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women and islamic law 269MuÈammad’s (ß) messengerhood introduced the beginning of thesecond historical epoch (‘after his mission’), his own marriages werestill arranged according to the traditions and customs of the oldepoch (‘before his mission’). This is confirmed by the followingverse:There can be no difficulty to the prophet in what God has indicatedto him as a duty. It was the practice (approved) of God [sunnat All§h]amongst those of old who have passed away. And the command ofGod is a decree determined. ( Al-AÈz§b 33:38)We should avoid judging his polygynous marriages by the standardsand norms of the second historical period he helped to initiate. Weshould not, for example, postulate that to marry more than fourwives was a special dispensation for prophets since this presupposesthat a restriction on polygyny was already in place as a norm atMuÈammad’s time, but this clearly was not the case. It follows fromthis that we are not supposed to imitate MuÈammad’s (ß) examplewith regard to his marriages. Note that the above verse explicitlyuses the term ‘prophet’ ( al-nabÊy) and not ‘messenger’ ( al-rasål), andwe know that only what MuÈammad (ß) did as a messenger is meantto be a role model to be followed by the Muslim-Believers:You have indeed in the apostle [rasål] of God a beautiful pattern (ofconduct)… ( Al-AÈz§b 33:21)Verse 38 of Sårat al-AÈz§b makes the point that Allah had askedHis Prophet (ß) to do things that were ‘practice amongst those of oldwho have passed away’, which is a clear sign for us not to followMuÈammad (ß) in that. Two things can be deduced from this:1. The normative study of the Prophet’s ( ß) marriages is a pointlessexercise because it would inevitably mean to assess his polygynousrelationships from the perspective of contemporary norms andpractices. It would confuse the standards of his pre-mission maritalpractices with the post-mission marital norms that his messengerhood(and this excludes his marriages!) aimed to introduce.2. In as much as MuÈammad’s (ß) polygynous marriages cannot be amodel for us to follow, the same is true regarding the behaviour ofMuÈammad’s (ß) wives. Allah says: ‘O consorts of the prophet! ( y§nis§" al-nabÊy!) You are not like any of the (other) women…’( Al-AÈz§b 33:32). This verse addresses only the ‘women of the