One more question. The Qur’anic injunction do allow Muslims to marry four wives, that I’m told. But I happen to know too that the Prophet himself, that’s Muhammad, married nine wives. Because he was also permitted to have nine wives. What I’m saying is that, why did it skip us? You know, what is the philosophy of permission and prohibition in religion? The basic philosophy is that Allah is the proprietor of everything. He is the creator of everything. So it is for him to permit or not to permit a certain thing. Everything belongs to him.
So if he sees fit at certain time to permit his prophets to marry 99 times, it’s not objectionable. When he deems it fit to permit them only nine times, how should it become objectionable? You know, I’m referring to the Bible, the testimony of the Bible, where Prophet David is permitted to have 99 wives. And that is digested, all right, without the slightest twitch by the Christians and the Jews, all right. But when instead of 99, the Holy Prophet of Islam is only permitted to marry nine times, then they raise their eyebrows and say, why nine wives? Please, I’m not being unkind to you. Because you have raised this question in a country where many Orientalists have really objected to this, this is why I’m not limiting my answer to your question and to the spirit in which you have asked. I know you have asked this question in a very good spirit of trying to understand.
But because the same question is related to hostile attitude as well, so I’m answering this in these general terms, please don’t misunderstand me. Now as far as the internal comparison is concerned, the Holy Prophet of Islam had much greater responsibilities and graver responsibilities in a society which was built on a certain pattern. There are so many tribes. It was the tribal system in which he appeared. And for the education as well as for winning over certain tribes, the marriage played a very important role. It continued to play an important role even much later.
So when the Holy Prophet of Islam was permitted to marry more than once, that could also be the significance of that. For instance, after the battle of Khyber, he immediately married the daughter of the chief of the Jewish tribe against which he was locked in battle. Now that was a message to the Jews that let’s end all hostilities. Because when marriage ceremonies were held between two warring tribes, it was understood to be a sign of peace.
Similarly, some other tribes were married into and that helped cement closer relationship with the world of Islam for those tribes. That could be one reason. Another reason could be that the Holy Prophet of Islam was over much burden with great responsibilities and marriage does play an important role in relaxation of man. Ordinary people are not endowed with such special powers. Also they are not endowed with such special responsibilities. So larger the responsibility, greater and more burdensome the responsibility, more is required by way of certain relaxations.
Now an ordinary man can have his relaxations here and there in so many ways and he does not care much for breaking the law or not breaking the law. Even the pious people who are situated at a lower platform, they can deviate from things here and there. But not a prophet. A prophet, particularly the prophet who claims to be the greatest prophet of all time, who is the last messenger with the law. Imagine his attitude towards God and his wishes. He would live strictly, entirely within the law of God, within the word of God and would not deviate even a shade from that.
So it was a very organized, very regimented life for him. Unless Allah had permitted him to do something, he would not do that. This is why knowing his requirements. I mean another angle of looking into things. One was his responsibilities to others. Now it is the responsibility of the Holy Prophet to himself. Allah knew well how he had endowed him with special powers. Allah knew well his inner requirements. So he made an exception in his case. Another thing you should not forget is, that other people were also permitted to live with slave women, bondage women as they are called, to any number.
And they were not held responsible to marry them formally before entering into relationship with them. When a child was born to them, then they married. But although this was permitted to the Holy Prophet of Islam, it was below his dignity to indulge in this sort of thing. And he did marry one slave girl, but did not enjoy any relationship normally with slaves while he could. So considering all these factors and knowing his requirements, Allah may have permitted him specially. But again I must bring you back to the original answer which I gave. Sin is not any act against another act.
Sin has another philosophy behind it. Sin only means deviation from the path as laid down by God. Violation of the will of Allah. So sexual relationship in itself is not a sin at all. There is nothing wrong. Only it becomes sin when you do it in violation to the will of God. So if Allah permits somebody to some extent and some others to some other extent, then it is piety to do the same thing which if you violate otherwise would become a sin. This is why I drew the attention to the Prophet David. In his time the standards were different, yet everybody was not permitted 99 wives. He stood exception to the general common rule because he had some certain very special powers and potentials in him which enabled him to marry more than ordinary people and fulfill his responsibility towards them.
Now we come to another aspect altogether. Normally marrying more than once is permitted under strict condition that you are permitted to marry more than once only if you are able to behave justly and equitably to all wives. And ordinarily we observe that many people who marry twice are not able to be equitable to two wives, not to mention three or four. So that was the limit of ordinary companions of the Holy Prophet which Allah knew that four is the very limit of their capacity to which they could show equitable treatment to all the wives.
But the Holy Prophet in that regard too had no limit. So if he was permitted to marry more than four times, Allah was certain, Allah knew it, that he would fulfill his responsibilities of being equitable most perfectly while others could not. So we know many who married twice in the time of the Holy Prophet, their wives complained sometimes to the Holy Prophet of Islam that he is not behaving justly to me or the others. So it happened, but not in the case of the Holy Prophet of Islam.
