Boreal
Remembering Uzza
If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub
Orphaned by Lust
Archie:
I'll bet the Prophet's choice of a reward for his role in the massacre of the Jews of Medina was a nice young girl. Am I right?
Uzza: He took for himself the wife of one of the men killed, a young woman by the name of Rayhanah[224].
Bob: Talk about a nervy guy. I'm impressed. And this Rayhanah was okay with having sex with the guy responsible for the murder of her husband?
Uzza: Again, it was not murder. God-sanctioned killings are not murder.
Archie: Then what are they?
Bob: Quit changing the subject. Was this Jewish princess okay with being bonked by the guy who had her old man killed on behalf of the big boss in the sky?
Uzza: Her father was the leader of the Qurayzah, so that would make her a Jewish princess of sorts.
Bob: WOW. I meant her husband. But, the Prophet was also responsible for her father getting wacked and the guy still had the nerve to ask her to marry him.
Uzza: What happened to her husband, her father and her kin may explain why Rayhanah refused Muhammad's offer of marriage and only accepted to be his concubine. Of all of Muhammad's flesh and blood acquisitions, Rayhanah is the most pathetic. Even as a concubine, she may have found her life sexually servicing the man who left her without a husband and family unbearable and committed suicide a few years later. None of Muhammad's young wives and concubines had a shorter life than the beautiful tragic Rayhanah [wipes away a tear].
Archie: I have heard that the Prophet took in all these women and girls not only for the sex, but to solidify relationships with other tribes or with his buddies. What relationship would he have solidified if Rayhanah had accepted his marriage proposal?
Uzza: Some of the arranged marriages were to cement relationships with other tribes, but many were not. At least two were the offspring of cronies who offered their daughters in marriage after Muhammad expressed an interest in them[225].
Gerry: Muslims should admit that Muhammad, in middle age and beyond, developed an insatiable appetite for beautiful young women and girls, and when he saw one he liked, game over. He had the power, and he used it. Admit it and get it over with.
Uzza: You may be right. The most blatant evidence of these bouts of infatuation and the lengths Muhammad was willing to go to get what he wanted is in his marriage to his cousin Zaynab. He walked in on her when she was almost naked and, mesmerized by her beauty he just had to have her. The only problem: his cousin was already married to his adopted son Zayd.
Bob: Zayd must not have been pleased?
Uzza: When he became aware of his father’s latest obsession, he quickly divorced Zaynab so that she was available for him to marry.
Bob: But Muhammad was not really his father?
Uzza: The pre-Islamic Arabs were even enlightened when it came to adopted sons; they completely erased the distinction between an adopted and a natural-born son. An adopted son became the son of the man who adopted him, with all the rights and obligations of a natural-born son including calling the man who took him in, father.
Bob: And Allah was okay with this, marrying your living son's former wife?
Uzza: Absolutely not and neither were the people!
Bob: How did the Prophet get away with it this time?
Uzza: We do not know who first got the idea to change the status of adopted sons to "brothers in religion"[226], but Allah, who Aisha remarked was always quick to please her husband when it came to his sexual needs[227], made marrying the former wife of any other than your natural-born son like marrying the divorced wife of any man. So that there is no doubt He approved of Muhammad’s marriage to his cousin Zaynab, Allah then sent a revelation saying it was all His idea[228]. Perhaps to avoid any future misunderstanding, Allah, in the same surah, lists all the close relations Muhammad may marry, including females who give themselves freely to His spokesperson, an exception He makes clear is not available to the ordinary believer[229]. For good measure, Allah quickly followed this verse with another revelation where He tells Muhammad that he does not need to follow a regular rotation when it comes to having sex with all these wives, concubines and sex-slaves to which he is entitled[230].
Gerry: That a god in a book meant to be a moral guide for mankind for centuries to come would spend so much time on the sex life of just one man, including the granting of exceptions and changing the law to make what had previously been considered deviant behaviour normal, invites disbelief!
Uzza: That, it probably did. Allah obviously realized that His shameless pandering to an older man’s unbridled lust[231] for what should have been a younger man’s fantasy was sowing mistrust about what His Book is all about. In the next revelation in this series, He tells Muhammad that this is it; from this point forward, he must confine his marital choices to the ones the law allows[232].
Archie: You have to hand it to the Prophet, he had this special relationship with God, if you believe in that sort of thing, and he used it for all it was worth.
Uzza: Of all the things Allah did to cater to Muhammad's sexual appetites, His justification for allowing Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab has had the most lasting and most detrimental impact. The revelations changing the relationship between adopted sons and their surrogate parent so that Muhammad could add his cousin and former daughter-in-law to his collection of wives, concubines and slave-girls has been interpreted to mean that Islam is against Western style adoption where an adopted son can take the name of his adopted parents.
Gerry: That is a bit of stretch, isn’t it?
Uzza: By making it a sin for adopted sons to take their surrogate father's surname when he made them second-class children, Allah created a lasting disincentive for men to take the responsibility of raising another man's child as if he was their son, as was done in pre-Islamic times[233]. One man’s obsession and an accommodating deity is why today, in the Islamic world, you have an untold number of children with no one alive to call father.
Archie: You would think a religion that produces so many orphans would treat them better.
Bob: What about female orphans?
Uzza: What is Islam’s solution to any female problem?
Archie: Stoning them.
Bob: Stoning orphans? That’s a bit harsh, even by Islamic standards.
Uzza: NO! MARRIAGE, including their guardian taking them as his wives[234].
Bob: Like Woody Allah, I mean, Woody Allen did.
Uzza: Allah may have regretted what He did to orphan boys. In subsequent revelations He insists that orphans be treated kindly and fairly. But there was no turning back the clock. [getting emotional again] Can we change the subject?
Footnotes
[224] Rayhanah was not only a beautiful young woman. “Rayhana’s name means ‘extremely fragrant’ and Muhammad loved perfumes.”
The Holy Prophet said: "From the things of the world, I regard women and perfume highly, but prayer is the light of my eyes."
Al-Khisal
You might even call it an obsession:
The Most Noble Messenger was so fond of applying perfume that he would skip his supper so as to procure his needed perfume. If perfume was not at his disposal, he would soak the perfumed scarf of his wife and rub his face with it so as to be perfumed. Likewise, before going out he would always look at himself in the mirror or water, and groom himself to such an extent as to always be an embodiment of adornment and dressing well. He would apply so much perfume that his beard had turned white as a result.
An-Nisa’i
[225] Aisha
Aisha was the daughter of Muhammad’s good friend and close collaborator, Abu Bakr, who would succeed Muhammad as caliph, i.e. leader of the believers. Scholars and clerics maintain that a grateful Abu Bakr offered his pre-pubescent daughter, with whom Muhammad had fallen in love, to cement his relationship with the leader of the believers. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not of that opinion. In The Caged Virgin, she writes that Aisha’s father pleaded with his fifty-something friend to wait until his daughter reached adulthood before marrying her.
He fell in love with Aisha, his best friend's nine-year-old daughter. Her father said: "Please wait until she has reached adulthood."
But Muhammad would not wait... In other words, Muhammad teaches us that it is fine to take away your best friend's child. By our Western standards Muhammad is a perverse man.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The Caged Virgin, p. 81
A hadith recorded by Bukhari would appear to support Ali’s assertion that Aisha’s father was not keen on marrying his young daughter to a man of his generation.
Narrated Ursa:
The Prophet asked Abu Bakr for Aisha's hand in marriage.
Abu Bakr said "But I am your brother."
The Prophet said, "You are my brother in Allah's religion and His Book, but she (Aisha) is lawful for me to marry."
Bukhari 62.18
Hafsa
Hafsa was the daughter of Umar, another crony of Muhammad. Umar would succeeded Bakr as caliph. Muhammad married the nineteen-year-old Hafsa who had lost her husband at the infamous battle of Badr. Umar first offered her to Bakr, who declined knowing of Muhammad’s interest in the young lady.
Narrated Abdullah bin Umar:
… I met Abu Bakr and said, 'if you wish, I will marry you, Hafsa bint Umar.'
He kept quiet and did not give me any reply and I became more angry with him than I was with Uthman.
Some days later, Allah's Apostle demanded her hand in marriage and I married her to him.
Later on Abu Bakr met me and said, "Perhaps you were angry with me when you offered me Hafsa for marriage and I gave no reply to you?'
I said, 'Yes.'
Abu Bakr said, 'Nothing prevented me from accepting your offer except that I learnt that Allah's Apostle had referred to the issue of Hafsa and I did not want to disclose the secret of Allah's Apostle, but had he (i.e. the Prophet) given her up I would surely have accepted her."
Bukhari 59.342
33:4 Allah did not create two hearts within the breast of any man; and He did not make your wives, whom you compare to your mothers’ backs; and He did not make your [adopted] sons your sons in fact. That is your own claim, by your words of mouth. Allah speaks the truth and He guides to the Right Path.
33:5 Assign them to their own fathers. That is more equitable in the sight of Allah; but if you do not know their real fathers, then they are your brothers in religion, your adopted fellow Muslims. You are not at fault if you err therein; but only in what your hearts intend. Allah is ever All-Forgiving, All-Merciful.
I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.
Bukhari 60.675.
33:37 And [remember] when you said to him whom Allah favoured and you favoured: (this is addressed to Zayd regarding his wife Zaynab) “Hold on to your wife and fear Allah”, while you concealed within yourself what Allah would reveal and feared other men, whereas Allah had a better right to be feared by you. Then, when Zayd had satisfied his desire for her, We gave her to you in marriage; so that the believers should not be at fault, regarding the wives of their adopted sons, once they have satisfied their desire for them. For Allah’s Command must be accomplished.
33:50 O Prophet, we have made lawful, for you, your wives, whose dowry you have paid, what your right hand owns (slave-girls) out of the spoils of war that Allah gave you, the daughters of your paternal uncles, the daughters of your paternal aunts, the daughters of your maternal uncles, the daughters of your maternal aunts who emigrated with you, and any believing woman who gives herself freely to the Prophet, if the Prophet desires to marry her, granted exclusively to you, but not the believers. We know what We have prescribed for them, regarding their wives and what their right hands own, so that you may not be at fault. Allah is All-Forgiving, Merciful.
33:51 You may defer any of them you wish, and take in any of them that you wish or any that you may have cut off. So you are not liable to reproach. For thus it is more likely that they will be delighted and will not grieve, but be content with what you have given each one of them. Allah knows what is within your hearts; and Allah is All-Knowing, Clement.
[231] Muhammad did not always let his lust get the better of him.
Jabir reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) saw a woman, and so he came to his wife, Zaynab, as she was tanning a leather and had sexual intercourse with her. He then went to his Companions and told them: The woman advances and retires in the shape of a devil, so when one of you sees a woman, he should come to his wife, for that will repel what he feels in his heart.
Sahih Muslim 8.3240
33:52 Thereafter, other women are not lawful to you, nor is substituting other wives for them, even if you admire their beauty, except for what your right hand owns. Allah is Watchful over everything.
Narrated Aisha:
Abu Hudhaifa, one of those who fought the battle of Badr with Allah's Apostle, adopted Salim as his son and married his niece Hind bint Al-Wahd bin Utba to him and Salim was a freed slave of an Ansari woman.
Allah's Apostle also adopted Zaid as his son.
In the Pre-Islamic period of ignorance the custom was that, if one adopted a son, the people would call him by the name of the adopted-father [from] whom he would inherit as well, till Allah revealed: "Call them (adopted sons) By (the names of) their fathers." (33:5)
Bukhari 59.335
[234] In Islam, if a problem, real or imagined, involves a female and it has nothing to do with her having sex outside marriage, then marriage is most often the solution. Marriage is also Allah’s recommended course of action in dealing with female orphans. As you consider the following scattered noble sentiments concerning orphans, keep in mind that the male guardian of female orphans could, at his discretion, “marry such of the women as appeal to” him when they reached the age of nine (the age at which females can be married off under Islamic law, i.e., the Sharia). By doing so, he maintains effective control of whatever property the female orphan might possess to use and dispose of at his discretion.
4:2 Render unto the orphans their property and do not exchange worthless things for good ones, and do not devour their property together with your property. That indeed is a great sin!
4:3 If you fear that you cannot deal justly with the orphans, then marry such of the women as appeal to you, two, three or four; but if you fear that you cannot be equitable, then only one, or what your right hands own (captives of war or slave-girls). That is more likely to enable you to avoid unfairness.