Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad

by Tamam Kahn
review by Kyra Epstein

Though I’m a Ruhaniat mureed, and love the Ruhaniat community, I’ve actually never had much interest in Muhammad. I don’t think I’m alone.

I find the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Kahn profound, the practices transforming, and the Dances of Universal Peace wonderfully heart-opening, but I’m drawn to the essence — and not the form — of Sufism, Islam…or any religious or spiritual institution. And, as a woman, I’ve always been troubled by my perception of how women are treated and perceived in Muslim cultures.

That being said, I burst into tears the first time I heard Tamam read her poem called Khadija:

He said,
…..Cover me
…..I can’t bear what I’ve seen and heard.

She said,
…..Hush! You are safe now.

He said nothing.

She said, rocking him,
…..I am womb-rooted, and sure.
…..Tell me.

He said nothing for a long time.

Then he said,
…..I was squeezed and forced to recite.
…..A terrifying being filled the sky
…..told me, You are God’s Prophet and I am Gabriel.

She said nothing.

Then she said,
…..The power of His language in your unschooled mouth
…..will bring your camel to her knees
…..and much of the world.
…..These verses you speak will be repeated
…..for more than a thousand years.
……….This I know.

Look to your heart.

Those words touched me, and, for the first time, I saw Muhammad as a man with a vulnerable side, a man who valued Khadija for her strength and wisdom. My heart went out to them both, which, I believe, is the unique strength of this book: the ability to invite readers into their heart while also engaging the mind in a subject that can be difficult to engage in this society and time. By oscillating between the stark historical sketches and the rich, colorful appeal of the poetry, my heart was expanded and engaged again and again.

As I discovered, reading on, theirs was a marriage of equals: ”Khadija, older and more experienced, guided her husband through the complex business and domestic relationships his new status as a part of a household with servants, property, and influence entailed.” He took on these duties, which helped to hone him for the leadership and responsibility that was to come. I was delighted to hear that Khadija was the one who asked to Muhammad to marry her, and that he valued her highly as his only wife from 595 until she died in 619. This is not the story of a man who doesn’t respect women.

But Tamam isn’t writing just to promote the status of women in Muhammad’s time. Her portrayal of each character seems scrupulously honest; the characters are real women stripped of myth and idealization. Each one “…stretches and moves, a person with a  remarkable life from the time way before Islam became a world religion.”

I read that Aisha is a young and fiery, the first betrothed to Muhammad after Khadija’s death. She’s no saint: jealous and plotting, she cheats a young beauty out of marriage to her husband. She’s smart, high-tempered, and has a sharp tongue. Muhammad is very fond of her, and tolerates her jealousies with what seems to be patience and even tenderness. She is never granted the child she so wants, so instead she studies law and becomes a warrior to defend what she believed her husband would have wanted.

Each wife has her story, her nobility, her darkness. Tamam brings them all out, one by one: matriarchal and aristocratic Umm Salama…

Once I was a child who galloped bareback
on the forbidden stallion. no bridle.
Flat against his neck, eyes open, flying.

Rayhanna, the first of the Jewish wives…

…No weapon of mine can save my clan.
…After this
last hour of the grape, there is only gore,
rust drying to brown, my father, husband, brother,

all the rest are gone—

Mariya, a gift from the Egyptian Christians…

I am Egyptian linen unrolled into the desert
I stitch the fine fabric of my house and a garden onto Medina;
darning the moth-hole of impatient men
reweaving Arabia wool by my own design.
I’m good with a needle.

With so many wives, fulfilling so many different political alliances and with so many different cultures and backgrounds — all sharing one husband — I can’t imagine the household could have been tranquil. I laugh when I read that Muhammad’s wives become too much and he retreats to a porch above the mosque for a month to reflect on the “feminine chaos” in the house!

Throughout the stories, I’m struck by Tamam’s own strength. Her strength to tell these stories as a Westerner, as a woman, someone not “authorized,” by anyone but her own inner knowing. The very personal accounts relayed so eloquently in her poems, tender or angry moments in Muhammad’s household, are not part of the hadith. And from what I can tell after reading her book, this all takes courage.

Who said you could do this? Who
are your ancestors, professors, godparents,
your stewards of the seen and unseen?
Locate for us your committee of yes
List your lectures, your papers, the degrees
which announce your right to write
about the Prophet’s wives…

I am a pilgrim, a pen with child’s heart,
following the foremothers through
doors shut on centuries of stolen words, across
floors now hushed in Saudi cement, down
steps to the cellar filled with the Hijaz story-jars.Unsealed, the jars open their mouths,
speak to me. I listen.

And we listen, Tamam. Thank you for your courage and commitment to these women and their message.