Mohammed’s adoration of particular women was nevertheless tempered
with penetrating discretion toward the sex in general. It is true
that he abrogated the usage which permitted, and even encouraged,
sons to inherit their fathers’ wives, and that the code of Islam
allowed single ladies to be mistresses of their own actions; but it
is also true that married women continued to be treated merely as
sports and playthings for the convenience of their husbands. “Men
stand above women,” says the Koran, “because of the superiority
which God hath conferred on one of them over the other....
Wherefore let the good Women be obedient.... But such as ye may
fear disobedience or provocation from, rebuke them, and put them
away in separate apartments, and chastise them. But, if they be
obedient unto you, seek not against them an excuse for severity;
verily God is lofty and great.” While Moslem husbands might easily
obtain an absolute divorce if they chose, the idea that women might
occasionally desire the same privilege seems never to have entered
the Prophet’s head. Women might win Paradise, to be sure, yet no
provision was made whereby they could anticipate such captivating
entertainments as were promised to faithful men. Mohammed, in fact,
was sagacious enough to entice males to Islam by implying that there
would be no occasion for them to lament the loss of their wives in
Paradise: “Whenever a woman vexes her husband in this world, his
wife among the Houris of Paradise says: ‘Do not vex him (May God
slay thee!) for he is only a guest with thee. He will soon leave
thee and come to us’”--and indeed, the most subtly cruel punishment
that the Prophet ever inflicted upon erring males was to separate
them for a period from their wives. If, however, some wives remained
refractory in the face of this warning, Mohammed had still another
card up his sleeve: “If a man summon his wife to his bed and she
refuse to come, so that he spends the night in anger, the angels
curse her till morning.”
That the Prophet, as was only natural, allowed himself a wider
latitude of encounters than was granted to his adherents--who might
espouse only four women, but might also form liaisons “without
antecedent ceremony or any guarantee of continuance” with any number
of female slaves--was made clear by Ayesha. “I was jealous of the
women who gave themselves to the apostle of God,” she admitted,
“and said, ‘Does a woman give herself?’ Then when God revealed:
‘Thou mayst decline for the present whom thou wilt of them, and thou
mayst take to thy bed her whom thou wilt, and whomsoever thou shalt
long for of those thou shalt have before neglected; and this shall
not be a crime in thee.’ I said, ‘I see your Lord does nothing but
hasten to fulfil your desire!’” Yet due allowance should be made
for Ayesha’s jealousy; for, while Mohammed married approximately
twelve women, she was the only virgin among them--the others were
widows or divorcees who commonly brought him wealth or desirable
political connections. For indeed, though he once playfully chided
a Moslem who had married a mature woman instead of a “young damsel,
who would have sported with thee, and thou with her,” he was too
canny to follow his own counsel. At the same time, he preferred
women of spirit; in fact, he definitely rejected one girl because
“she never cried or complained”--a criticism that certainly could
not be aimed against most of his brides.
Khadija was barely under ground when the Prophet prepared to embark
boldly upon matrimonial seas. About two months later he married
Sauda, a tall, corpulent, mature widow whose brother celebrated the
event by sprinkling ashes on his head; he synchronously engaged
himself to Abu Bekr’s daughter Ayesha, whom he eventually espoused
at the age of ten; but it has been suggested that “there may have
been something more than ordinarily precocious about the child.”
She herself attributed her hold on Mohammed’s affections not only
to her childish beauty, but to her plumpness. “When I was betrothed
to the Prophet,” she related, “my mother endeavored to make me fat;
and she found that with me nothing succeeded so well as gourds and
fresh dates. Eating well of them I became round”; yet, as she grew
up, she lost her flesh and became thin and willowy. In 624 Omar
found himself with Hafsa, a widowed daughter of twenty, upon his
hands. Irritated and scandalized by her exhaustive but fruitless
endeavors to win a second husband, he offered her in turn to Othman
and Abu Bekr, who, knowing that she inherited her father’s cranky
temper, refused to accept the honor. Omar was so insulted by this
double rebuff that he at once flew angrily to Mohammed to make a
complaint. The Prophet, at his wit’s end because of the social
uproar that had been started, saved the situation by marrying Hafsa
himself, and thus abundantly gratified his wish to have a wife
who cried and complained all the time. Zeinab, widow of one of
the heroes of Bedr, became his fifth wife in 626; her gentle and
charitable disposition perhaps accounts for the fact that she was
the only one of his wives who preceded him to Paradise. His sixth
bride was won in a peculiar way. As Abu Selama lay expiring of a
wound received at Uhud, Mohammed entered and quieted the wailing
women with this prayer: “O Lord! give unto him width and comfort
in his grave; lighten his darkness; pardon his sins; and raise up
faithful followers from his seed.” Just four months later (626), the
Prophet pressed his ardent suit upon Abu’s widow Um, who, against
her better judgment, finally yielded to his importunity.
Meanwhile the much-married man had discovered that his domestic
arrangements were getting more and more complicated. Founding a
precedent that has since been followed by many Christian churches,
he occupied a part of the Mosque. His domestic quarters were
established along its eastern wall; they seem to have been
constructed from a series of adjacent huts owned by one Haritha, who
retired more or less willingly from each of them whenever Mohammed
needed a new shelter for a bride; and as the years passed, poor
Haritha would barely fix up a new abode before he was shoved out
of it. An entrance for the Prophet’s exclusive use led from each
dwelling into the Mosque; having no separate apartment for himself,
he rotated daily from one hut to the other according to a fixed
schedule: “the day of Hafsa, the day of Um,” _ad finem_. Before
long, however, he deliberately infringed upon the rights of all
his other wives by breaking the routine in favor of Ayesha--the
now lithe and lissom beauty who still toyed with her playthings
and frolicked with Mohammed in nursery games--until the deserted
wives raised such a squabble that he was forced to emit the famous
revelation, so cuttingly commented on by Ayesha, which gave him
license to consort with her who pleased him most at the moment.
Conflicting reports have been handed down concerning the acquisition
of the Prophet’s seventh bride. Going one day to visit his adopted
son Zeid, who was absent, he was invited in by Zeid’s wife Zeinab,
who ... but here the tales diverge. Some say that Mohammed merely
saw her unveiled face, while others assert that her carelessly
disarranged dress gave him further glimpses; some say that the
Prophet, moved by a purely artistic admiration of her beauty, uttered
the words, “Praise be to God, the ruler of hearts!” but others
insist that his approbation was of a lower sort, and translate
his ejaculation thus: “Gracious Lord! Good Heavens! how Thou dost
turn the hearts of men!” It is agreed, however, that Zeinab was
so elated at the impression she had made on the Prophet’s facile
susceptibility to feminine wiles that she took special pains to
repeat his compliment over and over to Zeid, who, in addition to
being short, pug-nosed and generally ugly, was a mere freedman,
and, therefore, had never appealed too strongly to his high-born
wife. Hot with jealousy, Zeid went to Mohammed and declared that he
wished to divorce Zeinab. “Why,” he was asked, “hast thou found any
fault in her?” “No,” groaned Zeid, “but I cannot live with her.”
“Go and guard thy wife,” he was told, “treat her well and fear
God.” But Zeid, who presumably saw how matters lay, soon divorced
her “in spite of the command of the Prophet,” remarks an admirer,
who goes on to explain that Mohammed “was grieved at the conduct of
Zeid, more especially as it was he who had arranged the marriage of
these two uncongenial spirits.” Obviously, the trouble could be
mended in but one way. One day, as Mohammed sat by Ayesha’s side,
a prophetic spasm gripped him; after it had passed, he smiled and
gently inquired, “Who will go and congratulate Zeinab, and say that
the Lord hath joined her unto me in marriage?” The wedding soon
took place; yet, since many Moslems thought it rather odd that the
Prophet, after forbidding sons to wed their bereaved stepmothers,
should himself marry the wife of an adopted son, it seemed highly
advisable for him to have recourse to Allah. Thus runs the Koran:
“And when Zeid had fulfilled her [Zeinab’s] divorce, We joined thee
with her in marriage, that there might hereafter be no offence to
Believers in marrying the Wives of their adopted sons, when they have
fulfilled their divorce; and the command of God is to be fulfilled.”
Criticism immediately collapsed. Zeinab proudly boasted that “God
had given her in marriage to His Prophet, whereas his other wives
were given to him by their relatives”; but Ayesha retorted with
the caustic observation that there was no longer the least doubt
that Mohammed rendered Allah’s messages verbatim, inasmuch as this
last revelation showed the Prophet up most unmercifully. Ayesha,
however, was one woman in a thousand.