ʿIrāk relates—on the authority of ʿUrwah—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked Abū Bakr for ʿĀʾishah’s hand in marriage. Abū Bakr replied, “I am only your brother.” The Prophet said, “You are my brother in the religion of Allah and His Book, and she is lawful for me.”

On the face of it this ḥadīth appears mursal, yet in the view of al-Bukhārī and the leading scholars it is actually connected, for it comes through ʿUrwah from ʿĀʾishah. It is one of the traditions unique to al-Bukhārī.

Yūnus ibn Bukayr (1) reported from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ married ʿĀʾishah three years after (the death of) Khadījah. ʿĀʾishah was then six years old, and he consummated the marriage with her when she was nine. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed away when ʿĀʾishah was eighteen.” This report is unusual.

Al-Bukhārī (2) has also transmitted—through ʿUbayd ibn Ismāʿīl, from Abū Usāmah, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father—that “Khadījah died three years before the Prophet ﷺ left for Madinah. He then remained unmarried for two years—or thereabouts—and married ʿĀʾishah when she was six, thereafter consummating the marriage with her when she was nine.” Although ʿUrwah’s wording here looks mursal, in reality it carries the ruling of a connected chain.

His statement that the Prophet married her at six and consummated the marriage at nine is undisputed; it is established in the Ṣaḥīḥ collections and elsewhere. The consummation took place in the second year after the Hijrah to Madinah. As for the claim that the marriage contract occurred roughly three years after Khadījah’s death, that point requires closer scrutiny.

For Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān, the ḥāfiẓ, said (3): Ḥajjāj narrated to us; Ḥammād narrated to us, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah, who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ married me after Khadījah had passed away, before his departure from Mecca, when I was seven—or six—years old. When we reached Madinah, some women came to me while I was playing on a swing, my hair hanging loose to my shoulders. They prepared and adorned me, then brought me to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ when I was nine.”

Her phrase “after Khadījah had passed away” implies that it was soon afterward—unless something has dropped from the manuscript after those words—in which case it would not contradict the reports of Yūnus ibn Bukayr and Abū Usāmah from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah. Allah knows best.

Al-Bukhārī (4) also said: Furwah ibn Abī al-Maghrā related to us; ʿAlī ibn Mus-hir related to us, from Hishām ibn ʿUrwah, from his father, from ʿĀʾishah, who said: “The Prophet ﷺ married me when I was six years old. We came to Madinah and stayed among Banū al-Ḥārith ibn al-Khazraj. I fell ill and my hair fell out, but it later grew back to shoulder length. Then my mother, Umm Rūmān, came to me—while I was…"