‘Quick-witted’, ‘tart tongued’, ‘daring’, ‘headstrong’ and ‘assertive’ are not five phrases I would immediately attribute to Aisha when I hear them. What springs to mind is rather ‘prepubescent child-bride’; the authority for this assertion consists of multiple Islamic sources rather than speculative, cringeworthy platitudes. This is the issue we face when dissecting one of the most popular videos from the Emir-Stein Center, ‘Who Is Aisha?’ , featuring Lesley Hazleton. In this edition of Emir-Stein’s video series whitewashing Islam, Hazleton attempts to distract the viewer with irrelevance, willfully neglecting to expand upon some of the most significant parts of Aisha’s story.
Aisha is frequently mentioned in Islamic sources, but Hazleton speculates this is because she is a daring young upstart, rather than just Muhammad’s favourite wife, which Hazleton also acknowledges. Hazleton even asserts that Aisha led an entire army, but this isn’t quite true.
When Hazleton moves to address Aisha’s age, the deflection begins. She seems unable to condemn Muhammad’s marriage, apparently to a nine-year-old girl, as wrong. She first suggests that Muhammad’s later marriages were political, which I would dispute, as Muhammad had clear attraction to these women; his marriages to them were not simply a forced, political move. Hazleton states: ‘Aisha would later claim she was only nine and while other accounts have her nine when she was betrothed and married at age twelve, few people cared to openly contradict Aisha. Besides, being married at nine would make her unique and she was proud of her uniqueness’.
There are three serious framing errors here. Not only does Hazleton insist that Aisha’s saying she was nine was simply a later claim, but she refutes herself when she says that many of the writings stating this were early. The second is that Hazleton contradicts herself again by claiming that later writers were afraid to contradict what Aisha had said. If that were true, Hazleton would have no sources for her claim that the betrothal took place when Aisha was nine and the marriage when she was twelve. The third framing error is the most disgraceful; attempting to paint a marriage between a fifty-three-year-old man and an apparently nine-year-old girl as positive in some way. Who else would defend such a marriage today by claiming the child wants to be unique?
When we look at the earliest and most trusted Islamic sources, they are unapologetically unanimous regarding the age of Aisha when she was married, as well as about the age of consummation and the details of the marriage. The fact that the consummation took place when Aisha was still so young also shows that the marriage was not solely political, but we do not need this fact to prove Muhammad’s intentions. If we look at Sahih al-Bukhari 268 and 5068, we read the following two accounts of Muhammad and his wives: ‘The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number. I asked Anas, “Had the Prophet the strength for it?” Anas replied, “We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty (men).” And Sa`id said on the authority of Qatada that Anas had told him about nine wives only (not eleven)’. ‘The Prophet used to go round (have sexual relations with) all his wives in one night, and he had nine wives’.
Muhammad married Aisha at the age of six, not nine, in multiple Islamic sources. I could be picky here and detail how the people used a lunar calendar, so she would more likely be four at the time of the marriage and six at the time of the consummation, as opposed to six at the time of the marriage and nine at the time of consummation, but we will take the trusted sources at face-value. Sahih al-Bukhari 5133, Sahih al-Bukhari 5158, Sahih Muslim 3481, Sahih Muslim 3482 and Sunan Abu Dawud 2121 all unanimously repeat that Aisha was married to Muhammad at age six or seven and that the consummation of the marriage took place when she was nine years old.
The sources also show that Aisha was prepubescent. In Sahih Muslim 3481, when she was taken to consummate the marriage, we read; ‘A’isha reported that Allah’s Apostle married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he died she was eighteen years old’. Because she was playing with dolls, which is forbidden as they are images, it confirms her prepubescence: young children are not held to observance as strict as that to which older people are held. In Sahih al-Bukhari 6130, it is said: ‘I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah’s Messenger used to enter they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for `Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.)’
Hazleton then asks, given Aisha’s insults to Khadija among other examples, ‘how ironic it is then for the outspoken Aisha to serve as the excuse, the rationale, for one of the most misogynistic interpretations of the Qur’an, one that would force women into silence’. This is a straw man. The misogyny that Hazleton objects to so strenuously can be found throughout the commands of the direct, perfect, uncheangable, eternal, perfectly preserved word of Allah, the Qur’an.
Surah 2:228 depicts Allah saying a man has to wait three monthly cycles before he can divorce his wife; in Surah 65:4, it gives exceptions to that rule: women who are too old, women who are too young, or women who are pregnant. This shows that child marriage was permissible. Additionally, the chapter heading of Sahih al-Bukhari 5133 is ‘Giving young children in marriage is permissible by virtue of Statement of Allah’. The chapter cites verses 65:4 as well as the words of Aisha, who repeats that Muhammad consummated their marriage when she was nine years old.
Women are property when married, as Surah 4:24 states: ‘And married women [are also forbidden], except all that your right hand possesses. This is the decree of Allah for you. And it is lawful to you, besides this, to seek out women with your money, chaste without fornication. So, whatever you enjoy by it (their sexual parts) from them, so give them their wages; it is an ordinance’. This is followed by Surah 4:34, where Allah says ‘Men are in charge of women’ and ‘of whom you fear rebellion, so preach to them and separate from them in the beds and scourge them’. Equality is not present in the sources. If a man wants to engage in an extra-marital sexual affair, it is legitimised in Sahih al-Bukhari 5075.
Surah 2:282 shows that a woman is half as intelligent as a man, as two women are required in the place of one man to judge: ‘if one of them should make an error, the other may cause her to remember’. In Sahih Muslim 7099, Muhammad says; ‘Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler’. This, yet again, does not fit in with Hazleton’s feminist Qur’an, and you cannot change the direct and perfect word of Allah, so reform in such passages is impossible.
Jannah would be a hellish place for Lesley Hazleton. Aside from disgusting sources such as page 351 of Al-Suyuti Al-Itqan fi Ulum Al-Qur’an and Sunan Ibn Majah, Zuhd 39, we find many references to Jannah in the Qur’an. Surah 78:31-34 involves ‘Surely to the fearing ones triumph, gardens and vineyards, and women of equal age with large breasts, and a cup dihāqan (filled, a non-Arabic word of Mesopotamian origin)’ while in Surah 55:56-57, Allah asks ‘In them those who restrain their eyes, whom neither human nor jinn has ever had sex with before them. So which of the bounties of your lord will you deny?’, before asking the same question in 55:70-73: ‘In them, good and beautiful maidens. So which of the bounties of your lord will you deny? Hūr confined in the khaima. So which of the bounties of your lord will you deny? No human nor jinn has ever had sex with.’ Hūr are defined as ‘the ever-virgins of the gardens with white skin, large dark eyes, and large breasts’. Khaima means tents, a word of Abyssinian origin. More details about Jannah can be seen in Surahs 41:51-55, 56:22-24 and 56:35-37.
Hazleton’s segment about Aisha’s adultery story is mostly irrelevant, aside from her last statement on it: ‘extremist scholars would twist this horrible, arguing that in the lack of four eye-witnesses, an impossibility, any woman that testified to having been raped was be default admitting to adultery and therefore to be punished accordingly. If Aisha could have foreseen this, she’d have been horrified, outraged and anything but silent’. This is all simply speculation, as the idea of four witnesses for an accusation was well established at the time of Muhammad (as well as in the Qur’an at 24:4 and 24:13). Muhammad was not an ‘extremist scholar’. If rape could not be proven, the woman would be admitting to intercourse with the man, which would be adultery. Aisha would have had ample time to stand up to this idea, but there are no recorded sources where she did so.
Lesley Hazleton ends her presentation with the following; ‘It seems to me like Aisha’s life is so full of irony precisely because she could not be pigeon-holed [or] cast in the stereotypically feminine role, so while I may not know if I’d have liked her, I do know that as a feminist I have to admire her, this fearless 7th century woman whom I suspect would be utterly at home in the 21st [Century].’ Reading these sentiments back into the sources is incredibly odd. Hazleton’s only evidence for the character of Aisha she wants to portray is the fact that she was ‘leading’ an army in a battle the Muslims comically lost and compiled many Islamic sources. These things do not make her ‘fearless.’
Women in Islam are horrifically abused, often accepting the abuse as it is morally righteous from Allah and Muhammad, and this must be remembered. In Sahih al-Bukhari 6971, we read Muhammad saying: ‘Her (a virgin girl) silence means her consent’. Add the requirement of the hijab from Surahs 24:31 and 33:59 and the result is a worrying picture of women in Islam, one that Hazleton would quickly want to erase. There are many additional Islamic sources that degrade woman to an unbelievable level, but I will conclude now with a quote from Aisha herself, the teenage girl who had to wash semen off the clothes of her elderly husband and witness her fellow Muslim women beaten until their skin turned green, from Sahih al-Bukhari 5825: ‘I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.’
mortimer says
Hazelton misses the point that MUSLIMS WROTE WITH APPROVAL THAT AISHA WAS NINE when a 54-year-old deflowered her! This act of child rape was later taken as ‘legislation’ from Allah and enshrined in Sharia law.
Hazelton is complicit with child rape among Muslims, because she doesn’t condemn it as evil.
One of the worst things about forced child marriage is OBSTETRICAL FISTULA … the hideous painful breach of the wall between the birth canal and the anus and/or urethra, leading to leakage of fluids, infection and misery.
In many cases, such married GIRLS are separated from their families because of the constant smell.
It is estimated that more than 2 million young women live with untreated obstetric fistula in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM, HAZELTON.
You should be preaching the solution … CHILD MARRIAGE IS EVIL.
J Morgan says
+1
gravenimage says
Spot on points, Mortimer.
Claudius says
There was an account rendered by a Yazidi sex slave about a jihadi fighter who complained that the child he was raping smelled very bad.
gravenimage says
Yes–she has a terrible infection from being raped–and the rapists blamed her.
mortimer says
1) Mohammed was a pedophile because he preferred his child bride to the others and planned to marry a baby 2) not everyone at the time approved of his marriage to Aisha, so it was not universally accepted in his era, 3) Mohammed’s pedophilia and questionable multiple marriages caused huge scandals in his small community that required special revelations to restore confidence in him; these are recorded in the Koran and Hadiths, 4) a true prophet would have been inspired by the Supreme Being to denounce the evil of pedophilia, rather than inspired to commit it, 5) pedophilia is backward, uncivilized and barbaric and destroys the life of a woman, 6) Muslims cannot condemn pedophilia even if they would like to, for they would have to abandon Islam. All Muslims tacitly endorse pedophilia, even if they are embarrassed to say so. So mesmerized are Muslims by the example of Mohammed’s pedophilia that they are unable to categorically denounce pedophilia or feel shame about. If they did, they could no longer be Muslims. Pedophilia is prevalent today in many Muslim countries, disguised as child marriage. The UN is in the 21st century trying to stop the evil of child marriage among the backward Islamic regions of Asia and Africa. The future of some 300 million young Muslim girls depends on it.
Isaac Marshall says
It’s a laughable case to suggest otherwise and the linking of Muhammad to an underage Aisha is almost mainstream and cliche now.
simpleton1 says
Mortimer: Both comments are very well put.
As are the other commentators, as this should be spread far & wide.
Mohammad’s use of Aisha is the gateway to pedophilia for muslims.
Endorsed in Mohammad’s sayings, actions, & deeds as found in the koran, hadith & sura, so very much a part of muslim life.
J Disher says
Quite right, Mortimer
Walter Sieruk says
A jihadwatch.org article explains it well where it reads Islamic tradition records that Muhammad consummated his marriage with (i.e., raped) Aisha when she was nine, and the resultant fact that child marriage is accepted in wide swaths of the Islamic world. Child marriage has abundant attestation in Islamic tradition and law.”.
Male Muslim marriage of an adult man to a young girl who is really only a child of common in the world of Islam. One of the “reasons” for this female child abuse in Islam is because of the corrupt and perverse wickedness in the hearts of men. This is seen and described in the Bible with reads “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. [N.K.J.V.]
Furthermore, another “reason” girl/child marriages occur with middle aged and even old men is because the founder and prophet of Islam Muhammad married a child. Muslims throughout history as well as in current times actually view Muhammad as a “perfect man” and a “great example for them to follow.”
This well might prove the old saying to be true .The saying is that “Evil is always looking for an excuse.”
It’s also wise to remember prophet Muhammad did likewise engaged in brutal, ruthless murderous warfare. As do Muslim today such as the jihadist Muslim of ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah Hamas and so forth. Many that old saying, just sited above, also explains the excuse for Muslim terrorism in the world today.
Jesus Himself Taught “By their fruits you will know them.” Matthew 7:20. Which might explain the vile child “marriage” of Muhammad and his violent and deadly behavior .Likewise also explains the twenty- first century Muslims who in child marriages and blood and murderous violence of Islam .As they see the prophet Muhammad d as their example of who to follow.
With all this about the fruits of Islam along with fruits history reveals about the life of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad .It thus further appropriate to make known that it might be in keeping with teaching of Jesus that Muhammad could well have been an actual prophet . Nevertheless the very most important thing to understand is the Muhammad was not a prophet send by God . Instead Muhammad was a lying deceptive false prophet send by Satan to start a false religion to lead many people astray.
For Jesus taught “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7:15.
Walter Sieruk says
The Islamic practice of an adult male Muslim having a marriage with a little girl who is only a child is clearly seen by most Westerners as a blatant action of child abuse of the vilest sort.
Nevertheless this heinous Islam tradition is accepted as “normal “in most of the Islamic world. Therefore, this may serve as an example of how the influence of Islam is able to warp the cogitation of the human mind to the extent that a person who is a Muslim might not be able to understand the obvious difference between right and wrong.
Such an awful thing as not having the discerning mental power to seethe clear difference is described in the Bible. For in Isaiah 5:20. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…” [N.K.J.V.]
Roland says
What could possibly motivate Lesley Hazelton to write this mashup? She is truly in denial. Ironic in a time that Islamic misogyny is still here to see, the Catholic Church has been bankrupted by pedophilia scandals, and Jeffrey Epstein’s procuress is about to be burned at the stake.
gravenimage says
Lesley Hazelton is Jewish and Agnostic–but she also considered becoming a Rabbi and a Catholic Nun at various times. She has always had an eclectic approach to religion, and apparently is trying to desperately convince herself that Islam is just the same as other peaceful faiths.
She wrote a fawning book on the vicious “Prophet” of Islam a few years ago.
James Lincoln says
gravenimage says,
“She…is trying to desperately convince herself that Islam is just the same as other peaceful faiths.”
Yes, the truth is just too disturbing…
gravenimage says
This is very common, James. Whistling past the graveyard…
elee says
If decent treatment for women and girls is ever enforced, it will be no thanks to Muslims or libbers.
gravenimage says
I believe in equal rights for women, and I condemn child rape.
Westman says
Perhaps Hazleton finds resonance with feminism in finding NO instances in which Aisha describes her relationship in terms of heartfelt love. Misandry is a strong component in feminism.
Aisha speaks from an attitude of duty and simply refers to “the prophet” who struck her in the chest and not as a special love companion. Of course, how could she view herself as anything other than the favorite, due to young age, from a stable of women that existed only for the sexual satisfaction and house duty for a desert warlord?
Considering how few children were born from a number of “wives”, 3 sons, 4 daughters, points to some disatisfaction and attempt to limit offspring among the wives.
If we can read anything from accounts, particularly Muhammad’s rejection of Aishia’s plea to stop another man from beating his wife green, Muhammad was an abuser of women. It’s in everything he created from the half-intelligence of women, the surah allowing wife beating, to his abuse of women in his own household.
Perhaps what Aisha will be most remembered for telling the “prophet” that his revelations seem unusually convenient. That took some bravery, considering Muhammad had no reservations about hitting her.
gravenimage says
Aisha may not have been able to bear children, since she was raped as a very young child. This may well have caused permanent damage to her.
End PC says
These cowardly Muslim sites shadow ban me. Always test for disgusting shadow banning.
DH says
What is her motivation for lying? Attention? Paid speaking gigs? Devil’s advocate as a life role? There are too many intelligent people who still think lying for Muslims is somehow a good deed. Why doesn’t she just open her house to one of those lost ISIS brides and her 7 children. She won’t for the same reason George Floyd protesters never made it to Beverly Hills, their commitment to anything that may involve discomfort without getting paid or praised is non existent and they don’t want anybody stealing or messing with their shit (RIP George Carlin).
rubiconcrest says
The world is full of dimwits who make videos, write books and give TED talks to the clueless who foolishly applaud. In this day an age it is stunning how ignorant people can be considering all the information that we have at our fingertips.
Isaac Marshall says
Unreal, isn’t it. Not only that, but they never accept debate and ban/refuse to host those with opposite thought, proving they know the opposite view’s information is more compelling. You’re quite right about having it all at our fingertips too; when Prime Ministers of my country used to recognise Islam as evil and proclaim it in parliament, they would be cringing at today.
gravenimage says
+1
Kepha says
“Tart-tongued, daring, headstrong…” These are not necessarily incongruous with Aisha’s status as a child bride married off early to a lecherous, sex-obsessed old sheikh. From the unapologetic Islamic sources themselves, she seems to have been Mo’s favorite, and so she easily could have developed all the characteristics of the classical spoiled brat–only nurtured by an overage, doting husband rather than by a father. I’m frankly inclined to believe those sources as sufficiently historical when they give all such details as Mo’s favoritism and an Aisha assertive (or troublesome) enough to be turned into a heroine by a silly Western feminist–especially when they are made for and buy aculture that blesses the worst in men and turns women into mere tilth and chattel (similarly, given the nature of ancient Greek society, I believe the reports about Xanthippe as well).
I’ve seen enough of Chinese literature and video to know that the system of wife and concubines in many great households harbored shrews–even if there is no such thing as a Hanzi with two women under a roof meaning “quarrel”. The patriarchal narrative of the Hebrew Bible shows the polygynous households of the patriarchs as less than harmonious–and the text is quite unambiguous about it. Look at the jealousies between the sons of different wives of King Daivd. King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines, and at least one of them must have been a real gem–“It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house…It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman.” (Prov. 21:9,19). So, why should the household of Muhammad not have had one of several wives whose tongue was like a razor–especially if she had been doted on?
Monogamy = monotany? Count your blessings, O my brother Christian men!
gravenimage says
Agreed, Kepha.
And the idea that a woman complaining is a sign of independence and strength is *very* questionable.
gravenimage says
Aisha, Muhammad’s Child Bride: A Rebuttal of Lesley Hazleton
……………
That the appalling Lesley Hazleton is trying to make a raped child look like an empowered woman is just grotesque.
The Aisha who appears in the Hadith is obviously intelligent, but this did not prevent her rape as a child, nor her forced celibacy from the age of eighteen on. Most of her “tart tongue” was just aimed at spats with Muhammed’s other wives. What a sad life.
Another fine expose by Isaac Marshall.
Kepha says
Re our earlier interchange, I think that Lesley Hazelton’s comments show the utter provinciality of much American feminism. Utterly ignorant that peoples whose languages lack gendered pronouns can be just as MCP as anyone who speaks a language with them, they declare war on traditional English pronouns and pronoun-antecedent agreement–a thing which first made me not this provinciality. Now Hazelton and people like her think that their movement invented female assertiveness. Probably, she thinks all pre-19th century women everywhere were mousy, patient Griseldas. Such people are not educators, but major factors in Americans becoming stupider by the year.
gravenimage says
True, Kepha.
saturnine says
“If Aisha could have foreseen this, she’d have been horrified, outraged and anything but silent.”
Yes, Aisha couldn’t foresee it, but the obvious question is, Why couldn’t Allah?
FYI says
Aisha for feminists…
Aisha ‘married’ at 9 years of age to a middle aged cross dressing freak:she was still playing with dolls
Sahih Bukhari 5:58:236
linda sarsour loves to tell everybody how muhammed was a feminist and a human rights activist
{tell that to the mass-murdered Jews :Abu Dawud 4390}
In mohammed’s time sarsour would not have had the freedom to say that of course.She didn’t count
It seems Aisha would disagree with sarsour.
“Aisha said to muhammed ‘you have made us equal to the dogs and asses’
Sahih Muslim 4:1039
“women are compared to slaves and camels with regard to the evil in them”
Abu dawud 2155
women=dogs,asses,camels,evil
Does it look like muhmmad was a feminist?
That hijab muslims and lefties and feminists think is all about modesty?
In fact it classifys women as follows.
“If the do that{i.e wear the hijab} it will be known that they are free and are not servants or whores”
TAFSIR IBN KATHIR 33:59
Note the implications of NOT wearing the hijab{= a whore,a servant….a non-muslim woman… not free.}
{Of course by all means wear that hijab if you wish but know where it actually comes from.Yes it is mandated by allah in the koran but then this is the same god who thinks Abraham,Moses and Jesus were muslims,the moon was split in two,MARY is in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity,the Jews believe ‘Ezra is the son of allah’ and women are worth HALF the value of a man due to what muhammed said was the deficiency of the woman’s mind}
Beneath the Veil of Consciousness says
In how many ways must one contort and spin the facts to make the argument that Aisha was an early feminist. A more humane view of her life would place her in the category of abused and traumatized children. One must wonder why Aisha never had children. Was it because Muhammad’s early violations of Aisha’s innocence resulted in damaged reproductive organs? With a person like Lesley Hazleton representing women’s rights, women everywhere should be very concerned.
OLD GUY says
Child marriage is RAPE quite simple and clear. Muhammad was a rapist and slave owner and killed people for his profit and power. Not a prophet, just another murdering dictator leader with a crazy idea that he should rule the world. Sounds like an early Hitler type.
medaber_emet says
she is an evil woman, unfortunetly people of this age are increadibly stupid