Mass Confusion Within Islamic Scholarship

One example: was Mariya, Muhammad’s slave or wife?

Since Umar was in such a rush and so excited to refute Ali Sina and myself he seemed to have overlooked the fact that his main reference which states that the majority of Muslim scholars believe that Mariyah was a wife contradicts the so-called sound narrations. Here is Umar’s quote:

However, the vast majority of Muslim scholars agreed that the wives of the prophet were: 1. Khadijah 2. `A’isha bint Abu Bakr 3. Sawda bint Zum`ah 4. Hafsa bint `Umar 5. Zaynab bint Khuzaymah 6. Um-Habibah bint Abu Sufyan 7. Um-Salamah 8. Zaynab bint Jahsh 9. Juwariyah bint al-Harith 10. Safiyah bint Hayi ibn Akhtab 11. Maymunah al-Hilaliyah 12. Mariya al-Qibtiya (Who was from Egypt.)

And Now The Clincher
The readers will remember that the status of Mariyah became an issue because of the comments made by Ali Sina of www.faithfreedom.org. In one of his article he had written that: The following is Muhammad’s scandalous love affair with Mariyah the Copt who was one of the prophet’s wives’ maids. Muhammad slept with her without any ceremony, which caused uproar among his wives and finally was settled by Divine intervention. This story is recorded in an authenticated Hadith and is reported by Omar…

One-day Muhammad goes to his wife’s house Hafsa the daughter of Omar and finds her maid Mariyah attractive. He sends Hafsa to Omar’s house, telling her that he wanted to see her. When Hafsa leaves, Muhammad takes Mariyah to bed and has intercourse with her. Meanwhile Hafsa, who finds out that her father was not expecting her, returns home much sooner than expected, and to her chagrin finds her illustrious husband in bed with her maid. (Mariyah the Sex Slave of the holy Prophet; source;) Sina’s claim that Mariyah was Hafsa’s maid caused quite a furor among Muslims. The typical response was that Sina was deliberately lying since there is no Islamic source which says Mariyah was a maid of Hafsa’s.What makes this all the more interesting is that Umar, in his latest rebuttal, has actually come to vindicate Sina and provided support for his statements. Umar quotes his brother Karim who says:

Brother Karim replies to this already, here is his response: " Actually Shamoun doesn't understand that the Prophet was fair in dealing with his wifes [sic], since the Qur’an commands Muslim men who are married to more then one wife, to deal fair/equal and just with them. The Prophet's wifes [sic] had each an own house/ livingroom, and the Prophet gave each wife a day of the week, for example the Prophet spend time with aicha[sic] together on friday, and on saterday [sic] he spend time with Safiyya. So the prophet could very well for example on sunday spend his time with his wife Mariyah. So the fact that a wife doesn't live in the same street of the prophet doesn't mean she can never be his wife. Actually a slave has to work for the household, which means for the man and woman of the house (many hadith bear witness to this) , so if Mariyah was slave, IT MEANS SHE ALSO HAD TO WORK FOR THE PROPHET’S WIFES [SIC], IF THEY AKSED [SIC] HER TO DO SOMETHING IN THE HOUSE OR ON THE LAND. So Mariyah could never be the Prophet's slave, since she couldn't do any work for the prophet and his wifes [sic]. However the prophet as her husband could easily spend one day of the week with mariya, as her husband

"We repeat the relevant portion for all to see the slip made by the authors: so if Mariyah was slave, IT MEANS SHE ALSO HAD TO WORK FOR THE PROPHET’S WIFES [SIC], IF THEY AKSED [SIC] HER TO DO SOMETHING IN THE HOUSE OR ON THE LAND

What this essentially means is that Mariyah was not only Muhammad’s slave but the servant of all of his wives as well, WHICH BASICALLY IMPLIES THAT SHE WAS ALSO HAFSA’S SLAVE! These authors have now vindicated Ali Sina, proving that he was correct to identify Mariyah as Hafsa’s maid! After all, if she were obligated to serve his wives then she would have been a servant of Hafsa as well.

Umar has demonstrated what basically happens when a person doesn’t think through the issues and reflect on the answers carefully. He makes concessions and ends up contradicting himself from one rebuttal to the next. Moreover, Karim’s argument really doesn’t have much force to it.

Muhammad could just as well have kept Mariyah as a sex slave, which wouldn’t require her to perform any duties for his wives. After all, the reverse does not seem to be the case. Certainly, it would be up to the owner, Muhammad, to decide what duties his slave-girl has, whether only being available to him for physical pleasure, or also doing work in the house, or the garden, or aiding one or several or all of his wives in their duties. But if the owner wants, he can certainly reserve her for himself exclusively, and she would then not have had to work for the wives.Be that as it may, Karim’s comments provide support for Sina’s argument regarding Mariyah being Hafsa’s maid,

Some Final Remarks
In his haste to "refute" me, Umar responds to my point that Sura 4:128-130 gave Muhammad sanction to neglect his wife by claiming that I misunderstood Sura 4:34! He writes:

Sam Shamoun now shows how ignorant he is of Sura 4:34, where Allah Almighty tells men, that they are the "protectors and maintainers of women": It is very hard to see how I could be called ignorant of Sura 4:34 when I never even mentioned it in my rebuttal! It seems that Umar simply copied and pasted this section from another rebuttal addressing another article I had written where I discuss this specific text. Moreover, despite the fact that the data overwhelmingly supports the position that Mariyah was Muhammad’s slave, not his wife, that is still not the real issue. As we have seen throughout these series of exchanges there are Muslim sources which do say that Muhammad married Mariyah. Here is the real issue: Recall that in our initial and first rebuttal we were addressing the assertions of two Muslims who DENIED that Mariyah was Muhammad’s slave:

Looking at any reputable source will tell you that Muhammad (PBUH) and Mariyah (RA) were legally married… (Bahagia, Muhammad (PBUH) and Mariyah (RA); source) And:

Our Response: Ali Sina begins his article, with a CLEAR-CUT LIE! Mariyah the Copt wasn't just a servant, she was the Prophet’s (S) own Wife! (Bassam Zawadi, Rebuttal to Ali Sina's article: "Mariyah the Sex Slave of the holy Prophet"; original version of this article)

[1] Hence, the issue at hand is whether there is evidence from Islamic sources which emphatically say that Muhammad never married Mariyah and that she remained his slave until he died. As we have demonstrated, and as Umar himself had to concede, there is plenty of evidence for this view. These Muslims were therefore wrong for claiming otherwise or for selectively choosing data which supported their position while ignoring other references which disagreed with their claim. That was the point of our rebuttal. Whether Mariyah was Muhammad’s slave or his wife, or even a slave whom he later married, is beside the point. We conclude with a summary of all the conflicting views and gross contradictions posited by the various Muslim sources.
- Muslim sources present contradictory dates for Surah 33, specifically 33:52.
- Muslim sources contradict one another regarding whether Sura 33:52 was abrogated by Sura 33:50 or not.
- Muslim sources indicate that Sura 33:50 was given before Sura 33:52, which means that the abrogating verse actually came before the verse which it was suppose to abrogate!
- Muslim sources contradict one another whether Mariyah was Muhammad's wife or concubine.
- The so-called sound narrations (the sahih ahadith) say that Muhammad had a total of nine wives, a number which excludes Mariyah from being a wife since including her would raise the number to ten.
- Muslim sources disagree whether Sura 33:52 prohibited Muhammad from marrying all women, including slaves, or whether he was prohibited from marrying slave women who were not spoils of war.

The foregoing exposes the mass confusion that exists within Islamic scholarship and how utterly chaotic the religion of Islam truly is. If the readers are interested in seeing how well Umar did in defending his thesis against agnostics and atheists we recommend reading the posts found on this link. Umar’s name in the forum is Qur’anSearch.Com.

Notes:[1] After realizing that there are Muslim sources which do teach that Mariyah was Muhammad’s slave, not his wife, Zawadi was humble enough to change his initial position against Sina: Our Response: Previously I accused Ali Sina of being a liar when he said that Mariyah was only a slave of the Prophet. It turns out that there is a difference in opinion regarding if Mariyah was the Prophet's wife or slave. So I apologize to Sina for that. However, even though, Ali Sina fails to prove anything against the Prophet.We truly respect and appreciate Zawadi’s willingness to correct himself when realizing he has made a mistake. There is nothing wrong with being mistaken since we all can be wrong and commit errors in our speeches and writings.

Source: http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Osama/umar_mary3.htm

IHS