custom. In seventh-century Arabia, widows were
remarried almost immediately, often to a relative of the
dead husband, so that the family would be preserved and
protected. To forbid this was surely a striking exception
to Muhammad’s forceful advocacy for the care of
widows and orphans and the needy. But then that was
the point: the wives were exceptional. The ban on their
remarrying emphasized the idea of the Islamic
community as one large family.
While this may have worked well enough for the older
wives, it must have seemed at best ironic, at worst even
cruel, to the youngest of them. Aisha would be a lifetime
mother, even as by the same stroke of revelation, she
would be denied the chance ever to become pregnant
and give birth to children of her own.
Certainly there would have been no shortage of suitors
for any of Muhammad’s wives. Men would have vied to
marry a widow of the Messenger of God, gaining
political advantage by claiming closeness to him in this
way. Indeed, that may be exactly what he sought to
prevent. It was not as though the idea had not already
occurred to some. Aisha’s ambitious cousin Talha had
once been heard to say out loud that he wanted to marry
her after Muhammad’s death—a desire that resulted in
his quickly being married oʃ to one of her sisters
instead. But the word of revelation had since forestalled
any more such ambitions, and that word was ɹnal.
Muhammad would leave behind nine widows, and not