Aisha

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

kellie,
You are under the misconception that a pedophile is primarily or solely sexually attracted to children. This is a layman’s view. Modern psychiatry has identified several types of pedophile - including a type that does not have a primary interest in children. This type is called a ‘situational’ or ‘regressive’/ ‘regressed’ pedophile. This is the type of man who would fall for a young girl in certain situations only and may even be attracted to only a particular girl - but he remains a pedophile nonetheless.

Pedophilia is a broad term that means many things to different people. However, it’s just a term of convenience to describe a person who is either attracted to or has acted on his/her attraction to a child.

You are right that the medical definition arbitrarily puts the limit on the child at puberty. However, the legal definition does not - and is more age specific.

There are also hadiths where Muhammad dreamt of marrying a baby. Yes, a baby. So it may be that his ‘attraction’ to children was not limited to only Aisha. I will leave to the readers’ judgment on the morality of a full-grown 50+ year old man who dreams about marrying babies.

Which definition we use is largely irrelevant as we ask ourselves ‘how young is too young’, and should a 53 year old man purporting to be the prophet of god (which Muslims claim to be YOUR god) would have sex with a minor. In essence, does a true god sanction pedophilia? Is this a moral prophet-like behavior that stands the test of time.

Please bear in mind one of the main attractiveness of the teachings of Jesus Christ - his essential teachings and example were eternal and specific to any time or culture.

Chau,
Rodrigo

 

[kellie]

Sorry Rodrigo, I still stand firm on my reasoning with not calling Mohammed a paedophile.

And techinically he could not be called a child rapist if there was no law in place back then forbidding forced sex on a child.

Do you see where I am coming from?

Even the word “minor” is irrelevant as that is relative to the society.

Technically, Aisha may not have been a minor, there may not have been any laws about forced sex, there may not have been any boundaries at all that Mohammed crossed over.

However, I do agree, that marrying a 9 year old girl is wrong.

Humans only learn to walk and run fully by age 2.
That means Aisha was only walking for 7 years before taking on the role of a wife. (I know, I know, many children walk at a younger age, this is just a general example).
She was only a child. And I think it is safe to say that a 9 year old is a child no matter what century it is, even if they have hit puberty.

That is what I find horrendous about Mohammed.

 

[Montalban]

Again, you’re not answering my claim.

And we’ve gone down this path too. You play the part of no one answering you, but you selectively avoid my questions (above) as you did last time we met on this subject.

Show me the evidence that such a child/woman is capable of having children - mentally/emotionally etc.

 

[Montalban]

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.

I’ve been trying to get this* revelation *from him now for what seems like months

 

[Montalban]

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.

This old chestnut is raised every time the subject comes up. Intentionally or otherwise someone always offers this attempt at relativism, and thus Moslem apologetics.

The problems are manifold.
a) 12 is not 9
b) Mary; she was deemed to have been ‘betrothed’ at that age. Aisha’s marriage was ‘consummated’ when she was 9. Betrothal and consummation are not the same thing either
most importantly
c) the ‘tradition’ is a euphemism for one solitary source that’s never been accepted.

Wasn’t it you who last raised this argument?

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

Kellie,

Your position makes little sense. You say that Mohammed can’t be called a pedophile or child rapist because his society didn’t recognize it as such but then you condemn his actions and call him horrendous. You can’t have it both ways. Either he was a horrible child rapist or moral relativism excuses him from his actions. It doesn’t work both ways.

 

[Montalban]

Kellie,

Your position makes little sense. You say that Mohammed can’t be called a paedophile or child rapist because his society didn’t recognize it as such but then you condemn his actions and call him horrendous. You can’t have it both ways. Either he was a horrible child rapist or moral relativism excuses him from his actions. It doesn’t work both ways.

It’s interesting that the Islamic approval of this horrendous act came about because Muhammad did it. Whatever he did, must have been approved of by Al-lah, because we all know he’s Al-lah’s messenger.

A wee bit of circular logic there to justify anything Muhammad did.

Many Moslems get angry at such talk as ‘insults’ which itself is an argument to have it both ways. For how can it be an insult to merely talk about something they don’t disapprove of?

And not only was she nine, but still playing with her dolls
e, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.) (Fateh-al-Bari page 143, Vol.13)

usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/073.sbt.html#008.073.151

Book 008, Number 3311:

'A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) 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 (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old.

usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/008.smt.html#008.3311

Book 031, Number 5981:

'A’isha reported that she used to play with dolls in the presence of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) and when her playmates came to her they left (the house) because they felt shy of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him), whereas Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) sent them to her.

usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/031.smt.html#031.5981

and a touching domestic scene.

Book 41, Number 4914:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu’minin:

When the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) arrived after the expedition to Tabuk or Khaybar (the narrator is doubtful), the draught raised an end of a curtain which was hung in front of her store-room, revealing some dolls which belonged to her.

He asked: What is this? She replied: My dolls. Among them he saw a horse with wings made of rags, and asked: What is this I see among them? She replied: A horse. He asked: What is this that it has on it? She replied: Two wings. He asked: A horse with two wings? She replied: Have you not heard that Solomon had horses with wings? She said: Thereupon the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) laughed so heartily that I could see his molar teeth.

usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/abudawud/041.sat.html#041.4914

After Khadijah died, Muhammad dreamed that he was to marry A’isha, the daughter of Abu Bakr. She was six and he was fifty. But firstly he married the widow Sawdah who was very motherly towards his children and, a few months later, to his child bride A’isha. She continued to play with her dolls for several years until, at the age of nine, her marriage was consummated.

islam.com/reply.asp?id=751311&ct=0&mn=741133

 

[kellie]

Kellie,

Your position makes little sense. You say that Mohammed can’t be called a pedophile or child rapist because his society didn’t recognize it as such but then you condemn his actions and call him horrendous. You can’t have it both ways. Either he was a horrible child rapist or moral relativism excuses him from his actions. It doesn’t work both ways.

I am not condemning Mohammed for being a child rapist.

I am condemning him and any society that robs a human of childhood.

By robbing a childhood, I mean placing a child with the burdens of being an adult.

This could be done by a child’s parents if they make their child work laboriously every day instead of allowing the child to play.

Or a childhood could be robbed by forcing the child to marry as in the case of Mohammed and Aisha.

My position on the abhorrence of what happened to Aisha is about her childhood being lost.

 

[Montalban]

“Of the four ahâdîth in Sahîh al-Bukhari, two were narrated from cAishah (7:64 and 7:65), one from Abû Hishâm (5:236) and one via 'Ursa (7:88). All three of the ahâdîth in Sahîh Muslim have cAishah as a narrator. Additionally, all of the ahâdîth in both books agree that the marriage betrothal contract took place when cAishah was “six years old”, but was not consummated until she was “nine years old”. Additionally, a hadîth with the same text (matn) is reported in Sunan Abû Dâwûd. Needless to say, this evidence is - Islamically speaking - overwhelmingly strong and Muslims who deny it do so only by sacrificing their intellectual honesty, pure faith or both.
This evidence having been established, there doesn’t seem much room for debate about cAishah’s age amongst believing Muslims. Until someone proves that in the Arabic language “nine years old” means something other than “nine years old”, then we should all be firm in our belief that she was “nine years old” (as if there’s a reason or need to believe otherwise!?!). In spite of these facts, there are still some Muslim authors that have somehow (?) managed to push cAishah’s age out to as far as “fourteen or fifteen years old” at the time of her marriage to the Prophet(P). It should come as no surprise, however, that none of them ever offer any proof, evidence or references for their opinions. This can be said with the utmost confidence, since certainly none of them can produce sources more authentic than the hadîth collections of Imâms al-Bukhârî and Muslim! Based on the research that I’ve done, I feel that there is a common source for those who claim that cAishah’s age was “fourteen or fifteen years old” at the time of the marriage. This source is The Biographies of Prominent Muslims which is published in book form, on CD-ROM and is posted in several places on the Internet. Just another example of why going to the sources is important . . .”
islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/aishah.html

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

I am not condemning Mohammed for being a child rapist.

That’s too bad.

I am condemning him and any society that robs a human of childhood.

What do you think child rape does?

By robbing a childhood, I mean placing a child with the burdens of being an adult.

But not rape?

This could be done by a child’s parents if they make their child work laboriously every day instead of allowing the child to play.

Rape shatters childhood in a way nothing else can. Trust me when I tell you that. The wounds and the pain do not just go away, they scar you for for the rest of your life and everyday is a very difficult ordeal. You can’t get it out of your head and your sleep is plagued by nightmares of what happened to you. Nothing can compare to that kind of abuse, nothing!

Or a childhood could be robbed by forcing the child to marry as in the case of Mohammed and Aisha.

Because he raped her! A political marriage, or a spiritual marriage, or something that didn’t involve actually consummating it and something that simply let her go on with her childhood wouldn’t have shattered it. He had to have sex with her to do that. Period.

My position on the abhorrence of what happened to Aisha is about her childhood being lost.

You don’t make any sense. Her childhood was lost because she was raped. So it stands to reason you’d condemn Mohammed on that account.

 

[hamba2han]

none of them can produce sources more authentic than the hadîth collections of Imâms al-Bukhârî and Muslim!

Actually, they have indeed done so:

From Wikipedia:

Evidences from Islamic literature

* **According to hadith in Bukhari and Muslim**, Aisha is said to have joined Muhammad on the raid that culminated in the Battle of Badr, in 624 CE and then in 625 CE in the Battle of Uhud. As no one below the age of fifteen was allowed to accompany raiding parties, Aisha should have been at least fifteen in 624 CE and thus at least thirteen when she was married following the Hijra in 622 CE.
* Ibn Hisham's recension of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rashul Allah, the earliest surviving biography of Muhammad, records Aisha as having converted to Islam before Umar ibn al-Khattab, during the first few years of Islam around 610 CE. In order to accept Islam she must have been walking and talking, hence at least three years of age, which would make her at least fifteen in 622 CE.
* Tabari reports that Abu Bakr wished to spare Aisha the discomforts of a journey to Ethiopia soon after 615 CE, and tried to bring forward her marriage to Mut`im ibn `Uday's son. Mut`am refused because Abu Bakr had converted to Islam, but if Aisha was already of marriageable age in 615 CE, she must have been older than nine in 622 CE.
* Tabari also reports that Abu Bakr's four children were all born during the Jahiliyyah, the pre Islamic period, which is said to have ended in 610 CE, making Aisha at least twelve in 622 CE when Aisha started living with Muhammad.
* Aisha is reported to have said that at the time Surah Al-Qamar, the 54th chapter of the Qur'an , was revealed, "I was a young girl". The 54th Surah of the Qur'an was revealed nine years before Hijrah. According to this tradition, Aisha had not only been born before the revelation of the referred Surah, but was actually a young girl, not even only an infant at that time. So if this age is assumed to be 7 to 14 years then her age at the time of marriage would be 16 to 23.
* According to almost all the historians, Asma bint Abu Bakr, the elder sister of Aisha, was ten years older than Aisha. Asma is reported to die in the 73 AH, when she was 100 years old. Now, obviously if Asma was 100 years old in the 73 AH, she should have been 27 or 28 years old at the time of Migration to Medina (1 AH). If Asma was 27 or 28 years old at that time, Aisha should have been 17 or 18 years old at the same time. Thus, Aisha - if she got married in 1 AH or 2 AH - was between 18 to 20 years old at the time of her marriage.

And so, again I ask this question:

Why do you choose to believe the hadith about Aisha (ra) being 9 years old at the time of consumation of her marriage when there are other strong evidences from the hadiths and other respected sources which point to her being older?

If the detractors of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) are unwilling to answer this simple question, then is there a reason why Muslims need to answer their accusations against the Prophet (pbuh)?

 

[Valke2]

The age of Aisha at marriage is an unsettled issue, and the subject of increasing attention in recent years. Several hadiths said to have been narrated by Aisha herself, such as Sahih Bukhari 5:58:234 and Sahih Muslim 8:3311, state she was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad and nine years old when married or when the marriage was consummated.[2] Other traditional material (hadith, sira, etc.) suggests that Aisha may have been anywhere from twelve to nineteen years old when she married.

Also from wikipedia. So as a muslim, you either have to believe Aisha wrote these and that they are true. Or you have to believe that she didn’t write them or that she lied.

 

[hamba2han]

Aisha (ra) did not write this hadith regarding her age, it is reported that she said so and so.

While this hadith is considered authentic, the chain of narration is not particularly strong as can be read in the Wikipedia article and so it is possible that it may have been subjected to some misinterpretation in the course of it’s transmission.

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

kellie:

Sorry Rodrigo, I still stand firm on my reasoning with not calling Mohammed a paedophile.

And techinically he could not be called a child rapist if there was no law in place back then forbidding forced sex on a child.

Do you see where I am coming from?

The term pedophile is merely a tag, a label. We can just make up another label to describe a man who has sex with a pre-pubescent child.

I think you still have a hang up about the term ‘pedophile’ because you have in your mind a particular type of depraved sexual predator.

Even if a person had sex only once with a single child it would be very difficult to escape the conclusion that he/she is a pedophile (by common definition).

kellie:

Even the word “minor” is irrelevant as that is relative to the society.

Even Muslims consider a child below the age of puberty to be a minor.

kellie:

Technically, Aisha may not have been a minor, there may not have been any laws about forced sex, there may not have been any boundaries at all that Mohammed crossed over.

Technically Aisha was a minor even by some Muslim reckoning. They typically define the problem away by assuming that a child of nine has reached ‘technical’ puberty even though she hasn’t reached ‘biological’ puberty.

How young is too young? Is a one month old baby too young? Is a one-year-old crawler too young? Is a two-year-old toddler too young? Most cultures put the ‘too young’ limit at puberty. Some even define it later to allow for full sexual and psychological maturation. However, I hope it is self-evident that a nine-year-old child regardless of pubertal status is too young for a 53 year old man – regardless of the label we choose for such a man.

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

According to hadith in Bukhari and Muslim, Aisha is said to have joined Muhammad on the raid that culminated in the Battle of Badr, in 624 CE and then in 625 CE in the Battle of Uhud. As no one below the age of fifteen was allowed to accompany raiding parties, Aisha should have been at least fifteen in 624 CE and thus at least thirteen when she was married following the Hijra in 622 CE.

Wrong. Aisha never went to Badr. The injunction was against boys below the age of fifteen. Women and children were permitted for support roles in the battlefields with no age constraints.

• Ibn Hisham’s recension of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rashul Allah, the earliest surviving biography of Muhammad, records Aisha as having converted to Islam before Umar ibn al-Khattab, during the first few years of Islam around 610 CE. In order to accept Islam she must have been walking and talking, hence at least three years of age, which would make her at least fifteen in 622 CE.

Wrong. Ibn Hisham did not say this. He merely listed Aisha as among those who became Muslim because of Abu Bakr.

• Tabari reports that Abu Bakr wished to spare Aisha the discomforts of a journey to Ethiopia soon after 615 CE, and tried to bring forward her marriage to Mutim ibn Uday’s son. Mut`am refused because Abu Bakr had converted to Islam, but if Aisha was already of marriageable age in 615 CE, she must have been older than nine in 622 CE.

Wrong. She wasn’t even promised to Jubayr ibn Mut’am. The families were in preliminary discussion on a possible engagement between the two children for some future marriage. Child engagement is not marriage.

• Tabari also reports that Abu Bakr’s four children were all born during the Jahiliyyah, the pre Islamic period, which is said to have ended in 610 CE, making Aisha at least twelve in 622 CE when Aisha started living with Muhammad.

Wrong. Tabari merely said that Abu Bakr’s children were born of his two wives who were ‘mentioned’ (i.e. married) in Jahiliyyah. This is a gross distortion of Tabari.

• Aisha is reported to have said that at the time Surah Al-Qamar, the 54th chapter of the Qur’an , was revealed, “I was a young girl”. The 54th Surah of the Qur’an was revealed nine years before Hijrah. According to this tradition, Aisha had not only been born before the revelation of the referred Surah, but was actually a young girl, not even only an infant at that time. So if this age is assumed to be 7 to 14 years then her age at the time of marriage would be 16 to 23.

Wrong. The traditionally accepted date of revelation is 5BH, not 9BH as claimed above. Using a wrong date gives the wrong answer. Also, Aisha was a jariyah which is anywhere from 2 years onwards. At 5BH she was 4 years old which is a jariyah.

• According to almost all the historians, Asma bint Abu Bakr, the elder sister of Aisha, was ten years older than Aisha. Asma is reported to die in the 73 AH, when she was 100 years old. Now, obviously if Asma was 100 years old in the 73 AH, she should have been 27 or 28 years old at the time of Migration to Medina (1 AH). If Asma was 27 or 28 years old at that time, Aisha should have been 17 or 18 years old at the same time. Thus, Aisha - if she got married in 1 AH or 2 AH - was between 18 to 20 years old at the time of her marriage.

Wrong. More reliable sources say Asma was 19 years older than Aisha which makes her about 9 years old at the time of the Hijrah.

Answers paraphrased for brevity from Shaykh Gibril Haddad
sunnipath.com/Resources/Questions/QA00004861.aspx

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

Aisha (ra) did not write this hadith regarding her age, it is reported that she said so and so.

While this hadith is considered authentic, the chain of narration is not particularly strong as can be read in the Wikipedia article and so it is possible that it may have been subjected to some misinterpretation in the course of it’s transmission.

There are more than 20 hadiths that mention Aisha’s age as being nine. There are several chains of narrations. If we accept that one chain might be wrong, it stretches credulity to think that other independent chains are also similarly wrong.

 

[melbourne_guy]

Just out of interest what were the ages of muhammads other wives?

 

[Ella]

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.

That’s the point I want people to see. This is happening to girls today and the perpetrators use muhammed’s marriage to aisha to justify it.

We have many different arguments in this thread from muslims trying to defend muhammad’s marriage:

Pro is arguing that it was moral for muhammad to have sex with aisha when she was nine, because of the culture they lived in. This is an argument from a position of moral relativism. This is contrary to Catholic theology on the natural law.
Pro is also arguing that 12 year old girls and 9 year old girls are equal in maturity and equally marriage-able, if they are menstruating. This is a red herring.
Pro is also arguing that if a girl starts menstruating, she is mature enough to marry and have sex.

hamba2han is arguing that there is weak proof that aisha was 9 and that she was actually older when her marriage was consummated. This is an interesting argument because it seems that hamba2han agrees with me: if aisha was 9 it was wrong for muhammad to have had sex with her. Therefore, hamba2han is arguing that she must not have been 9.

 

[Valke2]

Aisha (ra) did not write this hadith regarding her age, it is reported that she said so and so.

While this hadith is considered authentic, the chain of narration is not particularly strong as can be read in the Wikipedia article and so it is possible that it may have been subjected to some misinterpretation in the course of it’s transmission.

On a not so related issue. If we are willing to believe that there may have been tranlsation errors here, why isn’t it possible that there were translation issues with the Koran, especially if, as I have been told, Mohammed orally transmitted what was revealed to him and various people wrote down what he said at different times. ANd those writings were eventually transcribed into what is now the Quran. It seems that the possibility of error is at least as high as that for the Hadiths.

 

[hamba2han]

On a not so related issue. If we are willing to believe that there may have been tranlsation errors here, why isn’t it possible that there were translation issues with the Koran, especially if, as I have been told, Mohammed orally transmitted what was revealed to him and various people wrote down what he said at different times. ANd those writings were eventually transcribed into what is now the Quran. It seems that the possibility of error is at least as high as that for the Hadiths.

The hadiths were compiled in it’s present form hundreds of years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from written reports of the narrations and after undergoing a very stringent verification and filtering process known as the ‘science of hadith’.

The Qur’an, on the other hand, was completed during the life of the Prophet (pbuh) and he himself instructed and supervised everything that is written within it and not a single word or syllable has been added to or subtracted from it ever since it’s completion.