We all know that the Prophet Muhammad S.A.W married 11 wives. Generally, Muslims are permitted to keep up to 4 wives all at once, Prophet Muhammad S.A.W was having multiple wives at a single time.
Many people ask, why Prophet Muhammad S.A.W married eleven wives. As indicated by authentic Islamic belief, the objectives behind the marriages of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) can be classified into four categories.
1. Marriage to the widows of his companions to support their lives
2. Marriage between families to make solid family bonds. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) married the daughters of Hazrat Abu Bakr and Hazrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with them) and Hazrat Usman and Hazrat Ali (may Allah be pleased with them) married the daughters of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) and subsequently He had solid family ties to the entirety of the initial 4 caliphs.
3. Spreading the message of Islam by unifying various clans through the demonstration of marriage.
4. To expand the credibility and the number of hotspots for the conveying on of his private life. If the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) were to have just a single wife who might pass on his own life to the people, she would have been disgraced by the non- believers. Henceforth there was more than one wife so the data could be relayed through various sources making it that much harder to dishonor or ridicule them.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) married and consummated the marriage with 11 wives:
1. Hazrat Khadija bint Khuwaylid (R.A): Khadijah was the first wife of Prophet Muhammad, whom she met as a widow of a wealthy merchant however had gotten prosperous in her own right. She employed Muhammad as a business operator but soon came to see him as a suitable husband.
As indicated by most sources she was around 40 and Muhammad around 25 when they married.
Khadijah bore him six children, including two children who passed on in early stages. She gave Muhammad support when he got his first revelations and stayed faithful to him when many prominent Makkans began to oppose him. While she lived, Muhammad took no other wives. He loved, missed and recollected Khadijah for the rest of his life.
2. Hazrat Sawda bint Zam’an R.A: After leading a marriage life of twenty-five years the Prophet’s first wife, Khadijah died. He was left alone to raise a little family and found that he was unable to dedicate sufficient opportunity to calling the people to Islam, so he decided to marry again. He picked a widow named Sawdah bint Zam’a.
Sawdah and her first husband were among the very early converts to Islam who moved to Abyssinia. Her husband died in exile and she was left as helpless widow with little kids.
Prophet Muhammad sought approval for their marriage from Sawdah’s non-Muslim parents. They agreed and afterward guided him to look for endorsement from Sawdah herself.
With this association, Sawdah’s and the Prophet’s families consolidated, and the Prophet had more opportunity to do the prophetic mission. They were married for three years before the Prophet took another wife.
Sawdah had the amazing privilege of being a immigrant for the sake Islam on two events, to Abyssinia and afterward to Medina. She was the first of the number widows the Prophet married. Sawdah had a reputation for being a kind, charitable and jovial woman.
3. Aishah bint Abu Bakr: Aishah was the daughter of Abu Bakr, one of Prophet Muhammad’s dearest companions and supporters. Her betrothal to him at a youthful age fortified that relationship. Aishah was raised as a Muslim while the close companions were converts to Islam.
After marriage she and the Prophet turned out to be very close and many ahadith bear witness to this reality. She was his beloved wife and an incredibly intelligent scholar of Islam. She is credited with narrating more than 2000 ahadith and became noted for her sharp intelligence, love of learning and impeccable judgment.
Aishah was one of only three of Prophet Muhammad’s wives who memorized the whole Quran. Among her remarkable fulfillments were that she was the only wife that was with the Prophet when he got revelation and it was in Aishah’s arms that the Prophet died.
Aishah was widowed at 18 years old or 19 years of age and went on to educate and play a significant role in the dissemination of Islam for over 40 years.
4. Hafsah bint Umar ibn Al-Khattab: Prophet Muhammad’s fourth spouse wife Hafsah, the daughter of one of Prophet Muhammad’s nearest confidantes, Umar ibn Al-Khattab. Their marriage was a shrewd political alliance. Hafsah had been married at a youthful age and partook in the migrations to both Abyssinia and Medina. Unfortunately, she was widowed when just eighteen years of age however she at that point had the pleasure of marrying Prophet Muhammad and connecting the Al-Khattab family with the Prophet’s family.
Hafsah and Aishah were the most youthful of Prophet Muhammad’s wives and both had comparable characters; they were strong, determined women and generally appeared to manage everything well.
Hafsah had the option to both peruse and write and, like Aishah, memorized the whole Quran. She was both pious and intelligent and would go through hours pondering over the verses of the Quran.
It was Hafsah who had the significant privilege of being the caretaker of the first Mushaf which came into her ownership after the death of her dad. Hafsah was married to the Prophet for eight years, and after his death she lived for another 34 years.
5. Zaynab bint Khuzaymah: Zaynab was the first of Prophet Muhammad’s wives that didn’t originate from the tribe of Quraish. She died less than one year after her marriage and as a consequence very little is known about her. Before this marriage she had earned the title of Mother of the Poor because of her work with poor people and her generosity to them.
There is some dispute about how often Zaynab was widowed before her marriage to Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him.
Anyway, her last husband died in battle and her marriage with Prophet Muhammad set a precedent for others to follow. Muslim men no longer feared that their deaths in fight would mean starvation and neglect for their families. It became honorable to marry the widows of the deceased.
6. Umm Salamah bint Abu Umayyah: Umm Salamah married Prophet Muhammad at the age of 29, after her first husband died from the injuries he got while taking on in the conflict of Uhud.
Umm Salamah and her husband were important for the migration to Abyssinia. Her life was loaded up with examples of patience in the face of trials and tribulations.
She and her husband were among the first to leave Mecca bound for Medina when she was forced to partition from her husband and the kidnapping of her son.At the death of her husband she made du’a to Allah: “O Lord, reward me for my affliction and give me something better than it in return, which only You, the Exalted and Mighty, can give.”
Marriage to the Prophet of Allah answered that du’a. Umm Salamah narrated more than 300 hadiths, a considerable lot of them concerning women. She went with the Prophet on many of his expeditions and was married to him for seven years until his death. Umm Salamah outlived all the other wives and died at the age of 84.
7. Juwayriyah bint al-Haarith: Juwayriyah came to the Prophet’s attention when she was caught in the fight against the tribe Banu Mustaliq. She was the 20 years of age daughter of the head of Banu Mustaliq and her marriage brought about an alignment between her tribe and the Muslims.
At the point when Prophet Muhammad married Juwayriyah it permitted the tribe to enter Islam with honor by eliminating the embarrassment of their defeat. When the marriage was announced, all the war booty that had been taken from Banu Mustaliq was returned, and all the prisoners were set free.
Juwayriyah was married to the Prophet for six years and lived for another 39 years after his death. She died at the age of 65.
8. Zaynab bint Jahsh: Zaynab, a little youngster from the noble line of Quraish was once hitch married ed to Prophet Muhammad’s freed slave and adopted child Zayd, a man who was very near the Prophet.
Like all little youngsters raised in relative luxury she had very high expectations for marriage and Zayd didn’t fit the description of the man she had in mind. Anyway, to please the Prophet her family permitted the marriage to take place.
Their marriage was short lived and stormy and to please them two, Prophet Muhammad permitted them to separate. This caused a dilemma because divorce w was frowned upon and left a woman in a difficult situation; as an approach to please all gatherings including Zaynab’s family she was married to Prophet Muhammad.
Verses in the Quran were revealed to manage this issue and by marrying Zaynab, Prophet Muhammad demonstrated that in Islam an adopted a child isn’t same to a as a natural son. Zaynab joined the developing growing family of Muhammad and was known for her generosity and charitable works. She died at the age of 50.
9. Umm Habibah bint Abu Sufyan: Ramlah, also known as Umm Habibah was the daughter of Abu Sufyan a head of the Quraish and at that stage an enemy of Islam. She declared her confidence without fear of the consequences to herself and she held quick to her faith when she was severely tested.
After converting to Islam and suffering persistent oppression, Umm Habibah and her husband joined the relocation to Abyssinia. Her husband died thereafter. She was alone in a strange country with a youthful little daughter and no visible means of support.
At the point when the Prophet knew about her predicament, he offered to marry her. She accepted. The ruler of Abyssinia, who had secretly converted to Islam and was a good friend to the fledgling Muslim community, given her mahr and witnessed the marriage contract. It was a few years before she was able to join her husband in Medina. She was married to Prophet Muhammad for four years until he death.
10. Safiyyah bint Huyayy ibn Akhtab: Safiyyah was born in Madinah to Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the head of the Jewish tribe Banu Nadir. Banu Nadir had been ousted from Madinah and settled at Khaybar. In 629 CE, the Muslims were successful at the Battle of Khaybar and Safiyyah was taken captive. Muhammad proposed that Safiyyah convert to Islam, she agreed, and become Muhammad’s wife.
Despite her conversion, Muhammad’s other wives teased Safiyyah about her Jewish origin. Prophet Muhammad once said to his wife “If they discriminate you again, tell them that your husband is Muhammad, your father was Prophet Aaron and your uncle was Prophet Musa. So what is there in that to be scornful about?”
Safiyyah was 21 years of age when the Prophet passed on. She lived for an additional 39 years, dying in Medina at the age 60.
11. Maria al-Qibtiyya: Hazrat Maria R.A was an Egyptian Coptic Christian slave who had been sent as a blessing from the Muqawqis. It is believed that it is her who bore the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) his child Hazrat Ibraheem R.A who unfortunately died in earliest stages
Conclusion:
Marriage is a mandatory practise in Islam with prominent causes. Most cases this is attained through monogamy, wherein in specific circumstances a man is permitted to marry multiple wives undergoing some conditions that he must treat all his wives with justice and must embrace them with consciousness of God.
Polygamy in Islam is not mandatory still allowed as remedy for social circumstances between time to time. If a man cites Polygamy in Islam covering his lust behind he will be questioned for his actions during the judgement day.
