Pujiono Cahyo Widianto may simply have been imitating Muhammad: "The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88
Child marriage is common in some areas of the Islamic world in imitation of Muhammad's example, since Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct for Muslims (cf. Qur'an 33:21). And so here again we confront the irony: Islamic spokesmen in the West routinely denounce as "Islamophobes" those who point out that Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha when he was 54 and she was 9, and claim that Aisha was much older, but in the Islamic world the Misunderstanders of Islam once again abound, and engage in or condone child marriage in imitation of Muhammad. Indonesia jailed Pujiono Cahyo Widianto; the Islamic Republic of Iran, however, lowered the legal marriageable age of girls to nine, in imitation of Muhammad. And so it goes.
"Indonesian cleric jailed for marrying 12-year-old," from The Associated Press, November 24:
SEMARANG, Indonesia -- An Indonesian Muslim cleric who sparked a national outcry by marrying a 12-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison.Judges at the Semarang District Court said Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, 46, was found guilty of sexually abusing a minor.
The cleric, who also ran an Islamic boarding school and owned several businesses, hosted a lavish wedding in Central Java province in 2008 that was attended by thousands of people.
He claimed at the time he hadn't done anything wrong because he had no plans to consummate the marriage until the girl reached puberty.
But few in the predominantly Muslim nation of 237 million were mollified, especially when he went on to say he also intended to marry two other girls, aged 7 and 9.
Complaints came from the religious affairs minister, child rights groups and the Indonesia Ulemma Council - the country's top Islamic body....
He claimed at the time he hadn't done anything wrong because he had no plans to consummate the marriage until the girl reached puberty.
But few in the predominantly Muslim nation of 237 million were mollified, especially when he went on to say he also intended to marry two other girls, aged 7 and 9.
................................
Not just child marriage, but *multiple child marriages*. As though any child so young can consent to marry—or even realize what marriage entails. Note also, that the Islamic concept of "puberty" seldom coincides with that of Western medicine—many Muslims claim that 9-year-old Aisha had "reached puberty".
More:
The cleric, who also ran an Islamic boarding school...
................................
This creep *runs a boarding school*—oh boy.
OK, well I take slight encouragement from this.
Let's not forget that into the 1960s you could marry a 12 year old in Nevada. And I think Jerry Lee Lewis did in fact. And wasn't it his cousin?
Indonesia was never as thoroughly Islamised as other parts of the Muslim world. They still have a very thriving pagan sub-culture, in which Muslims happily engage (free love sessions and all the rest). And here they have actually imprisoned the guy, not just said they would.
Indonesia is somethign like a functioning democracy as well. They may be acting in illogical denial of Sharia, but that is all to the good.
Muslims trying to clean up Islam is highly likely a futile effort. There comes a point when cleaning up is no longer an option, only chucking the putridity du jour (du millennium?) will truly work. After all, Islam is a totalitarian ideology and when has a totalitarian ideology ever been redeemed?
Watch tomorrow they will be rioting for his release. Its the sunnah of the prophet to marry 6 years old girls and have intercourse at nine. Why can't he. The news hasn't sunk in yet.
notoshariah wrote:
Let's not forget that into the 1960s you could marry a 12 year old in Nevada. And I think Jerry Lee Lewis did in fact. And wasn't it his cousin?
.........................
Oh, good grief—more moral equivalence.
For one thing, Jerry Lee Lewis—who did indeed marry his 13-year-old first cousin once removed in 1958—is still *notorious* for this. When news got out, his record label canceled his British tour, which he had just begun. Back in the United States, most radio stations blacklisted him, and the scandal almost completely destroyed his career.
This was *hardly* common practice in the United States at the time—average age of marriage for women in 1960 was twenty years of age.
Also, what about the little 7- and 9-year-olds this cleric intends to add as his third and fourthh wives? You'll have to go back to arranged royal betrothals from the Middle Ages to find anything remotely like this in the West.
Also, this poor child was "won" in a contest—bartered away by her parents.
This, from the Jakarta Post:
Pujiono Cahyo Widianto, a 43-year-old owner of an Islamic boarding school, wed and likely slept with Lutfiana Ulfa in August after she won a contest to become Pujiono’s second wife judged by his first wife, 26, and followers, the Jakarta Post reported.
The girl’s parents admitted that financial difficulties led them to marry their daughter to Pujiono and said the marriage is valid in the eyes of their religion (kawin siri), [note the reference to polygamous child marriage being Islamically correct here—GI] though not registered with the state, Indonesian Child Protection Commission secretary Hadi Supeno told the Post.
The commission planned to immediately report Pujiono, his first wife and Lutfiana’s parents to the police for a criminal investigation, Hadi told the Post. All could face a maximum of 15 years in jail and a $30,000 fine, for forcing, swindling and/or trading a minor into sex.
Here's 43-year-old Pujiono Cahyo Widianto and his little child bride:
http://www.indonesiamatters.com/images-2/ulfa.jpg
I'm not sure what book he's holding up, but I'm sure it should be the Qu'ran.
Thanks for that addendum, gravenimage. You know, even good people can fall into the moral equivalency trap without realizing it. But with folks like you at the ready, it's less likely to occur as the present rolls into the future. My compliments, and Happy Thanksgiving (a greater feast than anything Islam has ever come up with) to you and yours.
The AP news article says the perpetrator was a Muslim cleric, not just anyone. We know that's why he was so brazen and proud of it, because being devout and well-schooled in scripture he knew it was fully justified. That's what makes it a notable story, more than news about a dog biting a mailman. Incidentally, early in Muhammad's ministry the pagans in Mecca thought the guy was nuts and obnoxious even by standards of Meccan paganism.
Graven Image -
My comment about Nevada was not moral equivalence. It woudl be moral equivalence if I said because Nevada allowed children to marry, so we should not criticise Islam for allowing children to marry. But I precisely do NOT say that. I merely point to the Nevada example in case anyone has forgotten what progress we have made in the West - more than people care to remember. The fact that this cleric has been jailed, shows that Indonesia IS making progress. It may be a long, slow, hard road, but for me this is defineitly real progress that should be respected as such. I mean - what else do you want? They have a law against child marriage and they are enforcing it - morevover they are enforcing it with respect to an Islamic cleric.
Bhobby,
I agree witu your observations, but that makes it all the more significant that Indonesia is thus enforcing - on a cleric - what amounts to a secular law. We should applaud that.
Reading this story made me a little verklempt, my eyes teared up, my Adam's apple bobbed, and my lips quivered as, as...
*** Tabari 8:110 ***
When Abu Sufyan learned that Mohammed had taken the girl, he said, "That stallion's nose is not to be restrained!"
... as the image came to my mind of Osama bin Laden's tearful parting from his 12 yr old wife in the Sudan, as he set off for Aghan to fulfill Allah's command for him to wage Jihad.
OBL is hugely popular in the Ummah. He is a hero now cuz of his great success at mass murder, and he'll be an even bigger hero once he is martyred in the Global Jihad he declared a decade ago.
Don't you love this - wife #1 is the judge in a contest to determine who will be wives #2,3 & 4. Sounds like the closest thing Islam has to adoption, since the latter practice is forbidden in Islam
All could face a maximum of 15 years in jail and a $30,000 fine, for forcing, swindling and/or trading a minor into sex.
Aren't the Moslems on this commission apostates? After all, seizing young girls and boys (much younger than 12 yrs old) and selling them into sex slavery was a proud practice among Mohammed and his Companions.
If Islam is above criticism, and it is, this crew should be award the Indonesian Medal of Honor, not treated by pervert criminals.
"The girl’s parents admitted that financial difficulties led them to marry their daughter to Pujiono and said the marriage is valid in the eyes of their religion (kawin siri), [note the reference to polygamous child marriage being Islamically correct here—GI] though not registered with the state"
In Christianity, one must submit to the law of the nation, yet in Islam, it sounds to me like you may take active steps to break it.
The real historical foundation of Islam, is on the predatory rape of children, women & mass murder of the Jews/non-Muslims, to assert the dominance of a primitive and savage Arabic cult by Mohammed & his army! Are we surprise then that they will keeo on produce such evil monsters - after all Nazism produces similar evil monsters! Further, if we kept such predatory evilness unchallenged, the evilness will actually get worst; thus is why rapists and murderers are jailed for their crimes! But when evil men/women hide their crimes using religion - somehow it has to be tolerated; how barbaric is that? I'm a Christian who're not taught to bow down like slaves to evil! See the news on how Pedophilia i.e rape of children, is normalized in Islam, all following Mohammed! See- "An Asian gang of 'sexual predators' cruised city streets for girls as young as 12 - usually white - who were then plied with drink and drugs and raped or abused.
Up to 100 ‘vulnerable’ girls may have been groomed, abused or supplied cocaine by married fathers Abid Saddique and Mohammed Liaqat, and their friends....After yesterday’s verdicts at Leicester Crown Court, a senior officer warned that child exploitation and abuse was a ‘hidden’ problem nationwide...." - at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332746/Asian-gang-raped-girls-young-12-picking-streets-sex.html
Asian gang of predators abused and raped up to 100 girls as young as 12
By Andy Dolan
Last updated at 7:42 AM on 25th November 2010
(due to UK's surrender to Islam, the religious identity of these criminals are hidden!)
Where are the girl's parents? Did they consent to it? If so, they should also be held accountable according to their law. (Whoops!)
@ gravenimage:
The book is "Adventures of a bystander" by Peter F. Drucker.
http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Bystander-Foundation-Nonprofit-Management/dp/0471247391/ref=sr_1_31?ie=UTF8&qid=1290716998&sr=8-31
"The AP news article says the perpetrator was a Muslim cleric, not just anyone. "
Exactly. It's actually the Muslim "clerics", leaders and imams who are the WORST offenders.
Which doesn't excuse the so-called "moderates", because they do nothing about it.
Forced marriage to, and forcible marital relations with, very young girls, even prepubescent girls, is rife in many parts of dar al Islam: most notably Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia (which is where most of the horror stories are coming from that actually reach the western media), but it is not confined to those countries.
A first-hand report from Afghanistan, which appeared as a comment to an article from 2007; the author identifies himself as an American army medic (I have corrected a few minor typos and spelling errors), -
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/02/45-yr-old-divorces-4-yr-old-wife.html
American_soldier | February 10, 2007 9:56 AM
Sick indeed.
'He might have already deflowered her. If not she still has the bad social stigma of being divorced and she is only four. He just has to wait a few more years then she is legal.
'While in Afganistan, we ran a clinic for people in the village.
'You wouldn't believe the number of abused women that were brought there.
'Young girls around six to 14.
'They were burned with scalding water, beat, had all kinds of damage to their reproductive organs. Some women within an inch of their life.
' I am sure a lot a killed and there is no repercussions for the husbands.
'They were often brought by their husbands, who were about 20 to 30 years their senior. They [the men] freak out when their young brides don't get pregnent or for any reason under the sun.
'I think most [of] these girls by nature just try to be kids, which they are, and their adult husbands can't take it.
'A women that's older than 14 and not married is an old maid.
'Any western woman that would convert to Islam, should live in Afghanistan."
There are, in the archives, lots of reports of routine wedding and bedding of little girls in Yemen.
There is also Miriam Ali's book, 'Without Mercy'.
It is the story of a British woman who foolishly married a Yemeni Arab Muslim, in Britain: he flitted to Yemen as soon as their two daughters were what he regarded as marriageable/ saleable age, and sold them off like cattle...all they were was, tilth, broodstock.
At the answering-islam website a poster shared extracts from the book.
'Miriam Ali, in "Without Mercy", pub. by Warner Books, 1995, tells the story of her daughters being abducted and sold as wives in Yemen. Their names are Nadia and Zana. The girls were both in their early teens.
' Here are relevant excerpts:
'page 123: - "Gowan (a man who purchased one of Miriam's daughters) laughed in my face. "They are not your daughters Miriam, they are ours (because the men purchased the girls). Mine and Abdul Khada. I paid good money for Nadia to bear children for my son, as Abdul Khada paid for Zana....Muthana (Miriam's husband) knows this. He knew this when we struck our deal. He has no problem with it........."Do you think I would allow this, the sale of my own daughters?" What is it to do with you Miriam? This is man's business, nothing for a woman to concern herself with."
'page 300: - "I discovered that I wasn't the only one to have suffered at the hands of a Shamiri.
"** I now knew at least 5 other mothers who have had their children taken to Yemen. This had accounted for at least 10 other children, the majority of them female. I knew that there were many more like them.** {my emphasis - dda}
"Zana had met so many girls taken from the Midlands (England), taken by force who were now in Yemen.
"One was a petite blonde from Derby. **She was 9 years old when she was taken and had already three miscarriages when she became pregnant a forth time. This time the child had been stillborn. The death of this little baby had taken the child-mother's sanity. She was 12 years old.** {my emphasis - dda}.
"Another, also 12 years old, often chatted to Zana, telling her she could still count to 10 in English. She told Zana how desperate she was to go home to England. As they talked together, she suckled a child at her breast."'
An occasional poster here, 'Interested', mentioned the enslavement and rape of very young girls in Saudi Arabia, as described in Jean Sassoon's "Princess":
"Have you read 'Princess' by Jean Sassoon? She wrote about three books on similar themes. Very easy to read, these books touch on the inevitable lesbianism that arises for that very reason.
"It also describes the temporary 'marriage' of young girls and sex slavery generally.
"Two stories stick in my mind.
"One is of a 12 year old girl from Pakistan, {who might well have been a kidnapped-and-forcibly-Islamised Hindu or Christian girl, not even a Muslim - dda} sold to a Saudi man as a sex slave and being gang raped by him and his brothers.
"Not only do the men not think it is wrong, but the Arab women think it is OK because men can't help themselves and in any case the girl has been paid for.
"Another story is of a girl in a modern hospital in Jeddah, about to give birth.
"As soon as she has had the baby she will be executed. Her crime? **She was gang raped** {my emphasis - dda}.
"Astonishingly, the writer completely exhonerates Islam from these and other horrors she describes.
"Yet the treatment of women is no worse than that meted out by Mohammed and his companions and breaks no law in Islam."
- Posted by: Interested at October 7, 2005 11:57 AM
Islam turns men into the human equivalent of 'killer roosters'.