Aisha

[Montalban]

How do you know that Aisha (ra) was 9 at the time her marriage was consumated?

Your Hadith are specific.

If you a referring to a hadith to back up your claim, then why do you choose to believe that particular hadith and not other hadiths regarding the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)?

One doesn’t have to accept that the gods intervened in the Trojan war, in order to accept the Trojan War happened - this we know of through the writings of Homer.

Anyway, it is what *you *believe

 

[cestusdei]

I am disappointed. Without debating the merits of marrying 9 year olds 1000 years ago the problem is that muslims still do it TODAY. Since muhammed did it then it must be okay. It isn’t okay. It’s pedophilia and it’s wrong. Jesus didn’t do it.

 

[heathernoel]

muslim.org/islam/aisha-age.htm

:tsktsk: :bigyikes:

I can NOT believe that it’s being rationalized in terms of social context.

Just because cannibals ate other people when they were hard up a hundred years ago doesn’t make it right, either. She might have been considered ‘mature’, but SHE WAS A CHILD.

 

[pro_universal]

I am disappointed. Without debating the merits of marrying 9 year olds 1000 years ago the problem is that muslims still do it TODAY. Since muhammed did it then it must be okay. It isn’t okay. It’s pedophilia and it’s wrong. Jesus didn’t do it.

Christians still do it today too; they just don’t do it in developed countries, and the same is true for Muslims.

Young marriage comes hand in hand with living in a third world, undeveloped economy, where life is short and health care is minimal. This is true regardless of your religion, and regardless of the time.

The fact that it’s century 21 doesn’t make the Amazon any less poor, and doesn’t make central africa more developed. So your claim doesn’t really address the issue, which isn’t “then vs. now”, it’s about what kinds of conditions people live in.

 

[Montalban]

Christians still do it today too; they just don’t do it in developed countries, and the same is true for Muslims.

If its done by anyone its condemned by right-thinking people.

Islam supports this act. Christianity does not.

Young marriage comes hand in hand with living in a third world, undeveloped economy, where life is short and health care is minimal. This is true regardless of your religion, and regardless of the time.

This is part of your spin, from last time this was debated.

Many who are involved in ‘young marriage’ have a young partner. In the Middle Ages a guy of 15 might have married a girl of 13.

This is not the same as a 40+ year old man marrying a nine year old girl.

If it were simply about being ‘young’ then in Islam we’d see a number of older women marrying boys. However it tends not to work out this way because the Islamic laws made by men are simply a way of regularizing child abuse by men.

Further proof of this is that although you consider the girl to be a ‘woman’ for the purposes of marriage, you don’t for any other purpose. That ‘woman’ (in Moslem countries) isn’t necessarily allowed to vote, or to drive. So again it’s about structuring a series of laws that allows a man to exploit a child.

I also note the absence from you of any proof that any such person being emotionally or psychologically or mentally ‘fit’ to have a child simply based on the biological process of beginning menstruation.

This ‘evidence’ was lacking last time you and I discussed this topic, and it still is.

You simply have to believe that at the same time a biological process BEGINS she’s instantly mentally mature enough for child-rearing.

 

[Montalban]

I can NOT believe that it’s being rationalized in terms of social context.

Just because cannibals ate other people when they were hard up a hundred years ago doesn’t make it right, either. She might have been considered ‘mature’, but SHE WAS A CHILD.

One of the ways Moslem apologists get around the ‘child-abuse’ issue is by pretending that the victim is no longer a child.

They simply re-define her based on the belief that once she begins menstruation (plus 3 months) she’s an adult. There’s no proof that she’ is an adult, in any other sense of the word. And Moslem nations deny her other adult rights anyway.

It’s simply a disgusting act wrapped up in religion as if this isolates it from rational criticism.

It’s biased in favour of the man – because he is almost certainly much older and thus in a position of having power in the relationship. This is an Islamic ideal

 

[cestusdei]

pro, we’ve been down this row before. The problem here is that you don’t think it’s wrong at all in any era of history. I am willing to say it’s wrong period. You are not. If I said let’s agree that marrying 9 year olds is always wrong you would not agree with me. That’s the problem here. Muslims can’t agree because that reveals Muhammed in an extremely unfavorable light.

 

[pro_universal]

pro, we’ve been down this row before. The problem here is that you don’t think it’s wrong at all in any era of history. I am willing to say it’s wrong period. You are not. If I said let’s agree that marrying 9 year olds is always wrong you would not agree with me. That’s the problem here. Muslims can’t agree because that reveals Muhammed in an extremely unfavorable light.

Again, you’re not answering my claim.

In a stone aged desert where people die at age 30, is marrying a girl who turns 9 child rape?

In the backwoods of the Amazon today, where there is the equivalent of 7th century technology (or worse), are there tribes of child rapists because they marry women that young?

The key is the conditions in which people live. In harsh, undeveloped conditions, childhood is a luxury that people simply do not have. It’s very easy to forget that when you live your whole life in America, but as a Priest, surely you should be sensitive to the fact that most people in the world don’t live with medical technology and other material means of this sort.

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

In a stone aged desert where people die at age 30, is marrying a girl who turns 9 child rape?

Yes, it is. Tough situations don’t make something that is immoral suddenly okay. That might explain why it happened but that does not excuse it. Besides, by most accounts, Aisha lived well past thirty. And so did Muhammed.

In the backwoods of the Amazon today, where there is the equivalent of 7th century technology (or worse), are there tribes of child rapists because they marry women that young?

Depends. Who are they marrying those little girls to? Other little boys? That makes them a bit backwards, yes, but perhaps not child rapists. But if they are marrying them to 50 year old men, they are child rapists, if even if their culture doesn’t reconigze it as such.

The key is the conditions in which people live.

That is the key to understanding the actions of other people. It is not an excuse, however.

In harsh, undeveloped conditions, childhood is a luxury that people simply do not have.

That still doesn’t make it okay to marry little girls to old men.

 

[pro_universal]

ChristIsTheWay,

Alright, then please tell me what age is the minimum for marriage, so that a society won’t have condoned child rape.

I’d also like for you to tell me how you arrived at this minimum number, and how you square it against the Catholic practices of the past.

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

To the Muslims,
None of the ‘Aisha was not nine years old’ polemics are sahih. They are not even hadiths but some re-calculations from false evidence.

Secondly, can any of you prove that Aisha had reached the age of puberty when she was nine? I often hear this Muslim assertion as if it were solid fact but am yet to see the evidence. So please provide.

Thanks,
Rodrigo

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

ChristIsTheWay,

Alright, then please tell me what age is the minimum for marriage, so that a society won’t have condoned child rape.

To avoid the practice of child rape, a society should wait until biological adulthood has been reached. This is normally defined as being the completion of physical maturation. Marriage during the time of physical maturation (adolescence) would not be child rape but would be teenade marriage and possible rape, depending on the circumstances.

I’d also like for you to tell me how you arrived at this minimum number, and how you square it against the Catholic practices of the past.

**Simple use of the available scientific evidence, as well as how that evidence is being applied in modern society. I don’t have to sqaure it against previous Catholic practices. If a Church leader married a nine year old to a 50 plus man he would have been in league with the Devil. To my knowledge, the Church has never permitted such a thing but local customs may have.

Also, are you saying that it was widespread practice in Christian history to marry little girls to old men? Or are you talking about marrying kids to other kids, a dumb practice but not quite the same as allowing a pedophile to marry his victims?**

 

[pro_universal]

To avoid the practice of child rape, a society should wait until biological adulthood has been reached. This is normally defined as being the completion of physical maturation. Marriage during the time of physical maturation (adolescence) would not be child rape but would be teenade marriage and possible rape, depending on the circumstances.

I agree with you that this is the absolute minimum, but can you also agree that it’s possible for a girl to develop physically at an age much earlier than what would be considered age of marriage today?

If a Church leader married a nine year old to a 50 plus man he would have been in league with the Devil. To my knowledge, the Church has never permitted such a thing but local customs may have.

What if the 9 year old was physically mature?

This claim seems to be at odds with your previous statement.

Why does the age of the husband make a marriage evil that otherwise could be legitimate?

Also, are you saying that it was widespread practice in Christian history to marry little girls to old men?

Marrying 25-35 year olds to girls as young as 12-14, yes. Absolutely this was widespread. That’s dating back to the high middle ages; earlier it was likely even more pronounced and younger.

Or are you talking about marrying kids to other kids, a dumb practice but not quite the same as allowing a pedophile to marry his victims?

How is marrying someone physically mature pedophilia???

If the girl were 14 (the current standard Church minimum) and the man were 55 instead of 50, would that be pedophilia?

This is truly a case, I think, of reading our own norms of marriage onto situations where they simply do not make sense.

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

1. Where is the evidence that Aisha was physically mature when she was nine years old? Evidence would be nice.
2. Since when is marriage a mitigating factor against pedophilia? Evidence please.

 

[LilyM]

This whole debate is quite odd. There’s church tradition to the effect that Mary was twelve when she became Christ’s mother and that Joseph was much older, into his fifties or more, when he married her.

My own grandmother by the age of fourteen was married and had her first child and my grandfather about fifteen years older. Am I supposed to think that either St Joseph or my own grandfather was a pedophile? :ehh:

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

Dear LilyM,
Not so odd since 12 is not 9. There is a whole lot of development time in those three years.

Not so odd since Mary’s supposed age at marriage (according to apocryphal sources) has not been taken by Christians as a holy sanction to commit pedophilia. Unlike that case with Muhammad whose behavior has been, is, and continue to be taken by Muslims as the religious sanction to marry and have sex with kids as young as nine. This of course refers to some Muslims before the influence of Western sensibilities. Even some Muslims today by instituting a Western-style minimum age of consent have tacitly acknowledged their prophet’s pedophilia.

Note also that Muhammad’s marriage and sex with a nine year old child has been reported by Islamic canonical sources unlike the Christian apocryphal sources of Mary’s age. But then again, no Christian would accept Joseph as the model of their behavior.

Chau,
Rodrigo

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

I agree with you that this is the absolute minimum, but can you also agree that it’s possible for a girl to develop physically at an age much earlier than what would be considered age of marriage today?

Yes, it is possible for someone to reach biological adulthood much earlier than someone else. However, a nine year old doesn’t wake up a physically completed woman. She may wake up and have her first period and maybe start growing but her physical maturation is not complete. It has only begun and she is still very immature. The ability to become pregnant does not translate into adulthood.

What if the 9 year old was physically mature?

This claim seems to be at odds with your previous statement.

Why does the age of the husband make a marriage evil that otherwise could be legitimate?

Not really. I did not say that the start of physical maturation is the point at which someone is marriageable, I said that when maturation it completed, they are marriageable. Just because a nine year old can menstruate doesn’t mean she is physically mature and in a marriageable state.

Marrying 25-35 year olds to girls as young as 12-14, yes. Absolutely this was widespread. That’s dating back to the high middle ages; earlier it was likely even more pronounced and younger.

I would like some sources, please. If it did occur, it was wrong.

How is marrying someone physically mature pedophilia???

There is no nine year old that is physically mature. Physical maturity is not complete with the start of menstruation. There is still a lot developing such a girl will go through.

If the girl were 14 (the current standard Church minimum) and the man were 55 instead of 50, would that be pedophilia?

This is truly a case, I think, of reading our own norms of marriage onto situations where they simply do not make sense.

I thought canon law set the minimum at 16? Even so, it should be raised. One more thing, I believe pedophilia is defined as having sexual attraction to children under the age of 13. There is another name for people having sexual attraction to adolescents, I believe. What the real difference is, I don’t know.

 

[kellie]

I would like to see the term “paedophilia” removed from this topic.

Paedophilia is an abnormal sexual attraction to children.
The law normally defines “child” as under 18, but mental health experts define “child” in the case of paedophilia as “pre-pubescent”.

Paedophilia however is not a crime, as it only involves the attraction, however it does need psychological attention.

When the adult acts on their paedophilia, they commit a sex crime such as child rape, or child pornography possession.

Whether or not Aisha was 9, whether or not she was pre-pubescent when her marriage was consummated, whether or not Catholics believe this hadith and disbelieve other hadiths, all have nothing to do with whether Mohammed was a paedophile.

I don’t think he was. He did not have paedophilia.

He did not dump Aisha when she became 18 in favour for another 9 year old.

He is most likely guilty of the crime of child rape that we know exists today. But as we all know, crime is relative to the society and time it exists in.

That is just my view of the paedophile issue.

As for Mohammed marrying a 9 year old, well, quite frankly, I can’t understand how any 9 year old, in any century, at any stage of development, could be seen as a wife.

They have only existed for 9 years. How could they be ready for marriage, whether the marriage is consummated or not?

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

He did not dump Aisha when she became 18 in favour for another 9 year old.

Not every pedophile is exclusively attracted to children. And I believe Muhammed died about the time she would have turned 18. As such, he may not have had enough time to find a new wife, nor as sick and dying man even have had the interest.

 

[kellie]

That is true. Paedophiles can be attracted to adults as well as children.

But one of the ways of diagnosing paedophilia is whether the attraction to children has remained over time.

Did Mohammed ever show signs of paedophilia prior to meeting Aisha?

And I am not sure whether him dying when Aisha turned 18 would satisfy the time issue, as it is only a 9 year period then, which may seem a while, but not when you consider how old Mohammed was when Aisha was 9.