#AyshasAge
Islamic libertarian Iyad El-Baghdadi discusses the plausibility of historian's misrepresentation of the age of the prophet's wife, Aysha.
I dunno how many times I've been spammed by insults to the Prophet and accusations of pedophilia, so I'm taking this head on. #AyshasAge- This is a fiery issue, with Islamophobes and with advocates of child marriage in the Arab world. So excuse the detail. #AyshasAge
- I think historians made a mistake, recording Aysha as being born 8 before Hijra when in fact it was 8 before Prophethood. #AyshasAge
- Or perhaps they recorded her birth as 4 after Prophethood when in fact it was 4 before Prophethood. #AyshasAge
- This kind of margin of error (10 years) isn't unusual. There's a similar dispute about the age of the Prophet's daughter, Fatima. #AyshasAge
- I think Aysha was closer to 19 when she got married to the Prophet, and here goes my case for saying so. #AyshasAge
- For the following discussion, note that 1 AH = 622 AD. BH = Before Hijra = before 622 AD. Prophethood was in 13 BH = 609 AD. #AyshasAge
- I don't care that this historical slip gave ammunition to Islamophobes. What worries me is that it has justified child marriages. #AyshasAge
- This is going to be quite detailed so if you're averse to this kinda stuff just look away for a bit. #AyshasAge
- A bit of background. We're talking about people from the 7th century AD (1st century AH). Arabs didn't have a calendar back then. #AyshasAge
- The Hijri calendar was introduced in Umar's caliphate, years after the Prophet's death. Arabs didn't have a calendar before. #AyshasAge
- The first historian of Islam, Ibn Ishaaq, was born in 85 AH and wrote after 132 AH, over a century and a half after the events. #AyshasAge
- This was a very important question when it came to establishing the Prophet's traditions (or sayings, or "hadith"). #AyshasAge
- Muslims developed "isnad", an extensive system of authenticated traditions, based upon confirming the chain of narrations. #AyshasAge
- This system of "isnad" was used not only to establish the Prophet's traditions, but also historical events. #AyshasAge
- The science of "isnad" is one of the great achievements of our civilization, but there's a big glaring hole in it. #AyshasAge
- A lot of effort was spent authenticating the chain of narrations, but not enough on checking the contents of said narrations. #AyshasAge
- I mean, they checked if the chain of narrations is solid but not if the narrations themselves are totally contradictory. #AyshasAge
- To be fair they developed principles for textual criticism (naqd-al-matn) but it was primitive compared to the elegance of isnad. #AyshasAge
- They also developed this (bad) habit of assuming that if the chain of narrations is correct, the content must be correct too. #AyshasAge
- According to this, if I heard that a pink elephant flew, and the chain of narrations is solid, then it must have really happened. #AyshasAge
- So let me make a stand here and say that not all hadiths with a "sahih" isnad are in fact authentic. #AyshasAge
- A "sahih" label means their isnad is solid - their content may not be. There could be glaring contradictions. #AyshasAge
- Suha NaserPerfect! Thank you for putting them together :)2012-09-22T19:01:48.847Z
