The Marriages of Sawdah and Aishah

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

After Khadījah's death, the Prophet (ﷺ) was reportedly not seen smiling for many months, so profound was his grief. Khawlah bint Ḥakīm eventually suggested that he consider remarriage; asked who she had in mind, she proposed Sawdah bint Zamʿah as a mature choice and ʿĀʾishah bint Abī Bakr as a young one. The Prophet (ﷺ) married both within a month of each other, the nikāḥ with ʿĀʾishah was concluded in Mecca, but the marriage was not consummated for roughly three and a half years, until she was living in Medina.

SAWDAH

Sawdah's first husband, as-Sukrān ibn ʿAmr, had emigrated with her to Abyssinia and died shortly after their return, one of only a handful of named Companions who died in the Meccan period. When she accepted Islam her own family disowned her, leaving her without anyone to care for her in Mecca; the Prophet (ﷺ) married her, probably in Shawwāl of the tenth year of the daʿwah, in part out of compassion for her situation. She was the eldest of all his wives, and, by her own account, preserved in the context of the Farewell Ḥajj, of a large build with difficulty walking in later life; she asked and received permission to leave Muzdalifah early with a small group under Ibn ʿAbbās to avoid the crush of the crowd, a report that later became the basis for the fiqh ruling permitting the elderly and infirm to leave Muzdalifah before the rest of the pilgrims.

Later in Madinah, sensing that age might eventually lead to divorce, she took the initiative herself: she told the Prophet (ﷺ) she felt no jealousy toward his other wives and wished only to be resurrected among them on the Day of Judgment, and voluntarily gave up her allotted night to ʿĀʾishah. Q 4:128, permitting spouses to settle matters between themselves by mutual agreement ("waṣ-ṣulḥu khayr"), is understood to have been revealed in connection with this arrangement. Sawdah died in the caliphate of ʿUmar and was buried in Baqīʿ al-Gharqad.

ʿĀʾISHAH

ʿĀʾishah's marriage is treated only briefly here, as her life warrants dedicated treatment on its own. The Prophet (ﷺ) related, in a hadith preserved in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, that he had seen her in a dream, an angel bringing him a veiled woman, who was then unveiled to reveal ʿĀʾishah, and took it as confirmation that the marriage was ordained. The nikāḥ took place in Mecca; the marriage itself was consummated only after the Hijrah, in the second year, once she was living in Medina.