How was the Prophet Treating his Wives?

Answer 1

The prophet Muhammad Treated his family with all the respct he can give, his wives and daughters are very pleased with this respect so they all give him the respect from them also. Muhammad never hurt or harmed any friends or family members of his, he would only stand there and couragisly and be very brave and answer all the questions he is given

Answer 2

Mohammed's favourite wife Ayesha always said that he treated all his wives very well. He was naturally easy-going, and they all talked and laughed together every day. He was protective of Sawda and Safiya when the other wives teased them. He was less violent than many of his contemporaries: he once stopped Omar from beating his wife (Omar's daughter) Hafsa, and on another occasion, he rebuked Abu Bakr for beating his daughter Ayesha. He set up a roster so that they would each have an equal number of nights with him, and told everyone that wives should be treated equally.

However, Ayesha did not have a wide experience of marriage. By modern standards, there are several aspects of Mohammed's married life that would be considered very worrying.

(1) Mohammed was a poor man until mid-628, yet before this date he kept six wives and a concubine at the same time. He could not afford to feed them, and Ayesha reports that she was always hungry. Even after 628, when he brought home the wealth of Khaybar (effectively stolen from his wife Safiya), he spent it all on weapons and armies. He continued not feeding his wives even though he could now afford to do so and Ayesha sometimes could not bake bread for two months at a time. Mohammed stole a she-camel for his wife Hind, but it did not produce much milk, and Hind had trouble feeding her four young children.

(2) Mohammed once thumped Ayesha with "a very painful blow". On another occasion, he allowed Abu Bakr and Omar (his two fathers-in-law) to beat Ayesha and Hafsa in his presence. So he was not opposed to wife-beating; he simply believed that a husband must not beat his wife without a good reason.

(3) In March 627 Mohammed announced the order of the veil. From that date onwards, his wives were forbidden to leave the house unless they had specific business. They must always cover their faces or sit behind a curtain when they spoke to other men, and they must only discuss essential business with males outside their families. This restriction of their movements was a far cry from the way his first wife, Khadija, had conducted her merchant-business in Mecca!

(4) One legitimate situation in which the wives were allowed to leave the house was for the battle-field. Ayesha was only eleven years old the first time she was taken to a battle to bring water-jugs and first aid to the warriors. Arabs did not deliberately attack non-combatants, but did did not seem to occur to Mohammed that his wives might be harmed in the cross-fire.

(5) Despite the fact that the wives could not even speakto other men, Mohammed was constantly acquiring new women. The situation of polygamy made all the wives very unhappy. They were constantly jealous of each other, and they formed alliances among themselves. Hafsa was Ayesha's friend, supported by Sawda and Safiya, yet Ayesha and Hafsa also bickered with each other. Zaynab was Hind's friend, supported by Ramla, Juwayriya, Maymuna and Mohammed's daughter Fatima (whose husband hated Ayesha's father). All these wives resented the concubine Mariya, and Ayesha successfully engineered the divorces of Mulayka, Fatima and Asma. Ramla even noticed that Mohammed cast lecherous glances at his little stepdaughter, Ruqayya, which must have been terrifying for her mother, Hind.

(6) At times Mohammed used spiritual blackmail against his wives.

(a) He told his cousin Zaynab that she was not a good Muslim unless she married his adopted son Zayd, so Zaynab was pressured into marrying a man whom she disliked. A couple of years later, after this marriage had inevitably failed, Mohammed produced a message from Allah saying that Zaynab must now marry himself.

(b) On another occasion, he threatened to divorce all his wives unless they stopped complaining about his concubine Mariya; but if they chose to be divorced, they would go to Hell.

(c) He told his wife Hind that a Muslim woman was guaranteed a passage to Paradise if her husband was pleased with her. If she failed to please her husband, she was at risk of damnation. "Take care of your husband, for he is your Heaven and your Hell."

(7) Mohammed did not treat his wives equally. He gave Ayesha more food than the others, and he gave her twice has many nights on his roster. He did not stick to this roster very strictly; at any time that he wanted to spend the night with a different wife, he just announced that the roster was cancelled. Everyone knew that he loved Ayesha best and Sawda least. Other favoured wives were Zaynab, Hind and Hafsa; he apparently lost all real interest in the other wives and concubines within twelve months.

(8) Finally, it must be noted that several of his wives never even consented to marrying him.

(a) Ayesha always claimed she had been happy to be chosen as the prophet's beloved, but the marriage contract was signed when she was only six years old, and her father forgot to tell her about it. She did not know she was married until the moment of consummation, when she was nine. So she certainly did not give informed consent.

(b) and (c) We don't know whether Hafsa consented or not because she grew up in a family where she never, ever disobeyed her father. Amra was another bride whose real attitude is not known; possibly she wanted to marry Mohammed, but the political situation at the time meant that refusing him was simply not an option.

(d) Although Hind gave nominal assent to the marriage, she had been pressured into it and was an obviously reluctant bride.

(e) Rayhana refused to marry Mohammed on the grounds that he had just killed her husband and all her in-laws. He promptly made her his concubine instead, i.e. told her that because she was his slave she had no choice.

(f) Juwayriya agreed to marry Mohammed when she was surrounded by soldiers, when her father and 200 other relatives were the Muslims' prisoners. He had already told her that he was not willing to send her home to her parents, and her only alternative to marrying him was to marry another Muslim warrior. This man had three known wives, all of whom divorced him for domestic violence.

(g) Safiya agreed to marry Mohammed because she believed that the alternative option was to be killed (although she was probably wrong about this). Mohammed had just killed her husband, having already killed her father and brother the previous year, and in later life she frankly admitted that she hated him more than anyone in the world. Stories about Safiya's family show that they were often sarcastic, and her acceptance of Mohammed's proposal drips with sarcasm.

(h) Mulayka agreed to marry Mohammed before she realised that he was the one who had killed her father. In other words, she did not give informed consent. Once she found out (Ayesha told her) she immediately asked for a divorce.

(i) Fatima claimed that her family had never consulted her about marrying Mohammed and that she had never consented to it. While it is not certain that she was telling the truth (since the story was convenient), nor is there any real evidence that she was lying.

(j) (k) and (l) Mariya, Tukana and Al-Jariya were slaves who had no choice about becoming Mohammed's concubines. Their consent, or lack of it, was simply not considered relevant.

It is only fair to add that Sawda, Zaynab, Ramla and Asma gave full and joyful consent to becoming Mohammed's wives. As for Khadija, the other Zaynab and Maymuna, they proposed to him.

Answer 3

The last Prophet of Islam Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) has been sent as Rahmat-ul-lil-A'almeen -Mercy for all the worlds. He was extremely kind, compassionate, caring, and loving to children. Once a companion (RAU) narrated how during his ignorant days he buried his young daughter alive, tears rolled down from the holy eyes of the beloved Prophet. (SAW).He kind even to birds and animals.