Few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage. Islamic tradition records that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the 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)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).
Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:
The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah”s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah”s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).
Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old.
Marrying young girls was not all that unusual for its time, but because in Islam Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21), he is considered exemplary in this unto today. And so in April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: “Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.” He added a threat: “Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women.” The Mufti said that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage.
Likewise the influential website Islamonline.com in December 2010 justified child marriage by invoking not only Muhammad’s example, but the Qur’an as well:
The Noble Qur’an has also mentioned the waiting period [i.e. for a divorced wife to remarry] for the wife who has not yet menstruated, saying: “And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women, if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated” [Qur’an 65:4]. Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl. The Qur’an is not like the books of jurisprudence which mention what the implications of things are, even if they are prohibited. It is true that the prophet entered into a marriage contract with A’isha when she was six years old, however he did not have sex with her until she was nine years old, according to al-Bukhari.
Other countries make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls. 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.”
According to Amir Taheri in The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (pp. 90-91), Iran’s 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 to give their own daughters away accordingly: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” When he took power in Iran, he lowered the legal marriageable age of girls to nine, in accord with Muhammad’s example.
“Proposed law on “child brides” bows to conservative Islam,” by Sumon Corraya, Asia News, October 14, 2014:
Dhaka (AsiaNews) – The Bangladeshi government is “considering” lowering the minimum age for marriage (16 years for women, 18 for men), to please conservative Islam. In a country where 80% of girls are already married long before they reach adulthood, according to human rights activists and social scientists, this decision would be “dangerous” because it seems to “let go the idea that phenomena such as child brides is acceptable” because “acknowledged” by the state.
The current law sets the minimum age at 18 years for women and 21 for men and has always been considered a tool to change the prevailing mentality. Under shari’a, Islam – which in Bangladesh is the state religion, practiced by 89.9% of the population – a girl can get married as soon as reaches puberty.
The proposed change has caused a sensation among the more “independent” newspapers, particularly because it is being out forward by the government, led by the Awami League : historically this was a secular party, whose founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the nation to independence from Pakistan (1971). Some newspapers have also conducted a “campaign” against this proposal, bringing the testimonies of students and young people who had defended their classmates when they were in danger of being given too soon in marriage.
The AL could be attempting to “appease” the more “conservative” Islamic component for the population, which – in the last year and a half – the radical Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami has repeatedly appealed to, labeling the government “atheistic” and contrary to the true principles of Islam. This is also why, according to some commentators note, the government recently decided to declare Ramadan a public holiday….
Coolio says
There is just no end to iSlum’s nastiness is there? At least now they have nowhere to hide behind the onslaught of such stories on the interweb from the ‘House [and “religion” of ‘peace’ ‘
Jaladhi says
Disgusting bunch of pedophiles, rapists and murderers – and they call their book “holy” or “noble” which is neither. It is nothing but rape, hate, murder,loot,… manual!!
Ernie Banks says
In the US, we used to think that gay marriage was unacceptable. That fight was fought on the pretense of “marriage equality”. When Muslims fight for marriage equality, it will be focused on plural marriage and child marriage. They have a point – after all, there are (probably) 10x more Muslims than gays.
BC says
So you think that gay marriage is the same as marriage to children. Gay men marrying little boys etc.? I have not heard of that.
gravenimage says
Whatever your view of gay marriage, these are *not* the same things.
It would only be analogous if gay men were marrying little boys or else forcing straight men into gay marriage—neither of which is the case.
RichardlL says
Ramadan a public holiday? Really? 30 days off? No work and daily binge eating?
16 is not 6 and I believe that to be actually a rare example of moderate Mohammedanism
Arthur Brislingham says
Mohaammedanism = clearly inferior
ECAW says
So Bangla Desh is considering lowering the marriageable age for females from 18 to 16, bringing it into line with Britain and most US states (apart from Missouri, Hawaii and Georgia where it is 15). What’s the problem?
Jay Boo says
Change as you go along Qur’an verses
Claim of Muhammad being a prophet
Sex with children and calling it marriage
Calling Islam “the religion of truth”
Calling others infidel
Muslims do have a perverse sense of humor.
SallyA says
Yes, it is horrible, cruel and vile for any aspect of 21st century Islam based on the Koran to approve pedophilia in the guise of men marrying prepubescent girls. (Pubescent girls also deserve protection from institutionalized rape by men that is claimed to be “marriage.”) Islam, Sharia law, the Koran = abomination whenever as too often practiced for sexual or any other cruelty and suffering.
At the same time in the West we might consider cleaning our own house first. The proliferation of gonzo porn online featuring young girls (usually trafficked against their will, often drugged) or teens made up to look like young girls being raped by men, often in horrificially cruel circumstances, is epidemic. Men in the West are watching this cruel trash, and we hide behind the first amendment as if the making and the watching of this disgusting porn is victimless. Robert Jensen (UT) and Gail Dines (Wheelock College) have written about it extensively, with statistics, and with every passing year the ante is upped to the detriment of the girls featured as rape victims, because porn-sick addiction requires ever-increasing levels of violence to satiate the beast.
The Christian blogs cover the increasingly higher percentages of Christian men who admit to porn usage, but rarely do they cover as do Jensen and Dines the extent to which the images and sounds are become more violent and vile over time, and more disparaging and hateful toward females of all ages including school girls (and younger). Then there is the violent male-on-male porn, perhaps influencing the sex hazing scandal this very week in Sayreville, NJ high school’s football program, not as bad as the Sandusky debacle but showing a different side to the dark side of unsporting character than the positive sports images overall in the fictional TV series Friday Night Lights. (Where is coach Eric Taylor and principal Tami Taylor when you need them?)
From the Bible’s description (New Testament) of Lot as a righteous man after the Bible’s story (Old Testament) of Lot offering up his own daughters as victims to a rapist horde of men who otherwise would have had male-on-male sex, we have a rather morally ambiguous time criticizing the unholy “book” of Islam when the Christian “book” is itself immoral by its example lauding male rapism against female victims.
Perhaps we as cultural Christians and cultural Jews should disavow any barbaric parts of the Bible/Torah that our faith followers still read (and/or carry around in the pages of revered books they take to religious services) before demanding that Muslims disavow the Koran’s non-abrogated violence or return to reading only the peaceful Mecca-era Koranic writings?
In the U.S. Atlanta is a major hub for sex trafficking, and the capitol city of California, Sacramento, is in the top five despite being a smaller city. Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego are also high on the list for child sex trafficking. Close to 20,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. every year, the greatest proportion being women and children, in this international black market industry earning approximately $32 billion annual profit, about half of it made in industrialized countries.
It is possible that Muslim encroachments to the U.S. and other industrialized countries have upped these numbers on the trafficker side; nobody seems to know for sure. (You can google for yourself the same sites I found.) But the market for the trafficked victims would necessarily be driven by gonzo rape porn ubiquitous everywhere online for free, the click-through traffic being enough to offer for no money a global mental predisposition via internet to normalize the raping of little girls.
Could be that the inherent IS promise of acting out sick and twisted cruelty against sex slaves is enough to convert porn-sick Westerners to Daesh jihad with the fantasy of more “virgins” in their fantasized paradise that would only be hell for the girls victimized eternally.
The meme of men sexually abusing girls is global. Islamic rulers make explicit in today’s earthly reality what the internet shows as “fantasy” via a population of flesh-and-blood trafficked and otherwise sexually victimized females.
gravenimage says
Jews and Christians aren’t raping 9-year -old girls in the name of the story of Lot.
But Muslims *are* “marrying” of grad school girls on the model of the “Prophet”.
gravenimage says
Too many typos—'”marrying” of’ should have been ‘”marrying” off’, and, more importantly, “grad school” should have been “grade school”.
Champ says
islam = the religion of pedophelia
Sooo sick!!
gravenimage says
And so in April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: “Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.”
……………………………..
Look how twisted Muslim “reasoning” is—it is not that what Muhammed did was moral—it is that if Muslims act ethically it will make the “Prophet” look immoral—and everyone knows that raping 9-year-old girls is nothing compared to making Mo “look bad”…
BC says
No Bangladesh has not ‘ lowered the age of marriage’ it is considering it. Not the same thing. Watch the headline please
fair_dinkum says
16 seems the norm across the middle east.. bangladesh is behind the rest.
85% of bangladeshis are moslem
75% are inbred.
child exploitation of both sexes is rampant.
human rights and womens rights are non existent.
why wouldnt they consider lowering it? it s the 1st step to making it 9 or 6 some day.
Ffy343 says
“womens rights are non existent.”
Which is why the PM of Bangladesh is a women eh? Quit embarrassing yourself.
gravenimage says
That’s *exactly* the point, fair dinkem—I don’t think they’re going to stop at 16 if they can get away with it.