78
edits
L'age d'Aicha: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
→Authenticité
| [checked revision] | [checked revision] |
| (5 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 17: | Line 17: | ||
Al-Tabari, Vol. 7, pp. 6-7</ref> | Al-Tabari, Vol. 7, pp. 6-7</ref> | ||
Les savants islamiques modernes remettent généralement en question la fiabilité des hadiths authentiques et des éléments biographiques de la tradition. Les récentes recherches universitaires indiquent que les hadiths précisant l’âge d’Aicha au moment de son mariage et de sa consommation remontent aux propos formulés par son petit-neveu, Hisham b. 'Urwa, après que ce dernier ait déménagé en Irak où il a trouvé un public réceptif probablement pour des raisons proto-sectaires (voir la | Les savants islamiques modernes remettent généralement en question la fiabilité des hadiths authentiques et des éléments biographiques de la tradition. Les récentes recherches universitaires indiquent que les hadiths précisant l’âge d’Aicha au moment de son mariage et de sa consommation remontent aux propos formulés par son petit-neveu, Hisham b. 'Urwa, après que ce dernier ait déménagé en Irak où il a trouvé un public réceptif probablement pour des raisons proto-sectaires (voir la section sur les points de vue académiques modernes ci-dessous). | ||
==A propos du mariage des enfants== | ==A propos du mariage des enfants== | ||
{{Main|Child Marriage in Islamic Law}} | {{Main|Child Marriage in Islamic Law}} | ||
| Line 41: | Line 41: | ||
{{Quote|{{Bukhari|8|73|151}}|Aicha a rapporté : J'avais l'habitude de jouer avec les poupées en présence du Prophète, et mes amies jouaient aussi avec moi. Quand l'Apôtre d'Allah se permettait d’entrer (le lieu où je vivais), elles avaient l'habitude de se cacher, mais le Prophète les appelait pour qu'elles se joignent et jouent avec moi. (Jouer avec des poupées et des représentations similaires est interdit, mais cela était autorisé pour Aicha à cette époque, puisque c’était une petite fille qui n’avait pas encore atteint l'âge de la puberté). (voir aussi Fath'ul Bâri page 143, Vol.13)}}Le neveu d’Aicha, Urwa ibn Al-Zubayr (mort en 94 après l’hégire) aurait écrit un certain nombre de lettres historiographiques à la fin de la cour Omeyyades que les historiens modernes, tels que le professeur Sean Anthony, considèrent comme une source importante sur les débuts de l’histoire islamique. Dans l’une d’elles, Urwa parle du mariage de sa tante :{{Quote|Lettre de 'Urwa enregistrée dans le volume 9 des chroniques d'al-Tabari, citée dans ''Muhammad and the Empires of Faith'' de Sean Anthony<ref>Sean Anthony, Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The making of the Prophet of Islam, Oakland CA: University of California, 2020, pp. 114-15</ref>|§1.ʿAlī ibn Naṣr nous a rapporté, en disant : ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd al-Wārith nous a rapporté, et ʿAbd al-Wārith ibn ʿabd al-Ṣamad m’a également rapporté, en disant : mon père m’a rapporté, en disant : Abān al-ʿAṭṭār nous a rapporté, en disant : Hishām ibn ʿUrwah nous a rapporté de ʿUrwah qu’il a écrit à ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān :<br> | {{Quote|{{Bukhari|8|73|151}}|Aicha a rapporté : J'avais l'habitude de jouer avec les poupées en présence du Prophète, et mes amies jouaient aussi avec moi. Quand l'Apôtre d'Allah se permettait d’entrer (le lieu où je vivais), elles avaient l'habitude de se cacher, mais le Prophète les appelait pour qu'elles se joignent et jouent avec moi. (Jouer avec des poupées et des représentations similaires est interdit, mais cela était autorisé pour Aicha à cette époque, puisque c’était une petite fille qui n’avait pas encore atteint l'âge de la puberté). (voir aussi Fath'ul Bâri page 143, Vol.13)}}Le neveu d’Aicha, Urwa ibn Al-Zubayr (mort en 94 après l’hégire) aurait écrit un certain nombre de lettres historiographiques à la fin de la cour Omeyyades que les historiens modernes, tels que le professeur Sean Anthony, considèrent comme une source importante sur les débuts de l’histoire islamique. Dans l’une d’elles, Urwa parle du mariage de sa tante :{{Quote|Lettre de 'Urwa enregistrée dans le volume 9 des chroniques d'al-Tabari, citée dans ''Muhammad and the Empires of Faith'' de Sean Anthony<ref>Sean Anthony, Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The making of the Prophet of Islam, Oakland CA: University of California, 2020, pp. 114-15</ref>|§1.ʿAlī ibn Naṣr nous a rapporté, en disant : ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd al-Wārith nous a rapporté, et ʿAbd al-Wārith ibn ʿabd al-Ṣamad m’a également rapporté, en disant : mon père m’a rapporté, en disant : Abān al-ʿAṭṭār nous a rapporté, en disant : Hishām ibn ʿUrwah nous a rapporté de ʿUrwah qu’il a écrit à ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān :<br> | ||
§2. Tu m’as écrit au sujet de Khadījah bint Khuwaylid et tu m’as demandé : "Quand est-elle décédée ?" Elle est décédée environ trois ans avant le départ du Messager de Dieu de la Mecque. Il a épousé Aicha une fois Khadījah décédée. Le Messager de Dieu a vu Aicha deux fois [avant cela] et on lui a dit : "Elle sera ta femme." Ce jour-là, Aicha avait six ans. Puis, le Messager de Dieu a consommé son mariage avec Aicha après être allé à Médine, et le jour où il a consommé son mariage avec elle, elle avait neuf ans. | §2. Tu m’as écrit au sujet de Khadījah bint Khuwaylid et tu m’as demandé : "Quand est-elle décédée ?" Elle est décédée environ trois ans avant le départ du Messager de Dieu de la Mecque. Il a épousé Aicha une fois Khadījah décédée. Le Messager de Dieu a vu Aicha deux fois [avant cela] et on lui a dit : "Elle sera ta femme." Ce jour-là, Aicha avait six ans. Puis, le Messager de Dieu a consommé son mariage avec Aicha après être allé à Médine, et le jour où il a consommé son mariage avec elle, elle avait neuf ans. | ||
}}Le récit sur l'âge du mariage a aussi été incorporé dans les traditions circulant à Koufa concernant les vertus d'Aicha :{{Quote|{{Tabari|7|pp. 6-7}}|Selon Abd al-Hamid b. Bayan al-Sukkari - Muhammad b. Yazid - Ismai'il (c’est-à-dire Ibn Abi Khalid) - Abd al-Rahman b. Abi al- Dahhak – un homme de Quraysh - Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad : "Abd Allah b. Safwan est venu avec une autre personne vers Aicha et Aicha a dit (à ce dernier), "Ô untel, as-tu entendu ce que Hafsah a dit ?" Il a dit : "Oui, ô Mère des Croyants." Abd Allah b. Safwan lui a demandé, "Qu'est-ce que cela ?" Elle a répondu, "Il y a neuf particularités en moi qui n'ont été chez aucune femme, à l'exception de ce que Dieu a accordé à Maryam bt. Imran. Par Dieu, je ne dis pas cela pour me glorifier au-dessus de mes compagnons." "Quelles sont-elles ?" demanda-t-il. Elle répondit, l’ange a descendu | }}Le récit sur l'âge du mariage a aussi été incorporé dans les traditions circulant à Koufa concernant les vertus d'Aicha :{{Quote|{{Tabari|7|pp. 6-7}}|Selon Abd al-Hamid b. Bayan al-Sukkari - Muhammad b. Yazid - Ismai'il (c’est-à-dire Ibn Abi Khalid) - Abd al-Rahman b. Abi al- Dahhak – un homme de Quraysh - Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad : "Abd Allah b. Safwan est venu avec une autre personne vers Aicha et Aicha a dit (à ce dernier), "Ô untel, as-tu entendu ce que Hafsah a dit ?" Il a dit : "Oui, ô Mère des Croyants." Abd Allah b. Safwan lui a demandé, "Qu'est-ce que cela ?" Elle a répondu, "Il y a neuf particularités en moi qui n'ont été chez aucune femme, à l'exception de ce que Dieu a accordé à Maryam bt. Imran. Par Dieu, je ne dis pas cela pour me glorifier au-dessus de mes compagnons." "Quelles sont-elles ?" demanda-t-il. Elle répondit, l’ange a descendu une image de moi-même ; '''le Messager de Dieu m’a épousée quand j’avais sept ans ; mon mariage a été consommé quand j’en avais neuf ; il m’a épousée quand j’étais vierge''', pas d’autre homme ne m’a partagée avec lui ; l’inspiration lui est venue lorsque lui et moi étions dans une seule couverture ; j’étais l’une des personnes les plus chères pour lui, un verset du Coran a été révélé à mon sujet lorsque la communauté fut presque détruite ; j’ai vu Gabriel quand aucune de ses autres femmes ne l'a vu ; et il a été emmené (c'est-à-dire mort) dans sa maison alors qu'il n'y avait personne avec lui si ce n’est l'ange et moi-même."<br> | ||
Selon Abu Ja‘far (Al-Tabari) : Le Messager de Dieu l’a épousée, dit-on, durant le mois de Chawwal, et a consommé son mariage avec elle dans une année ultérieure, également durant Chawwal.}}Lors de l’incident de la calomnie (al-ifk), largement rapporté dans Sahih Bukhari et Sahih Muslim, Aicha a été accusée d’adultère après avoir été laissée derrière par la caravane.{{Quote|{{Bukhari|3|48|829}}|Rapporté par Aicha : | Selon Abu Ja‘far (Al-Tabari) : Le Messager de Dieu l’a épousée, dit-on, durant le mois de Chawwal, et a consommé son mariage avec elle dans une année ultérieure, également durant Chawwal.}}Lors de l’incident de la calomnie (al-ifk), largement rapporté dans Sahih Bukhari et Sahih Muslim, Aicha a été accusée d’adultère après avoir été laissée derrière par la caravane.{{Quote|{{Bukhari|3|48|829}}|Rapporté par Aicha : | ||
[…] Cette nuit-là, j’ai continué à pleurer et je n’ai pas pu m’endormir jusqu’au matin. Dans la matinée, l’Apôtre d’Allah a appelé Ali bin Abu Talib et Ousama ibn Zayd afin de les consulter au sujet du divorce d’avec sa femme (c.-à-d. Aicha) car il constatait que l’inspiration divine tardée à venir. Ousama ibn Zayd a dit ce qu’il savait de la bonne réputation de ses épouses et a ajouté : "Ô Apôtre d'Allah ! Garde ton épouse, car, par Allah, nous ne connaissons d’elle que le bien". Ali bin Abu Talib a dit : "Ô Apôtre d'Allah ! Allah ne t’a pas imposé de restrictions, et il y a de nombreuses autres femmes en plus d’elle, mais tu peux demander à la servante qui te dira la vérité". Sur ce, l’Apôtre d’Allah a appelé Barîra et dit : "Ô Barîra, as-tu déjà vu quelque chose qui ait éveillé tes soupçons à son sujet ?" Barîra a dit : "Non, par Allah qui vous a envoyé avec la Vérité, je n'ai jamais rien vu de mauvais en elle, '''sauf que c’est une fille d'un âge immature''' qui, quelquefois, s’endort et laisse la pâte à manger aux chèvres."[…]<br> | […] Cette nuit-là, j’ai continué à pleurer et je n’ai pas pu m’endormir jusqu’au matin. Dans la matinée, l’Apôtre d’Allah a appelé Ali bin Abu Talib et Ousama ibn Zayd afin de les consulter au sujet du divorce d’avec sa femme (c.-à-d. Aicha) car il constatait que l’inspiration divine tardée à venir. Ousama ibn Zayd a dit ce qu’il savait de la bonne réputation de ses épouses et a ajouté : "Ô Apôtre d'Allah ! Garde ton épouse, car, par Allah, nous ne connaissons d’elle que le bien". Ali bin Abu Talib a dit : "Ô Apôtre d'Allah ! Allah ne t’a pas imposé de restrictions, et il y a de nombreuses autres femmes en plus d’elle, mais tu peux demander à la servante qui te dira la vérité". Sur ce, l’Apôtre d’Allah a appelé Barîra et dit : "Ô Barîra, as-tu déjà vu quelque chose qui ait éveillé tes soupçons à son sujet ?" Barîra a dit : "Non, par Allah qui vous a envoyé avec la Vérité, je n'ai jamais rien vu de mauvais en elle, '''sauf que c’est une fille d'un âge immature''' qui, quelquefois, s’endort et laisse la pâte à manger aux chèvres."[…]<br> | ||
''' | '''J'étais une jeune fille''' et je n'avais pas beaucoup de connaissances du Coran. J'ai dit. "Je sais, par Allah, que vous avez écouté ce que les gens disent et que cela a été implanté dans votre esprit et vous l'avez pris comme une vérité. Maintenant, si je vous disais que je suis innocente et qu'Allah sait que je suis innocente, vous ne me croiriez pas et si je vous avouais faussement que je suis coupable, et Allah sait que je suis innocente, vous me croiriez.}}Dans les récits de cet incident qui a presque conduit Muhammad à divorcer, Aicha est à de nombreuses reprises mentionnée comme une jeune fille (jariyatun hadithatu s-sinni جَارِيَةٌ حَدِيثَةُ السِّنِّ), elle-même le déclarant deux fois et une fois par son esclave Barîra. Aicha indique que "à cette époque, j'étais une jeune femme" et "j’étais une jeune fille et je n’avais pas beaucoup de connaissances du Coran" (les deux utilisent la même expression arabe qui vient d'être mentionnée). Barîra dit, "je n'ai jamais rien vu de mauvais en elle, sauf que c’est une fille d'un âge immature qui, quelquefois, s’endort et laisse la pâte à manger aux chèvres." | ||
Le hadith détaillant cet incident est largement transmis d’Aicha à 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr (son neveu), lequel l'a transmis à son élève Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri. Une brève réponse à une question au sujet des noms de ses accusateurs (mais sans plus de détails) apparaît également dans une lettre de 'Urwa, transmise par son fils, Hisham.<ref>An analysis of the hadith transmission is summarized on pp. 34-37 of Goerke, A, Motzki, H & Schoeler, G (2012) [https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/12692843/First_Century_Sources_for_the_Life_of_Muhammad_a_debate.pdf First-Century Sources for the Life of Muhammad? A Debate], Der Islam, vol. 89, no. 2, pp. 2-59. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2012-0002</ref> | |||
La même expression se retrouve dans les récits de Muhammad protégeant Aicha avec son vêtement lorsque des Éthiopiens jouaient [dans la cour de la mosquée] (voir {{Bukhari|7|62|163}}). Une version d’un hadith à propos d’Aicha qui a eu ses menstruations pendant un pèlerinage à La Mecque la décrit également par cette même expression (voir {{Muslim|7|2773|}}) et dans un autre récit beaucoup plus long et détaillé (voir {{Muslim|7|2774}}). | |||
<br /> | |||
==Points de vue académiques modernes== | |||
===Provenance et datation du hadith sur l'âge du mariage=== | |||
The most comprehensive academic treatment of the hadith about Aisha's marital age was produced by Dr Joshua Little for his PhD thesis in 2022.<ref>Joshua Little (2022) ''The Hadith of ʿAʾishah's Marital Age: A Study in the Evolution of Early Islamic Historical Memory'', PhD thesis, Oxford University | |||
It is available on his blog together with very useful diagrams of the reported isnads and matns: [https://islamicorigins.com/the-unabridged-version-of-my-phd-thesis/ The Unabridged Version of My PhD Thesis] by Joshua Little - Islamicorigins.com - 7 March 2023 | |||
See alternatively: [https://islamicorigins.com/a-summary-of-my-phd-research/ A Summary of my PhD Research] by Joshua Little - Islamicorigins.com - 25 February 2023</ref><ref>See also this lecture by Dr. Joshua Little entitled [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr6mBlEPxW8&t=2s The Hadith of ʿAʾishah's Marital Age: A Study in the Evolution of Early Islamic Historical Memory] - youtube.com, 26 February 2023</ref> An important tool in the modern academic analysis of widely transmitted hadiths is isnad-cum-matn Analysis (ICMA). The isnad is the transmission chain attributed to a particular narration and the matn is its wording. In ICMA, converging isnad bundles of a widely transmitted hadith are compared with clusters of variation in the matns to see how well they correlate with each other. Often, this leads to the identification of one or more ''common links'' i.e. the person from whom transmissions of a matn first start to branch out, even if the chain may continue back by a single strand before that person.<ref>See Chapter 1 of Dr Little's thesis for a detailed explanation.</ref> The technique is helpful for dating when a hadith started to circulate and to identify who might have first formulated it in such a way, though not necessarily whether there is any historical kernal to the events reported therein. Dr Little has outlined 21 reasons why hadiths are known to be very unreliable in a historical sense by modern academic scholarship.<ref>This is useful preparatory viewing for Dr Little's Aisha lecture: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz4vMUUxhag Oxford Scholar Dr. Joshua Little Gives 21 REASONS Why Historians are SKEPTICAL of Hadith] - youtube.com February 2023</ref> | |||
After an extensive search for available versions (200+) of the Aisha marital age hadith, Little performed ICMA analysis to identify a small number of common links whose matns he could reconstruct, while others could be dismissed as common links due to having contradictory or disparate matns ascribed to them, which in turn exhibit a range of further problems. Various single strand ascriptions are also dismissed as dubious. | |||
Aside from Hisham b. 'Urwa (d. 146 AH), who was Aisha's great nephew and whose simple narration is the most widely transmitted, Muhammad b. 'Amr (d. 144 AH) is the other reconstructable Medinan common link, though like Hisham, he moved to Iraq and merely seems to append one of Hisham's versions of the hadith to another narration. The other early common links are three Kufans (in Iraq) who died 146-160 AH. Though it is possible that one or more other narrations go back to Aisha herself, this cannot be demonstrated on an ICMA basis.<ref>pp. 397-99 of Dr Little's thesis</ref> | |||
Little then analyzes in greater depth his reconstructed matns for these common links. Based on shared words, phrases and sequencing, he concludes that they all derive from a single, simple formulation, and are not independently transmitted memories of a common event. This original formulation seems to be the widely transmitted one of Hisham, who also transmitted a few versions with additional details. Hisham attributed all of these to his father 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr (falsely, argues Little, though it is worth mentioning that in his thesis he does not notice that the content of 'Urwa's letter about Aisha reported by Hisham is also narrated by a Syrian partial common link who ascribed it via his uncle to 'Urwa's student, al-Zuhri, who moved from Medina to Syria.<ref>'Urwa wrote a number of letters on early Islamic history to the late Umayyad court. These letters were transmitted by his son Hisham and the traditions therein were often also transmitted by 'Urwa's Medinan student al-Zuhri. 'Urwa's letters are translated in full in Sean Anthony, ''Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The making of the Prophet of Islam'', Oakland CA: University of California, 2020, Chapter 4. In 2012, the creators of the ICMA method, Andreas Görke, Harald Motzki and Gregor Schoeler, strongly argued that the traditions in the letters attributed to 'Urwa probably do in some way originate with him, especially when they are supported by parallel traditions going back to 'Urwa (Goerke, A, Motzki, H & Schoeler, G (2012) [https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/12692843/First_Century_Sources_for_the_Life_of_Muhammad_a_debate.pdf First-Century Sources for the Life of Muhammad?] A Debate, Der Islam, vol. 89, no. 2, pp. 2-59. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2012-0002). | |||
One of 'Urwa's letters is a short one about Aisha's marriage. It was reported in a couple of chains through Hisham and is quoted in the Relevant Quotations section above. Little contests a couple of arguments for the general authenticity of 'Urwa's letters but without wider engagement with Goerke et al. He also questions how we can in any case identify which words or elements thereof Hisham accurately transmitted (p. 314). | |||
However, Dr Little did not notice that another hadith he discusses which is ascribed to 'Urwa's Medinan student al-Zuhri contains the same core tradition as this letter, especially the distinctive sequence of elements but also much of the same or similar wording, albeit not in the form of a letter. Compare the Arabic provided in the isnad diagrams on his blog, or the transliteration of 'Urwa's reconstructed letter on pp. 310-11 of the thesis with al-Hajjaj b. Abi Mani's reconstructed transmission of the same elemental sequence (pp. 204-5, 370-72; see also 482). Al-Hajjaj who lived in Aleppo, Syria, ascribed it via his uncle to al-Zuhri, who does not himself count as a common link but did move from Medina to Damascus and later Resafa, Syria, where he tutored the Caliph's sons. Part of the letter content and wording also comprise ʾAbū ʾUsāmah Ḥammād's narration from Hisham (pp. 223-4).</ref>). There is some evidence that Hisham did not originally extend the isnad of most of his versions back to Aisha herself, but rather only to his father 'Urwa, Aisha's nephew, and that they were narrated in the 3rd person, not in her own voice.<ref>Ibid. p. 305 including footnote 996</ref> It is even clearer that such isnad "raising" occured for transmissions by others back to Aisha by other routes. | |||
Aside from the most widely transmitted version which simply states that Aisha was married to Muhammad at the age of six and their marriage was consummated when she was nine, Little's ICMA confirms that Hisham also narrated an extended simple version adding that he was informed Muhammad and Aisha were together for nine years<ref>Ibid. p. 272</ref> (possibly also another simple version adding that she played with dolls<ref>Ibid. p. 322</ref>). He also narrated a short letter about the marriage from his father 'Urwa - see the discussion about this letter in a previous footnote above.<ref>Ibid. pp. 309 ff.</ref> Finally, he also narrated Aisha's account of the women collecting her while she was playing so she could be prepared for her marital consummation.<ref>See the section of Hisham, pp. 295 ff., especially the reconstructions of Hisham's four versions of the hadith on pp. 302-317</ref> Examples of each of these can be seen in the Relevant Quotations section above. | |||
Hisham seems to have transmitted the hadith after he moved to Kufah in Iraq. There are a few transmissions ascribed to his Medinan students, though these are each dubious for various reasons (though one is difficult to explain away<ref>Little struggles somewhat to discount Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād's transmission from Hishām as having occurred in Medina (see pp. 426-433). The Medinan, Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād, is a confirmed partial common link from Hishām, and the (generally unreliable) Medinan historian al-Wāqidī is one of those who report it from him. In order to place the transmission as having occured in Iraq, where (if biographical sources are to be trusted) Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād moved from Medina, though to a different Iraqi city than Hishām and did so only after Hishām's death, or at most shortly beforehand, and where al-Wāqidī also moved from Medina but only after Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād's death, Little requires both that al-Waqidi did not transmit directly from Ibn ʾabī al-Zinād and that the latter did not transmit directly from Hishām. Incidentally, al-Wāqidī separately reports a distinct but isolated Medinan narration about Aisha's marriage (pp. 215-6).</ref>). The hadith was most likely unknown in Medina, as it is not mentioned in the biographical works of Ibn Ishaq nor (it seems) Musa b. 'Uqbah, nor does it feature in Maliki legal texts, where Little believes it would be expected to feature had it been circulating in Medina. Some early Kufans are ascribed as transmitting the story to the Kufan common links before Hisham arrived in Iraq, but these isnads are doubtful according to Little because the marital age hadith does not occur in early Kufan legal hadith compilations, nor in early versions of Kufan hadiths narrating the virtues of Aisha. Rather, these Kufan references to Aisha's marriage too seem to have originated with Hisham's formulations. | |||
After concluding that Hisham is responsible for the formulation of the story into the hadith from which all others ultimately derive, Little goes on to argue that Hisham concocted the story entirely, including the extended versions and 'Urwa's letter. Hisham was accused of being an unreliable transmitter after his move to Iraq, and the hadith about his great aunt would have been useful there. Aisha's virginity at the time of her marriage and her status as Muhammad's favourite wife was a basic feature of proto-Sunni polemics against the proto-Shi'i, especially in Kufah where the latter were dominant, and Hisham's hadith must have been very welcome there as it was immediately incorporated into this Kufan proto-Sunni material about the virtues of Aisha. | |||
===Other considerations=== | |||
A different explanation for the Medinan legal silence on Aisha's age, as well as the hadith's non-use by many later scholars was alluded to by Carolyn Baugh in her 2017 book, ''Minor Marriage in Early Islamic Law''. Maliki law was based largely on Medinan community custom, though sometimes anecdotes about companions were used for making specific points. Contrary to Little, Baugh doubts how useful the Aisha hadith would actually have been for legal purposes.<ref>Baugh writes: "Although it is not impossible that Malik would have accepted the content of the report given early practice, Malik is one of many jurists who did not rely on the text, which does not in fact occur in any of the early books of jurisprudence except for that of al-Shafi'i and, shortly after him, 'Abd al Razzaq's Musannaf. Even later jurists such as Ibn Taymiya and Ibn al-Qayyim shy away from it, although it is used by Ibn Qudama before them. Presuming its authenticity (it occurs in Bukhari and Muslim), questions occur such as, was 'A'isha in fact compelled against her will? Can we assume that Abu Bakr did not consult her? Had she, at age nine, entered her majority or was she still prepubescent?" | |||
Carolyn Baugh, ''Minor Marriage in Early Islamic Law'', Leiden: Brill, 2017, p. 43 footnote 101 | |||
Similarly, on p. 62 she elaborates why the legal implications of the hadith are obscure.</ref> Maliki jurists in Medina and Hanafi jurists in Kufah did not seek to prove that a father could contract his virgin minor daughter in marriage, which was taken for granted.<ref>In Chapter 4 she details the proof-texts used by Maliki jurists; see p. 79 regarding Hanafi jurists.</ref> Rather, they discussed a father's right to ''compell'' her without consultation, and whether he still had this right when she was no longer a virgin or minor, whether she had a right to rescind later and so on. Indeed, unlike various reports about companions used by Maliki scholars and highlighted by Baugh, the Aisha hadith does not seem to be of any use for the areas of juristic disagreement or the points which they felt a need to prove (see [[Child Marriage in Islamic Law]]). Shafi'i is the first legal scholar to make use of the Aisha marital age hadith (and more generally pioneered the Quran and sound hadith corpus as the decisive sources of law). He used the Aisha hadith for purposes of proving a father's right to marry off his daughter regardless of her wishes, though he had to read in his own assumptions to do so (see [[Forced Marriage]])<ref>See also the quotes in Dr Little's thesis, pp. 454-5, where Shafi'i can be seen using the hadith in an attempt to prove the right of paternal compulsion.</ref>. Subsequent scholars followed Shafi'i in this usage. However, the Aisha hadith merely states that her marriage was contracted when she was six (or seven), and it does not specify whether she was consulted or forced by her father, nor even whether she had reached puberty at nine. | |||
Dr Little's case is nevertheless strong that Hisham formulated the Aisha marital age hadith(s) in Iraq and that others derived their versions therefrom. He also provides a plausible motivation for Hisham to have fabricated the story entirely. Nevertheless, others may point to a couple of traditions which do not depend on that hadith and which may support the possibility of a historical kernal. The hadith shown in the Relevant Quotations section above about the incident of the slander (al-Ifk) do not involve Hisham and emphasise that Aisha was then "a girl of young age", though the historicity of this too might be doubted given the polemical considerations around the event. | |||
More significant may be an independent tradition which Little says can provisionally be traced back to the Medinan historian Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124 AH). Al-Zuhri's hadith, which must have been transmitted while he was in Medina, states that the Messenger of God married Aisha bint Abu Bakr in Shawwal in the tenth year after the prophethood, three years before the migration, and he arranged the marriage feast in Medina (i.e. for consummation) in Shawwal, at the beginning of eight months after his emigration to Medina. Little speculates that Hisham picked a consummation age of nine and used this report of a three year gap between Aisha's marriage and consummation to derive six or seven as the age of her marriage.<ref>See 1 hour 38 minutes in Dr. Joshua Little's lecture entitled [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr6mBlEPxW8&t=2s The Hadith of ʿAʾishah's Marital Age: A Study in the Evolution of Early Islamic Historical Memory] - youtube.com, 26 February 2023 | |||
For detailed discussion see pp. 373-74, 378-82, 460-61 of Dr Little's thesis.</ref> Others may notice another significance to this apparently earlier al-Zuhri tradition. The three year gap between marriage and consummation mentioned therein, without any obvious polemical function (no age is mentioned), probably and independently implies that Aisha was a child at the time. | |||
===Wider implications=== | |||
While Little's ICMA "reveals a vast amount of accretion, error, contamination, interpolation, borrowing, and false ascription", the "overwhelming majority of the putative [partial common links] and [common links] within the marital-age hadith turned out to be genuine sources whose distinctive redactions were identifiable and (to some degree) reconstructable. Such positive results only held as far back as the middle of the 8th Century CE, however: from thereon backwards, the evidence was either insufficient or outright inconsistent with genuine, early transmission."<ref>pp. 400-401 of Dr Little's thesis</ref> | |||
In a section on the implications of his thesis for the academic study of hadith and history, Little observes, "whilst it is true that most hadiths can be presumed to derive from sources operating in the middle of the 8th Century CE (i.e., the early 2nd Century AH), many can be shown to be later borrowings or dives, and almost all can be shown to have undergone reworking or alteration in the course of transmission, at least from the middle of the 8th Century CE to the middle the 9th." From a historical perspective, Little also argues that he has "shown, in fairly minute detail, how a false hadith could arise, spread, diversify, and attain universal acceptance within early Sunnī Hadith scholarship."<ref>pp. 507-9 of Dr Little's thesis</ref> | |||
==Apologetic history== | ==Apologetic history== | ||