Women
around the
Messenger

So who were the Messenger's favourite women,

the ones with whom he spent his private time?

Of course we meet with his wives in the City of Light,

but there are some things we can mention here.

His first was Khadija,

with whom he lived for twenty five years,

with a love of which all later wives said they could never aspire to.

And she was not his servant,

she was his employer.

She was a wealthy business woman,

at least fifteen years older than him

and a widow who had already had two husbands and three children.

And she proposed to him.

She didn't need to be asked

and didn't need anyone's permission,

she just asked him to marry her.

Khadija was not a shrinking violet.

Then there was 'Aisha, the young one,

whose company all the others knew he preferred.

Of all the wives, she was the only one born into the ongoing revelation,

daughter of someone who had been with the Messenger

from the beginning and before.

She had no memory of anything other than a world of Islam.

She had nothing different to compare it with.

She had never known anything other than

this regular communication with God,

and for her the relationship was direct.

When the community accused her of being unfaithful,

and the Messenger didn't know who to believe,

she had to stay with her mother for a month.

But when finally a revelation came down

declaring her innocence,

and her mother told her to go to the Messenger,

Aisha was in no mood to do so,

and said "No, by God, I will not go to him,

and I will praise none but God".

She was what we might nowadays call feisty.

And she had a sharp tongue

and was more than happy to share her opinions.

And she made the Messenger laugh.

She was his favourite.

She was a scholar, and studied herbal medicines as well as the Qur'an,

But she also rode in battle on the back of an armoured camel.

She gave up in the end, but clearly was not one to be messed with.

And most important of all,

she was the only one of his wives

around whom the Messenger received the Reading.

But this strength and independence

were characteristic of all the other women in the Messenger's life.

When Umar asked Umm Salama if the Messenger's wives all spoke their minds to the Messenger

and answered him without respect,

she told him in no uncertain terms

"What right have you to come between God's Messenger and his wives?

Yes, by God, we speak our minds to him,

and if he lets us do so that is his affair,

and if he forbids us he will find us more obedient to him than we are to you".

The Messenger liked strong, resourceful, intelligent women,

with opinions as well as modesty.

Outside the curtain, this tradition of strong, intelligent women

could be seen amongst the Messenger's women friends,

and continued after the Messenger's death,

with many women challenging the way that their lives

were so quickly being brought back under the control of men.

Known as barza women,

they claimed the right to go out unveiled,

neither hiding their faces

nor lowering their heads,

they would receive male visitors at home

and were known for their judgement and sound reasoning.

And perhaps the best known example of this

is the Messenger's great grand-daughter, Sukayna.

Sukayna was born in the year 49 after the Hijra,

and was known for her beauty, intelligence and wit.

Powerful men debated politics and law with her,

and caliphs and princes proposed marriage to her.

Which she declined.

But she still had five or perhaps six husbands,

wrote passionate poetry about some,

fought with some,

brought some to court,

and never pledged obedience to any of them.

A reassertion of women's muslim rights

by someone who when she was six years old,

on the plains of Kerbala,

saw the jahiliyya re-emerge

and her father slaughtered,

and his head, which as an infant the Messenger had cradled as he made his Sala,

ending up decapitated and displayed on the end of a spear.

Sukayna chose her Way of Life

knowing all about the realities of strength and power.