Talk:Wives of Muhammad

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no move. Andrewa (talk) 12:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

From WP:RM:

• Muhammad's wives → Mother of the Believers —(Discuss)— As a result of merge discussion the page with the most active discussions and information is currently used to hold the article. --Tigeroo (talk) 13:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Muhammad's wives and Mother of the Believers merge

After cleaning up this article I found the Mother of the Believers article. I started cleaning that up but found that most of it was a copyvio from here. I turned the article into a redirect and brought the rest here. Arrow740 removed it here which I reverted and added unreferenced section tag and was reverted again. Since then I added a fact tag to the opening sentence in the "Muhammad's widows" section as it's very similar to the opening sentence of the deleted "Mother of the Believers" section. While I make no claim as to the validity of the sources that I found given in the Mother of the Believers article I do think that they need merging. And if the sources are not valid then it should be tagged as such and not deleted out of hand. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 07:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds about right. As a title given to Muhammed's Wives, the MotB article is best merged into the main article. Yarkod 05:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with merging this article and Mother of the Believers.Bless sins (talk) 20:32, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't tell from this discussion but I think the page should be called "Mothers of the believers" not "Muhammad's wives" as that is the specific term that refers to them. What do others think?--Salikk (talk) 20:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

In the above discussion there was consensus that there should be one article not two of them. You have raised an important point about the title of this one article we agreed upon. Frankly, I have seeen "Mother of the believers" as a much more common title that "Muhammad's wives", both in Islamic texts and Western scholarly works. Thus, I will incline towards "Mother of the believers".Bless sins (talk) 20:08, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd also be inclined to go with "mother of the believers", if only because Maria al-Qibtiyya, who is called a "mother of believers", may or may not have been married to Muhammad, but remained a slave.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:16, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

In the lead we will have to make clear that the term is used by Muslims (and is not meant to be factual).Bless sins (talk) 04:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

If we have agreement can someone make the merge? I seem to have done a botch job at my last attempt. If no one has given it a shot in the next couple of days I guess I will take another shot at it.--Salikk (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

You can't do it, an admin has to delete the other page before this can be moved. I'll do it, but I want to be sure everyone agrees on the title. Is "Mother of the Believers" good with everyone?--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I've gone and listed the article at Wikipedia:Requested_moves#Uncontroversial_proposals for this move as this seems to be outcome of the discussion so far.--Tigeroo (talk) 06:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• The name "Mother of the Believers" is obscure to most people except Muslims. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Not really, the term Umm ul' Momineen is quite significant and prominent to those with even a modicum familiarity with Islamic history. Maybe the Arabic term is more appropriate for the article page and would serve much better in disseminating information.--Salikk (talk) 17:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

• But by far the majority of non-Muslims have NO familiarity with Islamic history, or not enough to know anything about Muhammad's wives. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:54, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

By far the majority of anyone who comes to wikipedia is to learn about something they do not know. At anyrate a sole dissenting opinion noted. We still seem to have consensus on the naming change.--Salikk (talk) 00:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This is an English transliteration of a title accorded to them and in widespread scholarly usage. Plus as Cuchullain has noted it definitely includes Maria, who as some hold, may or may not have been a wife of Muhammad.--Tigeroo (talk) 13:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose naming change. We are not in the business of forcing information down our readers' throats; we are here to communicate with them. Include the fact, bu all means, that a wife of Mohammed is called Mother of the Believers; but please do not call this article by a term which 95 out of a hundred anglophones will not understand, when there is an easy and intelligible phrase available. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

  I get 1,950,000 hits on google on mother of the beleivers and only 350,000 for Muhammads wives apparently its quite a common term out there which people get. Then there is also a redirect, they are not going to be left rudderless if the search.--Tigeroo (talk) 16:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Tigeroo's first search forgot to put "quotes" around the search terms. As a result, it picked up any page containing "mother" and "of" and "the" and "believers" together or separately in any order, including oceans of junk references such as about Mother Teresa, Mother India, web site authors' mothers, etc. Repeated with quotes that search got "about 59,100" ghits. His second search repeated with quotes got "about 5,940" ghits. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Anderson, this is not a term most anglophones are going to recognise. I would expect more than 216 hits on Google Books for a main term in a religion (Virgin Mary, for example, nets over 4000). Narson (talk) 14:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what search you did but I got 1205 on Muhammad's wives and 1820 on Mother of the Believers, would you change your mind?--Tigeroo (talk) 16:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose as well, per the above arguments. Remember, we are writing an encyclopedia not for ourselves, but for the average reader, who likely knows little to nothing about "The Mother of the Believers". Parsecboy (talk) 03:07, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Noted, but see above comments on average reader. They are not really as uninformed as we think.--Tigeroo (talk) 16:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Muhammad's wives" is the best, most clear article title for someone seeking information on this topic. No one is likely to know what Mother of the Believers refers to. --Bookworm857158367 (talk) 18:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Perceptions of Marriage

I have moved the section titled perceptions of marriage here. I think it is irrelevant to the topic Muhammad's (saw) family and so I have removed it. Anyone who thinks it should not be removed please discuss here.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, the institution of marriage was characterized by unquestioned male superiority. Marriage was viewed as a "status". There was no limitations on men's rights to marry or to obtain a divorce. Upon marriage a bride price was paid to the girl's father. A man could have several wives but a woman could not have several husbands at one time and could only take another husband after divorce

Mushoo (talk) 14:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Because of the numerous 'types' of marriage I do think it is wise to give some context. It is problematic if someone reads this article and comes away thinking that marriage in the context of Muhammad is the same as the rather recent middle class experience of 'love marriage'. So, we need to either have it in this article or a link to an article that explains the marital circumstances of the time. A link to marriage will not do much to increase the understanding of the reader. gren グレン 07:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the passage above about the perception of marriage in the pre-Islamic period is warranted so that there is some perspective. I also think it's important to give context to the marriages of Muhammad themselves as many were, as academics note, in the interests of political/social cohesion - which may not be immediately apparent to a casual reader. ITAQALLAH 20:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

List

The section "List of Muhammad's wives and children" is completely unnecessary for the following reasons:

• A list of the prophet's wives is available on the right hand side as part of the template.
• His children should be mentioned where the wife is being mentioned.
• Information regarding the tribe, status before marriage, age, motive etc. is/should be provided in the "history" section.
• "Motive" is a very complex and contentious section. For many marriages scholars disagree on the proper motive, and thus I don't see any concise way of listing this.

Bless sins (talk) 17:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I can second that.--Tigeroo (talk) 16:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

missing redirects

• Mohammad's wives, Mohammed's wives, Muhammed's wives, Mahomet's wives
• Wives of Mohammad, Wives of Mohammed, Wives of Muhammed, Wives of Mahomet

70.55.88.176 (talk) 06:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

A list providing dates and children where possible would be very useful. I am sure the information is already there, but such a list would provide a simple time-line. --Mindline (talk) 12:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

References

That section is a very special one, so I have not been able to insert one important book of Fatima Mernissi. "Her most famous book, as an Islamic feminist, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Islam, is a quasi-historical study of role of the wives of Muhammad. It was first published in French in 1987, and translated into English in 1991." See for further information [1]. would somebody technically more skillfull please insert it?

Austerlitz -- 88.75.72.6 (talk) 10:06, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

His wifes

There was an article I was reading some time ago, claiming that one of his so called wives was only 8 or 9 at the time when he married her? Wouldn't this make him a pedophile? No offense intended to anyone. Norum (talk) 22:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

This refers to his second or third wife Aisha (R. A.) who was 8 or 9 when engaged to the Prophet Mohammad (P. B. U. H.) however she did not begin to live with him until after the migration to Medina when she would have been at least 14 or 15, some sources even state 16 but I would take that with a pinch of salt as he spent quite a bit of time with her and she was only 18 when the prophet passed away. Twenty-first century standards of morality cannot be imposed upon those of eighth century Arabia. We always err in trying to impose our views on every environment that this is the way it functions. SEMTEX85 (talk) 21:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Should this be mentioned in the article then? True, we can't impose our morality view with the ones in a seventh century Asia, but I am sure that even back then thinking parents would not engage their 8 year old daughter to a man old enough to be her grandfather.

On the other hand, we can still see thinking like this in the XXI century, in the rural areas of most of the Muslim countries and, especially, India.

Norum (talk) 07:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Norum, are you thus suggesting Islam is the cause of modern child marriages? In fact, this is not uncommon in cultures around the world, premodern and modern (to which I add that it makes my blood boil to hear about it). There is also no evidence he was a paedophile, which is a condition where a person is sexually aroused primarily by children... mind you, his first wife was 42 when he married her and he never took another wife while she was alive. The evidence instead is that he had a child bride for political reasons and specified that he did not engage in adult relations with her until she reached the age of maturity (check the ages of Romeo & Juliet for a reality check on what the age of maturity was in premodern societies). Ogress _smash! 13:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm just saying that many societies throughout the world are still quite primitive, especially in very remote areas.

Norum (talk) 21:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Who says our morality is correct? Why the arbitrary age of 18 for adulthood when one can reproduce at the age of 10 upwards...? One only has to look at what teenagers around the world experience after puberty to realise it makes sense to structure the social system to allow marriage puberty onwards. We maybe should step out of our ideological mindsets and consider other civilisations may actually have better ways of doing things.

Actually, Aisha was 6 or 7 when they got married and 9 when they consummated it (had sex). There are many good Reliable Sources for this info and it should be added here. 67.173.185.224 (talk) 02:57, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A prophet of God would obey God's unchanging morality and commandments (see Abraham/Moses/Jacob/Isaac). Therefore the "moral relativism" argument does not apply.

Surely all the wives of Mohammed should be in this article?

This article is titled Mohammed's wives however just a couple are mentioned - surely the rest should be in here and material not relevant to this title should be stripped out - what do people think?