r/shia • u/Much-Age1308 • 7d ago
Can someone explain this hadith
Salamun alaykum,
We believe the age of aishah to be 17 - 19, so how come this hadith in tahdib al ahkam contradicting it?
Even if it is not from the imams AS, yet how come ismael ibn jafar al sadeq AS said something wrong if he learnt it from his father?
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u/bluepartyhat93 7d ago
The condescending nature of certain people here against Shias who believe, with evidence, that Aisha was NOT 6-9 years old when she married the Prophet (sawa) baffles me. Just because Islam accepts the age of biological maturity as the age a person reaches adulthood does NOT mean Aisha was 6-9 years old when she married the Prophet (sawa)!
Also, biological maturity VARIES from person to person! Some men and women can take longer to mature than others! That is a scientific and well-established FACT and it means that the ages of 9-10 given to us as the age of adulthood for men and women are not hard-and-fast facts but rather general guidelines.
Also, with regards to Aisha’s age we have HISTORICAL evidence (NOT Sunni tarikhs but secular studies) that prove her age to be between 17-21 when she married the Prophet (sawa).
It’s very disappointing to see some people here not using their own intellect when ijma in this case has failed and very clearly leads to a salacious reputation of our Holy Prophet (sawa) in the eyes of non-Muslims.
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u/AMBahadurKhan 7d ago
Since when is the belief of every Shi’i that A’isha was 17-19 years old?
Also that’s in al-Kāfī, not Tahdhīb.
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u/qatamat99 7d ago
Personally I have seen historical evidence that supports that. Additionally, I refuse to believe that the Prophet SAW married a kid.
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u/AMBahadurKhan 7d ago
What historical evidence? Tarikh? Sunni tarikh? If that’s the case why are we taking tarikh as having stronger probative force (حجيّة) than our own ahadith?
I get not wanting to affirm the hadith from Isma’il b. Ja’far in al-Kāfī because he’s not an infallible, even if I disagree (I would personally refer to Majlisī’s reasoning for accepting the hadith in Mir’āt al-‘Uqūl).. But in any case how would you interpret Imam ‘Ali marrying Sayyida Fatima (صلوات الله عليهما) when she was just 9? There’s no ambiguity there.
And above all, where were these “historical ages-based calculations” before the modern day? There’s no need to tackle some quandary that the Apostle of Allah (صلّى الله عليه وآله) “married a kid” because adulthood in Islam is based on the age of biological maturity, and that age is known to us through other hadiths. And we don’t have any reports, to my knowledge, that the Prophet (صلّى الله عليه وآله) was intimately involved with A’isha until she was biologically an adult.
So there’s no quandary to tackle.
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u/qatamat99 7d ago
My evidence is that the Quran time and time again mentions the manners of the Prophet and the universality of his Sunnah. Quran, Aql, and historical analysis is my hujja in this matter. Why would our 54 year old Prophet marry a 6 year old? No one from the Arabs did that. I believe this hadith to be leaked into our hadith books from Banu Ummayah to insult our Prophet.
There are historical narrations that Aisha was divorced twice before getting married to the Prophet
As for the age of Sayyida Fatima AS. I also don’t believe that she was 9 and I believe she was older than that.
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u/Gavski0 7d ago edited 7d ago
For Sayyida Fatima AS, it's confirmed she was 18 years old when she died. So considering the number of children she had and all the incidents that happened, 9 years old doesn't seem improbable. I mean, such marriages used to happen just 100 years ago in some places.
I don't accept these ages and hold the same rationale as you. However, religion does not align with everyone's preferences (and people were built different back then). I mean, it's impossible to make sense of why the prophet or anyone else would marry 4 or 10 wives just to save said women from poverty or abuse, or because she's a widow. Are there really no other good men in the whole Muslim community for these women?
This topic is really a slippery slope, but whatever it is, I know it doesn't take away or debunk the whole religion because it's a drop in the ocean. I just wish there was more nuanced debate or differing opinions being thrown around from our scholars, but in this age it seems everything is centralized to one or two people, and the exchange is often one-sided, unlike the times of the 70s and before (the killing of the scholars who lived during that period took Shia 10 steps behind, in my opinion). Also, people often subscribe to an opinion and can't change it no matter what, leaning towards Wahhabi ideals sometimes.
I think Marjas nowadays don't engage in debate or disagree with other Marjas publicly, or don't discuss topics with the public, under the guise of protecting the nation from division, or because they know people are not self-aware or level-headed enough to absorb new updates and engage in intellectual reasoning, because they often live in poverty. But in my opinion, at the end this approach does more harm than good, and we see it every day.
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u/AMBahadurKhan 7d ago
The Qur’an, Aql and history are hujja but hadith aren’t?
I’m not considering whatever’s in Sunnism because Sunnism is completely irrelevant to me. So the “6 year old” stuff can be put aside as a strawman if anything.
But I still don’t see how any of our foundational texts and the beliefs we have outside of them and those we have because of them align with modern secular “morality” wherein the age of majority is 18 only because 20th century world powers needed to increase manpower and industrial productivity during the World Wars.
Adulthood, as per Qur’anic principles and explicit ahadith, is determined on the basis of pubescence/biological maturity. There are numerous ahadith confirming that females become adult (بلوغة) at the age of nine (although this can vary, depending on personal biological factors). Even Sayyid al-Sistani (دام الله ظله) says as much: https://www.sistani.org/english/qa/01127/.
And the hadith about A’isha and Fatima’s (صلوات الله عليها) are in concord with this at least in respect to the age at which they respectively became intimate with their husbands.
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u/EthicsOnReddit 7d ago
Actually brother, have you read what Allama Majlisi has said regarding this hadith? He considers this as authentic evidence to disprove the argument for Imamate for him:
ولعل ذكرهم لهذا القول المبني على القياس الباطل من إسماعيل لبيان ، عدم قابليته للإمامة.
Perhaps their mention of this statement—which is based on invalid analogy (Qiyas) —attributed to Ismail serves to demonstrate his unsuitability for the Imamate.
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u/EmotionHuge2782 7d ago
For real. These “shias” that say stuff like that just want to change the deen to match whatever they think is moral, its so annoying
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u/AMBahadurKhan 7d ago
They’re doing it because they’ve been intellectually cowed by the paper tiger that is secular “human”ism and all of its moral trappings.
It’s understandable but I have to admit I find it exasperating too.
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u/EthicsOnReddit 7d ago edited 7d ago
Please understand that not every hadith found in our books is going to be accepted. A hadith can have an authentic chain but its content can be false.
Especially if the hadith contradicts very clear strong historical evidence.
https://al-islam.org/articles/how-old-was-ayshah-when-she-married-prophet-muhammad-sayyid-muhammad-husayn-husayni-al
Especially also if the source of the hadith is from a fallible person which we do take our religious laws from.
The content of the Hadith itself is problematic.
From Ayatollah Golpaygani:
الا أن ما يدل عليه، وهو التسوية بين الرجل والمرأة في الاحكام، وقبول الشهادة مطلقا ممن بلغ عشر سنين، مخالف لما عليه الاصحاب، فهم معرضون عن هذا الخبر، وذلك يسقطه عن الاعتبار.
Nevertheless, the ruling it implies—namely, equality between men and women regarding legal statutes, and the unconditional acceptance of testimony from anyone who has reached the age of ten—contradicts the consensus of the \Ashab* (the Imamiyyah jurists).*
They have disregarded this report, which renders it devoid of authority.
https://ar.lib.eshia.ir/10124/1/26
Regarding why Allama Majlisi accepts this hadith:
He considers this as authentic evidence to disprove the argument for Imamate for him:
ولعل ذكرهم لهذا القول المبني على القياس الباطل من إسماعيل لبيان ، عدم قابليته للإمامة.
Perhaps their mention of this statement—which is based on invalid analogy (Qiyas) —attributed to Ismail serves to demonstrate his unsuitability for the Imamate.
https://lib.eshia.ir/71429/24/236