The story below is graphic. But it has to be told, as it graphically illustrates the human cost of Islamic child marriage and the treatment of women and girls as commodities.

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

"The 8-years-old bride who was brutally killed on first night of her wedding," by Mustafa Kazemi on Facebook, May 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ADVISORY – This article includes information that may be undesirable, discomfort & upset some audiences.

The 8-years-old girl whose story you’ll read in coming lines did not make it to the 2nd night of her wedding nor did she make it to her 9th or 10th birthday.

Her name unknown, my source telephoned me last week at 9:30 pm to tell me her story. At the first I thought it’s just going to be a short conversation but later it was unveiled that the story is different.

The story came from a village in Khashrood district of Nimruz province in Afghanistan.

A medical doctor assigned in the main hospital in Zaranj city, the capital of the province, who wished to remain unnamed confirmed that he was “made aware” of the incident and that it was “too late to do anything for her” as well the “remote area didn’t allow them to do anything”.

The girl was one of the several daughters of a man in his late 30s. For an unknown reason he gave his daughter to the Mullah of their village for a big amount of money. It is also common in Afghanistan's rural areas or 3rd level provinces/cities to marry young girls to old men, and trading their daughters for their debts or other items.

The mullah is in his late 50s and is the mosque guy of the village where this incident happened.

The mullah is already married and has many children too.
The two families hold a tribal meeting, agree on the price that the groom’s family pay to the bride’s family, and they set a date for wedding.

In rural areas like this here there are no engagements or any ceremonies beforehand like there are some in the metropolitan and urban areas.

The two families planned a wedding party, the wedding and Nekah (The religious process in which a woman is officially married to a man) took place and the 8-years-old bride became the 50-years-old Mullah’s 2nd wife.

The celebration party was over and the sun downed – the time to have sex (not make love) with the 8-years-old bride.

The girl was just 8 years old and everybody understands the fact that she knows nothing about sex or wedding or making love or virginity or sexual related topics; not even at a basic level for two reasons, one being that she’s just a child – not even a teenager and that in that part of the country, nobody knows anything about these things nor they are given trainings or education about a healthy sexual life.

The mullah takes off the bride’s clothes as well as his owns and with apparent so much happiness approaches her for sexual intercourse with the 8-years-old bride.
Because of the Mullah’s huge physique which gave him a big penis, he threw himself on her and started to penetrate the girl’s vagina.

After several tries that led him to failure to penetrate her vagina, the Mullah was frustrated.

He failed because the 8-years-old girl who was about to die was physically thin and had a very tight vagina opening.

Sourced from the Mullah’s animal behavior, he took out the sharp knife that he always carried with himself in his pocket and tore apart the girl’s vagina from the clitoris side upwards as well as tore it downwards towards her anus in order to make the vagina larger enough so he can enter his penis into her vagina.

Naturally, she started to bleed in a very bad amount, but the mullah was too annoyed for not being able to have sex with her, to care for what he did or her bleeding or her wounds that he gave her.

The girl had her scarf stuffed in her mouth, crying and trying to not raise her voice because others were there in the room adjacent to or outside.

It is a rule in some of the areas in Afghanistan that the groom brings out a piece of cloth that he cleaned his wife’s hymen blood with it as a proof that the girl was virgin.

Mullah entered his penis into the girl’s severely bleeding vagina and had sexual intercourse with her on a blood-covered bed, and then got up and cleaned himself with a cloth.

The girl, who now has lost everything, was bleeding and there was nobody to help her neither could the Mullah ask for help as it was a shame for him and the girl’s family (who were sitting over a cup of tea in the other room, would kill him).

Our 8-years-old bride bled and went into a traumatic shock because of both forced sex as well as severe bleeding. She had lost so much blood, this I can tell for certain.

She bled and bled as herself was in trauma shock until morning and early in the morning around 5 when the sun was about to rise, she passed away.

According to the Mullah, she was pale and her eyes were open when she died. The bed, as he described, was all red with her blood and she was lying in her blood only. No cloth beneath her was recognizable and everything was in dried blood because a whole night had passed on the blood.

She was pale because she had lost all her body’s blood. Her eyes were open as she was shivering when she died and her hands were tied in a praying position, saying her death time prayer.

The Mullah called in the same person and asked him to clean up the mess around and prepare a reason to tell the others for her death. Because the man was a close friend or family of the mullah, he did whatever he could, including every piece of cloth that was bloody.

They wrapped her in a piece of white clothes and called the others that she has passed away.

That morning her family mourned her death in the saddest manner without looking for proper explanation about her death, and then took her to wash her body as a religious ritual.

Because the Mullah had a great influence on the village, none of the women who washed the girl's body dared to ask or seek the reason for the wounds around her vagina.

By 10 am or so they rallied the now-dead 8-years-old bride to the graveyard and buried her.

Her life ended.

The close friend of mullah, who knew everything, was very upset and shared the story with my source that then called me and told me the story.

Another doctor that I asked in Zaranj said that he wasn’t aware of the case, but he remembers that he used to treat the now-dead bride when she was 4 or 5 years old.

This doctor also asked me to not name him anywhere but only said that he was “deeply saddened that incidents like that still happen in Afghanistan”.

He called it one of the reasons of Afghanistan no going forward: People’s idiocy and uncivilized behaviors and traditions.

This story reached to me was told the exact way as it happened by the Mullah to a very close friend of him after the girl’s dead body was buried. According to the Mullah, he had a “bad conscience” about it.

Mustafa Kazemi
War Correspondent
Afghanistan

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

"Gender and Society In Iran – Part 1: The Debate Over Child Marriage, Including Child Brides Wed To Adult Men," by Y. Mansharof and A. Savyon for MEMRI, April 24:

...Under Iranian law, girls may marry at 13 and boys at 15, and children under 10 may marry with the approval of their guardian and the court.[1]According to official statistics, about one million children, even under age 10, are married. The statistics also show that 85% of these one million married children are girls – meaning that most of them are married to grown men.[2]

Child Marriage Is Growing, And Poses Great Risk To Society – But It's Permitted By Islamic Law

Public figures – sociologists, Majlis members, activists, and others – have warned that the number of children marrying is on the rise, and with it the great health and social risks this poses for society, and have called on the regime to tackle it with legal and cultural reforms.[3] According to one sociologist, arranging marriages for children, especially girls, is common among poor and uneducated urban families that seek a way out of dire financial straits; he adds that the girls themselves are severely damaged both physically and psychologically.

Regime spokesmen have denied the extent of the phenomenon, and have also shrugged off the matter, saying that child marriage is legal and that preventing it is against Islamic law.

The following are facts, figures, and main arguments in the debate on child marriage in Iran.

The Statistics On Child Marriage In Iran

Marriage At Ages 10-15

According to regime statistics, from March through June of 2012, 1,805 children under the age of 15 were married legally and with the permission of the court; that number for the period from March 2011 to March 2012[4] was 7,440.

Expressing concern about the increase, anti-child-bride activist Farshid Yazdani, a member of the Association for the Defense of Children's Rights in Iran, noted that while in 2006 child marriages constituted 2.3% of all marriages, by 2010 that figure had grown 45%, to 4.9%. He warned the regime about the ramifications of child marriages, including divorce and domestic violence, and noted that in 2006, statistics showed that Iran had 25,000 divorced children aged 10-15.[5]

Marriages Under Age 10

According to Islamic law, girls reach maturity at age nine; in 2011, in Tehran province alone, 75 girls and boys under 10 were married.[6] Warning about the increase in marriages of children under 10, Yazdani noted that in 2010, in all of Iran 716 children under 10 wed – twice as many as in 2007.[7]

In an attempt to explain the increase in child marriages in Iran, Amanollah Gharai-Moghadam, who heads the Sociology Association of Iran, pointed at the economic difficulties afflicting Iranian society. He said that in Tehran province many destitute families accept any marriage proposal for their daughters regardless of the girls' ages – and regardless of their rights – so as to reduce the family's expenses. He added, "In some cases, poor families are forced to sell their daughters; in others they are forced to marry off their sons and daughters after the children conduct relations that are forbidden... and in still others, the girl is given to an elderly man in lieu of payment of a debt... In a society rife with poverty, [large] gaps in status, inflation, and unemployment, people act crudely."[8]...

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

Thus this news should come as no surprise to anyone -- except those who have bought the deceptive line of Islamic supremacists in the West, that Aisha was actually nineteen, etc.

"Activists slam marriage of 12-year-old in Malaysia," from AFP, November 23 (thanks to Lachlan):

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian activists on Friday slammed the wedding of a 12-year-old to her 19-year-old boyfriend, renewing their calls for the government to outlaw child marriages.

Nur Fazira Saad and Fahmi Alias married last week in northern Kedah state after the girl's father agreed to the union and an Islamic court granted permission, The Star daily reported.

"It is better for them to get married rather than doing something improper," Saad Mustafa, the girl's father, was quoted as saying.

But Ratna Osman, executive director of activist group Sisters in Islam, described the young couple's marriage as "shocking".

"I don't understand why this is allowed in a country like Malaysia... We are talking about a developed country," she told AFP. "The concern is that this is a child being married off... No parents should be doing this."

Child marriages are not uncommon in the conservative Southeast Asian country, where 60 percent of the population of 29 million people are Muslim.

Two years ago, the marriage of a 14-year-old Muslim girl to a 23-year-old schoolteacher triggered similar calls for reform.

Girls below the age of 16 must obtain the permission of Islamic courts, which regulate civil matters for Muslims. But activists say such permission is too readily granted.

There was another outcry in October when two men, aged 19 and 22, were released on probation after courts convicted them of statutory rape.

In both cases the girls, aged 12 and 13, had not been forced, lawyers said....

Oh, well, then!

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

Thus this news should come as no surprise to anyone -- except those who have bought the deceptive line of Islamic supremacists in the West, that Aisha was actually nineteen, etc.

"More than 5,000 child brides in Saudi Arabia," from Gulf News, November 8 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Dubai: More than 5,000 girls below the age of 14 are married off in Saudi Arabia, according to media reports.

There have been 5,622 marriages where the bride is under the age of 14 in Saudi Arabia, said Ali Abdul Rahman Al Roumi, a social services academic at Imam Mohammad Bin Saud Islamic University, adding that specifying a legal age would not solve the problem, and may lead to “even bigger problems”.

A number of families from “rural areas” have been marrying their daughters off to older, rich men, according to the Saudi owned Al Hayat newspaper.

“We must solve this, by at least looking at the difference in age in cases where the bride is young, in which case it can be deceptive” he said. He did not specify what period of time that figure represents.

He added however that it was “not a trend”....

Of course not. It's an entrenched practice, sanctioned by Muhammad's example and practiced for centuries going back to the dawn of Islam, and before that as well.

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also It allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

Thus this should come as no surprise to anyone -- except those who have bought the deceptive line of Islamic supremacists in the West, that Aisha was actually nineteen, etc.

"NGO decries endorsement of girl child marriage by Sudan’s state-controlled clerics," from the Sudan Tribune, October 22 (thanks to Lachlan):

October 22, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The head of Sudan’s main clerical authority, the Religious Scholars Committee (RSC), has publicly advocated girl child marriage, drawing the ire of women activists rights who called for an immediate ban against the practice.

According to the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA ), a local NGO, RSC’s chairman Mohamed Osman Salih, made his endorsement of girl child marriage in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on 17 October during a debate organized by the United Nation Fund for Population (UNFPA) in collaboration with the Sudanese Ministry of Religious Guidance on Girl’s Child Marriage.

SIHA reported that Salih argued that girl child marriage is an appreciative matter in Islam and has many advantages including the prospect of being able to produce many offspring.

The NGO recalled that in 2009 the RSC issued a Fatwa endorsing female circumcision despite much lobbying by activists to ban the harmful practice.

SIHA further criticized the fact that the Sudanese government has failed to amend the laws that allow girl child marriage, referring to the Sudan Personal Status Act of 1991 which contains an article allowing for the marriage of girls as young as 10.

“As women activists, women’s human rights defenders and community leaders across the Horn of Africa, we are saddened by the lack of progress Sudan is demonstrating and the lack of will to amend and revise the country’s laws and legislations towards respecting the human rights and dignity of women and girls” SIHA’s statement reads.

SIHA called on the Sudanese government to conform the country’s personal laws with international obligations and to immediately ban and criminalize the granting of marriage licenses for girls under the age of 18.

It also called for abolishing all legislation that seeks to undermine and violate women’s human rights.

Child marriage: "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)." (Sahih Bukhari, volume 7, book 62, number 88)

Wife-beating: "Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them." (Qur'an 4:34)

"Egyptian Islamist Muhammad Saad Al-Azhari Opposed to Clause in Constitution Preventing Sex Trafficking," from MEMRI, September 24 (thanks to Lachlan):

Following are excerpts from a TV show featuring Muhammad Saad Al-Azhari, a member of the Egyptian Constituent Assembly, which was broadcast on Al-Nas TV on September 24, 2012.

Muhammad Saad Al-Azhari: We were discussing a clause [proposed for the constitution] prohibiting forced labor and sex trafficking in women and children. I and some other members objected to this clause. We said that "trafficking in women" in the UN covenants refers to child marriage.

[...]

Then they wanted to add an article protecting women from violence. With such a clause, you wouldn't be allowed to say anything to her, let alone touch her. And there were things worse still...

TV Host Sheikh Khaled Abdallah: The people of Egypt should know what those secularists are trying to do. The man is a member of the Constituent Assembly. It's not me saying this. "Child protection" means that if your child goes astray, you cannot discipline him, beat him, or even say a word to him, or else he might call 911 like they do in America. Your wife will act insolently, and you won't be able to say a word to her. Forget about your manhood. If you dare to say anything to her, she will call the police on you. They want to exclude the Islamists from formulating the constitution, and do things that contradict the shari'a and the teachings of our Prophet. Go ahead.

Muhammad Saad Al-Azhari: If your wife claims that you were intimate with her without her consent, it will be considered rape according to the law. This is part of women's protection from violence. If you have full sexual relations with your wife against her will, she will be able to file a complaint against you. That's where things are headed....

Horrors!

Just yesterday Muslims on Twitter were excoriating me for my "ignorance," "lies" and "hate" for saying that according to the Islamic texts that Muslims consider most reliable, Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha when he was 54 and she was nine.

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also It allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

So will the Muslims defending Islam from scurrilous "Islamophobic" charges that it sanctions child marriage excoriate Yassir Barhami with the same furious contempt with which they went after me yesterday? Of course not. And this is neither personal nor singular: Islamic apologists routinely feign furious indignation at infidels who dare to point out aspects of Muslim belief and practice that are quite obviously true. It is simply a tactic of intimidation, to which they so often have recourse because it so often works.

"Egypt sheikh says girls should be married, have children starting at 14-years-old," by Joseph Mayton for Bikyamasr, September 29 (thanks to Lachlan):

CAIRO: An Egyptian cleric and member of the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting Egypt’s new constitution has said that girls 14-years-old are permitted to have sexual relations under Islam and has proposed reducing the marriage age limit as a result.

“It is permissible for the girl at the age of 9 or 10 to marry,” Yassir Barhami said in discussing a woman’s sexual reproduction and his interpretation of Islam.

The Salafist – ultra-conservative – preacher claimed that under Islam when a girl begins to ovulate she is ready for marriage.

He added during a television debate on Dream TV last Tuesday that “marriage of a girl would not be a supplement for education,” but added that it “was better” to marry a girl young “than falling into sin with customary marriage.”

The cleric cited the Qur’an in arguing that any girl who is menstruating should be married and begin having children.

At the same time of advocating the marriage age be dropped to 14-years-old, he argued that the Salafist Constituent Assembly is also pushing for a law that denies “slavery against women” in the new constitution.

Manal al-Taibi, a now resigned member of the Constituent Assembly, said that this call is the promotion of child marriage and is akin to rape.

She has resigned her position on the assembly in protest to the overuse of Sharia law, or Islamic law, permeating the drafting process.

"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

Muhammad being the supreme example of conduct for Muslims (cf. Qur'an 33:21), child marriage is sanctioned by his example. So it is no surprise that Muslim Brotherhood Egypt would be considering legalizing it.

"Egypt: NCW Rejects Marriage of Nine-Year-Old Girls," from Egypt State Information Service via AllAfrica.com, September 19:

The National Council for Women (NCW) has expressed its profound dismay at statements made by some members of the Constituent Assembly in charge of writing Egypt's new constitution on the possibility of sanctioning marriage of sexually mature girls even if they were at the age of nine.

The NCW described such viewpoint as a setback to child rights and is only expressive of outdated traditions still prevailing in the Egyptian society.

As we have seen again and again, wherever Islamic law and Western laws conflict, it is Western laws that must give way. Child marriage is rampant among those who believe that Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21), but Islamic spokesmen in the West frequently assert that it is a cultural phenomenon that has nothing to do with Islam. They did not, however, tell the mullahs.

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

"The child brides: Muslim mosque leaders agree to marry girl of 12 in Britain... so long as parents don't tell anyone," by Suzannah Hills in the Daily Mail, September 9 (thanks to David):

British Muslim mosque leaders are agreeing to carry out secret marriages with child brides as young as 12 in the UK, it emerged today.

In an undercover investigation, a Shite mosque leader agreed to marry a 12-year-old girl so long as she was a willing participant.

A Sunday Times journalist visited the Husaini Islamic Centre in Peterborough - the 'first Shite mosque in the whole of Europe' - posing as the father of a 12-year-old girl.

According to the newspaper, the reporter was told by Imam Mohamed Kassamali that 'under sharia [Islamic law] there is no problem' in marrying a 12-year-old.

But while he declared Islamic Law dictated a girl should see 'her first sign of puberty at the house of her husband', he admitted they would all get in to trouble if she went to police saying she was forced into the marriage.

He told the parents he would need to meet the bride and groom to be sure they were happy to go ahead with the marriage and urged them to delay having intimate relations until they were older.

When approached by the newspaper he insisted he would only have carried out the ceremony if it was allowed under British law and if both parties had not been coerced into the marriage.

But another retired Imam, Abdul Haque, who worships at the Shoreditch Mosque in east London, agreed to carry out the ceremony on the condition the parents kept it a secret from the authorities.

The Imam urged the undercover reporter to lie about the marriage and keep it a secret.

Haque said: 'Tell people it is an engagement but it will be a marriage.

'In Islam, once the girl reaches puberty the father has the right, the parents have the right, but under the laws of this country if the girl complains and says her marriage has been arranged and she wasn't of marriageable age, then the person who performed the marriage will be jailed as well as the mother and father.'

He then warned: 'Nobody should know about this and the girl must not complain... If she talks in school they will take the girl, social workers will take her and afterwards you and I will be in trouble.'...

"Sharia law states that females can be married as young as nine..."

But...but...Sharia is benign and completely compatible with Western notions of human rights!

Child marriage is rampant among those who believe that Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21), but Islamic spokesmen in the West frequently assert that it is a cultural phenomenon that has nothing to do with Islam. They did not, however, tell the mullahs.

"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

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

"Alarm as hundreds of children under age of 10 married in Iran," by Robert Tait in the Telegraph, August 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Iran has experienced a dramatic growth in under-age marriages that has seen the number of girls being wed before the age of 10 double in the space of a year, officially-compiled figures have revealed....

An Iranian NGO, the Society For Protecting The Rights of The Child, said 43,459 girls aged under 15 had married in 2009, compared with 33,383 three years previously. In 2010, 716 girls younger than 10 had wed, up from 449 the previous year, according to the organisation.

Its spokesman, Farshid Yazdani, blamed deepening poverty for the development, which he said was more common in socially backward rural areas often afflicted with high levels of illiteracy and drug addiction....

He said increasing child marriages were accompanied by a correspondingly high teenage divorce rate. Some 15,000 females aged 15-19 divorced their husbands every year between 2007 and 2010.

The statistics will fuel criticism that Iran's Islamic legal code allows children, especially girls, to be married at an inappropriately early age.

While Sharia law states that females can be married as young as nine, a 2002 ruling by the powerful Expediency Council laid down that girls below 13 and boys younger than 15 could only wed with their father's consent and the permission of a court.

However, critics complain that the legal standards in many socially conservative areas for allowing younger marriages are lax while a fundamentalist MP, Mohammad Ali Asfenani, has said Iran has a religious obligation to legally recognise the weddings of girls as young as nine

"As some people may not comply with our current Islamic legal system, we must regard nine as being the appropriate age for a girl to have reached puberty and qualified to get married," Mr Asfenani, chairman of the parliamentary legal and judiciary committee, told Khabar Online. "To do otherwise would be to contradict and challenge Islamic Sharia law."

Can't have that!

11 Marriage To Prepubescent Girls In Early Islam
Can Modern Islam Reform Its Old Shariah Laws?
by James M. Arlandson, Ph.D.

This series on Islamic shariah law is intended for educators, legislators, city council members, lawyers, judges, government bureaucrats, journalists, think tank fellows, TV and radio talk show hosts, and anyone else who occupies positions of authority and influence. They initiate the national dialogue and shape the flow of the conversation. They are the policy and decision makers. They implement school curricula.

They have listened to the critics of shariah and have concluded the critics are exaggerating; they may even be “Islamophobic.” Islam is a world religion, after all, so it deserves respect.

On the other hand, the intellectual elites have heard disturbing reports out of the Islamic world. Surely the critics cannot be all wrong, all the time, can they? The elites therefore have a private, gnawing doubt that there is something wrong with shariah. No, they tell themselves; it is being hijacked by extremists.

The elites thus have a “mental tennis match” in their heads, as their thoughts go back and forth, from doubt to relief; there is nothing wrong with shariah or there is something wrong with it, as it relates to the modern world.

The topic of this article is an example; it is very delicate, so we have to be as factual and objective as we humans can be.

The elites may have heard that Muhammad married a little girl. Is this only a false rumor spread by the critics of shariah who suffer from “Islamophobia”?

The Ayatollah Khomeini married a girl of ten years old, and encouraged other men to do likewise, saying that fathers should give their daughters away before their first period:

. . . the Ayatollah himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight? Did she [the Khomeini supporter] know that Khomeini called marriage to a girl before her first menstrual period "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house"?[1]

Why would this devout Muslim do such a thing? Did he stray from original Islamic ideals?

Here is an abbreviated Table of Contents:

THE QURAN

THE HADITH

CLASSICAL LAW

MODERN ISLAM

CONCLUSION

THE QURAN

In the context of divorcing wives, Quran 65:1 and 4 says:

1 O Prophet, when you (and the believers) divorce women, divorce them for their prescribed waiting-period and count the waiting-period accurately... 4 And if you are in doubt about those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, (you should know that) their waiting period is three months, and the same applies to those who have not menstruated as yet. As for pregnant women, their period ends when they have delivered their burden. [2]... (Quran 65:1, 4)

Another translation repeats the same idea with slightly different wording:

1 Prophet, when any of you intend to divorce women, do so at a time when their prescribed waiting period can properly start, and calculate the period carefully... 4 If you are in doubt, the period of waiting will be three months for those women who have ceased menstruating and for those who have not [yet] menstruated; the waiting period of those who are pregnant will be until they deliver their burden.[3] ... (Quran 65:1, 4)

These verses deal with divorce and a waiting period, to ensure that the divorced woman is not carrying the ex-husband’s child. If he is in doubt about his postmenopausal or prepubescent ex-wife, the husband should wait and calculate accurately. Logically, to divorce a prepubescent girl, she had to have been married. And logically if there is doubt about pregnancy, she had to have had sex while being so young.

However, the fear of pregnancy indicates that the man and girl are not sure when she reached puberty; the transition from prepuberty to puberty is in doubt.

Whatever the case, the text implies the girl was having sex, while she was prepubescent. Classical Islamic law (see below) adds its own permission to have sex with these girls. Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite bride, had not yet reached puberty when he married her (see the hadith, next).[4]

"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

In Islam, Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21). Thus he is exemplary even in his marriage to a child: Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

"Saudi mufti okays marriage for 10 year old girls," World Observer, April 21 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti okayed marriage for girls starting at age 10 and criticized those who want to raise the legal marriageable age, according to news reports.

Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh said a girl becomes ready for marriage at 10 or 12 according to Islam and stressed that Islamic law is not by any means oppressive to women, the London-based al-Hayat reported Wednesday.

"Those who call for raising the age of marriage to 25 are absolutely mistaken," al-Sheikh said in a lecture he gave at the faculty housing mosque of Imam Mohamed bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh.

"Our mothers and grandmothers got married when they were barely 12. Good upbringing makes a girl ready to perform all marital duties at that age."

Al-Sheikh's statements came in response to a question from a female attendee about marrying minor girls without their consent.

The Saudi National Human Rights Association (NHRA) has criticized the prevalence of the marriage of minors in the kingdom and considered it a violation of childhood. The association has sought to work with authorities to curb the practice and protect children's rights.

NHRA stressed that underage marriages are also a breach of several United Nations treaties including the Child Rights Treaty, which Saudi signed in 1996 and the Treaty for the Rights of Women that the kingdom joined in 2000.

Last year a similar fatwa, or religious ruling, by Salafi preacher Sheikh Mohamed al-Maghrawi allowing girls as young as nine to marry was condemned by Morocco’s Supreme Scientific Council. The council said it lacked religious validity because it was based on only one case—the marriage of Prophet Mohamed (pbuh) to Aisha bint Abu-Bakr.

But isn't Muhammad's example normative, as per Qur'an 33:21?

“There is no Islamic justification for forced marriage," says Samina, and yet there is ample support for child marriage, and how freely can a child really consent to such a thing?

"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

In Islam, Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21). Thus he is exemplary even in his marriage to a child: Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

Glorious Fruit of Multiculturalism Update: "I wed aged FIVE... in the UK," by Anila Baig in The Sun, April 8 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Instead she was being married off — having just turned FIVE.

The Islamic ceremony effectively ended her childhood and paved the way for years of abuse.

Just as shockingly, this was not happening in a remote Third World village — but in a large town in the north of England.

Samina has decided to speak out after Britain’s Forced Marriage Unit revealed that last year the 1,468 cases they investigated included another girl of five.

There are thought to be another 6,500 cases that went unreported.

Samina — not her real name as she is too scared to be identified — told The Sun: “I was denied the right of childhood, play and innocence.

“When you are married at the age of five you no longer live like a normal child. I was deprived of my basic human rights.

“I’m genuinely shocked and horrified to hear that another little girl has had to go through this. My heart goes out to that child and anyone who is forced to marry.

“That is why I am sharing my experience, to reach out to those girls and young women. There is hope and light at the end of the tunnel.”

Stop child brides

She went on: “I know that such behaviour is contrary to the teachings of Islam and must be therefore outlawed.

“There is no Islamic justification for forced marriage and doing it to a child of that age is not just wrong — it is criminal.”...

"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

In Islam, Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21). Thus he is exemplary even in his marriage to a child: Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

Sharia Alert from the Islamic Republic of Iran: "At least 716 girls under the age of ten married off in Iran since 2009," from Persian2English, March 14 (thanks to Nicolai Sennels):

Persian2English – Farshid Yazdani, a member of the Association for the Defense of Children’s Rights, has raised the flag on the increasing rate of the marriage of girls under the age of 10 in Iran. He stated that in 2009, 449 girls under the age of 10 were married off. The number increased to 716 cases in 2011.

Yazdani added that the number of marriages for girls under 15 years of age has increased from 33,383 in 2006 to 35,931 in 2007, 37,996 in 2008, and 43,459 last year (please note that the dates are approximate as the statistics were given according to the Iranian calendar, which begins at the start of the Persian New Year).

According to Yazdani, the rate of marriages of girls under the age of 15 has had a 45% increase compared to marriages in other age brackets. He added that these figures are based on the statistics released by Iran’s Civil Registrations Office, and they should set off alarms for social activists and policy makers.

Translation by Siavosh Jalili for Persian2English
Persian Source: Hamshahri Online

"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

In Islam, Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21). Thus he is exemplary even in his marriage to a child: Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

Time magazine reported in 2001: "In Iran the legal age for marriage is nine for girls, fourteen for boys. The law has occasionally been exploited by pedophiles, who marry poor young girls from the provinces, use and then abandon them. In 2000 the Iranian Parliament voted to raise the minimum age for girls to fourteen, but this year, a legislative oversight body dominated by traditional clerics vetoed the move. An attempt by conservatives to abolish Yemen's legal minimum age of fifteen for girls failed, but local experts say it is rarely enforced anyway. (The onset of puberty is considered an appropriate time for a marriage to be consummated.)"

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that over half of the girls in Afghanistan and Bangladesh are married before they reach the age of eighteen. In early 2002, researchers in refugee camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan found half the girls married by age thirteen. In an Afghan refugee camp, more than two out of three second-grade girls were either married or engaged, and virtually all the girls who were beyond second grade were already married. One ten-year-old was engaged to a man of sixty.

Muslim clerics in Yemen say that to oppose child marriage makes one an apostate.

The above video from December 2009 was just sent to me by Jihad Watch reader Carol. It illustrates an important point: we are constantly assured that no Muslims, none, want to bring the elements of Sharia that are incompatible with Western law into Western countries. We are compelled to believe this on pain of charges of "Islamophobia." But here is clear evidence that at least some Muslims believe that their coreligionists there should push for the legalization of pedophilia.

And note that this is advanced in the video as a human rights cause, a matter of compassion for Muslim men and their families. If such a movement begins in Britain, there is no doubt whatsoever that it would proceed the way attempts to assert Sharia provisions in the West are already proceeding: by claiming "racism" and "bigotry," asserting that all opposition is "hate" and "Islamophobia," and calling for equal rights, human rights, etc. (Don't miss also the brief tu quoque: the photo of Warren Jeffs.) If Britain and the U.S. and other non-Muslim countries do not call a halt to this mau-mauing and insist on their own laws and own cultures, those laws and cultures will certainly be overwhelmed and Islamized.

Nine. There's that number again. Now, everyone knows only the greasiest of greasy Islamophobes retail the notion that the practice of marrying girls as young as nine has something to do with Muhammad marrying Aisha when she was six and consummating the marriage when she was nine, and he was six times her age at fifty-four. So, all of these people continuing the practice in the remotest, most undeveloped areas Afghanistan and Yemen out of Islamic piety must actually be reading American or European blogs, right?

Wrong. For example, there is Sahih Bukhari 7.62.88: "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)."

It is Islam's own texts and traditions that cause the practice to persist in places far removed from one another, and to appear where it had previously been unimaginable -- for example, Britain. "Islington girls forced into marriage at the age of nine," by Pavan Amara for the Islington Tribune, January 27:

An alarming number of under-age girls – some as young as nine – are being forced into marriage in Islington, according to a leading campaign group.

The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) claim that at least 30 girls in the borough were forced into marriage in 2010.

The practice was condemned by the Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, who said such marriages were against Islam and “unacceptable”.

He pledged to invalidate any marriage which he said were carried out by “back-street Imams”.

IKWRO, which made headlines last month when they revealed there had been almost 3,000 “honour-based” violence cases in 2010, has shown the Tribune records which revealed at least three 11-year-old girls and two nine-year-olds had been forced into marriage with older men within Islington. The oldest girls involved were 16.

They have warned that hundreds of Islington girls could be suffering sexual, emotional and physical scars as a result of the child marriages every year and are calling for teachers, social workers and police to be better trained to spot and manage the abuse.

Information from the Ministry of Justice, following a Freedom of Information request, revealed that 32 Forced Marriage Protection Order applications were made for children under 16 in Britain last year.

Six of these were made for under-16s within Islington at the Royal Courts of Justice, although these were not necessarily made for Islington residents.

At the Islington court, “five or fewer” orders were made to protect children between the ages of 9-11.

The orders are a form of injunction that threaten legal punishment if marriage takes place due to emotional or physical force.

In most cases, the children fear they will be killed if they reveal the truth to anybody, while others believe they will be separated from their families and taken into social services’ care.

Dianna Nammi, director of IKWRO, explained that the girls are married in a mosque’s sharia court. This means they are not legally married according to British law, rendering the Home Office unable to recognise or prove the abuse.

“They are still expected to carry out their wifely duties, though, and that includes sleeping with their husband,” she said.

“They have to cook for them, wash their clothes, everything. They are still attending schools in Islington, struggling to do their primary school homework, and at the same time being practically raped by a middle-aged man regularly and being abused by their families. So they are a wife, but in a primary school uniform.

That's not being "practically" raped. The practice will diminish when the law comes after the "husbands" and families with the force with which they would pursue child molesters and human traffickers. This is rape, and it is human trafficking.

“The reason it doesn’t get out is because they are too terrified to speak out, and also the control their families have over them is impossible to imagine if you’re not going through it. The way it is covered up is so precise, almost unspeakable.”

Ms Nammi said that one 13-year-old had to sneak out of a maths lesson to contact the group, because she was being monitored so closely by her family.

“Her teacher didn’t notice because she said she’d gone to the toilet, but when she got home that day she was beaten,” she said.

“Her father knew she hadn’t been in maths because he had sent an uncle to spy on who she was talking to through the classroom window.”

Ms Nammi said that the girls are married off to family friends or family members to stop them from losing their virginity to anyone not chosen by their father.

As young as nine. Heaven knows they're all going to become wild party animals at age 10.

However, the incentive is also often financial.

The financial aspect supports the human trafficking angle:

“The girl automatically becomes her husband’s property, so he takes financial responsibility for her,” said Ms Nammi.

“In fact, often the husband has to start contributing to the girl’s family, so it becomes a way of bringing in another salary.

“Who are girls going to tell? Often they feel like teachers at school won’t understand what their families are like. They will think they’re like Western families, and won’t understand that if they pass on anything at all that they’ve been told to the family, then the girl will be killed. So they just chose not to tell at all.”....

Resistance would be fierce because child marriage is defended with the example of Muhammad, the supreme model of conduct for Muslims according to Qur'an 33:21, who consummated his marriage to Aisha when she was nine and he was fifty-four (Sahih Bukhari 7.62.88). Muslims in countries far removed from one another believe this and act accordingly. The practice of child marriage is not persisting because Muslims in Yemen, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and elsewhere are reading American blogs.

"Human Rights Watch urges Yemen to ban child marriage, details plight of country’s child brides," for the Associated Press, December 8:

CAIRO — A leading international rights group on Thursday urged authorities in Yemen to set 18 as the minimum age for marriage to improve girls’ opportunities for education and protect their human rights.

Human Rights Watch said widespread child marriage in the Arab world’s poorest country jeopardizes Yemeni girls’ health and keeps them second-class citizens.

As always, the elephant in the room is Sharia.

A report by the New York-based group said Yemeni government and U.N. data showed that in some rural areas of Yemen, girls as young as eight were married off. Some have told HRW they were subjected to marital rape and domestic abuse. [...]

There is a Yemeni tribal saying, according to a 2008 New York Times report: "Give me a girl of 8, and I can give you a guarantee [for a good marriage]."

The issue of Yemen’s child brides received widespread attention four years ago, when an 8-year-old girl boldly went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce.

That was Nojud Ali. Let us also not forget Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali. They were lucky. Fawziya Abdullah Yousef, who died in childbirth at 12, was not. Nor was an unnamed 11-year-old hospitalized for genital injuries. Nor was Elham Assi, who died at 13 of bleeding and genital injuries after her husband of four days, enraged at his performance problems, obtained enhancement drugs and raped her repeatedly, even after taking her a clinic that told him to leave her alone for 10 days due to injuries he had already inflicted.

These are only the stories that got out.

A February 2009 law set Yemen’s minimum age for marriage at 17, but it was repealed after some lawmakers called it un-Islamic and sent back to parliament’s constitutional committee for a review. The review has since been stalled by a group of lawmakers contending that enforcing a minimum age would be contrary to Islamic law.

Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman, who won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for her work in advancing women’s rights, has also highlighted the issue.

In a 2010 opinion piece, Karman wrote that there “is a vast space in our Islamic Law heritage for reaching consensus on adopting the age of 18 as a minimum age for marriage.”

The Muslim Brotherhood, of which she is a member, may be more resistant to the idea of such an undertaking, now that it is operating from a position of increasing strength. In any case, the same obstacles remain: reaching that consensus within a framework that calls itself Sharia will require a large number of clerics to accept a revisionist narrative, and innovation (bida) that flies in the face of centuries of pre-existing texts and clerical consensus.

Where did he get that idea? Why, Muhammad, who is the supreme example of conduct for Muslims (Qur'an 33:21):

"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)." -- Sahih ("sound," "reliable") Bukhari 7.62.88.

Despite apologists' various tap dances around the subject, from claiming that Aisha was much older, didn't know how old she was, or perhaps was "nine" in Galapagos tortoise years (well, we haven't seen that one yet), Muslims across the world continue to believe this account, accept it, and act accordingly. For calling attention to it and to the untold numbers of girls victimized by it, we're branded as "Islamophobes." "Outcry in The Hague over ‘pedo imam’," from Radio Netherlands Worldwide, December 6:

Labour Party MP Ahmed Marcouch wants to bar imam Mohamed al-Maghraoui from entering the Netherlands.

The controversial Moroccan imam has been invited to attend a conference in the As Sunnah mosque in The Hague.

Al Maghraoui caused an uproar in Morocco in 2008 when he issued a fatwa approving a marriage with a nine-year-old girl. The fatwa has since been nullified by the Moroccan religious authorities and the controversial imam fled to Saudi Arabia to avoid prosecution. He reportedly repeated his fatwa when he returned to Morocco in 2011.

Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders has also said the imam should not be allowed to visit the Netherlands.

The As Sunnah mosque has repeatedly been the subject of controversy. Earlier, the Salafist As Sunnah Imam Sheikh Fawaz Jneid called on his followers not to integrate into Dutch society.

Don't let the door hit ya where Allah subhanahu wa-ta'ala split ya.

The mosque has declined to comment on the planned visit by the controversial Moroccan imam.

"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

Anti-dhimmitude in an Australian court: "Man who had relationship with primary-school girl jailed for 10 years," by Mark Dunn for the Herald Sun, July 22 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A MAN who claimed it was culturally acceptable for him to have a sexual relationship with a primary-school child who later bore him a son will spend up to 10 years in jail.

The 31-year-old, now classified as a pedophile, had claimed his cultural background meant age was not a relevant factor in choosing a wife or sexual partner, the County Court in Melbourne heard.

But in sentencing the man, who migrated as a refugee from a north-Asian country, Judge Lisa Hannan said his continued sexual relationship with the girl - from the age of eight until she fell pregnant - was repulsive and defied morality.

The court heard the man, who was married to an adult at the time of the offending and already had a child, had an IQ in the bottom 5 per cent for his age group.

"Your conduct is abhorrent to anyone with even a shred of decency or moral compass,'' Judge Hannan said.

"Whether or not it may or might have been acceptable in any culture in any part of the world is irrelevant.''

The court heard the man, who pleaded guilty to charges of persistent sexual abuse of a minor and child stealing, had told authorities in his cultural background "there were no restrictions on age'' for a relationship.

But Judge Hannan said the man knew he was breaking Australian law, that he initially lied about having sex with the child and attempted to procure an abortion before a baby was born in 2010.

"You knew what you were doing was wrong,'' the judge said.

Judge Hannan, in setting a seven-year minimum, said his "disgraceful desires'' had "robbed her of her childhood''.

Judge Hannan also disputed the extent of the man's remorse, noting he continued to try to justify his relationship with her - including saying he loved her "for real''.

"I do not think you are truly remorseful ... indeed you still seek to justify it.''

Muslim “child-marriage” — euphemism for pedophilia — is making headlines again, at least in Arabic media: Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, just issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage, and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.”

Appearing in Saudi papers on July 13, the fatwa complains that “Uninformed interference with Sharia rulings by the press and journalists is on the increase, posing dire consequences to society, including their interference with the question of marriage to small girls who have not reached maturity, and their demand that a minimum age be set for girls to marry.”

Fawzan insists that nowhere does Sharia set an age limit for marrying girls: like countless Muslim scholars before him, he relies on Koran 65:4, which discusses marriage to females who have not yet begun menstruating (i.e., are prepubescent) and the fact that Muhammad, Islam’s role model, married Aisha when she was 6 years old, “consummating” the marriage — or, in modern parlance, raping her — when she was 9.

The point of the Saudi fatwa, however, is not that girls as young as 9 can have sex, based on Muhammad’s example, but rather that there is no age limit whatsoever; the only question open to consideration is whether the girl is physically capable of handling her husband/rapist. Fawzan documents this point by quoting Ibn Batal’s authoritative exegesis of Sahih Bukhari:

The ulema [Islam’s interpreters] have agreed that it is permissible for fathers to marry off their small daughters, even if they are in the cradle. But it is not permissible for their husbands to have sex with them unless they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men. And their capability in this regard varies based on their nature and capacity. Aisha was 6 when she married the prophet, but he had sex with her when she was 9 [i.e., when she was deemed capable].

Fawzan concludes his fatwa with a warning: “It behooves those who call for setting a minimum age for marriage to fear Allah and not contradict his Sharia, or try to legislate things Allah did not permit. For laws are Allah’s province; and legislation is his excusive right, to be shared by none other. And among these are the rules governing marriage.”

Fawzan, of course, is not the first to insist on the legitimacy of pedophilia in Islam. Even the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia supported “child-marriage,” since “the Koran and Sunna document it.”

Nor is this just some theoretical, theological point; the lives of many young girls are being destroyed because of this ruling. Recall, for instance, the 13-year-old girl who died while her much older husband was copulating with her (it was later revealed that, due to her reluctance, he was tying her up and “raping” her — as if there were another way to describe sex with children); or the 12-year-old who died giving birth to a stillborn; or the 10-year-old who made headlines by hiding out from her 80-year-old “husband.”

Then there are the countless anonymous girls who do nothing to warrant any media attention — such as die — and have learned to live with their elderly husbands pawing at them, like, no doubt, the girl who married Islam’s most popular cleric, Yusuf Qaradawi, when she was 14.

What do we make of the fact that it is always Islam’s religious, authoritative voices — not aberrant voices, not “terrorists,” “extremists,” or any other euphemism coined for the occasion — that are constantly demonstrating Sharia’s savageries? Weeks before this fatwa, a female politician and activist in Kuwait called for institutionalizing sex-slavery (recommending that Muslims buy and sell female Russian captives from the Chechnya war); a popular Egyptian preacher not only said the same thing, but added that the solution to Islam’s poverty is to go on jihad and plunder the lives and possessions of infidels.

Sounds odd? Perhaps; but it is perfectly consistent. After all, distilled and in the eyes of the non-believer, Sharia law is nothing less than a legal system built atop the words and deeds of a 7^th century Arab, whose behavior — from pedophilia and sex-slavery to war mongering and plundering — was very much that of a 7^th century Arab. Having enticed or enslaved his contemporaries into following him, his teachings continue to entice and enslave their descendants; and, now as then, it is always the innocent who suffer.