EVENTS
620 CE / Wonderment & Hope. 11th Year of Prophethood
Important events and incidences that took place
In the year that followed the Year of Sadness, the pilgrimage fell at the beginning of summer; it had been the Prophet’s practice now for several years to visit the various groups and to declare his message to any who would listen, reciting for them verses of the revelations.
The nearest point from Mina to Mecca is ‘Aqabah, where the road rises up steeply from the valley towards the hills in the direction of the Holy city; and it was this year at ‘Aqabah that the Prophet came upon six men of the tribe of Khazraj, from Yathrib. He told them about Islam and called on them to submit to Islamic monotheism. Their faces lit up with interest; and they listened to him intently saying to one another, “By God, this is the same thing that the Jews informed us; Indeed, nobody should now get ahead of us.” They accepted his teachings and embraced Islam. They also said to the Prophet, “We have left our people, for there are no people so torn asunder by enmity and evil as they; and it may be that God will unite them through you. We will now go to them and summon them to accept the religion as we have accepted it; and if God unites them together through you, then no man will be more honoured than you”.
The six men of Khazraj delivered the message of Islam to as many of their people as would listen to them; and the next summer, five of them repeated their pilgrimage, bringing with them seven others, two of whom were from the tribe of Aws. At ‘Aqabah, these twelve men pledged themselves to the Prophet, and this pledge is known as the First ‘Aqabah:
“We pledged our allegiance to the Messenger of God on the night of the First ‘Aqabah, that we would associate nothing with God as partner, that we would neither commit theft nor fornication, nor to kill their own children, and we would obey him in what was right.”
When these people left for Madinah, the Prophet sent Musab Ibn Umayr with them to teach the Qur’an to the people there to expound Islam and instruct them about the religion.
The timing of the call was perfect since it took place at a critical juncture when God afforded the opportunity of helping and defending Islam to both the Aws and the Khazraj, and in effect, crushed their own petty squabbling. It was by various causes and circumstances such as this that Almighty God opened the door of acceptance by those who were inherently kind-hearted and sweet-tempered, immune from the Quraishite traits of immoderation, stubbornness and vanity, and hence the people of Yathrib were responsive and open to reason.
LESSONS & WISDOMS
620 CE / Wonderment & Hope
A closer look at the events; in search of deeper meanings and drawing lessons
At this stage the Prophet and his disciples’ mission had progressed profoundly and were now trying to gain military protection from formidable tribes outside of Makkah. This shows us that:
1) The Prophet sought aid from others not just to find a safe haven for the Muslim community but to remove the obstacles that were preventing the Muslims from establishing Islam in their day to day lives. It is for this reason that the Prophet rejected the offer of support and protection from the tribe of Banu Aamir as this would compromise his ability to further the Prophetic Call.
2) Muhammad was now beginning to witness the fruits of his labour. He had been through the most arduous times of his life but now things were starting to take a positive turn and his steadfastness and endurance was beginning to pay off. There is a great example of patience and endurance in the life of the Prophet for all. After almost ten years of calling his people to Islam with much opposition and little success, he decided to focus his call to other than the Quraysh by visiting tribal leaders of afar when they would come to Makkah for the annual pilgrimage. Eleven years of struggle without worldly gain, all for the sake of God, was the price he paid in order to prepare the way for an Islamic upsurge which would spread to all ends of the world, vanquishing the power of the Byzantium and the Persians. God decreed that the foundations of Islam would be built with much struggle and hardship in order to show mankind the Straight Path is one of difficulty and not ease.
3) A possible wisdom behind God Decreeing help arrive from a source outside of Muhammad’s family and tribe was to eliminate speculation and suspicion that perhaps Muhammad’s call was a nationalistic call to bring his people to prominence.
4) The first pledge of Aqaba is an excellent illustration of how the Prophetic Call was as much about social reform as it was about theological reform to pure monotheism. The Prophet asked the converts from Yathrib to pledge themselves not to worship any save God, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to slay their children, and not to slander their neighbor.
5) The Prophet showed great leadership and management skills in selecting certain Companions to assist him in holding these negotiations. He wouldn’t select any person for a job but rather the most qualified. For instance, the Prophet would have Abu Bakr accompany him as he was the most learned in the field of genealogy and Arab history.
EDICTS & RULINGS
620 CE / Wonderment & Hope
Revelation and rulings particular to this year
The Quranic chapter as-Saba, named after the people of Saba, was revealed in the second half of the Meccan period, a short time before the Night Journey. It contained pivotal concepts that can be summed up in the question addressed to all human beings in verse 9: “Are they, then, not aware of how little of the sky and the earth lies open before them and how much is hidden from them?” and in the call to moral responsibility sounded in verse 46: “Say: ‘I counsel you one thing only: Be ever conscious of standing before God whether you are in the company of others or alone.'” With such revelation, God inspired Muhammad to remain focused on the task at hand: to call mankind to the exclusive worship of God alone and warn them of submitting to any other deity.
CONTENTIOUS NARRATIVES
620 CE / Wonderment & Hope
The ‘Problematic’ Age of ‘Aishah
The age of Aisha, daughter of Abu Bakr, when she married the Prophet Muhammad is something that has only recently become controversial. The traditional account is that the marriage was consummated when she was nine years old, which naturally appears strange, if not uncomfortable, to many in a modern, western context. Many have gone so far as to stir up despicable sexual misconduct charges against the Prophet, with even some recent Muslims (of varying levels of intellectuality, motivations and scholarly qualifications) revisiting the sources and reinterpreting the traditionally adduced narrations, to suggest that Aisha may actually have been older, even though there are four authentic narrations in al-Bukhari and three in Muslim clearly stating that Aisha was married to the Prophet at the age of six or seven and subsequently the marriage was consummated three years later when she had reached puberty at nine.
The first most important point to note is that the controversy is a relatively recent one. The Prophet’s own contemporaries took no issue with the Prophet’s marriage to Aisha; it was not problematic in their eyes as puberty indicated maturity and maturity meant readiness for marriage. This includes both his disbeliever antagonists and his believing followers. Certainly, his antagonists were ever eager to discredit him, and the Qur’an itself records details of this. They accused him of being a sorcerer, a madman or a soothsayer. They objected to his marriage to Zaynab, remonstrating that (according to pre-Islamic Arab culture) a man may not marry the divorcee of his adopted son just as he may not marry the divorcee of his biological son. Yet they did not attempt to discredit him on the basis of his marrying a girl much younger than him. Neither in the Qur’an nor in any historical source is there any mention of such an objection having been raised, despite the fact that these sources do mention numerous other strategies used by the Prophet’s opponents.
The reaction of Muhammad’s hostile contemporaries implies that it was acceptable, in 7th century Arab culture, for older men to marry younger girls (even as young as 9), and moreover that it was a practiced norm of the society at that time. Instead of sexual promiscuity such as ‘dating’, honorable families instead chose the more respectable avenue of marrying their children off at a young age.
The general character of the Prophet, and his marital history, speaks clearly against claims of sexual misconduct. His first marriage, at age 25, was to a widowed woman (Khadijah) who was 15 years his senior, and he remained in a happy and solid monogamous marriage to her for a quarter-century; the marriage ending only with Khadijah’s death, aged 65. It was only subsequent to her passing away, and often under specific circumstances that he married other women; with all of them being either widows or divorcees. Aisha was the third wife of the Prophet and the only virgin that he ever married.
Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha must be read in context to early Arab culture, and to avoid viewing the veritable tapestry of human culture, across space and time, through the colored lenses of contemporary, western culture. A slight familiarity with anthropology is sufficient to convince one that there has been, and still is, remarkable variety in human cultural practices and norms. For instance the Catholic Encyclopedia observes about the Virgin Mary that, “it is possible that Mary gave birth to her Son when she was about thirteen or fourteen years of age.” In Shakespeare’s classic play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet was only thirteen, yet her mother tells her that “ladies of esteem” younger than her are already mothers. According to the Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society, both Christian Canon law and European civil law considered seven years as the age of consent, but judges in medieval England would approve marriages based on mutual consent at ages even lower than 7. As recently as the nineteenth century, ages of consent of 13 to 14 were common in Western countries.
To conclude, Aisha’s biography attests to the fact that she had a wholesome upbringing and then blossomed to become a woman of high intellectual calibre, a poetess and a medical advisor. She had a sharp inquisitive mind and at times, as the Prophetic narrations show, would often daringly question the Noble Messenger.
She is one of the fore-ranking specialists in narrating from the Prophet. She was also a commentator on the Qur’an and knowledgeable in Islamic law. Much of this was due to her early marriage to Muhammad, which made her an eye witness to the personal details of his life. She became a beacon of knowledge for the succeeding generations and a role model for women for all times.