Muhammad and Natural Law: Simultaneous and Serial Polygamy

ADULTERY, DIVORCE, POLYGAMY, concubinage, pedophilia, incest, AND rape are all offenses against the dignity of marriage and the natural institution of the family, and the right and orderly use of the sexual faculties, and are by common consent violations of natural law. Although some of these areas involve prudential determinations of natural law and even to some extent may be defined by human law or custom (e.g., with respect to incest, within what level of consanguinity or affinity such incestuous prohibitions extend by natural law), some of the boundaries are decidedly less vague and more precise (e.g., whether a woman may be violated against her will, whether concubinage is consonant with fidelity in marriage, whether sexual relations of an adult male with prepubescent girls is morally lawful) and provide with more definite conclusions. Certainly, reason can make the case that marriage ought to be monogamous and relatively permanent, that concubinage is a morally abhorrent institution, that sex with prepubescent females, incestuous relations, and rape are morally vicious. In the areas of marriage, family, and the exercise of sexual faculties, reason's verdict would seem to be overwhelmingly against Muhammad. Muhammad's actions violated against the natural law in some fundamental principles and in its more distant determinations. All put together, the violations of Muhammad to natural law principles of marriage and human sexuality place it beyond reasonable doubt that Muhammad's life was hardly virtuous. Indeed, we must concur with St. Thomas Aquinas's judgment in his Summa Contra Gentiles: Muhammad did not restrain his sexual urges, but rather he "gave free rein to carnal pleasure," voluptati carnali habenas relaxans.*

Muhammud's Name in Arabic Script

We may first look at the area of Muhammad's marriages and his polygamy. We may start be observing that in his life, Muhammad shows a marked shift between his life in Mecca, when he had no political power, and his life in Medina once he gain political power. Just like there was an Alexander drunk and an Alexander sober, so there is one Muhammad ante Hegiram and another Muhammad post Hegiram. In Mecca, Muhammad lived an unobtrusive, monogamous married life with his first wife Khadijah bint Khuwaylid** until her death shortly before Muhammad's famous Hegira (Hijra or هِجْرَة) from Mecca to Medina (also known as Yathrib). Khadijah was an elder widow of rather affluent means, and Muhammad worked for her for a time until she proposed marriage to him, which he accepted. Trustworthily, Sahih Muslim (31:5975) states upon the report of Muhammad's later wife Aisha that Muhammad "did not marry any other woman till her [Khadijah's] death." Indeed, other that his son Ibrahim borne by Muhammad's concubine and possible wife (sources are unclear) Maria al-Qibtiyya and who died young, Khadijah was the mother of all of Muhammad's children, his two sons 'Abdullah (also known as at-Tahir or at-Tayyib) and al-Qasim (Abu'l-Qasim), both of whom also died young, and his daughters, Zaynab, Ruqayah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatima (the latter being the only child to survive Muhammad). Life, 82-83.*** There is no evidence of any improprieties in Muhammad's behavior while married to Khadijah, and his marital and sexual behavior would seem to have been commendable, indeed unimpeachable, up until Khadijah's death.

The same cannot be said regarding Muhammad's Medinan phase. Without doubt, Muhammad, once released from his marital relationship with Khadijah and once having his hands on political power, wealth, and the spoils of war, not only taught but practiced a rather extreme form of polygamy. He made polygamy forever part of the alleged revelations of Allah. In Surah 4:3 (a Medinan Surah), Muhammad limited simultaneously polygamy to four women:

وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلاَّ تُقْسِطُوا فِي الْيَتَامَى فَانكِحُوا مَا طَابَ لَكُمْ مِنَ النِسَاء مَثْنَى وَثُلاَثَ وَرُبَاعَ فَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلاَّ تَعْدِلُوا فَوَاحِدَةً أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ ذَلِكَ أَدْنَى أَلاَّ تَعُولُوا

And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan ­girls, then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one or (the captives and the slaves) that your right hands possess. That is nearer to prevent you from doing injustice.

Two things may be noted regarding Muhammad's teaching in the Qur'an. First, it is a form of polygamy that is strictly polygynous, since only men could have multiple women spouses. Typical with most of Muhammad's view, women were not accorded equal treatment with men. The second thing that ought to be noted is that the four-woman limitation applied to Muslims generally; it did not apply to Muhammad, who excluded himself from the Qur'anic revelation by another convenient Qur'anic revelation.

Muhammad apparently excluded himself from the four-wife-only Qur'anic revelation. He operated under a unique dispensation (found in the Qur'an 33:50):

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِنَّا أَحْلَلْنَا لَكَ أَزْوَاجَكَ اللاَّتِي آتَيْتَ أُجُورَهُنَّ وَمَا مَلَكَتْ يَمِينُكَ مِمَّا أَفَاءَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكَ وَبَنَاتِ عَمِّكَ وَبَنَاتِ عَمَّاتِكَ وَبَنَاتِ خَالِكَ وَبَنَاتِ خَالاَتِكَ اللاَّتِي هَاجَرْنَ مَعَكَ وَامْرَأَة ً مُؤْمِنَة ً إِنْ وَهَبَتْ نَفْسَهَا لِلنَّبِيِّ إِنْ أَرَادَ النَّبِيُّ أَنْ يَسْتَنكِحَهَا خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ قَدْ عَلِمْنَا مَا فَرَضْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ فِي أَزْوَاجِهِمْ وَمَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُمْ لِكَيْلاَ يَكُونَ عَلَيْكَ حَرَج ٌ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورا ً رَحِيما

O Prophet! Verily, We have made lawful to you your wives, to whom you have paid their Mahr [bridal money given by the husband to his wife at the time of marriage], and those (captives or slaves) whom your right hand possesses - whom Allāh has given to you, and the daughters of your 'Amm [paternal uncles] and the daughters of your 'Ammah [paternal aunts] and the daughters of your Khāl [maternal uncles] and the daughters of your Khālah [maternal aunts] who migrated [from Mecca] with you, and a believing woman if she offers herself to the Prophet, and the Prophet wishes to marry her; a privilege for you only, not for the (rest of) the believers. Indeed We know what We have enjoined upon them about their wives and those (captives or slaves) whom their right hands possess, - in order that there should be no difficulty on you. And Allāh is Ever Oft­Forgiving, Most Merciful.

It is both unseemly and unfitting that the Muhammad should exclude himself from the already loose strictures that bound the rest of his Muslim followers and which limited their polygynous practices to four wives (with easy divorce) and as many captives and concubines as desired. Essentially, he allowed himself no bounds in his appetite for women. So unseemly and unfitting that one can literally still taste the dripping sarcasm behind Aisha's comment related in Sahih Muslim 8:3453 to the Qur'anic revelation in 33:51 which essentially allowed Muhammad free reign to any believer who offered herself to him:

Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: I felt jealous of the women who offered themselves to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: Then when Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, revealed this:" You may defer any one of them you wish, and take to yourself any you wish; and if you desire any you have set aside (no sin is chargeable to you)" (33:51), I (Aisha.) said: It seems to me that your Lord hastens to satisfy your desire.

Not only did Muhammad allow himself (by special, if suspicious, dispensation from Allah) nine (perhaps even ten, eleven, or twelve) simultaneous wives, he also permitted rather easy divorce (as well as other forms of sexual congress), so that Muhammad stands condemned of both serial and simultaneous polygamy in addition to a broader polygyny and sexual libertinism.

The lists of Muhammad's wives vary, and a complete resolution of the problem probably impossible. For our purposes, we shall simply cite two of many opinions on the matter. First, we shall turn to Clinton Bennett's In Search of Muhammad,† a tendentious text which bends over backwards to minimize Muhammad's larger enormities, and which relies upon a reconstruction and synthesis based on a number of sources.

Name	date married	date marriage ended	cause of marriage ending	comments
Khadijah	595	619	death	Muhammad's monogamous marriage.
Sauda	620	n/a	n/a	Muhammad wanted to divorce her when she was old and fat and unattractive, but she ceded her sexual rights to the younger bride, Aisha, thereby preserving her good graces.
Aisha	620	n/a	n/a	This is a controversial marriage because Muhammad betrothed Aisha at age 6 or 8, consummated a few years later. She was a favorite of Muhammad.
Hafsa	625	n/a	n/a	Muhammad married Hafsa when she was 18 years of age.
Zainab	625	625-30	death of wife
Salama	626	n/a	n/a
Zainab	626	n/a	n/a	Second wife of that name. Another controversial marriage because she was married to Muhammad's adopted son, Said, but Muhammad had an intense longing (lust) for her, and had already his allotment of four wives. Revelations which abolished adoption Qur'an 33:4-5, and which allowed Muhammad to marry her following Zainab's divorce from Said, Qur'an 33:37, and allowed more than four wives for Muhammad, Qur'an 33:50, seem altogether too convenient.
Juwairiya	626/27	n/a	n/a	Captive of war of great beauty
Umm Habiba	627/28	n/a	n/a
Safiyah	628	n/a	n/a	17-year-old widow of defeated Jewish chief known for her beauty.
Maimunah	629/30	n/a	n/a	Married following the death of her first husband.

The problem may be more complicated than Bennett suggests in his Appendix.

As Montgomery Watt views it (from his analysis of Qur'an 33:50 quoted above), there may be various levels of marriage or relationships with women in which Muhammad engaged. Watt distinguishes between: (i) wives to whom he paid ujur (أُجُورَ) [dowry or hire] (ii) those "whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you," (iii) the daughters of paternal and maternal uncles and aunts, (iv) those who emigrated with Muhammad, (v) believing women who gave themselves to the prophet, provided the prophet wanted to marry them, and (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).

The first two groups are wives in the strict sense and concubines. Of these, Watt notes that Muhammad is regarded generally have had fourteen of these, of whom nine survived Muhammad. There is some dispute as to the identity of the fourteen, however. Watt includes the concubines Maria the Copt and Rihana the Jewess in this number, and seems generally to agree with Bennett as to the others. As to the other categories, Watt observes:

About a score of other women are mentioned as having been at least thought of as wives for Muhammad. There is much obscurity and dubiety about some of them; many tribes were doubtless eager to claim a matrimonial relationship with Muhammad, and to make the most of vague reminiscences. . . . The one thing that seems certain about this supplementary list is that none of the women in it formed a lasting union with Muhammad.

Watt, 397.†† Watt identifies sixteen as part of this "score of other women." He also identifies seven more women "between whom and Muhammad there was some talk of marriage without the plans ever being carried out." Watt, 399.

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*St. Thomas, SCG, lib. 1 cap. 6 n. 7.
**I have struggled with the issue of transliteration of the Arabic. There are numerous systems for transliterating Arabic into Roman text. Many of the characters are not readily available or require changing fonts. I have decided, therefore, for the most part to ignore them.
***"Life" is a reference to A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1967).
†See Clinton Bennett, In Search of Muhammad(London: Wellington, 1998), Appendix 2, 249 ff. The list does not include other women and concubines or slaves, such as Mary the Copt and Rihana the Jewess, with whom we know Muhammad had sexual relations. Sometimes Mary is regarded as Muhammad's twelfth wife. Some Muslims authorities put Muhammad's wives as twenty-one, and suggest that Muhammad practiced a form of temporary marriage (نكاح المتعة‎, or nikah al-mut'ah) or marriage for a "fixed term," a deplorable practice, which is nothing less than a form of divinely sanctioned prostitution, which they further base upon Qur'an 4:24, and is particularly practiced among the Shi'a muslims.
††W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), Excursus L, pp. 393-99.