Dear Hadi,
Dear Trying to Understand,
Thank you very much for your question.
We will, isA, attempt to offer a broader answer than the pointed question that you asked since this topic is not only one that many Muslims are genuinely curious about but is also one that others often use to criticize Islam and the Prophet, pbuh, in a variety of ways.
The critiques are often against polygamy itself, or against the person of the Prophet with accusations of carnality or hypersexuality.
Therefore, our answer will range over many facets of the question.
First, let us dispense with the criticism against polygamy in general, and especially with regards to a prophet. Polygamy was, of course, a common custom in many cultures throughout history, particularly among the Arabs.
With regards to polygamy among prophets, it suffices to note that this was not unusual and that the Bible, regarding Prophet Solomon, states,
“He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines.” (1 Kings, 11:3).
Whether or not these numbers are accurate, we quote the verse to dispel criticisms leveled against Prophet Muhammad per se as having more than one wife.
Now, let us begin by first addressing the question that was put to you.
The general rule regarding the number of wives permissible in Islam is found in Surat an-Nisa’, in the first part of Quran 4:3:
“And if you have reason to fear that you might not act equitably towards orphans, then marry from among [other] women such as are lawful to you - [even] two, or three, or four…”
Yet, when the Prophet, pbuh, died, he had nine wives.
For many, this raises the question of how this was possible, and whether it represents an inconsistency on the part of the Prophet.
The consensus of the scholars is that the rule above represents the general rule for Muslims but did not apply to the Prophet, pbuh.
He was given an explicit exception directly by the Quran in surat al-Ahzab, Quran 33:50:
Prophet, We have made lawful to you your wives to whom you have given their due wedding gifts, and those whom your right hand held in trust, given to you by God, and the daughters of your paternal uncles, the daughters of your paternal aunts, the daughters of your maternal uncles and aunts who migrated with you, and any believing woman who has offered herself to the Prophet if the Prophet wishes to marry her, a privilege exclusively for you and not the rest of the believers. We know exactly what We have made obligatory to them concerning their wives and those whom their right hands hold in trust, hence you will not be at fault [if you act according to your privilege], for God is the All-Forgiving, the Mercy giver.
Some have interpreted the phrase “a privilege exclusively for you,” in the verse above to refer solely to the provision of the Prophet being allowed to marry a woman without paying her dowery (which he never did, by the way).
However, multiple authorities, both classical and modern, have concurred that it refers to all of the provisions of marriage for the Prophet, including the number of women he could marry (that it was lawful for him to remain married to all of his wives), the categories of women he could marry from, as well as the capacity to marry a woman who offers herself in marriage while declining a dowery.
For example, the authoritative commentary The Study Quran states that the part of verse 50 above,
“ ‘We know exactly what We have made obligatory to them concerning their wives…’ refers to the limit of four wives for the Muslims, which this verse makes clear is not the same limit set for the Prophet.”
As another example, Imam Mawdudi’s sweeping commentary Towards Understanding the Quran states that this verse answers the Prophet’s critics concerning more than four wives, “In other words, the answer means this: ‘It is We who have imposed the restriction of four wives on others, and it is also We ourselves who have made Our Prophet an exception to the restriction. When We could impose the restriction, We could also make the exception’ … Allah declared through a clear and decisive verse that the Prophet (peace be upon him) had not made himself an exception from the general law about four wives of his own accord. Still, the exception concerning him had been decreed by Allah.”
This should not be particularly surprising, for the Prophet, pbuh, sometimes had special stipulations on him that supported his prophetic mission, which did not apply to the Muslims in general.
For example, the night prayer (tahajud) was obligatory for him, but only voluntary for the rest of the Muslims.
Also, neither he nor his family could receive money from Zakat.
With regards to marriage, the above verse also limits the Prophet to marrying believing (Muslim) women, while the rest of the Muslims could marry from the People of the Book.
From among his relatives, he could only marry women who had made the hijrah, again a limitation not imposed on other Muslims.
Naturally, the question arises about the wisdom of the special dispensation given to the Prophet regarding the number of wives.
The matter, of course, could be left to the notion that God does what He wills, and it is not ours to question why.
This may satisfy the believer, but it does not satisfy the unbeliever, and answering the unbeliever who criticizes the Prophet was the object of your question. I
n fact, the wisdom seems quite clear, and God knows best.
Let us begin by saying that it was not to satisfy some carnal desire of the Prophet (pbuh).
His record is clear.
At the age of 25, he married Khadijah, who was 40 years old, and twice widowed.
He remained faithfully married to her and only her for the next 25 years until she died.
After a period of mourning, he married ‘Aisha and then Sawdah.
Sawdah was a 50-year-old widow.
In fact, ‘Aisha is the only virgin whom the Prophet married; essentially, all the rest were widows, and one previously divorced.
Certainly, if his motives were sexual, he would have married other women during his youth, and as ruler of Arabia, could have married the youngest and loveliest of women, which he did not do.
Some of the marriages were out of mercy to the women who were widowed.
However, probably a more compelling reason was marriage's political/social function at that time – to make and cement alliances between individuals and tribes. Obviously, this marriage function did not just exist in Arabia and continued well past the Middle Ages in Europe, where it was customary for royalty.
The situation of the Prophet’s marriages is well summarized by scholar of Islam, John L. Esposito, in his book Islam: The Straight Path (p. 16):
“As was customary with Arab chiefs, many were political marriages to cement alliances. Others were marriages to the widows of his companions who had fallen in combat and required protection. Remarriage was difficult in a society that emphasized virgin marriages.”
For the Prophet (pbuh), not only the humanitarian aspect, but the political/social function of his marriages was essential to his mission of reform, including bringing peace to the Arabian Peninsula and uniting many warring tribes into a united brotherhood of faith.
For example, the Prophet’s wife Juwayriya was the daughter of al-Harith, the chief of the powerful Arab tribe of Banu Mustaliq.
This tribe refused to accept Islam, and was a bitter enemy of the Muslims. They were finally suppressed by military action.
Through his marriage to Juwayriya, the Prophet entirely ended the animosity and bitterness of this tribe.
After the marriage, the Muslims released all the prisoners they had taken in battle from the tribe, as they could not hold the Prophet’s relatives as captives.
The Banu Mustaliq, in turn, all accepted Islam, as they appreciated this gesture, and it was unseemly for them to fight their son-in-law.
They thus entered the fold of the Islamic state.
Umm Habibah, another wife, was the daughter of Abu Sufyan, the leader of the tribe of Quraysh.
Abu Sufyan was a staunch opponent of the Prophet, and led the armies of Quraysh against the Muslims in the battle of Uhud and the battle of Trench.
The Prophet married Umm Habibah in the year 7 H, and some credit this marriage in helping achieve a bloodless conquest of Mecca by the Muslims one year later, where Abu Sufyan offered no resistance and accepted Islam.
The Prophet’s wife, Saffiyyah was the daughter of a very prominent Jewish chief, Huyyah ibn Aktab, from the tribe of Banu Nadir. After their defeat by the Muslims, Safiyyah was taken as a prisoner.
Given her status among her people, the Prophet set her free and married her in an attempt to quell the animosity of the Jewish tribes to Islam.
The Prophet’s wife Maymunah was a noble from the tribe of Hilal in Mecca, who had been recently widowed. Her tribe was quite hostile to Islam.
The Prophet married her on the suggestion of his uncle Abbas, who had been monitoring from Mecca the developments of the Muslims being barred from completing their pilgrimage after being led by the Prophet from Medina.
The stand-off which ensued was culminated by the treaty of Hudayybiyah.
The Prophet (pbuh) subsequently married Maymunah outside of Mecca, honoring the provisions of the treaty that the Muslims would not remain in Mecca more than three days.
Again, the marriage helped end the hostility of the Hilal tribe toward Islam at a significant juncture in Islamic history.
The Prophet’s marriage to Hafsah, the daughter of Umar ibn Al-Khattab, was to rescue her from widowhood.
Similarly, the Prophet gave two of his daughters in marriage to Uthman, and one to Ali, as well as having previously married ‘Aishah, the daughter of Abu Bakr.
These marriages helped to further cement the already strong bonds with the closest of the Prophet’s companions.
The Prophet’s marriage to Zaynab bint Jahsh (the Prophet’s cousin) served several purposes.
At the suggestion of the Prophet, she was initially married to Zayd ibn Haritha, who was a slave given to the Prophet and whom the Prophet subsequently freed and adopted as his son.
That marriage -- of the Prophet’s first cousin to a freed slave -- was meant in part to help break social barriers in Arab society. However, when the marriage failed, the Prophet felt some responsibility.
The Prophet was then divinely instructed to marry Zaynab, although he himself had internal trepidation about this since she was the former wife of his adopted son (Quran 33:37).
However, the marriage served to emphatically annul the pre-Islamic conception that an adopted son was fully a son and promulgate instead the Islamic law that each person’s original identity and ties of kinship needed to be preserved and honored.
Another Zaynab, Umm al Masakin (mother of the poor and helpless), was also the wife of the Prophet.
She was the daughter of Khuzayma ibn Al-Harith of the Hawazin clan. Her husband was killed in the battle of Uhud, and again to rescue her from widowhood, the Prophet married her.
Now that we have discussed the rationale for the Prophet’s marriages and the exception given to him regarding the number of his wives by the Quran 33:50 above, we would like to look at the two verses that follow this verse in surat al-Ahzab, Quran 33:51-52:
“You may put off whom you please of them, and you may take to you whom you please, and whom you desire of those whom you had separated provisionally; no blame attaches to you; this is most proper, so that their eyes may be cool and they may not grieve, and that they should be pleased, all of them with what you give them, and Allah knows what is in your hearts; and Allah is Knowing, Forbearing.
It is not lawful for you, O Prophet to marry more women after this, nor can you replace any of your present wives with another, even if her beauty may attract you—except those ˹bondwomen˺ in your possession. And Allah is ever Watchful over all things.”
For now, we will focus on verse 52 (the latter of the above verses) to note that although the Prophet was given an exception regarding the number of wives, he was not given unlimited license.
In fact, the Quran tells him in verse 52 that he is not allowed to marry any other women beyond those he was already married to and is not allowed to divorce one and marry another (i.e., keep the number the same but still be able to have a new wife). The exception given to the Prophet was precisely what was needed to fulfill his humanitarian and political missions.
In reflecting on these verses from Surat al-Ahzab, we would like to note a minority view among the scholars, since it makes some sense to us, and Allah SWT knows best.
After the revelation of Quran 4:3, limiting the number of marriages to four, there are instances in the hadith where the Prophet, pbuh, told some of his companions who were married to more than four wives that they needed to divorce some of the wives, so as not to exceed the limit.
We guess that as a fair human being, this must have been difficult for him since he was married to more than four.
The best guess regarding the chronology of the various verses is that surat al-Nisa’ was revealed before surat al-Ahzab, both during the middle Medina period, but a precise chronology of the revelation of each verse is not available.
A small minority of the traditionists (Abu Razin and Mujahid) report that when the limitation to four wives was revealed to the Prophet, to comply with the mandate, he maintained his relations with four of his wives, ‘Aisha, Umm Salama, Zainab, and Hafsa, and separated himself from the rest (Sawdah, Juwairiya, Umm Habiba, Maimuna, and Saffiyyah).
He did not immediately divorce them because no one could marry the wives of the Prophet after him, and he did not want to put them in that position.
Instead, he awaited revelation to decide his best course of action. That revelation came in the form of Surat al-Ahzab Quran 33:50-52, which we have cited above.
Verse 50 made it clear that the Prophet’s wives were all lawful to him, and that he did not need to divorce any. Verse 52 mandated that he could not marry any other women, or exchange the present wives for others.
Verse 51, “You may put off whom you please of them, and you may take to you whom you please, and whom you desire of those whom you had separated provisionally; no blame attaches to you…” now takes on an interesting light. We have used the Shakir translation of this verse to help clarify this point; many other translations use the term “set aside” instead of “separated provisionally” for the Arabic word ‘azalt in the verse, regarding some of the Prophet’s wives.
The general understanding of this verse is that it had given the Prophet license to not divide his time equally with his wives, with equality being a condition of polygamy as a general rule for the Muslims, as in Quran 4:3.
Thus, this verse is generally viewed as an exemption for the Prophet from this rule since that may have imposed a set of difficulties upon him that would have interfered with the tremendously heavy burden of his prophetic mission.
We note in passing that it is well known that the Prophet (with the possible exception of the above waiting period for a divine decision) maintained strict equality regarding his wives, and did not avail himself of such a license, if that was the sole intent of the verse.
However, in the minority view we mentioned, the verse is interpreted a bit differently, with an additional meaning telling the Prophet that he may put off whomever he wished but may also “take to you whom you please, and whom you desire of those whom you had separated provisionally; no blame attaches to you…”.
This let the Prophet know that he could take back any of the wives whom he had originally put off or separated from.
Otherwise, we have no clear rationale as to why the Prophet had “set aside,” or “separated provisionally” from any of his wives in the first instance.
An erudite and well-researched presentation of this point of view can be found in the following article:
Marriage Related Privileges of the Prophet
Finally, we would like to emphasize that although the Prophet’s marriages served clear humanitarian and sociopolitical functions, this did not at all mean that they were “marriages of convenience.”
The Prophet (pbuh) loved his wives, and was the exemplar in fairness, kindness and tenderness in their treatment. That, though, would be a topic of another Dear Hadi.
We know that our answer has been long and detailed, but as we said, you raised an important topic which we wanted to cover in some depth.
We hope isA this has provided clarification regarding this topic.
In peace,