3. Marriage Related Privileges of the Prophet: A Study in Chronology

3. Marriage Related Privileges of the Prophet: A Study in Chronology

The Prophet was allowed to marry and keep more wives simultaneously compared to other Muslims who are allowed to take a maximum of 4 wives at a time

The allowance for the Prophet is given in the Qur’an itself but no real attention has been paid to the history of setting up of maximum limit for general Muslim during the time of the Prophet

We have a study on this significant point wherein we show that by the times of setting up this limit of 4 wives in the year 9 AH, the Prophet and some other Muslims already had more than 4 wives

Whereas other such Muslims i.e. companions of the Prophet were required to keep only 4 of their wives and divorce the rest of them the Prophet was allowed to keep more than 4

Now this is significant difference because the specific permission to keep more than 4 was in consideration of the situation of the Prophet’s wives as well besides being a privilege for the Prophet

The Qur’an had already forbidden Muslims from marrying any woman that had remained in Prophet’s marriage implying that if the Prophet were to divorce any of his wives she could not marry anyone else

Moreover, for those women themselves it would have been unjust even if the remarriage was possible for them

Relevant verses of Surah Ahzab and hadith and historical reports bearing on this have been examined at length

Also in the light of Surah Ahzab verses all of the special rules regarding the Prophet in terms of marriages have been enumerated and it has been shown that except for keeping more than 4 the Prophet did not exercise any other privilege. 

He did not marry any woman without dower,  

Though he was not bound to give equal time to all his wives he always divided his time among them equally

Some special marriage rules for the Prophet were actually restrictions not applicable to other Muslims

The Prophet could not marry a Jewish or Christian woman

He could only marry those of his cousins who had migrated from Makkah to Madina which is why he rejected the proposal to marry Umm Hani the daughter of Abu Talib

In the year 9 AH the Prophet () was actually barred from taking another wife. Subsequently, only a few months before his death he was allowed to take more wives but no such marriage was consummated.


LINK: https://icraa.org/muhammad-mar....riages-privileges-ch