Review of the criticisms against Prophet Muhammad’s marriage with Zaynab Bint Jahsh

Abstract

Since the 7th century, we have had criticisms of Prophet Mohammed for his preaching of monotheism by his non-Muslim Arab contemporaries and his discussions on Jewish Faith by Jewish Arabs. During the middle ages, various western and Byzantine Christian thinkers described the Middle East as a hotbed of sexuality and Prophet Muhammad‟s marriage came to be a focal point of criticism in biographical writings. Western critics such as William Montgomery Watt, Dermenghem, Washington Irving, Lammens, William Muir and Karen Armstrong considered Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.) to be lustful in his marriage to his wives.His marriage with Zaynab bint Jahsh, more than others, attracted bitterer criticism. Unfortunately, the early Arabic sources relied upon by critics lack scientific. It is against this assertion that this paper re-examined existing literature on the issue and identified the relevance of the marriage to the contemporary time using a combination of historical and exegetical research methods. Historical method is necessary in this work because the author researched into works on biography to study the view of biographers on the personalities discussed. Exegetical works on the Qur‟an are also consulted to navigate the views of exegetes on the verses that relate to the subject matter. The aim of this work is to probe the authenticity of sources relied upon by critics and to relate the lessons in the marriage to the contemporary time. Findings show that the criticism of Prophet Muhammad‟s marriage to Zainab lacks objectivity and so requires a review for the sake of moral justice.