, ve Ashadu anna Muhammadan Abduh ve Rasuluhu.’ Stop them and we will give,’ we are talking about the nobility of the Quraisy, ‘we will give you all the women that you want. If you stop, we will give you all the women that you want that belongs to us. The high born women. We will give you all the wealth that you want. Just stop. We will make you King. Just stop.”
He refused. They didn’t offer all this to him when he was powerful. They offered all this to him when he was weak. Holy Prophet (asws) was never weak, but the mission was still very young, was still not strong at that time. They offered it to him when he was in Mecca. He refused.
So many muslims today, they may even be thinking that was a wrong move and that he (asws) should have become a little bit more political, to just marry the women, get all the wealth and become a King and later renege on the promise and use that to make everyone to become a Muslim. But he didn’t. Holy Prophet is teaching Muslims, believers, how to behave, how to have honour. And what did he answer to them?
He said, ‘even if you give the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left, I will not stop saying shahadat and making people from saying the shahadat.’ And to the Sahabi e-kiram, those high level ones, when the Prophet (asws) did this (Hoja raised both his hand), they saw the sun descends on his right hand and the moon descends on his left, because in reality, as SahibulSaif Sheykh Effendi Hazretleri said, ‘the sun will not rise to the sky every morning unless it first go to the feet of the Prophet and kisses the Prophets feet before rising,’ and he has witness it.
Ahh, believers, they see. Unbelievers, they need a million proves, and they will never believe.
So, don’t get too caught up with this. Out of everything in Islam, everything about the Prophet, 1400 years of Islamic tradition, they squeeze it into this: Prophet married Hz Aisha which was very young. Allah, Allah.
Eh! What happens to these young ones in their free democratic, western free countries? Huh? Especially now, when they come to an age, quickly they lose all their innocence. Isn’t it? What, we think we gain something living in this century?
No. we lose everything.
So, those who are looking for truth, they are going to find it. This is also not something that although the Prophet did, everyone was rushing to do. Are there cases of people abusing this? Of course there are, as there are cases abusing Christianity, Judaism or anything else, or democracy, or Atheism, or any other teachings.
Are there people, right now, as we speak, they have child brides? Yes they do. Is that something that Islam is encouraging people to do?
No! People are going off, and they are using Islam to justify what their ego wants to do. It’s not our fault. We don’t care. Let them to deal with it, Allah is going to send a punishment to them. Because if it is something that is encouraged, because the Prophet did it, you will see in fourteen hundred years, everyone is going to do it. You don’t see that. Very rare. And, in these days, in only this remote parts where people they haven’t really come out from their animal understanding of themselves, but they say shahadat and they pray and they are doing certain things, that doesn’t mean that it’s coming from Islam or from the teachings of the Prophet (asws).
If it was something that the Prophet encourage, you’ll see, first, every sahabi do that. Did they do that?
Huh! You will see the Tabi’in, they do that, or the tabi’ii tabi’in. you’ll see, in fourteen hundred years, everyone is rushing, the men rushing, to get young girls to marry. Because muslims have intelligence, they said that is exception. So, you need intelligence to understand spirituality. Definitely.
SelamAleykum warahmatullah
Hoja Lokman Efendi Hz, Khalifah of Shaykh Abdulkerim el Kibrisi (qs) * OSMANLI DERGAHI- New York
December 12, 2013
Sahibul-Saif Sheykh Abdul Kerim al-Kibrisi 