In the hadith, there’s a curious hadith about monkeys, narrated by Amr bin Maimun:
During the pre-lslamic period of ignorance I saw a she-monkey surrounded by a number of monkeys.
They were all stoning it, because it had committed illegal sexual intercourse.
I too, stoned it along with them.
Sahih al-Bukhari 3849
There’s a longer hadith from Al Ismaili:
Al Ismaili (d. 371 AH) brought this story from another route in a longer form, from the route of Isa ibn Hattan, from Amr ibn Maymun. He said:
I was in Yemen with family sheep, and I was on a high place.
A male monkey came with a female monkey and he placed his hand under her as a pillow.
Then a smaller monkey came and signalled to her, so she gently slipped her hand out from under the head of the first monkey and followed him.
He fell upon her while I was watching.
Then she returned and started to put her hand back under the head of the first one gently.
He woke up alarmed, smelled her, and screamed.
The monkeys gathered, and he began to scream and point to her with his hand.
The monkeys went right and left, then they brought that monkey, and I recognised him.
They dug a hole for the two of them and stoned them.
I truly saw stoning outside the children of Adam.
Athari Archive
Interesting, isn’t it? How does Amr know it was sexual intercourse and illegal at that? Who is the prophet to these monkeys, these baboons?
It’s actually a disguised criticism of Muhammad (the first or big monkey), Aisha (the female monkey), and her lover (the third smaller monkey). Amr saw this happening. It’s about Muhammad being cuckolded with Muhammad’s silent approval. Muhammad knew that Aisha had a lover, and he approved of this because he knew he was infertile and couldn’t sire sons. He needed sons to form a dynasty. Instead, Muhammad died with no heirs, and rule passed to the caliphs.
