Six please.
I think we established that #2 is wrong.
So… Someone said something about pizza?
The traditional, mainstream understanding is that she was nine years old. How much more proof do you need?
The Hadiths are the very definition of mainstream and traditional sources in Islam.
Hamza Yusuf explaining that Muhammad did not have sex with a nine year old child but with a nine year old woman:
It may be true (it’s not) that we can not judge this 7th century behavior by our modern standards, but mainstream Islam teaches that Sharia is an improvement over them, that the “so-called Age of Enlightenment was in reality an age of the darkening of the soul and the eclipse of the intellect.)” (page 2 of the preface.)
According to mainstream and traditional sources. The Prophet Muhammad had sex with a nine year old child.
The video in the OP is just an example of some British chap trying to teach people to brag about it.
Yes, you’re correct that according to stories collected over two centuries after the wedding the Prophet Muhammad did marry a nine-year-old.
However you neglect to mention that according to other hadiths, or as you call them “mainstream and traditional sources of Islam”, Muhammad married an 18 year old.
Of course, for no good reason you choose to believe Bukhari’s hadiths which claim Aisha was nine but disregard his hadiths which claim Aisha must have been much older?
There is no logical reason for doing so other than wanting to promote a really negative image of Muhammad without having to also suggest that Shakespeare was a pervert and Romeo and Juliet was an example of kiddie porn.
Yeeesh! Now we’re going to get a thread condemning film makers, English teachers, (and probably the entire English language educational establishment) for promoting kid porn.
Yes, and I am correct that this is the traditional and mainstream understanding.
Because this is not a mainstream or traditional interpretation.
I have seen no such hadiths. Anyway, this is not relevant, I choose to believe no hadiths. The claim I am making is about what traditional and mainstream Islam teaches, not about which claims withstand a critical historical analysis.
I am not trying to promote the view. I am pointing out that it is the mainstream and traditional view. If I had any power to promote a certain image of a man that so many people model their behavior on, I would not promote the view that he raped children, or ordered mass murder, or killed people for political poetry, or ordered people stoned for sex, or any of the other things that you and I both know are part of the story of his life.
Also, I do not know any body of jurisprudence that allows sex with nine year olds based on the fact that Shakespeare was the ideal man. He (is said to have) written about a love affair between teenagers, which is entirely different than a 54 year old man (being said to have) raping a nine year old. Many people have surely used the story of Romeo and Juliet, as well as the young age of biblical characters, as excuses for abuse, which is of course just as perverted and wrong as using Mo’s example. I do not know of any reason to think that children in the 16th century were treated any better on average in England than in Muslim countries. But today it is obvious that Islamic teaching of the story of Aisha’s rape at age nine, as a divinely inspired act, is a major contributor to the abuse of girls today.
The reason for posting the thread was to have a discussion about the bizzaro world that I have found myself in when talking to Muslims about this issue. In my experience, time and again, her age is thought to have been nine. At best some afterthought might be thrown in about how there are other interpretations, but it is not denied that this is the traditional interpretation, and that this is why Sharia permits sex with girls as young as nine.
So, from what I have found, saying that Aisha’s marriage was consummated at age nine is not considered the slightest bit offensive to Muslims. Saying that Muhammad had sex with a nine year old when he was fifty four is considered insensitive, but not because her age is in question, because it sounds crass to them to describe it as sex without mentioning the marriage contract and how Aisha was given to Mo by God in his dream. Saying he raped her is of course highly offensive. So in talking about this issue I have found that I am expected to suspend the expression of my belief that a fifty four year having sex with a nine year old is inherently rape. This is an expectation that I have no desire to fulfill.
But in order to discuss that we would first have to acknowledge a basic fact about Mo’s bio.
It’s as if you think that if you say this often enough, other people will automatically believe you.
As for me: Ham, onion, and banana peppers with a thick crust.
Blasphemy!
Because if you admitted that the majority of Muslims don’t spend any time pondering this matter, you would have no reason to engage in page after page of recreational outrage.
Your big thesis rests on several points that are in conflict with each other.
You insist that a single Hadith must be true–even when you deny that you believe any of the Hadiths and you confess that you have failed to actually read the Hadiths from the same work that contradict the one you prefer.
You get around this contradiction by claiming that (all/most) Muslims revel in this terrible event, but you have only provided evidence that a couple of loons actually promote the story.
You post silliness such as:
even though that single Hadith to which you are so devoted is not actually part of any biography of Mohammed, but a single anecdote collected among many others.
You insist that the event must have been rape, even though you have provided no evidence that it had actually occurred and have deliberately rejected every single potential mitigating factor, (such a the contradictory claims in the same work regarding her age, the fact that you have provided no evidence either that Aisha had failed to reach menarche or that any Muslim scholar has defended Mohammed for engaging in marital relations with a pre-pubescent girl).
In other words, you are cherry picking data for the express purpose of picking a fight, then acting so hurt that anyone would challenge your motivation.
You have made clear what your desires are and we see no reason to allow you to fulfill them.
Yes, as predicted, no reasonable explanation why hadiths contradicting the claim that Muhammad married Aisha when she was nine should be ignored while hadiths that support the claim be ignored.
Instead, we are treated to rather improbable tales of discussions with Muslims who believe Aisha was nine.
Now Hank, is your position that according to “mainstream” Islamic belief that Aisha was born after Muhammad heard the call?
If so please explain the hadiths explaining how she was born before the call and one of the first people to convert to Islam.
I claim nothing of the sort, and if you have read the thread you will know that there is more than one hadith.
The refutation to these claims is in post 71. This interpretation you are describing is neither mainstream nor traditional. This is not something you are I get to decide.
The claim is that Muslims are taught to be proud of the actions of their prophet.
Jordan’s Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre currently places him 42nd on its list of the top 500 most influential Muslims in the world.[8] The magazine Egypt Today described him as a kind of theological rock star, “the Elvis Presley of western Muslims.”[9] Recently, Hamza Yusuf was ranked as “the Western world’s most influential Islamic scholar” by The 500 Most Influential Muslims, edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin, (2009)
^ a b c Watt, “Aisha”, Encyclopedia of Islam Online
^ Amira Sonbol, Rise of Islam: 6th to 9th century, Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures
^ a b c d e f g Spellberg, D.A. (1996). Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A’isha Bint ABI Bakr. Columbia University Press. pp. 4-5. ISBN 0-231-07999-0, ISBN 978-0-231-07999-0.
^ Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, Harper San Francisco, 1992, p. 157.
^ Barlas (2002), p. 125-126
^ Sahih al-Bukhari, 5:58:234, 5:58:236, 7:62:64, 7:62:65, 7:62:88, Sahih Muslim, 8:3309, 8:3310, 8:3311, 41:4915, Sunan Abu Dawood, 41:4917
^ Tabari, Volume 9, Page 131; Tabari, Volume 7, Page 7
And you can add to that list the bio of Ibn Kathir
I made no claim that it ever occurred.
No, I have pointed out that Muslim scholars generally reject them as being enough evidence to overturn the traditional understanding.
I have no need to provide evidence for claims that I do not make.
No I am not. The fact that Muhammed had sex with her when he was 54 and she was 9 is the traditional and mainstream understanding, and this contributes to child rape today, on a large scale. The fact that the mainstream view is to wait until the little girls have their first period before they are raped by the men who have essentially purchased them doesn’t really make the idea of justifications for sex between adults and 9 year olds any less disgusting.
Well, I will allow Canadian bacon instead of ham. My people are known for our ecumenism.
My position is that the mainstream belief is that her narration is the most authoritative account of her age.
Typical response from Muslim scholars to this claim: Shaykh Gibril Haddad
[QUOTE=Shaykh Gibril Haddad]
[QUOTE=revisionsist claim]
/Tabari in his treatise on Islamic history, while mentioning Abu Bakr,
reports that Abu Bakr had four children and all four were born during
the Jahiliyyah – the pre Islamic period. Obviously, if Ayesha was born
in the period of Jahiliyyah, she could not have been less than 14 years
in 1 AH – the time she most likely got married./
[/QUOTE]
Al-Tabari nowhere reports that “Abu Bakr’s four children were all born
in Jahiliyya” but only that Abu Bakr married both their mothers in
Jahiliyya, Qutayla bint Sad and Umm Ruman, who bore him four children in all, two each, A’isha being the daughter of Umm Ruman.
Rather, Ibn Hisham lists A'isha among "those that accepted Islam because of Abu Bakr." This does not mean that she embraced Islam during the first year of Islam. Nor does it mean that she necessarily embraced Islam before Umar (year 6) although she was born the previous year
(year 7 before the Hijra) although it is understood she will
automatically follow her father’s choice even before the age of reason.
Your assumption fizzles at the root when you read al-Tabari’s positive
assertion: “On the day he consummated the marriage with her, she was
nine years old.”
[/QUOTE]
Why do you believe there is any authoritative account of her age?
I don’t. I believe that this has been and currently is the consensus among Islamic scholars. Their justification is that the positive claims are more authoritative than supposed inconsistencies. So if an inconsistency is acknowledged it will be the part inconsistent with the positive claim (in this case that Aisha was 9) who’s authority is called into question.
Why? How many Islamic scholars have weighed in on this exact issue?
Pat Robertson is one of the most influential Christians in the world. He is a loon. Hamza Yusuf could certainly fit into the same mold. For that matter, Jordan’s Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre could easily be the Islamic equivalent of the Moody Bible Institute or the Institute for Creation Research or the Family Research Council.
What I notice is that the only two places where we see anyone even caring about the Aisha-as-nine-year-old tale is among people bashing Islam and loons promoting Islam. It tends to not come up in encounters with Muslims, generally, (unless some pushy Islam-basher makes it a point to discuss it). I have never encountered it among Muslims simply discussing their beliefs or authors expounding on their beliefs.
Are there places in the world where the tale is used to rationalize horrid treatment of young girls? It seems so. It appears to happen in those regions of the world where the women are treated badly, to begin with, and where the Muslims tend to ignore or selectively interpret those passages of the Qur’an that would protect women’s rights of independence and security. In other words, in cultures where they behave badly, they cherry-pick the parts of their holy writings that support their bad behavior–pretty much the way that Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and everyone else does. Outside the MENA region, (or even in the cities in MENA), it does not appear that the matter of child brides is widespread, much less that they are using that particular Hadith as a way to rationalize it.
Your position is still silly and your recreational outrage is amusing, but you are not really making the point that you believe you are.
I also notice that you didn’t bother addressing the incest rape in the old testament I mentioned on the first page.
What about it? It is an example of horrible behavior which not relevant to the OP.
Of course it’s relevant.
By the standards you set, every Christian should have the choice of either becoming an apostate or endorsing incest since Jesus said they’re supposed to follow “every jot and tittle of the law” or become an apostate and risk being killed since the Bible also teaches apostates are to be killed.