The City of the Prophet 65with a nine-year-old girl may be shocking to our modern sensibilities,
his betrothal to Aisha was just that: a betrothal. Aisha did not consum-
mate her marriage to Muhammad until after reaching puberty, which
is when every girl in Arabia without exception became eligible for mar-
riage. The most shocking aspect of Muhammad’s marriages is not his ten
years of polygamy in Yathrib, but his twenty-five years of monogamy in
Mecca, something practically unheard of at the time. Indeed, if there is
anything at all interesting or unusual about Muhammad’s marriages, it
is not how many wives he had, but rather the regulations that were
imposed on them, specifically with regard to the veil.
Although long seen as the most distinctive emblem of Islam, the veil
is, surprisingly, not enjoined upon Muslim women anywhere in the
Quran. The tradition of veiling and seclusion (known together as
hijab) was introduced into Arabia long before Muhammad, primarily
through Arab contacts with Syria and Iran, where the hijab was a sign
of social status. After all, only a woman who need not work in the
fields could afford to remain secluded and veiled.
In the Ummah, there was no tradition of veiling until around
627 C.E., when the so-called “verse of hijab” suddenly descended upon
the community. That verse, however, was addressed not to women in
general, but exclusively to Muhammad’s wives: “Believers, do not
enter the Prophet’s house... unless asked. And if you are invited...
do not linger. And when you ask something from the Prophet’s wives,
do so from behind a hijab. This will assure the purity of your hearts as
well as theirs” (33:53).
This restriction makes perfect sense when one recalls that
Muhammad’s house was also the community’s mosque: the center of
religious and social life in the Ummah. People were constantly com-
ing in and out of this compound at all hours of the day. When delega-
tions from other tribes came to speak with Muhammad, they would
set up their tents for days at a time inside the open courtyard, just a
few feet away from the apartments in which Muhammad’s wives slept.
And new emigrants who arrived in Yathrib would often stay within the
mosque’s walls until they could find suitable homes.
When Muhammad was little more than a tribal Shaykh, this con-
stant commotion could be tolerated. But by the year 627, when he had