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Introduction |
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MUHAMMAD, AISHA, ISLAM, AND CHILD BRIDES ABSTRACT Muhammad was 52 and Aisha was 9 when they married and sexually consummated their marriage. Muhammad followed an Arab custom in marrying a child who had her first menstrual cycle. This action must be questioned, regardless of it being a cultural norm, because Muhammad's action and teachings on marriage established an Islamic precedent: a girl is judged an adult following her first menses, and is eligible for marriage and sexual relations. Thus Muslim men are allowed to marry and have intercourse with young girls who have happened to have an early first menstrual cycle. As will be shown, this leads to physical and psychological damage to the child. INTRODUCTION Muhammad's first wife - Khadija, died a few years before he fled to Medina. Later, he was encouraged to take another wife. At the age of 49 he was betrothed to Aisha, age six. Aisha was his closest friend's, Abu Bakr's, daughter. At that time, she had already been betrothed to another man but by mutual consent the betrothal was dissolved. Three years later, following her first menstrual cycle, he then formally married and sexually consummated his marriage with her. Most Western people know it is not in a 9 year old girl's best interest to engage in marriage and sexual relations with a 52 year old man, regardless of the cultural setting. We know that, in our culture today, a person doing such a thing could possible be sent to prison for sex with a minor, statutory rape, or other related laws. Most of us find it questionable for Muhammad, a self proclaimed prophet of God, to do such a thing. We expect a real prophet to know better, or at least hear from God on the matter. What is more critical than Muhammad's single action with Aisha is that he taught that a girl is considered an adult following her first menstrual cycle. He also taught that his followers were to follow his "sunnah" or lifestyle. Thus today, throughout much of the Mideast, girls as young as nine are often married by men old enough to be their grandfather. But why then do we find it objectionable? After all, Muhammad did not live in our culture or under our law. He lived under a Semitic culture. And this custom of marrying girls after their first menses existed in the Mideast long before Muhammad. What is the basis for rejection of this Semite custom and Muhammad's precedent? Are there any valid reasons to criticize it? Or should it simply be rejected based upon our own cultural bias? I'll address this and other issues in this paper, and a discussion of the consequences of his deed as well. However some fundamental groundwork needs to be laid before moving on. Aisha's actual age is the first point that needs to be established. Within the Islamic world there is division concerning Aisha's age when she sexually consummated her marriage. Many Muslims in the West have a hard time accepting Aisha was only a little girl of 9 when their "prophet" had sex with her. Some Muslims, and even Western writers, wrote that she did not have sex with Muhammad until she was 14 or so. I've never seen any textual Islamic support for their position only conjecture. But the thought of their prophet committing such an act is embarrassing to them, so they invent, or re-write, documented Islamic history to make it more acceptable to their minds and the minds of other Western people as well. |