Ummahat al-muminin (the mothers of the believers: the wives of the Prophet)

The mothers of the believers are the women whom the Prophet married and with whom he consummated the marriage. They are twelve in number; the Prophet died leaving nine of them. ¹² The title is not given to a woman married but not consummated, nor to one he took as a slave-concubine, such as Mariyya the Copt. ¹

• Islam: all of them were Muslims; the Malikis and Shafi'is hold that he could not marry a Christian or Jewish woman. ²
• Freedom: none of them was a slave; the Malikis and Shafi'is hold that he could not marry a slave even a Muslim. ²³
• Not refusing migration: God forbade him to marry believing women who had not migrated; Abu Yusuf argued that naming a thing does not exclude what is not named. ³
• Chastity. ⁴

• They had no right to a turn of nights or equal treatment among them, and he could prefer any of them. ⁴⁵
• Their marriage to others was forbidden for ever by the text of the Qur'an. The jurists differ on the women he separated from before consummation: the Shafi'is, and al-Nawawi in his correction, hold the bar applies; others do not. ⁵
• The jurists differ on whether a mother of the believers observes the waiting period of widowhood and keeps her maintenance and lodging. ⁵

Scholars differ on whether the mothers of the believers belong to the household of the Prophet. Some say they do, a view attributed to Aisha, Ibn Abbas, Ikrima, Urwa and Ibn Taymiyya; others say they do not, citing the hadith of the cloak that Umm Salama was told to stay in her place. ⁵⁶

• Believers must honour them and protect them from speech and gaze. ⁶
• Slandering Aisha with what God cleared her of is unbelief, punished by death, a view said to be agreed by al-Qadi Abu Ya'la and others. ⁶
• The jurists differ on slander of other mothers of the believers: some hold it punished like the slander of Aisha; others, a single hadd like the slander of any Muslim; Masruq and Sa'id ibn Jubayr, a double hadd. ⁶⁷
• Insulting one of them other than by accusing her of unchastity is sin, and the offender is disciplined, as with insulting one of the companions. ⁷