Do Muslims to this day think that marrying children is acceptable?

philologos

I have recently read that the Prophet Muhammad married a 6 year old girl, and subsequently had sexual relations with her 3 years later. Do Muslims to this day think that marrying children is acceptable?

Hobbes

Somewhat loaded and ill-informed question. I'll leave the thread open for now.

I recommend starting here if your reading up on the issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha%27s_age_at_marriage

Incidentally pedophilia is being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent children. So no this would not be pedophilia.

copacetic

your question seems deliberately worded to offend rather than as a question. there is a lot of debate over the exact age and also what attitudes were prevalent at those times. I don't believe any of it transfers to modern times..

InFront

According to the scholars, ages reported for`A’ishah (may God be pleased with her) seem to range from nine years of age to twenty-four years of age. Given that we know nobody was surprised about the the marriage at the time, it doesn't seem very likely that she was this young. There is also a question about whether she may have been married to Muhammad pbuh at a young age, but the marriage only consummated in later years.

A different well-known example of this latter arrangement in a modern setting is the marriage of Gandhi to his wife in infancy. That doesn't mean Indian nationalists are paedophiles, or that Gandhi was either.

`A’ishah is a highly important and knowledgeable Muslim scholar, whose breadth of knowledge of Islam and the ways of the Prophet pbuh would never be called into question. Far from being a victim, I imagine she is a figure of encouragement to Muslim women and indeed men. She used to lead prayers for the women for example, and has contributed to the Sunnah.

These three links might help you with your search for knowledge
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1123996016332&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam/AskAboutIslamE/AskAboutIslamE
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/history/biographies/sahaabah/bio.AISHAH_BINT_ABI_BAKR.html
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503546678


There is also an interesting article here on child sexual abuse in the Liberal age.

philologos

daveym wrote:

your question seems deliberately worded to offend rather than as a question. there is a lot of debate over the exact age and also what attitudes were prevalent at those times. I don't believe any of it transfers to modern times..

It's not intended to offend infact as hard as it may be to believe i'm actually curious that's all. Infact I find Islam interesting I bought an English translation of the Qu'ran a few days ago, and was googling about the Prophet infact when I stumbled across it. So no I didn't intend to offend (or does asking a question about the faith on the relevant forum constitute being offensive).

Hobbes

Jakkass wrote:

(or does asking a question about the faith on the relevant forum constitute being offensive).

The point is you are basically asking a loaded question. You could of worded your question better.

PeakOutput

Jakkass wrote:

It's not intended to offend infact as hard as it may be to believe i'm actually curious that's all. Infact I find Islam interesting I bought an English translation of the Qu'ran a few days ago, and was googling about the Prophet infact when I stumbled across it. So no I didn't intend to offend (or does asking a question about the faith on the relevant forum constitute being offensive).

i think the point is weather it is allowed or not it is not strictly paedophilia you are refering to in mine and your opinion it might be but im sure they just call it marriage,if it is allowed which i doubt

edit hobbes got their first and put it better

copacetic

Jakkass wrote:

It's not intended to offend infact as hard as it may be to believe i'm actually curious that's all. Infact I find Islam interesting I bought an English translation of the Qu'ran a few days ago, and was googling about the Prophet infact when I stumbled across it. So no I didn't intend to offend (or does asking a question about the faith on the relevant forum constitute being offensive).

why did you entitle the post

Jakkass wrote:

Are paedophiles acceptable to Muslims?

when this has nothing to do with what you are asking?
It's clearly a troll imo, perhaps even worse than normal
since you are letting on you are just interested.

philologos

daveym wrote:

why did you entitle the post

Surely Muslims follow the Prophet's example. Oh and why did I entitle it? because it is useful to put a title on things...

daveym wrote:

when this has nothing to do with what you are asking?
It's clearly a troll imo, perhaps even worse than normal
since you are letting on you are just interested.

It does have something to do with what i'm asking since Muslims follow the Prophet's example.

I'm letting on I'm interested? I'm not a troll i'm merely trying to find out information. Why am I bothering to read the Qu'ran (even if it is an English translation) if I amn't remotely interested in Islam. If you want me to retitle it I can (if I can edit it).. but the question is genuine.

wes

A lot of people seem to enjoy defaming Muslims by quoting there "facts" rather than mentioning that there information could be wildly inaccurate. There are a lot of daft things and bad sources about Islam that Muslims have and there are a lot of people who pick the worse and state them as fact.

I am sure you mean well Jakkass, but I wouldn't believe everything you read on the internet. You can find all sort of false information as well as useful information.

philologos

I don't mean to defame Muslims, quite the opposite i'm trying to discover more and more about them. I was just a bit confused about this.

wes

Jakkass wrote:

I don't mean to defame Muslims, quite the opposite i'm trying to discover more and more about them. I was just a bit confused about this.

To be clear I didn't mean you. I meant other people. Questions are good and I apologies if I made it out that I was blaming you on anything. It was not my intent. I was blaming dodgy internet sites.

DublinWriter

Jakkass wrote:

I don't mean to defame Muslims, quite the opposite i'm trying to discover more and more about them. I was just a bit confused about this.

This thread is very typical of how discussions tend to pan out in boards.ie these days.

Instead of things being discussed in a rational, collegiate and objective manner, people spew out all sort of personal insults, attacking the OP and eventually the thread gets closed.

In short, play the ball, not the man.

As for the OP asking a 'loaded' question, that's a bit lame. In a didactic context if one throws out an argument, either you shoot it down with logical points or back it with logical points. Questioning the personal motives of the OP is a bit like going "nah nah nah ure ma!" and achieves nothing. If you want to expose the OP as a troll then do it through argument.

copacetic

DublinWriter wrote:

As for the OP asking a 'loaded' question, that's a bit lame. In a didactic context if one throws out an argument, either you shoot it down with logical points or back it with logical points. Questioning the personal motives of the OP is a bit like going "nah nah nah ure ma!" and achieves nothing. If you want to expose the OP as a troll then do it through argument.

In this case I'd disagree, the premise of the OPs original question was that the prophet was a paedophile. Hardly a starting point for reasoned discussion.

philologos

I have figured out that it is only the Sunni historical books that say that the Prophet married a 6 year old. The Shia books claim she was older. (on discussing with a Shia Muslim)

daveym - the original question was do Muslims find paedophilia acceptable? not asking if the prophet was one...

wes

Jakkass wrote:

I have figured out that it is only the Sunni historical books that say that the Prophet married a 6 year old. The Shia books claim she was older. (on discussing with a Shia Muslim)

daveym - the original question was do Muslims find paedophilia acceptable? not asking if the prophet was one...

I don't think I have ever heard the age being as low as 6.

Muslims don't find Paedophilia acceptable.

copacetic

Jakkass wrote:

daveym - the original question was do Muslims find paedophilia acceptable? not asking if the prophet was one...

You implied he was with the way you worded the question, thats why I said 'premise' and why people said you loaded the question.

philologos

and hence why I changed the title, because you were being particular about it (and continue to be particular about it)...

Schuhart

DublinWriter wrote:

As for the OP asking a 'loaded' question, that's a bit lame. In a didactic context if one throws out an argument, either you shoot it down with logical points or back it with logical points. Questioning the personal motives of the OP is a bit like going "nah nah nah ure ma!" and achieves nothing. If you want to expose the OP as a troll then do it through argument.

Thou speaks for me, brother.

To quote that source of rough and ready knowledge, the wikipedia,

The hadith collections of Bukhari (d. 870) and Muslim b. al-Hajjaj (d. 875) are in general regarded as the most authentic by Sunni Muslims. Both quote Aisha herself claiming she was six or seven at the time of her marriage and nine when the marriage was consummated.

There may well be reasons for doubting those dates. In fact, the wikipedia article explains how many scholars have produced reasons based on other sources to say these stated ages should not be taken as sound. However, it also mentions that some scholars dispute those re-interpretations, presumably seeing no reason to doubt sources normally regarded as reliable.

Looking for a Christian equivalent, I think this stuff fits into the same category as those posts you see when someone asks about the Bible saying a woman raped in a city is partly to blame (it being assumed she could call for help) or the stuff about not allowing women to speak out in church or (one I only found out about recently) Jesus’s habit of cursing fig trees when they gave him reason for displeasure. The only possible reaction of a believer on being confronted with this stuff is 'oh no, they found it'. Assuming they knew it was there.

I’m not a theist. My attitude is this stuff is in your holy books. I'm not saying we've to pay it any more attention than a Government press release. I’m not surprised if those books reflect society at the time they were written. In this particular case, I am suspicious of scholarly attempts to question the recorded age just because its no longer socially acceptable.

Yes, it’s awkward and embarrassing if someone reads a Hadith and says ‘is that part of the faith’ and you have to explain no. But it’s hardly Jakkass’ fault if the Hadith contain several references to the marriage being consummated when Aisha was nine. Is there a suggestion that Jakkass’ made that up, or the site where he read it? There’s other stuff in there too, and plenty more in Bible and Quran but I know that none of us want to get into a competition to see which of us can dig out the most obnoxious scriptural quote. [Ok, I do but I'll bow to majority opinion.]

Is there a tendency to overreact to this kind of thing? Yes. Is it improving? Slowly. Are we there yet? Err.

philologos

Schuhart wrote:

Yes, it’s awkward and embarrassing if someone reads a Hadith and says ‘is that part of the faith’ and you have to explain no. But it’s hardly Jakkass’ fault if the Hadith contain several references to the marriage being consummated when Aisha was nine. Is there a suggestion that Jakkass’ made that up, or the site where he read it? There’s other stuff in there too, and plenty more in Bible and Quran but I know that none of us want to get into a competition to see which of us can dig out the most obnoxious scriptural quote. [Ok, I do but I'll bow to majority opinion.]

Indeed as is the case with Lot being drunk and having incest with his daughters. There are plenty of religious circumstances that one could ask about. I wouldn't be offended if someone asked about how Christians felt about incest. I was merely trying to find out what the Islamic opinion on it all was, again I say it wasn't an attack on Islam as a faith (I infact have a lot of respect for it)

wes

Schuhart wrote:

Is there a tendency to overreact to this kind of thing? Yes. Is it improving? Slowly. Are we there yet? Err.

I have seen a lot of people trying to use details like this to attack Muslims as being pure evil etc. So you may find Muslims can be very defensive about such things. Questions are always good however.

Hobbes

DublinWriter wrote:

As for the OP asking a 'loaded' question, that's a bit lame.

No it was correct and if you have nothing to add to the discussion directly refrain from posting on this thread (read the charter if you wish to discuss moderation/discussion issue).

Eh, I'd heard he married her at 9 and waited some years before consummating...
I wouldn't think that meant muslims found paedophilia acceptable though...

philologos

Hobbes wrote:

No it was correct and if you have nothing to add to the discussion directly refrain from posting on this thread (read the charter if you wish to discuss moderation/discussion issue).

well sorry for causing so much trouble in terms of being curious and asking a genuine question of the faith. To be honest with you I think that DublinWriter is correct to point that out as I was merely asking a question not trying to attack the faith of Islam. To be honest with you I'd prefer if you would either, try to address the question without attacking me and saying that I am a troll or asking loaded questions with intent to attacking Islam, or lock the thread...

Hobbes

In relation to the issue in earlier threads on the same subject I recall.
1. Once a woman has reached mensuration she is considered a woman.

Now in our time we have a set age to define teenagers/adult ages.

Again as I recall one of the earlier threads has a link to age of consent by countries (this is the one I found, there is another for muslim countries).
http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

From memory I recall only 1 middle eastern country having a very low age of consent, the rest were were around 16.

2. The second contention is that a child is being married. However the consumation didn't take place until the child was deemed old enough. So again how does this compare with say arranged marriages which can be set up at birth of the child in many other countries?

Hobbes

Jakkass wrote:

well sorry for causing so much trouble in terms of being curious and asking a genuine question of the faith.

As I said in my first post your question was badly worded and could of easily been taken as trying to cause offense. If I had thought your intention was trolling the thread would of been locked and you would of been banned long ago.

To be honest with you I think that DublinWriter is correct to point

I don't care. The forum has rules on discussing off topic to the thread. If you or anyone else wants to continue this do so as per the forum charter. Anyone else continuing to question the moderation in this thread will get a holiday.

To be honest with you I'd prefer if you would either, try to address the question

Your question is being addressed.

Wibbs

Hobbes wrote:

In relation to the issue in earlier threads on the same subject I recall.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=304905 Here be the main thread on the subject.

1. Once a woman has reached mensuration she is considered a woman.

And as I pointed out in the other thread, why someone who is directly in contact with God, not understand as we do today that sexual relations between a 9yr old girl/woman and a 50+yr old man with the possibility of pregnancy is not exactly the healthiest, both from a physical and especially psychological point of view. Moral relativism is all very well, but it only takes you so far. Surely the founder of a religion, indeed the most revered member of that religion would set an example that holds for all time, without the baggage of moral relativism.

Now in our time we have a set age to define teenagers/adult ages.

If we have a set age nowadays, why? Why do we have age limits for many things? Why do we restrict many activities on the basis of age? Emotional, mental and physical maturity, that's why. Now look at what we know today about physical and mental maturity in a 9 year old and the issues if she marries a 50yr old? Why didn't the most revered man in Islam and Allah not know all this?

Again as I recall one of the earlier threads has a link to age of consent by countries (this is the one I found, there is another for muslim countries).
http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm

From memory I recall only 1 middle eastern country having a very low age of consent, the rest were were around 16.

That answers the question of whether Muslims today are in favour of child brides. Obviously and naturally the vast majority are not. The admittedly small sample of Muslims I've discussed this naturally with go for the whole "she was older, y'know" line of reasoning. Multiple Hadeeth appear to be quite clear about it though.

2. The second contention is that a child is being married. However the consumation didn't take place until the child was deemed old enough. So again how does this compare with say arranged marriages which can be set up at birth of the child in many other countries?

Those self same arranged marriages at birth are usually to men/boys of the same general age. Slight difference there. In any case, those arrangements have many moral issues attached. Would you use either as a basis for the law of marriage in a society? In any case as you pointed out re Ghandi, it's not the marriage that is the main issue here, it's the consummation of same. When is a "child" deemed old enough to sleep with any middle aged man? That's were the sticky problem lies with many.

Sangre

Even if she was young it was very different times.

Hobbes

Sangre wrote:

Even if she was young it was very different times.

I think the OP wants to know the context of this in relation to modern day though.

Schuhart

bluewolf wrote:

I wouldn't think that meant muslims found paedophilia acceptable though...

I think the clear picture emerging is that one of the old ‘why can’t I own Canadians’ letter. Presumably few Christians and Jews still feel they have Biblical approval to own slaves taken from neighbouring nations. Similarly, presumably few Muslims feel the Hadith account of Aisha’s age at marriage and consummation gives approval to marriage of children. Browsing UN data seems to suggest that age at marriage is more a function of how wealthy a country is, rather than main religious affiliation.

For what its worth, there does seem to be a UN Declaration on Minimum Age for Marriage, drawn up in 1962. In one of those ‘go figure’ points that emerges from browsing the list of states ratifying the treaty, Ireland hasn’t signed up but Yemen has. On the other hand, according to wikipedia, Yemen is the only country in the world identified as allowing marriage at a very young age – 9 years.

Wibbs wrote:

Multiple Hadeeth appear to be quite clear about it though.

You won’t be amazed that I have similar thoughts. Apologists seem uncertain as to whether they are trying to discredit Aisha’s reported age and say it never happened, or allow that it happened but excuse it in terms of it being acceptable in the context of the time. You even get armchair archaeological gynaecologists trying to account for it in terms of girls maturing earlier 1400 years ago.

Wibbs

Sangre wrote:

Even if she was young it was very different times.

True and it's not so long ago that sort of thing was going on in Europe either.

Hobbes wrote:

I think the OP wants to know the context of this in relation to modern day though.

That's the rub. As I've said I think very few Muslims outside of the backwoods of somewhereistan go in for this sort of thing at all. The context I see is that if Mohammed is revered as the ultimate Muslim, whose example would be strived for by many through the sunnah/hadeeth* why was this allowed/condoned by Allah, no matter what the time. This is especially relevant when so many Muslims regard the prophets ways and morals as timeless and pure.

Schuhart wrote:

I think the clear picture emerging is that one of the old ‘why can’t I own Canadians’ letter

Very much so.

You even get armchair archaeological gynaecologists trying to account for it in terms of girls maturing earlier 1400 years ago.

There was a touch of that in the old thread. My contention would be that while everyone matured mentally faster(in some ways) in societies such as that, physical maturation would have been the same if not later than today. The age of first menses if getting lower in the developed world nowadays. Many reasons have been cited; better diet and more phytoeostrogens in the environment(obesity in girls can bring on early menses). In any case using first menses as the yardstick by which social, mental, emotional and sexual maturity is at the point where the girl can be judged ready for a step like marriage is a bit suspect in many ways. How far can you take this? There have been rare cases where first menses occurs even earlier than 9. Would such a girl be ready for marriage? Especially to a man decades older than her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precocious_puberty#Measures Looking at this it would suggest that even the age of 9 would be unusual for menses to occur. I'm not sure where that leaves this TBH.



*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnah