Medieval Islamic Families

According to the Koran, Muslim men were allowed to have as many as four wives if they were rich enough to take care of them all, but most men in the Islamic world still had only one wife. In fact, most people in the Islamic empire lived as people had in the Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire before them: in families with a dad and a mom and a bunch of kids, and sometimes the dad's mother and his unmarried brothers and sisters (the kids' aunts and uncles).

The Birth of Mohammed (Iran, about 1315 AD, now in Edinburgh)

As with earlier times, other people also lived in the house and counted as part of the family. These were mostly slaves or employees. People in the Islamic Empire, like the Sassanians and the Romans, still didn't make much of a distinction between their families and their businesses.