Baalthazaq

David:

I'm reasonably impressed with the argument you put forth, and think that you have conclusively dealt with the points you raised.

HOWEVER a point I would like to see you answer is: Saying as the Muslims follow Mohammed(PBUH) and his ways, the main argument not be the validity of the marriage at the time but the validity of the marriage now.

Would this marriage between Mohammed(PBUH) and Aisha(RAA), cause damage to future generations of Muslims. If so it could be defined as wrong.

This is of course presuming the ages are correct.

Baalthazaq

BTW Correction:
There is a hadith which says the marriage was when she was 6 and consumated at 9. Not hadiths.
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My personal reasons for doubting this Hadith are: There are others [more reliable*] which make it impossible for Aisha to have been less than 24.

There are no other examples of this during the caliphate which confirm it. For the most part marriages are to 20 year olds or above.

Muslim brides cannot be wed without consent (although frequently are these days which is REALLY starting to wind me up now.). She (Aisha(RAA)) was set to wed a Jewish man prior to her engagement to Mohammed(PBUH).

This means if she was engaged to be wed PRIOR to the age of 6, which if consent is required (which it WAS at the time according to at least one other Hadith [high ranking].), then this could not have occurred except perhaps in a 2 year window. This is presuming of course consent could be given as soon as the child could speak. (I have reason to doubt this also; Technically a child has no "free will" under law until adulthood/puberty, and therefore theoretically cannot give consent, although this is unconfirmed).

I think the main reason people hold so strongly to this Hadith is that they don't wish to admit the Hadith are fallible. A very dangerous thing to do because the Hadith are ACCEPTED as fallible, and it is because of this that they hold no authority over the Quran.

Furthermore the contradicting Hadiths are easier to ignore. They tell the age of Aisha at certain EVENTS, rather than at her wedding, however if you do the math, she cannot go from 6 to 60 at an event 20 years after her marriage, NOR is it possible for her to state she remember events before her birth.

* Hadith are classified into groups depending on their reliability. There are 6 groups. This Hadith comes from the 3rd or 4th group if I recall correctly. The accurate ones are Bukhari, followed by Muslim. Anything below those starts to become suspicious.

Furthermore if you read the exact text you'll see that even the narrator is uncertain as to the EXACT age of Aisha but merely gives an estimation between 2 years.

alek0

My point is actually that I can't understand how can those women defend such practice. I find it absolutely incomprehensible when they start to gush how wearing hijaab liberated them, how Islam is peaceful and tolerant, and then proceed to quote

"Allah does not forgive the one who dies non-Muslim, nor will any of his good deeds done in this lifetime be accepted from him. Surat Muhammad, Ayah 34:"

"Many judgments are incurred on the one who apostates from Islam. Some examples are: the apostate's fasting and Dry Purification (Tayammum) are invalid; it is not permissible to eat the meat he slaughters; his wealth not inherited, nor does he inherit; his marriage contract to a Muslim or non-Muslim is not valid. "

Doesn't sound very tolerant to me...

BTW, I still disagree with "no harm done". I find it difficult to beleive that 50 year old can have sex with 9 year old without any harm or damage done. Also, I don't see how can 9 year old give consent for marriage which is supposed to be required in Islaam. Or maybe he didn't write that part yet?

As for Aisha's age, do all other hadiths agree with each other? Or do we have here the same case as in numerous examples in the bible, that the numbers simply don't add up?

David Gould

Baalthazaq,

To me, the fact that the prophet had sex with a child is not necessarily a signal to Muslims to have sex with children and does not need to be defended as such.

It seems clear that Allah blessed the marriage with dreams and visions in advance.

Further, Mohummed was a special man - Allah's chosen prophet. For any other Muslim to presume that they had a similar blessing could be seen as blasphemy.

Now, if Muslims do argue 'The prophet did it and so its okay if I can' then I think they are on shaky ground and I cannot defend them. I do not think they do, however.

With regard to the damage done to Islam in the way it is looked at by the rest of the world because of the 'fact' that its prophet had sex with an underage girl, harm done to an institution imo should not be used as a balancing factor against the joy and blessing given to one or two people.

My feeling is that this issue for Islam as a whole is not a big one. People do not generally reject Islam because of this one thing.

I reject Islam because I do not believe in God. If God could be shown to exist and then shown to be Allah, rejecting him on the grounds that his prophet had sex with a child who he then shared many years of happiness with would be ridiculous.

As I stated earlier, do I condemn the guy I know for having underage sex when he is in a happy, healthy, long-term relationship with the same women he had underage sex with?

I condemn pedophillia in general but there are specific instances of it that do not fall into the same category that is rightfully abhorred.

David Gould

Consent is not imo the issue here. I do not think that it is possible for a child to give rational consent either but it is impossible to judge an individual case.

All we can go in regard to harm is what it say in the books we have. The marriage seems to have been happy and the child seems to have been blessed with joy and love.

If you are talking about the pain the child felt during sex, this is not discussed. If you claim that all children will feel pain during sex with any man then I have nothing to dispute that with. However, again starting from the theory that Allah actually does exist and did bless this special marriage, are there limits to what this blessing covered?

Your argument for the pain of the child is an argument from no knowledge that there was pain - it is not mentioned. My defence is an argument from a blessing from Allah that is mentioned but not defined.

Baalthazaq

Alek:

None of the other Hadith contradict each other, BUT few of the others give a specific age. They merely show she could not have been below a certain age (E.g. if she can remember event X which was 12 years before marriage, she could not have been less than 12). (I'll go find them over the weekend so I can quote them exactly and tell you who they are attributed to, and under whose authority. If this post dissapears by then I'll e-mail them to you.)

David:

But you see, the Muslims are meant to follow Mohammed(PBUH) by example.

(One of the reasons that at the very least I believe Mohammed(PBUH) was entirely truthful about what he believed. Otherwise special exception would have been given to him I would think.)

David Gould

If Muslims are meant to follow Mohammed's example, what does this actually mean?

Does this mean that they are supposed to do everything in exactly the same way he did?

(for example, marry wives of the same ages and names as those of the prophet at the same time in their lives as the prophet did it?)

Of does follow his example mean being loving and kind and joyful of and with the one you have chosen to be with for the rest of your days?

Do muslims believe that they literally must follow Mohammed or do they believe that they must live their lives in the spirit of Mohammed's?

jojo-sa

<a href="http://www.themodernreligion.com/prophet/prophet_aisha.htm" target="_blank">http://www.themodernreligion.com/prophet/prophet_aisha.htm</a>

read and awake out of ur alcohol stupor

alek0

<a href="http://www.homa.org/Mohammadpedophile.html" target="_blank">http://www.homa.org/Mohammadpedophile.html</a>

DMB

Jojo:
The best you can do is to insult people? The article to which you refer is typical of muslim apologetics, based on the near-worship of Muhammad.

In my book, sex with a nine-year-old is child abuse, pure and simple. M's supposed marriage to the nine-year-old Aisha has been used as a justification for child marriage in some muslim countries. No nine-year-old is sufficiently mature to be able to give proper consent to marriage. Islam as a practice is based on many types of coercion: forced under-age marriage, denial of freedom to choose and to change one's own religion and denial of free speech.