We are Against Hate, Not Faith
Aisha: child-marriage and Menarche – revisited.
Jon MC
Preface.
Since writing the original article I have been made aware of another line of apologia. The basis of this was a series of comments made by “Dimnah” under the original article.
Since then I have taken the opportunity to research this further and find out more information.
Consequently, I am now in a position to offer a rebuttal.
Apologetic argument#9.
The words translated as “consummate” or “sexual intercourse” didn’t mean that in 7th century Arabic, so Mohammed didn’t have sex with Aisha when she was nine.
On one hand this argument is entirely specious in that it focusses on a contentious point of language whilst totally ignoring the fact that Muslim men have, for about 1400 years, used these words to justify marriage to and sex with very young girls. As such it is really a case of argument by distraction i.e. a “red herring”.
This argument revolves around the precise meanings of two Arabic words in the 7th century versus their meaning from the 9th century onwards.
These words are “DakhaLa” (root DkhL – note “kh” is one consonant in Arabic) and “feBaNaYa” (root BNY) {1}.
The argument (that I’ve seen) is based on (part of) a hadith from the “Musannaf “of Abd al-Razzaq (died 826).
Here is the Arabic: أخبرنا عبد الرزاق قال أخبرنا بن جريج عن بن شهاب في رجل نكح امرأة فبنى بها ثم طلقها بعد يومين فسئلت المرأة فقالت لم يمسسني وسئل الرجل فقال مثل ذلك فقال إذا دخل بها وأرخى عليها الأستار فقد وجب الصداق وعليها العدة
Transliterated to Roman characters: akhebrena ‘ebed al-Razaq qal akhebrena ben Jurayj ‘en ben Shihab fey rejl nekh amerah febnaya bha thim telqha b’ed yewmeyn fes’elet alemrah feqalet lam yamssaney wes’el alerjel feqal methel delk feqal eda dakhala bha wa’rekha ‘eleyha alasetar feqd wejb alesdaq w’eleyha al’edha.
Here we see “Nikah” in it’s form of “nekh”. Febnaya is the bny word, generally translated as “cohabit” or “lived together”, “telqha” is a form of “talaq” i.e. divorce, “yamsasney” is the “mss” word which may be translated as “unchaste”. “lam yamsasney” is then “not unchaste”. Unfortunately, it may also be translated as “touched me” and thus “lam yamsasney” means “not touched me”! – see Koran 3:47 where (the virgin) Mary says (transliterated) “How is for me a boy and not touched me [lam yamsasney] any man?” Note it would also work with “not unchaste [with] any man”.
Dakhala is “entered” or “entered upon”, “al’edha” is “the Iddah”.
Partially transliterating into English: Told us, slave of Razaq (i.e. Abdul Razaq) said told ben Jurayj from ben Shahib: in man “nekh” woman, “febnaya” both them, “telqha” after two days. When asked woman said not “yamsasney” and asked man, said same. Said that if entered he upon her and ‘closed the curtains’, must be dowry and must the “edha “(i.e. must perform Iddah).
Putting it into “good” English: A man (took) a woman in marriage (and) they cohabited together. (He) divorced (her) after two days. When (the judge) asked, the woman said she was not unchaste (or: he had not touched her) – and when asked the man said the same. (The judge) said that if he (had) entered upon her “and closed the curtains” then (she was to) keep the dowry and (wait out) her Iddah.
It’s worth noting that the word for “marry” in Arabic is “Nikah” (here “nekh” in the hadith above) which means “sexual intercourse” when applied to people or “penetrate” more generally.
The BNY word (“febnaya”) may be translated as “cohabited”. Now whilst it is possible to cohabit without sex, for a man and wife this seems rather unlikely. Is the use of “cohabit” a euphemistic reference for sex or should it be taken literally?
According to the “Quranic Arabic Corpus”, in the Koran{2} “bny” words can mean the verb “build/construct”, noun for “canopy”,“builder”, “building”, “sons/daughter/children” and “wayfarer”. Thus it can be seen that very different word-meanings can be built from a common root word (this also points up the potential problem with looking at the root to define the meaning of a word-construct), thus this word is not in the Koran which is a pity, but let’s assume that it is meant literally rather than euphemistically since this strengthens the apologists hand.
According to the “Quranic Arabic Corpus{3} “mss” words in the Koran, whether nouns or verbs, all have meanings revolving around “touch”. Thus the word “tamassuhunna” literally “you (ta) touch (mass) them (uhunna)” is used as a euphemism for “you had sex with them” (e.g. K.2.236-237, 33:49). Thus there are euphemistic meanings relating to sex.
The argument made is that since “MSS” means “sexual intercourse” (this is false, it can be a euphemism for it), then neither “febnaya” nor “dakhala” can mean “sexual intercourse”, otherwise the hadith becomes a nonsense. As one writer puts it: “it is textually impossible for the roots BNY and DkhL to mean sexual intercourse here, because both can apparently be done without having sexual intercourse.” (Remember: the woman was “not touched”.)
However, one translation of the “MSS” word in this hadith is “unchaste”. Both the man and the woman are agreeing that the woman was “not unchaste” (i.e. she was “untouched”) before her marriage. This then requires that we determine what “unchaste/untouched” means.
Given the nature of Islamic society it probably means that she was a virgin before marriage, but it could also mean that she had not had sexual relations within her “Iddah”{4} from a previous marriage and had been chaste thereafter until remarriage{5}.
What of “DakhaLa”? According to the “Quranic Arabic Corpus”{6} words with the root “DkhL” occur 126 times in the Koran in six forms: verb dakhala (enter) x76; verb ud’khila (admit) x42; noun dakhal (deception) x2; active participle dakhilun (enter) x 2, passive participle mud’khal (entrance) x3 and passive participle muddakhal (place to enter) x 1.
Of these we will ignore the deception, entrance and place to enter words.
Of the 120 words remaining, with the exceptions of those verses that refer to “entering” Islam/faith or being “admitted” to Allah’s mercy which amount to about a dozen occurrences in total (~10%), the rest of the occurrences are literal usages of “enter” or “admit” – as in enter a town/gate or be admitted to paradise/gardens (which, whilst referring to events in the “after-life” of Muslims are considered to be entirely real and physical, thus the Muslim’s admission/entry to paradise will also be real and physical) etc.
Thus the primary meaning of DkhL words is a literal entry/admission into something.
DkhL words are used exactly three times in the Koran with direct reference to women:
K.4:23 “Forbidden to you (for marriage) are…[those] step-daughters born of your wives to whom you “dakhaltum” have entered.” Here the verb clearly means “had sex with” “but there is no sin on you if you have not “dakhaltum” entered them (to marry their daughters).” What this is saying is that it is okay to marry a step-daughter provided you haven’t had sex with her mother.
In these two examples we can see that “dakhala-ing” a woman means to “enter” her in an entirely literal, sexual sense.
In the third case the context makes it clear that a sex-act isn’t involved: “Every time entered upon her Zechariah…” (the same construction as before) “…in the prayer chamber, he found with her food and drink. …” (K.3:37 – part of verse, transliterated) Thus the context shows that what Zachariah was “dakhala-ing” was the prayer chamber, not Mary. A less literal (but less ambiguous) translation is: “Every time Zachariah entered the prayer chamber to (visit) Mary…”.
Given that ~90% of DkhL words mean a literal form of entry/admission, and that both relevant references to women are about “entering her” in the sense of sexual intercourse, it is reasonable to assume that this is the meaning that “dakhala” normally carries when a man “dakhalas” a woman from the time of the Koran.
Thus, according to the Koran, the DkhL word, when applied directly to a woman and without further context/qualification, does mean sexual intercourse, hence the usage of DkhL for sex dates to the 7th century and not the 9th.
Let me re-quote part of the hadith: The judge “said that if he entered [Dahkala] upon her and ‘closed the curtains’ then she was to keep her Mahr and must wait out her Idda.”
Koran 2:237 says: “And if you divorce them before you touch them [tamassuhunna] (i.e. had sexual relations), and you have agreed with them the Mahr (bridal money given by the husbands to his wife at the time of marriage), then pay half of that (Mahr), unless they (the women) agree to forego it, or he (the husband), in whose hands is the marriage tie, agrees to forego and give her full appointed Mahr. And to forego and give (her the full Mahr) is nearer to At-Taqwa (piety, righteousness, etc.). And do not forget liberality between yourselves. Truly, Allah is All-Seer of what you do.”
Thus in the case of divorce before consummation the woman is only entitled to half the Mahr.
Koran 33:49 says: “O you who believe! When you marry believing women, and then divorce them before [tamassahunna] you touch them – i.e. you have sexual intercourse with them , no Iddah have you to count in respect of them. So give them a present, and set them free i.e. divorce, in a handsome manner.”
The key point here is an “untouched” woman has no Iddah to wait out.
In the Razzaq hadith the woman gets to keep all the Mahr and has to wait out her Iddah. If sexual intercourse had not taken place, then she would not be required to perform Idda and would probably only get half the Mahr, which works against using “lam yemsasney” to mean “(he) did not touch me”.
Thus the facts that she keeps all her Mahr and has to wait out her Iddah strongly imply that the marriage was consummated – unless we wish to posit that the judge was ruling against the Koran’s rulings and Shariah law.
Hence this part of the hadith might be rendered: “A man married a woman and so [they] cohabited then [he] divorced her after two days. When asked [by the Judge], the woman said she had not been unchaste [or: was previously untouched] (i.e. hadn’t committed illegal sexual intercourse or: had been a virgin) and the man agreed this was true. [The judge] said that since he had sexual intercourse and ‘closed the curtains’ [with her] then she was to keep her Mahr and must wait out her Idda.”
This at least has the merit of being consistent with the usage of the words detailed above and it also accords with the Koran’s rulings and Shariah law.
A second part of this argument is that Razzaq pre-dates the Main Hadith collections and as such this hadith is more “original”. However, given that Razzaq lived 744-826 A.D., Bukhari lived 810-870 and Muslim 815-875, these three are only separated by a generation or two and in view of the ~ 150 to ~200 year gap between Mohammed and Razzaq and Bukhari/Muslim respectively, this is not a major point in favour of Razzaq especially when both Bukhari and Muslim are recognised as the most thorough scholars of hadith veracity. In other words, this single hadith of Razaq does not “over-rule” the multiple hadith of Bukhari and Muslim on this issue, especially when all three could well be dating from the 9th century.
Furthermore, it would be unlikely that a major shift in the meaning of language occurred in the fifty years between the times of these scholars – especially when the disputed usage can be tracked back to the Koran itself.
A third part of this argument is that the phrase “entered upon her ‘and closed the curtains’” is essentially legal and refers to the completion of the marriage in a legal sense, not it’s consummation. In response to this let me recap the following. To be legal under Sharia Law a marriage requires four (Koran) or five (Shariah) conditions: (1) consent by the woman, (2) that the woman’s guardian be present, (3) payment (or at least promise of) Mahr, (4) witnesses. The fifth condition (under some Sharia law) is that both parties be capable of sexual intercourse. As already noted, if the marriage is not consummated the woman is only entitled to half the Mahr and requires no Iddah period; it is only once sexual intercourse has taken place that she is entitled to the full Mahr and must wait out her Iddah if divorced. If the man proves to be impotent, the woman can get an annulment (not a divorce, note) because the full legal requirements of the marriage have not been met{7}, similarly for the man if the woman is incapable of intercourse. Thus the full legal requirements and regulations of Islamic marriage only come into force once the marriage has been consummated. Once the Nikah is complete the marriage is “legal” (in the sense that the man has ‘bought’ the woman’s vagina through payment/promise of Mahr, thus sex between them is lawful), but the marriage is only legally fully complete once intercourse has taken place since only then do all the conditions apply{8}.
There is further evidence for this in one of the stipulations of divorce. If a man fully divorces a woman she becomes “unlawful” to him (i.e. he can’t have legal sex with her){9} until and unless she has (1) married another man, (2) had sex with him{10} and (3) been divorced by him also. Were all the legal conditions of an Islamic marriage fulfilled prior to consummation then condition (2) would not be required. The requirement for the second ‘marriage’ to be consummated is clearly set out in the ahadith{11}.
A fourth part of this argument is that the “Aisha hadiths” on her marriage to Mohammed never use the “mss” word(s). I would suggest that this means nothing, since (most of) these “Aisha hadiths” start with Aisha herself, all this could mean is that Aisha chose not to use the euphemistic expression “he touched me”, but instead the more direct “he entered me” etc.
Conclusion.
The Koran provides evidence that DkhL as well as MSS words mean “had sex”, therefore the argument that DkhL can’t mean “sexual intercourse” in 7th century Arabic is false. There is, therefore, no disconnect between the meanings in 7th and 9th century Arabic.
Neither does the Razzaq hadith necessarily support this contention, though I accept that it is ambiguous to say the least.
Again, this apologia actually calls into questions the validity of Allah as “all-knowing” (al-Aleem) and also the validity of Mohammed’s prophet-hood as the “man made perfect”. If this usage (DkhL = sex) and understanding is a “mistake”, the Koran and Mohammed should have made this clear. Neither do and thus neither meet their claims.
It is also a “red-herring” argument in that history shows that Mussalmen have been using these words to legitimise sex with nine-year old girl-children for about 1400 years.
Footnotes and references.
-
Please note that vowalisation is an inexact science and thus the vowels used in different transliterations made well be different.
-
The “iddah” is the waiting period for a female divorcee before she may re-marry. The precise stipulations vary, but most commonly it is a period of three menstrual cycles or three calendar months for a non-menstrous woman. The purpose of the Iddah is twofold: it ensures that the woman is not pregnant by her former husband when she re-marries, or if she is pregnant it clearly identifies the father (her former husband).
-
Given the punishments meted out for “illegal sexual intercourse” under Shariah, I can’t imagine any Muslim woman actually admitting to committing this sin, which in my opinion, makes it more likely that she is being asked (in effect though not in so many words) “And were you a virgin?” To which she replies equally elliptically “I was not unchaste” or “I was not touched” and her husband affirms this.
-
See, for example “reliance of the traveller” (Umdat as Salik) m7.0. The woman is not entitled to any Mahr in this case, unless impotence occurred after the couple had sex, in which case she gets the full Mahr.
-
For instance: in the cases of Asma daughter of Neman and Ghazieh daughter of Jaber, Muslim historians and writers are divided as to whether or not to count them as “wives of Mohammed” precisely because he divorced them before consummation.
-
In Islam a divorce is a three-step process: at it’s simplest the man must say “I divorce you” three times before the wife is fully and legally divorced and becomes “unlawful” for the man.
-
See for example for example “reliance of the traveller” (Umdat as Salik) n7.7. And James M. Arlandson’s “Divorce and remarriage in early islam”.
-
See for example Bukhari Vol.7 Bk.63 No.186, 187, 190.
Sources and Bibliography, where relevant, are as before.
62 Responses to Aisha: child-marriage and Menarche – revisited.
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
NOTICE
Faithfreedom.org is banned in most of the Islamic countries. Please use a proxyserver, such as Tor.
Read it for Free
We are getting “split discussions” again, Dimnah (my fault!) so I’ll drag ‘em back together here.
- – -
March 14th post:
No, I’m absolutely fine with that Dimnah.
If you are arguing, as you appear to be, that sex with minors was legitimised by the rulings over slave-girls (something I’d not thought about before – and that despite the fact that “Jaria” or “jaraiya” means, essentially, “sex-slave” as well as “pre-menarchal girl-child”. DOH!) then, to me this is further circumstantial evidence that supports the “sex-at-age-nine” argument.
Thus I can accept the the original reason for the preservation of these hadith was to do with marriage and inheritance, but this does not detract from the unintended consequence that ol’Mo’s marriage to Aisha legitimised sex with nine year old girls – whether the “cohabitation” was via marriage or actual sex-slavery.
What would be interesting (in a horrible way) would be to know if early Muslims had sex with even younger sex-slaves, or whether Mo’s actions with Aisha put a floor (either age or menarche) under the earliest age at which sex-with-minors was deemed acceptable.
Your argument also seems to reinforce my argument that these hadith are genuinely from Aisha since you give a very valid reason as to why they should be preserved.
- – -
March 13th post on Azq vs. Shafi’i.
Okay, I accept that we might be dealing with a 9th century recension of Shafi’i and that could change his words. However, as Harald Motzki writes: “Ninety percent of it [the Musannaf] goes back to a single transmitter, Ishaq b.Ibrahim al-Dabari (D.898 A.D.).” Thus by the same token there is the possibility that Razzaq’s wording is altered too. (You did say all this was “hopelessly confusing” I recall!) But to be fair I am being a little facetious. I assume that what you are saying is that the same narrators (Zuhri & Urwa) appear in both the “juristic” Azq rulings and the Aisha “sex” hadith as recorded in the Canonical collections.
Let’s assume that both Zuhri and Urwa are transmitters of these rulings and hadith. Unless they are taken as the originators of the wording of the various reports, then I see no contradiction in the meanings of the words varying between the legalistic rulings recorded in Azq and the historical accounts of Aisha’s marriage. Indeed, given what you said on Mar.14th, I would suggest that that merely bolsters my argument.
- – -
Mar.6th reply about Yemeni grandmothers.
Hmm. If Shafi’i “had a reason for putting this out there” one is tempted to inquire as to the reason concerned. Consequently, I am now inclined to think that this statement is simply a way of saying “Yes, you really are allowed to marry nine year old girls (even though I, personally, don’t like it)”.
Yes we always seem to derail… In any case, let me quickly respond to your last post, before putting up more complicated stuff.
First I suggest we park the Shafi’i Azq debate. It’s really peripheral to our discussion. And it’s a bit of a non-issue (Sure Shafi’i might have deemed B N Y to mean consummation already in the late 8th century, but some people before him did not.)
Then regarding sex with minors. Well I’m glad I opened your eyes to the ‘creative’ use of slavery here. Of course there are no records whether this actually took place, but what would you do if you were a pedophile and had enough financial means to buy little girls… I do have one early Zaydi (Shia) source stating that you are liable if you have sex with a girl younger than nine. But of course if she was your slave you would be liable to yourself.
Regarding the meaning of the words. Don’t forget that Juynboll states that the wording goes back to the early fuqaha and not Aisha (so in this case that means Zuhri and Hisham b. Urwa (NOT his father Urwa (d. 712) though, atm we can’t really argue the wording or even the hadith goes back to him without some kind of additional evidence). So I would suggest my definition of the words still holds, unless we can prove it goes back to Aisha (then we likely have to fall back to your statements on the difference between the lawyer and the layman). But we aren’t there yet.
What Juynboll says of the sex-at-age-nine hadith (he uses the word “consummated”) is:
““Aisha’s statement is transmitted in a great variety of different wording for which the early fuqaha and their respective PCLs may be held responsible”.
This, I suggest, means that Juynboll sees this statement (however worded) as originating with Aisha herself.
Sadly not having a copy of Juynboll myself I can’t follow up all his references (it’s not all available on Google books).
I only wish I could see the full Isnad bundle on this!
Muslim sources say there are no less than 7 Tabi’un who narrate this hadith directly from Aisha in the various collections.
Whilst these could be “dives” it would be exceptional I think to find collectors all making such deep dives to buttress a tradition.
Overall, then, I still require convincing that Aisha did not originate the statement and the the meaning is not “consummate”. A view which Juynboll supports in his paraphrase of the hadith.
Sorry for my absence as of late. My work load got the better of me the last weeks. I’ll try and add more info, but I can only do that once I have time to sit down and write…
Also I have a bundle on this
. It’s too big to plot all at once though. Also I can textually show that its not one bundle, but actually 4, 3 of date back to Kufa around 750, and one (via Hisham b. Urwa) is potentially older. (This is my research not Juynboll’s.)
I own a pdf of Juynboll by the way, which I am happy to send to you. I think you once mentioned the option of sending something through the editors of the website?
Yes, absolutely.
They do pass stuff onto me.
Sorry for not getting back sooner, but I “lost” this thread.
And yes, I’d be v.grateful to receive a pdf of Juynboll’s work.
Jon MC before we actually start a discussion about whether this hadith actually goes back to Aisha I wanted to put something else out there. Namely, the question why this hadith survived in the first place. With Crone (p. 32-3) and most other western scholars I state that hadiths were not memorized and remembered, because they told us something about Muhammad, but precisely because of what they told us about Muhammad. Hadiths thus serve a legal, polemical, or historical purpose.
This is also the case for the Aisha hadith. Thus we can legitimately ask the question why this particular snippet of information stood the test of time. What was its purpose?
In our (21st century) eyes the most obvious answer is that it sanctions intercourse for those who had a preference for young girls. But in my view this is an inadequate answer. After all you can simply buy the little girl as a slave and have your own little plaything. Nothing in Islamic law would stop you, since slaves are your possession in every sense of the word. The thing you gain from the Aisha hadith is not sex with minors but it is marriage to minors. And what’s the difference between otherwise legitimate sex and marriage? The fact that marriage means inheritance. So I would argue that the discussion is not so much about sex with a minor but whether or not you can inherit from a minor and if so at what age do the full inheritance laws apply (not at 6 but at 9 in this case). This incidentally are precisely the discussions we see under the relevant chapters in Azq and Ibn Abi Shayba.
Unfortunately that’s not the whole story here. Almost anything that is stated about Aisha serves a Sunni-Shia polemical function and so it is with this one. None of the early Shia collections (whether Zaydi, or Imami, or Ismaili) mention this Aisha hadith. (They do all take nine to be the legal age for cohabitation though. But that makes perfect sense, since they all certainly participated in the inheritance discussion in 750s Kufa.) And there are a number of Sunni hadith going back to the 8th century that mention here age as a special property of Aisha in what are clearly anti-Shia polemics. Even some early texts going back to Zuhri (d. 742) seem designed to make Aisha special and different from Muhammad’s other wives.
Note that the role of Sunni-Shia polemics in the popularity of the hadith of Aisha’s age at marriage was also stated by Spellberg (http://books.google.nl/books/about/Politics_Gender_and_the_Islamic_Past.html?id=wbrSSxiapBYC&redir_esc=y).
Now it is important to mention that in principle this says nothing about the historicity of the hadith. It is quite possible for the hadith to be accurate, and then to be used in discussions about inheritance and/or Sunni-Shia polemics. All I wanted to provide here is a reason for scholars to preserve this specific statement.
Jon MC can you live with this analysis or do we need to discuss any of this in more detail?
“Now it is important to mention that in principle this says nothing about the historicity of the hadith.”
Let me rephrase this one for the sake of clarity: the fact that the hadith is part of a certain legal discussion does not necessary mean the hadith is not historical per se, it does however make me suspect that the hadith was possibly created to serve a legal or polemical purpose in an already existing argument.
This follows the standard hadith criticism going back to the archfathers of the western study of Islamic law Goldziher and Schacht.
Jon MC Naik in Arabic means to fcuk and minyaku means who is the fcuker! Nikha is derived from the word Naik. Usually in spoken or written arabic the arabs hesitate to use the word naik and instead they use dakhl, which means the same!
The only surest way of knowing that the old dog mohammad did screw the 9 year old child ayesha is to isolate mohammad’s semen in ayesha’s vagina! Not only that the sperms should be proved to be of Old dog mohammad’s by DNA analysis! Since both have kicked the bucket, there is no way to scientifically (contextually possible though) prove that indeed there was sex between 9 year old ayesha and 53 year old dog mohammad. It is a now in situation for the kafirs.If that is the case then why are moslem scum bags are choosing to bonk 9 year old girls? It is anti Islamic!
Ok you’re simply not making sense here. I’ve read your last three sentences a few times, but I really don’t understand what you’re saying.
The last sentence should have been “it is a no win situation for kafirs”
Which ever way, you want to paint a saintly picture of mohammad!
If mohammad did not have sex with 9 year old ayesha as per your semantics, then all the moslems who are sleeping with 9 year or younger girls are being anti Islamic and are not following the example of the pedophile prophet!
As I posted earlier, even if the worddkhl means mohammad did screw the child, then you can always argue that there is no proof of sex having taken place between them as there is no proof!
So It is a no win situation for kafirs
No the point I was making was that you cannot state that Muhammad screwed little girls because then you’re reading more into the text than there actually is. If D KH L would mean to consummate then you could claim that (This incidentally is separate from the discussion on whether the hadith can authentically be traced to Aisha and if so in what form).
And I do not appreciate being told that I paint a saintly picture of Muhammad. I suggest you actually read my previous posts and the literature I quote before making ridiculous statements like that.
Oh Sorry, you meant Moslems here and what I meant to say was moslems want to paint a saintly picture of rapist rasool! You meaning not you!See the words do not always mean the same!
“No. the simple answer is we don’t have a clue what Muhammad did because most of what we ‘know’ of his [Mohammed's] life was made up 200 years later.”
Let’s assume that you are entirely correct in that Dimnah.
That then begs the question why were these inventions crafted in the way they were.
There are, I suggest, two viable answers:
1. They reflect the beliefs and practices of 2nd/9th century Muslims.
2. Mohammed’s life was re-constructed to match what the oral traditions had passed on.
Both of those suggest that the formalisations of the Sunnah (both hadith and Sirat) give us the residue of early Islamic (or traditional Arab) practice plus accumulated accretions.
Given that marriage of nine-year old girl-children was NOT common in the 7th century (original article), this in turn suggests that these ahadith are actually genuine insofar as they accurately reflect what Mohammed did in marrying Aisha at age six and living together when she was aged nine.
On one level I can accept that we cannot know in any absolute sense whether Mo and Aisha had sex when she was nine (but by the same token we can’t truly know that any historical event took place as recorded before the arrival of video-records) but, unless we wish to posit that 9th century Muslims (or at least all the hadith compilers) suddenly all became paedophiles (Shafi’is discomfiture mitigates against this!), the very oddity of Mo ‘n’ Aisha’s ‘wedding’ supports the contention that these traditions of their having sex when she was nine have their roots in actual events.
In other words: given that these traditions were “uncomfortable” for the likes of Shafi’i and (we may assume) others that they would have been omitted from the Canon of Hadith unless there was compelling reasons for their inclusion – such as them being known to be genuine thought them being part of a powerful oral tradition.
If I’ve read Juynboll correctly, then he acknowledges Aisha as the originator of the “Aisha” hadith (even if the wordings often come from others). In turn this means that these hadith are likely genuine traditions that do reach back to Mohammed (despite Crone’s rule of thumb!).
I’m not saying that all Aisha hadith are genuine, but what I am suggesting is that the hadith dealing with her marriage were sufficiently contentious in nature (sex with a nine year old) that, were they not known to be genuine, they would have been suppressed and omitted from the Canon.
Interesting, so the BNY words used for “cohabit” really mean something like “built a tent”. So when they “co-habit together” the actual meaning is along the lines of “they built (a tent) together”?
As you say, this clearly refers to the wedding-rituals – which imply sex once he “enters upon her and closes the drapes”.
Again I can’t help but wonder if we are seeing the difference between judicial and “common” usage.
The phrase “closed the drapes” (or similar) now refers to the man and woman entering the (newly built) tent and closing the entrance to seclude themselves together.
I can see how this idea (building/entering the tent and closing the curtains) bifurcates in it’s usage:
On the one hand (judicially) it/they take on the meaning of “being secluded together” and as a “legalistic proof” of intercourse – even if you can both DkhL and BNY without sex taking place.
On the other it has, as you state, the common meaning of “had sex” on the grounds that that is what brides and grooms do on the wedding night once the public rituals have occurred.
“Given that marriage of nine-year old girl-children was NOT common in the 7th century (original article), this in turn suggests that these ahadith are actually genuine insofar as they accurately reflect what Mohammed did in marrying Aisha at age six and living together when she was aged nine.”
Unless later jurists had a reason for claiming he did this. I’ll try and deal with this issue in a proper reply, but I’m a bit stressed for time atm so bear with me.
Whilst you’re at it Dimnah, consider also this:
You state that Shafi’i uses BNY words to mean “consummate”: “But I again blame Shafi’i here. He quotes B N Y in his Kitab al-Umm and definitely assumes consummation automatically.”
Shafi’i and Azq are contempories (indeed Azq was born earlier and died later than Shafi’i), thus you are conceding that BNY could mean “consummate”/”had sex” etc. in the 8th century.
This, I would suggest, adds further weight to my argument.
Now this I can answer quickly
. I would say it is not as easy as you state.
I would consider Azq work part of the previous generation of scholars. Note Crone’s opinion on him. Also note the suggestions of Motzki that the contents of Azq work go back to the 760-770s.
Contrast this to Shafi’i. He is the great innovator of early Islamic law. He is the beginning of a new generation. Equally important, unlike Azq work, Shafi’is books were clearly edited by his students over the course of the 9th century. Thus when I say Shafi’i I actually mean from Shafi’i onwards (leaving it undefined whether it was him or his students).
Point to consider here is that it didn’t mean comsummate for Zuhri (d. 742) and Hisham b. Urwa (d. 763), the key transmitters of this hadith. And that Shafi’i or his students took this differently.
Regarding the B N Y root check: http://www.ejtaal.net/m/aa/#HW4=107,HW3=95,LL=1_297,LS=2,HA=65,SG=164,BR=141,PR=28 (
Scroll down to the second dictionary Lane (Wehr is modern Arabic and useless for this). P 260 third column top bit. Also see the next one (Steingas).
So according to the dictionaries it was originally associated with the setting up of a tent for the bride to which she was led in procession. Highly likely he then entered upon her in her tent (D KH L alaya). Clearly it later got the meaning of straight up consummation as well (that being the obvious objective here of course).
Again I can’t show precisely when it got that meaning, clearly it hadn’t for Zuhri (as per Azq 10866) and likely similar for his buddy Hisham b. Urwa. But I again blame Shafi’i here. He quotes B N Y in his Kitab al-Umm and definitely assumes consummation automatically.
“the older the hadith the younger the final authority”
That’s straight out of Crone!
As I understood it: what this is saying is that the “final authority” is the earliest link in the Isnad, otherwise she (you) are saying that Zujajat al-Masabih (c.1960)is an “older” collection than (e.g.) Bukhari.
I find this rule of thumb a little perverse. I understand why the attitude is taken, but even Crone admits it is far from adequate and that some “mohammed” hadith might be genuine. Juynboll (as I noted) states that the “Aisha” hadith are genuine in meaning if not in wording – which feeds back into our basic discussion of course!
- – -
“I’m pretty sure Shafi’i’s the guy to blame for making sexual intercourse the legal criterion (and not the moving in bit).”
I think you are undermining your own arguments here somewhat.
I’ve argued that sex is the actual criterion for the full establishment of an Islamic marriage (thus Mohammed’s “marriage” to Aisha at age 6 – in some hadith using “zawaj” rather than “nikah” – was more of a betrothal, and the change-in-circumstance at age nine involved, but perhaps was not limited to, sex. Bukhari 5:234 / 3894 which implies that Mo and Aisha were co-habiting prior to her ninth birthday). Judicially I can see why “moving in” (or even just seclusion) is taken as the legalistic criterion (no spy in the bedroom), but that does not detract from the actuality of it being sex that is the criterion (the lawyers are just playing safe – or trying to since, as I’m sure you are aware even the Azq rulings contradict each other).
This in turn suggests to me that Shafi’i's ruling(?) was the original intent, rather than the (8th century)judicial interpretation and thus the “9th century” reading of DkhL and BNY to mean “sex” reflects this reversion to the original criterion.
I think it is all a waste of e space! The 52 year old syphilitic haggard mohammad did screw a 8 year old girl and that is the example the scum bags moslems all over the world follow and are proud to say they are indeed following the child fcuker mohammad. Here you are wasting time and space discussing a useless word! Dakahal in hind also means enter but not in a sexual sense! So the moslem scum bags can say dakhal does not mean sex! Because it is not in hindi language. All the literate moslems are aware of the sexpot mohammad did screw a child aged 9 when the haggard was 52 years old and they are ashamed of this filthy habit of mohammad .Mohammad was a child fcuker and the moslems want to screw a child precisely for that reason alone.Because mohammad did it and can not be wrong.We use bang and bonk and screw also in english that may not always connote sexual activity, but can mean having sex!It is no big deal.Did the old rat mohammad sleep with 8 year odl ayesha? The simple answer is yes!
No the simple answer is we don’t have a clue what Muhammad did because most of what we know of his life was made up 200 years later.
Ok accepted, we do not know for sure whether sexual activity did occur between rapist rasool and ayesha and we are just assuming that it( sxexula act) did, and there is no photographic evidence to prove sex between a 52 year old and 8 year old child or for that matter mohammad did not have any children from ayesha! Mohammad not having a child from ayesha could be due to impotence of the guy or problem with conception with ayesha or due to sterile mohammad.It does not mean there was no sex between them! On the same account entire qrandic rubbish was written after the haggard old syphilitic cretin had kicked the bucket! No proof either for the divinity of this toilet tissue paper qran!
Lighten up PK!
Dimnah and I are enjoying this intellectual (on Dimnah’s part at least!) discussion.
If nothing else I’ve learnt that the “Canonical hadith” are on an even shakier footing than I’d supposed.
—
I have to point out that Dimnah and I are talking about Arabic words, not Hindi ones.
Mind you, it’s interesting that Hindi uses “Dakahal” as a loan-word from Arabic to mean “enter”. That’s all it means in Arabic too – it’s context that determines whether the entry is sexual or not.
What’s odd is that the early Muslims seem to use anything but direct meannings to refer to the sex-act: “enter”, “touch”, “build”, but call marriage “Nikah” – which means “penetrate”!
Words always do not mean what they are meant to mean! They either mean more or less. Any word bereft of the context may mean any thing and everything.When you take out the context of the usage of the word dakhil( enter/screw/penetrate) from the context , the word may no longer mean mohammad screwed 8 year old ayesha! The usage of the word that mohammad dakhiled in to ayesha may only mean one thing that mohammad entered in to ayesha’s vagina! In other words had sex.The moslems with some brain cells( Oh where are they?)find this a disgusting habit,A 53 year old screwing a child aged 8 and to reduce the eek factor, moslem scum bags concoct all sorts of crap.
Also Dakhal is not borrowed word from arabic.I am searching the sanskrit word equivalent and will let you know
I stand corrected.
I’d assumed that it came into use in Hindi after the Islamic invasions.
This leads me to wonder about the interrelation between Hindi (or Sanskrit) and Arabic.
Perhaps I did not make myself clear, PK.
The point I was making was that it’s rather amusing that Arabic uses so many euphemisms for sex “enter” “touch” “build” etc, but the euphemism for marriage “Nikah” mean penetrate.
(In Arabic I understand that if a man says “I nikah’d my wife last night”, it means “I had sex with/penetrated her…”
Fascinating stuff. We’re getting the hang of this
I’ll try and respond to a few things here. Regarding the D KH L bi. I actually hadn’t realized it said ‘bi’ here. That being the case I am now leaning slightly more to sexual intercourse here. Though I’ll have to look into the matter a bit.
Having done the works last week on comparing the texts of the 102 hadiths I have found mentioning Aisha’s age I can tell you that D KH L bi showed up exactly 10 times. The thing that I found most striking is that they seem to originate from Baghdad (or more precisely from Ibn Sa’d and his buddy Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the latter being dutifully copied by Abu Dawud as per usual). I had actually considered the ‘bi’ sloppiness by Ahmad and Ibn Sa’d (mixing up D KH L ala and B N Y bi, wouldn’t be the first time those two messed up their texts) but the clearly related Quranic passage puts this in a new light. Still I have to add that unlike for D KH L ala and B N Y I have found no proof that it goes back to guys like Hisham b. Urwa or Zuhri.
Regarding burden of proof. I fully agree with you that we can only read the Quran in its own context. I just stressed the point to ensure that we wouldn’t discuss anything based on useless 9th century sources.
Shafi’i statement: first as I think I mentioned on the previous discussion page I’m pretty sure he’s the guy to blame for making sexual intercourse the legal criterion (and not the moving in bit). He’s the guy who invented the ranked sources of the sharia (quran, sunna of the Prophet, ijma, qiyas) of course. Shafi’i knew the Aisha hadith, he mentioned it once himself. He also attests to the legality of marrying a 9 year old based on the prophetic precedent. But he preferred 15. I think pretty much everyone else followed in his footsteps after that (hence the different opinion between 8th and 9th century sources).
I’ve once tried to find this particular statement in Shafi’s own work but failed miserably. And I have difficulty accepting this as authentic based on Bayhaqi alone.
Going on about the Bayhaqi Shafi’i statement a bit more. I tend to actually interpret the hadith somewhat differently. Shafi’i clearly attests to the legality of marrying a nine year old, but he doesn’t seem to particularly like it (otherwise he would have made it preferred, but instead he opts for 15 here). I actually think he was also distinctly aware that his Baghdadi and Cairene audience thought likewise and might have even ridiculed him for it (as I would if someone were to tell me over a beer). So what he does is: he admits it to be legal, states he has seen a 21 year old grandmother in the Islamic backwater of backwaters Yemen, simultaneously proving his point and preventing his audience from having a go at him. (after all we’re talking about these weird Yemeni here).
Still I have no direct proof for this, but it does seem in line with Shafi’s own opinions on the matter.
I’ll get back to you on the B N Y root.
To be a tad blunt, Dimnah, whether Shafi’i did or did not like the marriage of nine-year olds is utterly irrelevant.
Since Mohammed legitimised it, Shafi’i had to accept it.
Implicitly he also accepts that sex with a nine-year old is lawful.
Now: where does that precedent come from?
“weird Yemaeni” or not, they clearly thought it was all okay with Allah.
Imo, what we are seeing is that Shafi’i preferring age 15 shows he was actually a more decent man than his ‘prophet’!
I agree with you. Bear in mind though that it was Shafi’i who introduced the whole sunna of the Prophet as a source of Islamic law idea. So in a way he is THE guy to blame for all of this (that is of course not to say that without him this wouldn’t have happened though).
The point I was making is that even if the statement comes from Shafi’i (and I don’t think so) I doubt he actually saw a 21 year old grandmother from Yemen, because he had a reason for putting this out there.
#2. I see what you mean Dimnah, but the Arabic of K.4:23 does not say “enter upon” (DkhL alayha), it says “your women (naisakumu) whom (allati) enter(ed)-you (dakhal-tum) with-them (bi-hinna)”. (Quran Arabic corpus, my hyphenation)
On the other hand K.3:37 does say “enter upon” – “whenever Zakaria enter(ed) upon (dakhala alayha) ‘Miriam (in) the prayer chamber…” (ibid). In this latter case we see that what was entered was the prayer chamber, in the former case I would require some convincing that what was entered was not the woman there being no other logical “object”.
If 4:23 was meant in a judicial sense why is it not “your women (naisakumu) whom (allati) you enter(ed) (ta-dhkulu) upon (alayha)”? I’m sure that isn’t grammatically correct, but I am equally sure you get the point…
Now I agree with your point about intercourse being hard to prove legally and this is important in judicial matters (no spy in the bedroom!), but whilst the Koran is making a legal ruling, it isn’t a judicial ruling. The Koran is speaking directly to the individual “forbidden to you…”. Now I assume that Mussalmen can work out if they have had sex with their wives or not, therefore I see the use of dakhaltum as literal (in line with 90% of it’s usage in the Koran) not judicial. In other words the ruling, whilst legalistic, is one of morality rather than judicial law – into which it was subsumed by judicial rulings later on.
#3.Burden of proof . With reference to the Koran text I don’t accept your argument. In the Koran we have a 7th century document. If you want to read it in terms of 8th century judicial rulings rather than in a manner consistent with 90% of usage in the document (entry is literal and physical), then imo the burden of proof lies with you to show that such a reading is required.
The Koran is long enough to provide its own context (this is an established mode of Koran exegetics after all) and it is vital to understand it in it’s own terms if we are to understand what it teaches. Put another way: the author of the Koran (whoever we deem that to be) is a single person, we need to determine what s/he/it means when using words, not what the general usage was in the 7th century – for which we have no/few sources anyway.
I would also draw your attention to the following:
Imam al-Bayhaqi (994-1066) relates the words of Imam shafi’i (767 – 820) in “Sunan al-bayhaqi al-kubra”, vol.1, p.319 which says (unless my Muslim source is being mendacious!):
“I have seen in the city of Sana’a [Shafi'i visited Sana'a several times during his life] a grandmother while she was twenty-one. she menstruated at the age of nine and gave birth at the age of ten.” Implicit is that her daughter married and gave birth at similar ages. Thus we see an 8th century Yemeni two-generational example (just at the time and place “Razzaq” was compiling his rulings) of allowing sex with nine-year old girl-children – assuming that the attribution to Shafi’i is correct of course. Without any condemnation of such a practice, I can only assume that Shafe’i is implicitly at least confirming the legality of such practices. Thus, assuming that Aisha hadith were extant at this time (whether written or oral), I would suggest that Mohammed’s “enter(ing) upon” and his “cohabit(ing)” with Aisha were seen as permitting intercourse and that such young marriage and intercourse were seen as “Sunnah” following his example. Are we then seeing a dichotomy in usage: the “juristic” of Razzaq et al versus the “commonplace” of Aisha? Even if such hadith were transmitted through jurists, that would not negate the point, they too might use the words differently in legal ruling and descriptive hadith, notwithstanding Juynboll’s point about where the words of a matn originate.
Juynboll himself supports the authenticity of the “Aisha” hadith about her marriage and believes that the wording, which he paraphrases, means “consummate”.
Let me repeat a question: With regard to BNY words. I would be interested in a comment from you on how we can get from a root meaning of “build” to “cohabit”. I find that rather mind-boggling.
#4. I’d be grateful and delighted to receive a copy of your paper when it’s finished Dimnah (assuming it’s in English!). If you would be willing and kind enough to email it to the FFI editors I’m sure they will forward it. From what you say the arguments are too academic (and possible convoluted) for this website – no offence guys and gals.
#6. When you say that the hadith are “Meccan” etc. do you mean that the rulings were given at those locations or that they were given by a Meccan scholar. The reason I ask is that there is evidence that juristic scholars moved from place to place – at least occasionally – thus the question would be (for example) would a “Meccan” jurist rule according to Meccan tradition in Yemen or would he “bone up” on Yemeni tradition and rule according to the local customs? In other words might we get a “Yemeni” ruling from the lips of a “Meccan” jurist practising in Yemen?
(For example a modern equivalent would be an American judge practising in Britain – he’d have to rule by British, not American, law.)
As a second point: I now realise that you and I use the word “hadith” to mean somewhat different things: to me the hadith are the “classical hadith” of the “big six” Sunni collection (and the main Shia collections, though I’ve never studied them), whereas you seem to also apply this title to what I would call “rulings” (or fatwa) given by various lawyers. I’m not saying your categorisation is wrong – far from it, it seems to be the norm in fact – but I would find a general distinction between (to be a little simplistic) Mohammed’s sayings and jurists rulings. Of course, that distinction largely disappears if one views the “Mohammedist” hadith as (largely) later fabrications! As you note “it’s all hopelessly complex I’m sorry to say”.
- – - – -
I wonder too how much of this forensic zeal is a “western” pre-occupation. Does the forensic examination of sources of hadith have an impact within the Islamic community or is it mostly ignored?
I’ll be happy to send it to you (it is in English) but it’s slow going. Won’t be finished for another month or two at least. And yes staring at my fiendish footnotes I agree it’s probably not for the website.
When I say Meccan, I mean its source to be a Meccan jurist. When jurists traveled they tended to take their baggage with them. So Meccan guys (like Ibn Jubayr or Mujahid) practicing in Kufa quote Meccan authorities, not Kufan ones.
I take hadiths to be any sayings with an isnad chain going back to Muhammad, his companions, and the successors up to the point where we have proper collections. The topic or nature of the message makes no difference to me.
In view of the fabrications the rule of thumb for hadiths is: “the older the hadith the younger the final authority” (though of course muslims wouldn’t agree. Juynboll again makes this all pretty obvious: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4057003?uid=3738736&uid=378302453&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=60&sid=21101761064711 (just use read online function if you have no access).
And no Muslims generally don’t bother with proper source criticism of hadith. Though if there is one issue that will ever get them to do this properly its this one I’m sure
.
While it’s true I haven’t said anything about your reading of Quran 4:23, that doesn’t mean I fully agree with your reading
.
I see no issue with translating D KH L in 4:23 as I have translated it in 8th century context. So instead of sexual intercourse it means enter upon (intercourse being the legal fulcrum might sound logical, but since intercourse was hard to prove, premodern societies often took moving in together as the moment of legal irrevocability in marriage).
Now since the closest contemporary source (8th century hadiths) do not take D KH L to mean intercourse, the burden of proof is on you here to show that it does. Best bet is if you can back up your meaning of D KH L in Arabic poetry. Other than poetry I don’t really see an early source.
As for your other post: I fully agree with you that everything depends on when this hadith came into being. In fact I’m writing an (academic) article on this atm (whole reason I got here in the first place). If you care about I can post some theories but it’s all hopelessly complex I’m sorry to say.
What we can say fairly easily is that the wording of this hadith goes back to Hisham b. Urwa and (less well attested) Zuhri. Other strands going back to Aisha are very likely to be later Iraqi work (as per Juynboll’s and Motzki’s rules of hadith criticism). Note that this says nothing about its authenticity. Also note that Zuhri also occurs in the D KH L hadiths.
A few other things. The D KH L hadiths I quote are 1 Meccan/Medinan (Ibn Jurayj, Zuhri) 1 Medinan (Ibn Musayyab) and 2 Kufan (Shurayh). Likely even Crone would be happy with this.
In any case, Crone is likely to negative on hadiths and hadith centres (note that the book is already 25 years old here, academia has moved along since then). For instance the other book I quoted (Motzki) gives us a good glimpse into the Meccan school. And Juynboll’s (unreadable…) “Encyclopedia of the Canonical hadith” (http://books.google.nl/books?id=C3Jo-U7e_n0C&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false) takes a great number of hadiths to go back to Basran and Meccan authorities (note p. 75 by the way, Juynboll thinks the hadith goes back to Aisha, but note that he says the wordings go back to early legal fuqaha).
Okay Dimnah, I will concede your argument that for these jurists neither DkhL nor BNY means sexual intercourse, but some maybe legalistic precursor to it.
Going back to the original argument: you (and others) claimed that the use of the BNY and DkhL along with negated MSS words in (e.g.) the ahadith of Razzaq showed that neither BNY nor DkhL could mean “sexual intercourse” in 8th century Arabic and that this meant (a) that such words did not mean this in the 7th century, the change in meaning occurring in the 9th century and/or (b) that the major collections of Hadith that do infer this meaning have those interpretations “imposed” on the texts.
In the original article I showed that in the Koran the word “Dakhultum” (lit. “enter(ed) you”) when referring to a woman was definitely meant in both a literal and sexual way.
Thus the claim that “DkhL” can’t mean “have sex” in 7th century Arabic remains rebutted.
In turn this begs the question as to which is the “odd man out”? Is it the 8th century juristic arguments presented in Razzaq, or is it both 7th and 9th century and later usages?
Now I will grant that words can change their meanings. Some examples from English: in the last 50 years the word “gay” has changed it’s meaning from “frivolously happy” etc. to “homosexual” and the word “alien” has changed from “foreigner” to “extra-terrestrial”.
In Shakespearean English the word “presently” means “right this instant!” (“Give me presently the great seal into my hand”.) Today it means “at some unspecified time in the future” (“I’ll get around to it presently.”)
In British English if you said “I’ll knock you up” it meant “I’ll wake you up” whereas in American English (at the same time) it meant “I’ll make you pregnant”. (This latter usage has now come into British English as well – the phrase is thus ambiguous in British English today, though the older usage is largely obsolete.)
Those examples show four things: (1) that a word can change it’s meaning quickly, (2) that words don’t tend to revert to an earlier meaning after that change, (3) that phrases can have different meanings in the same language depending on where as well as when they are spoken and (4) that the same phrase can mean different things depending on context.
What I am suggesting then, is that whilst it could be argued that DkhL changed it’s widespread meaning from the 7th to the 8th century in such a way as to preclude it’s use for sex, it would then be unlikely to change it’s meaning back again by the 9th century and that, depending where it was spoken, it could also have different meanings and that both meanings could be “correct” at the same time.
This does not rebut your argument fully, since (A) the example in English may not be a parallel when applied to Arabic, (B) it does not impinge on the “imposition” argument and (C) there is/was likely a greater divergence between the two forms of English than would have been likely for Arabic over the time and geography concerned.
But I would need more convincing than can be supplied by one source alone that the “non-sexual” usage was the norm in the 7-8th centuries.
Turning to the “Aisha hadith”.
The argument here would seem to pivot around whether one regards them as being actually said by Aisha or whether they are viewed as later fabrications.
If the former, I think that the point to be made would be that Aisha was not a jurist and thus we need to consider what she meant. In Bukhari hadith 7:64 or #5133 says that Mohammed “admit(ted) upon (udkhilt alayha) a nine year old girl” with no other context given. Now, comparing with usage in the Koran this would mean that it was to Aisha that Mohammed was physically admitted – i.e. in the sex act.
In one version of the Bukhari hadith (this hadith is not recorded in all translations, but comes from Muhsin Khan’s); #5127, narrated Aisha, relates a tale about the “four types of marriage” before Islam: “The fourth type of marriage was that many people would enter upon (“dakhala alayha”) a lady and she would never refuse anyone who came to her. Those were the prostitutes…” Here the context demands that the phrase “enter upon” be understood to mean “had sex with” and Aisha is using it in this sense.
Thus at the minumum, however and whenever these hadith were originated, we see that this usage is valid.
Thus there is an argument that she means the same thing in the previous hadith, though given the different sanads I would not regard this as conclusive.
Other hadith use the BNY form, often translated as “co-habited”, but I can’t help but wonder, given that the root meaning is “build/construct” and derived meanings of “sons, daughters, children etc.” in the Koran whether this “building” or co-habiting is an allusion to “making a baby” – at least at that time.
Turning to the other argument that the Aisha hadith are fabricated (to a greater or lesser extent).
I think that it would be vitally important to establish when and where these hadith originated. Sadly, as several authors on this subject, including Crone, point out, doing this is almost impossible.
Crone (in the book you recommended to me) points out that that the early “schools” of Islamic Sharia were regionally, or more accurately, city based. “The earliest schools were … congeries of scholars who lived in the same city”. She notes that “Neither Mecca and the Yemen produced a classical school, be it Sunni or heretical.”
Again quoting Crone: “The Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq (d. 826)… Abd al-Razzaq was a Yemeni from Sana’a and his collection is particularly rich in Yemeni, Meccan and Basran material.” Two out of those three sources never gave rise to a significant school of Islamic jurisprudence.
What I suggest this means, given that during the early period that the rulings in one school meant little or nothing to another, is we have to allow for the possibility that distinctive usages for words arose within these different schools.
Second, there is the point of transmission versus origination. When a person is transmitting a hadith it is incumbent (at least in theory) that the hadith is transmitted verbatim, any gloss is supposed to be clearly identified as such by the transmitter who commented on the hadith, otherwise all we have is “Chinese whispers”.
On the other hand, if a person is originating a hadith they may obviously pick the words used according to their own usage.
In turn this means that we should not impute identicality in meaning to a phrase in a hadith transmitted by and one originated by a particular person, unless the transmitted hadith arose within the same area and time.
Thus I am also unconvinced as to the relevance of the Razzaq hadith to what is meant by DkhL and BNY words in the classical hadith.
However, it is only fair that I admit that part of my problem in fully grasping your argument may be due to a lack of expertise in this area on my part.
Finally, I have to remind you that, in my opinion, these arguments (no matter how interesting they are in the academic sense) are primarily a red herring since the words and phrases we have been discussing have been used by Muslims for over a millennia to “legalise” sex with girl children.
I would be delighted if “the Umma” could be persuaded that their interpretation of these hadith, their usage in Tafseer both classical and modern, Shariah etc. are all incorrect on the basis of historical evidence, but I fear uprooting over a millennia of Shariah tradition, especially given “that the Shari’a is immutable” (Crone) would prove somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible.
I agree let’s try and keep it all in one place. I will also narrow the debate a bit. Some ground rules: I will cease quoting hadiths, because we have enough here to finish the discussion I think. From now on I will only refer to the number, Abd al-Razzaq is abbreviated as Azq (just cause I hate typing out his name in full).
Strictly focusing on the D KH L root here (I feel we had better leave some of the minor points behind here; it’s not really relevant) I have quoted 4 hadiths Azq 10866, 10885, 10886 and Malik 1101.
I continue to argue that in none of these cases the D KH L root means to have sexual intercourse. I do this firstly, because this is perfectly in line with the discussion in Azq. The discussion is about whether or not actual sexual intercourse needs to have taken place before the full dower and bride price are required or the fact that they are alone together is enough (witness Azq. 10864 which clearly and unambiguously supports the point).
Secondly, I keep to my original position because the variant translations you have offered are incorrect (as a side note I think it would help our debate if you quote your alternative translations in full).
Azq 10866. I have argued that your translation requires a passive that is grammatically impossible hence I keep to my original translation.
Azq 10886. Your translation requires the Arabic to actually state that he became impotent ‘after’ (something like ba’da ‘an). This is not the case. My translation is preferred because it stays closer to the actual text at hand.
Azq. 10885. Your reading is simply wrong here and not in line with the text. You are reading things that simply aren’t there. The gist of this hadith is the fact that her statement alone is sufficient regardless of what others say. Even setting this aside the text still says that D KH L has taken place, but the couple can legitimately claim that they had no sexual intercourse. Hence D KH L cannot mean sexual intercourse here.
Malik 1101. I might get in to your statement that cohabitation (here we are ‘lowering the curtains’ again) here would imply sexual intercourse, because then the statement of Ibn al-Musayyab logically follows. BUT in another version of the Muwatta’ I just searched this is taken as two separate hadiths, hence making the link between them less strong (note these hadith numbers are provided by editors anyways). In any case this does not change the fact that D KH L (and this is the exact same D KH L alayha which is used in the Aisha hadiths) can be done without sexual intercourse taking place as the Ibn al-Musayyab part clearly states.
All in all my reading of the texts is simpler, perfectly in line with text and grammar, and in line with the legal arguments of the jurists.
Your reading of the texts is more in line with 9th century Shariah, but Shariah simply did not exist in the 8th century so I regard that as totally irrelevant (really I’ve seen so many 8th century opinions going against 9th century Shariah).
Dimnah: we have got no less than three strands of debate going now and the columns will thin out too much soon, so I’m going to try to reply to your posts here. It united the threads and gives us width to debate.
The hadith in reply to “Spade”.
Razzaq 10885: Surely the point here is that the couple were lying: they had had sex, but claimed they hadn’t, but Ma’mar ruled as if they hadn’t and “the people found this incorrect of him”.
Ibid 10886: I think this has to be a divorce initiated by the woman after her husband became impotent. To expedite this the woman can return part or all of her Mahr in Shariah.
Malik 1101 (or Malik 28.4.13): The first point I’d make here is that the word “co-habit” here seems to mean “had sex with”. If it does not, then the DkhL word means have sex. I wonder if a more accurate translation is “when a man enters upon (i.e. has sex with) his wife in his house and co-habits with her…” or should we read (better I think) “When a man takes his wife to his house and cohabits (i.e. has sex) with her…” this makes sense of the “bride-price” part. Also implicit here I think is “wife” as in “newly-wedded” since it only requires a single penetrative sex-act to make Mahr “bride-price” obligatory.
In the second part of the hadith we have “enters upon” qualified by “his/her room”. At first sight this doesn’t mean “had sex with”, but given how this is explained “I think this means (sexual) touching”, I suggest that both meanings are implied in the first, very cryptic, part of the hadith.
However, I do agree that DkhL doesn’t just mean “had sex”. As I said in the article “DkhL” means “enter” or “admit”, usually in an entirely physical sense, thus one can DkhL a room etc., but if you DkhL a woman, then it usually means enter as in “entered” (had sex with) her unless context demands otherwise.
—
Replies under the “present” section – yours to me:
I wish I could read the all of the Razzaq section, but for me to puzzle my way through the Arabic would take far too much time I’m afraid.
I do agree that this is juridical argument and as we all know (to paraphrase Ursula Le Guin in “A Wizard of Earthsea”) ‘infinite are the arguments of jurists’.
As for the difference between juridical and “lay” meanings of words: since I’m not sure which words you mean I really can’t comment beyond saying that implicitly you are acknowledging that these Jurists may be using word(s) in a different way to lay-people and also (as a secondary implication) to the way they are used in the Koran.
—
My “minor points” thread:
First another apology: I have been guilty of imprecision in my writing. Re vowelisation: I was referring to how Arabic is vowelised into English (Latin/Roman) characters (e.g. Allah vs. Allaah – the latter being more correct since the second “a” sound is a “long a”), not the vowels of Arabic itself.
In the rest of your posts (in this thread) you seem to be acknowledging that jurists were ignoring the Koran in the making of their judgements. Thus we see one reason why such hadith were ultimately rejected, I suggest.
In your side note you talk about “local traditions”. Now I agree. But this means that what we see is “hold-overs” from the pre-Islamic era legal systems conflicting with the Koranic rules and overruling them (this seems to be what Crone is saying at one point btw). Another reason that “localist” hadith were rejected in favour of “Mohammedan” ones.
However, that is in fact irrelevant to our discussion which is about the meaning of various words under various conditions.
Razzaq 10864: Again, I don’t really see your point. We agree that “mss” means “touched” (here in a sexual sense – I come back to my euphemism or your “technical definition”). All we have is a ruling that parallels the Koran, except perhaps about menstruating but since neither of us can understand this what is there to say!
Ibid 10863. This seems to mean that phrases like “When the curtains are drawn” and “the doors are closed” both mean something like “when they have spent the night together”.
I’m probably missing something, but how do these impact on the BNY and DkhL don’t mean “had sex” (in the correct context) argument?
So I promised something about the context and provide more hadiths. However I do believe I need to state something clearly before starting this discussion.
Regarding the M S S root: its most frequently occuring meaning is “to touch”. It can mean “to have sexual intercourse”, but obviously this has to be clear from context (I would not really call it a euphemism as you do. It occurs so frequently in that meaning in Malik and Abd al-Razzaq that I would rather call it a technical definition). Jon MC you have suggested an alternative meaning of “to be touched” or “unchaste” but I must state that at the very best this is an infrequently occurring variant.
Now you do have your reasons for choosing the variant as you rightly point to some (potential) legal inconsistencies that arise when you compare the hadith as I translated it to the Quran. This makes you opt for your variant reading of the root M S S (the “unchaste” sense) in the hadith even though the Quranic passage in question as you show in your translation uses M S S in the active sense (so the “to touch” or “to have intercourse” sense). You thus choose for the less obvious translation for reasons of legal consistency.
Now in itself this is not impossible. Heck Islamic scholars do creative things to the text all the time for reasons of legal consistency
. But it presupposes that the legal system was already set out at the time when 8th scholars discussed this. I argue (backed by the same western scholars I quoted earlier, but there are far more if you really want to know) that sharia as we know it with its ranked sources of Quran, sunna, ijma’ and qiyas only came into being in the 9th and 10th century.
The hadith in question here is on the account of the famous Medinan jurist Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 742 and incidentally one of the key transmitters regarding the hadiths about Aisha’s age at marriage). In his time sharia was still in development and as such we find frequent arguments were a prevalent local custom is opposed to a seemingly clear Quranic decree. This is especially the case in Medina, where they liked to argue the superiority of Medinan customs because it was closest to Muhammad’s own customs (Medina being his city and all).
In fact that is exactly what’s happening here. The hadith is part of a legal discussion in Abd al-Razzaq. (The chapter is called باب وجوب الصداق you can easily find it on the web) The Medinans (and a few Meccans) know the Quranic passage in question but are basically arguing that the full mahr needs to be paid and iddah needs to take place when a couple has spent any amount of time in private, regardless of whether sexual intercourse has taken place, and even if both parties say that no sexual intercourse has taken place at all. Some Kufans and Meccans are arguing part of the point you take, namely that in this case only half of the mahr is required (their position on idda is not always clear though).
In face of this context (1. the usage of M S S in the Quran that is obviously familiar to the jurists and 2. the function this hadith has in the legal discussion) I uphold that the M S S root needs to be translated in the exact same manner as in Quran 2:237 and 33:49. This then leads me back to my original statement that in the face of the clear legal meaning of M S S to the 8th century jurists, D KH L (and B N Y) cannot be claimed to mean intercourse to them, because both can be done without having intercourse.
I’ll reply to this post with hadiths to show the different positions here. In addition I’ll start quoting other hadiths backing my definitions of D KH L and M S S. Again bear with me here, it takes time to sift through Abd al-Razzaq.
Now I promised you a present and I of course do not want to disappoint you.
I’d like to start to start off with the following hadith:
10865 – عبد الرزاق عن معمر عن الزهري قال إذا أغلقت الأبواب وجب الصداق والعدة والميراث وله الرجعة عليها ما لم يبت طلاقها وإن قال لم أصبها وقالت هي أيضا كذلك لا يصدقان
This is the hadith preceding the hadith I quoted earlier (note the number). Again the person speaking here is Ibn Shihab al Zuhri, but he is now quoted by his master pupil Ma’mar (in the other one it was Ibn Jurayj), Ma’mar in turn is the informant of Abd al-Razzaq.
Now the reason I quote this hadith is because it states exactly the same thing as the Ibn Jurayj hadith (following my translation) but in different words.
It translates as: “When the doors are closed saddaaq and idda and miraath are obligatory and he has to return to her what he did not decide by divorce. And when he says: I did not have sexual intercourse with her and she said the same, then the both of them are not to be believed.”
Note the root (a) S W B (form iv here) that I translated as sexual intercourse has the meaning of ‘to hit the mark’. Middle bit (he has to…divorce) is somewhat vague to me, I’m open to alternative readings. But the beginning and end are clear enough and all that is relevant to us anyways.
So in addition to an grammatical argument and an argument from context, I also possess an alternative hadith with a different wording via a different transmission line saying the exact same thing as my original translation
.
I have to say that I don’t quite see what you are aiming at with this hadith (10865).
My reading is that “when the doors are closed” is yet another euphemism (I’m wondering now if it means “spent the night together”), since again we have the enforcement of three conditions: payment of “Dowry” – i.e. Mahr, performance of Iddah and inheritance rights (have I correctly translated “sadaaq” and “miraath”?)that only apply when the marriage is completed (through sex).
We then have a ruling that “when he says ‘I did not hit [on] her’and she said the same, they are not to be believed”.
In other words it is to be assumed that if they “closed the doors” (spent the night together?) they have had sex.
(I appreciate that this may be speculative, but I feel that the assumption of sex inherent in the ruling demands an interpretation of this phrase.)
—
btw: I think the middle section refers to the fact that divorce is three-fold, and it is only on the third case of the man saying “I divorce you” that the woman becomes “unlawful” (for sex) for him. Thus he can “return to her” (this is nornally considered to be “taking her back”) after two ‘divorces’ unless he has “decide(d)by divorce” number 3 to make the divorce irreversible.
Thus I think I would read it something along the lines of “he may return to her if he did not give the decisive (3rd) divorce”.
I really suggest you read the full chapter in Abd al-Razzaq. The entire discussion is on whether the conditions are fulfilled even if sexual intercourse has not taken place.
These guys are truly being jurists here. They are constantly arguing about the hypothetical case of when a man has entered a room with a woman, closed the doors, lowered the curtains (I really get a sense of the ceremony of a wedding night here) BUT they have not had sexual intercourse.
No it’s not a likely case to be sure. As such I’m sure these words have the implied meaning of having sex as well to the lay man. But (and this is important) this is not the case for the jurists themselves. They are very precise with their terminology. And these are the same jurists who transmit the Aisha hadith.
I think you’re spot on about the middle section here though. Thanks for that.
I want to pick up a few minor points here Dimnah, to make this easier to follow, I’ll do it by your paragraphs.
#2.With respect, I wrote in the article that “mss” words (in the Koran) all have meanings revolving around “touch”. Thus we agree on the meaning of the root. Where we disagree is on how to render “lam yamsasni” (however we vowelise it!) lit. “not touch me” in this case.
#3. That was not my supposition. By linking to both the Koran (7th century) and Shariah law (9-10th century) I was showing that this hadith was “out of step” both with precedent and descendant rules.
4-5. I have to say that I regard your argument here as bolstering my point, since you are admitting that the ruling “is opposed to a seemingly clear Quranic decree”. One to which, in principle at least, Shariah returns later.
—
To save you work, let’s agree to accept mss as meaning “touch” and take it from there.
I am very much looking forward to your posts on “DkhL” words, since I regard this as the main point of discussion.
#2 be aware that vowels do matter if we speak about a difference between active and passive. And until you can show me an active form of M S S with your passive meaning I will unfortunately hold to the grammatical incorrectness of your translation.
#3 I agree the hadith is out of step. But it’s certainly not the only one claiming this legal position. (I’ll post a few more in a moment). The point here is that in the 8th century they argued about all sorts of things that were later deemed to be out of step. Because in this case again, it was by no means clear that a Quranic decree would be more legally valid than a statement by a Companion or a jurist or the living custom of Medina.
As a side note here I don’t think you should see these 8th century texts as deviating from the 7th century and being corrected in the 9th century. I would rather say we haven’t really got a clue about the 7th century, we can logically expect 8th century Muslims to try to adhere to the 7th century by reading the Quran and adhering to their local traditions that of course go back to the 7th century. In the 9th century they start making sense of this legal jungle by creating the usul al fiqh (roots of the law). Now these roots have little to do with what actually happened in the 7th century (the Quran might be 7th century, but sharias chief source Prophetic hadiths have little to do with 7th century practice).
10864 – عبد الرزاق عن بن جريج عن عطاء قال بلغنا إذا أهديت إليه فغلق عليها وجب الصداق وإن لم يمسها وإن أصبحت عذراء وإن كانت حائضا كذلك السنة
Here’s a Meccan hadith going against the Quranic decree. Here ‘Ata (ibn abi Rabah) goes against the Quran He says: “when she is handed over to him and the doors are closed sadAq is obligatory even when there was no sexual intercourse (M S S), and she remains a virgin, and she menstruates (I would assume during her iddah as proof that she isn’t pregnant). For this is the sunna (custom, NOT the Prophet’s custom here. The hadith is far too early to carry that meaning).
So basically we have a statement by a very famous jurist explaining what’s going on here. The reason it is done has to be sought in the local custom of Mecca (and Medina, he lived there too).
Here’s a Basran one going back to Umar and Ali (though this is not te be taken too seriously here):
10863 – عبد الرزاق عن معمر عن قتادة عن الحسن عن الأحنف بن قيس أن عمر وعليا قالا إذا أرخيت الستور وغلقت الأبواب فقد وجب الصداق قال الحسن ولها المهر وعليها العدة
When the curtains are drawn, and the doors are closed Sadaaq is obligatory. Hasan (al-BAsri) said: and she gets the mahr and has to wait out the iddah.
A few more. Can’t be arsed to translate them anymore though. They all say the same thing
Medinan/Meccan:
10868 – عبد الرزاق عن معمر عن يحيى بن أبي كثير عن أبي سلمة بن عبد الرحمن عن أبي هريرة قال قال عمر بن الخطاب إذا أرخيت الستور وغلقت الأبواب فقد وجب الصداق
10869 – عبد الرزاق عن بن جريج قال أخبرني يحيى بن سعيد قال سمعت سعيد بن المسيب يقول إن عمر بن الخطاب قضى في الرجل يتزوج إذا أرخيت عليه الستور وغلقت الأبواب فقد وجب الصداق
10870 – عبد الرزاق عن بن جريج قال أخبرني يحيى بن سعيد قال سمعت سعيد بن المسيب يقول إن عمر بن الخطاب قضى في الرجل يتزوج إذا أرخيت عليه الستور فقد وجب عليه الصداق
Kufan:
10871 – عبد الرزاق عن الثوري عن يحيى بن سعيد عن بن المسيب عن عمر مثله
10872 – عبد الرزاق عن الثوري عن منصور عن إبراهيم قال قال عمر إذا أرخى الستر وأغلق الباب وجب الصداق
10873 – عبد الرزاق عن الثوري عن حماد عن إبراهيم قال قال عمر ما ذنبهن إن جاء العجز من قبلكم لها الصداق كاملا والعدة كاملة
10875 – عبد الرزاق عن جعفر بن سليمان قال حدثنا عوف قال سمعت زرارة بن أوفى يقول قضى الخلفاء الراشدون المهديون أنه من أغلق بابا وأرخى سترا فقد وجب عليه المهر
Now with that out of the way we can say something about your reading of the hadith I quoted. You argue that I mistranslate the Arabic root M S S as meaning “to have sexual intercourse” and offer a variant reading for us to consider, namely reading M S S as “to be touched”. Thus you read the sentence ‘lam yamsasni’ as meaning he was untouched, which you then interpret to mean not unchaste.
I have looked in the dictionaries of classical Arabic I had on hand here (Hava and Lane) and I did not find unchaste as a meaning. If you have a dictionary reference or an original classical Arabic sentence which clearly has this meaning I would appreciate it if you provide this.
Now in principle I have no problem with you reading M S S as to be touched (an by extension unchaste), since this is simply a passive form of to touch and this would only show in the vocalization in Arabic. So it would actually read ‘lam yumsasni’. However it is grammatically impossible to read a passive here.
Like in Indo-European languages an Arabic passive takes no direct object. And in this case the sentence provides us with an object (the –ni part, meaning “me”. Hence my translation “he did not touch me” or “he did not have sexual intercourse with me”). The proper passive sentence would be ‘lam yumsas bi’ which would translate as “he was not touched by me”. But there is an additional problem for, unlike Indo-European languages, Arabic cannot create a passive if the original subject was a human being (as is the case here). Basic rules of Arabic passive can be found in grammar works. I would refer to Haywood (http://www.amazon.com/New-Arabic-Grammar-Written-Language/dp/085331585X, p. 143-4). I’m sure you can find a pdf of this book somewhere.
Thus in absence of any other evidence (e.g. an example where the active form of M S S takes the meaning unchaste) I will conclude that your translation is GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT.
A proper command of classical Arabic takes years, even for an Arab. It’s simply a difficult language to master. You should really be careful when interpreting the texts. Often the best guide you can have is context. And as I hope to show in following posts the context speaks against your interpretation as well.
The first thing I would like to deal with is your statement that Abd al-Razzaq is not more reliable than Bukhari and Muslim as a source for early Islamic hadiths. Here you are essentially basing yourself on the statements of Muslims who have suggested that Bukhari and Muslim were the most reliable hadith scholars and thus their material is authentic.
This is NOT the opinion of western academia investigating early Islam and early Islamic law. Their argument is twofold. First, (and as I mentioned previously) standard source criticism suggests we look to the oldest available sources. In this case Abd al-Razzaq’s Musannaf but also for instance Malik’s Muwatta. In addition we focus our attention on sources that are structurally and legally less advanced. The short version of this argument is that only from the jurists Shafi’i (d. 820) onwards Muslim jurists took a hadith going back to Muhammad to have more legal significance than hadiths going back to companions or 8th century jurists. The net result was that hadiths were raised from companions and jurists and put into the mouth of Muhammad. Abd al-Razzaq’s musannaf is specifically interesting because it offers so few hadiths going back to Muhammad and is thus clearly a work from the generations before Shafi’i.
But by all means don’t take my word for it. Motzki (professor of Islamic law at Nijmegen, noted western specialist on hadith) wrote a book on it: http://books.google.nl/books?id=aNDSwh9ftREC&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
But perhaps Motzki is too sanguine for you. Then take the word of noted sceptic Patricia Crone (Professor at Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies): http://books.google.nl/books?id=8A_gAXDtVAEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Specifically read p 23-25 available on googlebooks. Her evaluation of Abd al-Razzaq follows on page 26-7.
Or just read the work of the arch father of the western study of Islamic Law Joseph Schacht’s “Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence”. Seriously, I can go on and on here. There is no scholarly debate on the issue.
Thus I’m sorry to say your statements on the lack of reliability of Abd al-Razzaq compared to Bukhari and Muslim holds no ground whatsoever (unless you BELIEVE in the authenticity of Bukhari’s Prophetic hadiths like Muslims do of course).
Presently I will pick up one point: you ask if I believe in the authenticity of Bukhari (we might add in the other 5 major Sunni collections as well).
If you mean “do I believe that these hadith are all authentic in the sense that ol’Mo said/did each one etc.” then the answer is a resounding “NO!” Some of these hadith are pure fantasy.
If you mean “do I believe that Muslims have used them to support Koran interpretation and help codify Islamic law and that they represent the beliefs of 9th century Muslims” then yes, I do.
The Koran says in ~50 repititions in various wordings that Muslims are to “obey Allah and the prophet”. Mohammed’s words aren’t in the Koran (or at least are not supposed to be!) thus Muslims have to look beyond the Koran to fulfil the commands of the Koran. Mohammed’s words are found in the “authoritative” hadith.
We might argue that this is “making the best of a bad job” (to put it in a cliche), but these are the sources quoted in Tafseers etc.
I will add that I see little or no difference between these beliefs and those of the sahaba either.
—
I may well have more to say on this later, but first I’ve got two books (sigh!) to read!
Yes, JonMC, while I am not any kind of authority on Arabic (at all) or the finer points of scholarly discourse on the language, I immediately ascertained that Dimnah was disingenuous on this subject, and tried to point out that his/her argument on the word in question did not necessarily mean “consummate” or “sexual intercourse” was an attempt to obfuscate: by taking one word from one hadith and saying it could not necessarily be translated that way Dimnah tried to render ALL the other hadiths related to the subject as unclear as to whether Mohammed was a pedophile.
It seems we always see that Muslim apologists either want to holler “you are taking it out of context!” or they try something a little more sophisticated (but completely predictable) as to claim the the “perfect” original Arabic is not translated correctly… when in fact it is.
How on earth can you ascertain that I am disingenuous on this subject (the subject being translation) if you know nothing about Arabic?
The only claim you can make is that I have so far only quoted a single hadith, which might be waved away as a simple coincidence. But don’t worry, I’ll make your day tomorrow and quote loads more.
Thank you, Dimnah. I certainly don’t mean to insult, you are obviously very learned in the subject at hand, but it still comes across as a bit of a reach to question one word in a hadith or, in the case of this discussion, several hadith (not pertaining to Ayesha) in order to ascertain whether D KH L or M S S really mean sexual intercourse, unchaste, et al or not.
The directive, as always, is to look at context, and even after reading all the hadith you’ve provided (thanks!) it is clear that while in every case sexual intercourse has not taken place when these words are used, it is with the intent of or anticipation of sexual consummation.
I am obviously unable to speak Arabic, but if the Koran is THE perfect word from Allah for all people, and the ahadith are provided for clarification of the scripture as well as for lessons provided from the life of the prophet, his wives and companions, it is incumbent that the translations provided by Islamic jurisprudence accurately relate the true meaning.
If one hadith translates that the child marriage was consummated at age nine and another hadith’s translation casts doubt on the consummation, which one are we to believe?
If we cannot use widely used translations because scholars such are yourself question the translation of certain words, then what are we to believe, for instance, from this hadith which is shown on FFI’s home page: “Aisha said, “The Apostle of Allah married me when I was seven years old.” (The narrator Sulaiman said: “Or six years.”). “He had intercourse with me when I was 9 years old. (Sunan Abu Dawud)”? Did they have sexual intercourse, or just social intercourse over dinner?
And if it does accurately translate to sexual intercourse from this hadith, then why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth (forgive the use of a Biblical phrase!) over the word(s) that may or may not mean sexual intercourse or unchaste or consummate? Ayesha narrated they “did it”! Mohammed had sex with a nine-year-old. Done!
Obviously, the question of translation is not unique to Islam; this is also a problem with ancient Hebrew and Aramaic. The difference in this case is with the claim that the Koran was revealed in the perfect language of Allah…Arabic. It is (supposedly) precisely clear and understandable. I think just with this discussion we’ve proved this claim as a fallacy, as even Islamic scholars cannot agree upon the meaning or even intent of certain words or phrases.
Cheers!
I was almost overcome by sleep but then remembered I promised Spade some hadiths to chew on and I’d hate to disappoint him. Will not do him much good as I rather doubt whether he can learn Arabic overnight, but here you have it. More hadiths where it is clear from the text that D KH L cannot mean sexual intercourse.
10885 – عبد الرزاق عن جعفر بن سليمان قال أخبرني عطاء بن السائب أنه شهد شريحا ورفع إليه رجل دخل بامرأة فقال لم أصبها وقالت صدق فقضى لها نصف الصداق فعاب الناس ذلك عليه فقال نصيب بينهما بكتاب الله وقال معمر عن شريح تصدق بإقرارها على نفسها في الصداق ولها نصفه والعدة واجبة عليها
10886 – عبد الرزاق عن الثوري عن إسماعيل عن الشعبي عن شريح أنه قال في امرأة دخل بها رجل فمكثت عنده زمانا فلم يستطعها فقضى لها بالنصف وعليها العدة
Last one is actually quite funny because it seems to suggest that you can even perform D KH L when you’re impotent
.
Dimnah, would you do our readers a favour here and provide translations of the Hadith (not to mention the source – I assume these are from Razzaq?)
Most of us can’t read Arabic.
Ok here we go: From Abd al-Razzaq from Ja’far ibn Sulayman, he said ‘Ata ibn al-Sa’ib told me that he witnessed Shurayh (=legendary 7th century judge of Kufa):
A man came to him who had entered upon (D KH L)his wife, but he said I did not have sexual intercourse with her ((a) S W B) and she said he told the truth. So he (Shurayh) judged to her half of the Sadaaq. The people found this to be incorrect of him. And they said we (saw?) sexual intercourse between them with (according to) the book of God. And Ma’mar said from Shurayh that she was believed in her statement by herself (meaning: her statement on its own was sufficient evidence), so (she got) half and the iddah was obligatory on her.
From Abd al-Razzaq from al-Thawri, from Isma’il from Sha’bi, from Shurayh, that he said about a woman, whose husband entered upon her (D KH L) and she lived with him for a time, but he wasn’t able to perform with her, so she got half and she has to wait out the iddah.
So I have another one for you. This one is from Malik and it is translated here (http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith/muwatta/) so it makes my life much easier:
1101 – وحدثني عن مالك عن بن شهاب ان زيد بن ثابت كان يقول إذا دخل الرجل بامرأته فأرخيت عليهما الستور فقد وجب الصداق وحدثني عن مالك انه بلغه ان سعيد بن المسيب Yكان يقول إذا دخل الرجل بالمرأة في بيتها صدق الرجل عليها وإذا دخلت عليه في بيته صدقت عليه قال مالك أرى ذلك في المسيس إذا دخل عليها في بيتها فقالت قد مسني وقال لم أمسها صدق عليها فإن دخلت عليه في بيته فقال لم أمسها وقالت قد مسني صدقت عليه
Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab that Zayd ibn Thabit said, “When a man takes his wife to his house (D KH L) and co-habits with her then the bride-price is obliged.”
Yahya related to me from Malik that he had heard that Said ibn al-Musayyab said, “When a man comes to his wife in her room (D KH L), he is believed. When she comes to him in his room (D KH L), she is believed.”
Malik commented, “I think that this refers to sexual intercourse (M S S). When he comes in to her in her room (D KH L) and she says, ‘He has had intercourse with me (M S S)’ and he says, ‘I have not touched her’ (M S S), he is believed. When she comes in to him in his room (D KH L) and he says, ‘I have not had intercourse with her (M S S)’ and she says, ‘He had intercourse with me (M S S)’, she is believed.”
Again pretty clear D KH L can take place without sexual intercourse. Also note that this translator chooses to translate D KH L as “to enter a room” (the actual room is not mentioned in the Arabic). The translator actually stays very close to the basic meaning of the word here.
Well I hadn’t expected this. Jon MC, let me first of all compliment you with your valiant attempt at a rebuttal. For various reasons (which will follow below) I do not agree with you. But I do appreciate the effort you put into it. I know from experience these arguments are very time consuming.
One thing I do not appreciate though is the description of my argument as apologetic. There is nothing apologetic about my argument. I am a historian concerned with historical truth. I do not twist and turn texts because they don’t serve my argument. I employ standard methods of textual criticism and base my arguments on that. As such, would you have provided me with valid arguments I would have been happy to change my opinion. Unfortunately you haven’t so far.
I now fully intend to bury this issue once and for all. After this post, I will likely put up a number of different posts discussing various parts of you argument. However the whole argument probably will take some time to put up so bear with me on this
.
“One thing I do not appreciate though is the description of my argument as apologetic. There is nothing apologetic about my argument.”
Then I apologise.
It was just that your expression was the most succinct of those I found.
I do take your distinction between apologia and history and I agree that history is about the truth – as far as it can be determined.
—
I shall read your replies with great interest.
Thanks and no problem. I must say if there is one thing I enjoy about these discussions here it is the spirit in which we can conduct them.
Thank you for that.
I agree – it is rather refreshing to have a civilised debate and I thank you for that.
I have now amended the article to remove the offensive phrase.
Once again my apologies.