Thus, history shows that after marrying a maiden, he also married a widow.

Thus, history shows that after marrying a maiden, he also married a widow.[^3] Also, after marrying a young and beautiful woman, he also married a feeble aged woman.[^4] The history of the Prophet is the best witness to this fact. History attests that the Prophet’s marriage to Umm al-Salamah, who was an elderly woman, and Zaynab daughter of Jahsh, who was fifty, occurred after his marriage to ‘Ā’īshah and Umm Habībah, who were young and beautiful.

In addition, the Prophet himself enjoined his wives against adornments and luxuriousness. He gave them a choice between divorce and a life of austerity and abandonment of adornments and luxury.

But if you desire Allah and his Messenger and the Last Abode, then surely Allah has prepared for the doers of good among you a mighty reward’.” [^5] In principle, dislike of adornments and luxury cannot be a mental quality of a person who is madly addicted to relations with women. Reasons for the Prophet’s marriages A fair researcher has no choice but to justify the many marriages of the Prophet during his middle years on a basis other than lust and hedonism.

Some of his marriages were exclusively to gain influence. He hoped to extend his tribe and kin through marriage in the interests of proselytization. Certain marriages were for the purpose of appeasing and assuaging various individuals. Though marriage he safeguarded himself against possible dangers to his mission. In some marriages, his aim was merely to deliver a woman from misfortune and provide her livelihood.

In this way he edified his followers in practice and taught them to support the poor and helpless. In a number of his marriages, the aim was to carry out a divine decree and in this way eradicate some of the unsound thoughts of the Age of Ignorance. This was his intent in marrying Zaynab, the daughter of Jahsh. At first, she was the wife of Zayd ibn Hārithah, who was the adopted son of the Prophet of Allah.