>On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:04:26 -0100, dh@. wrote:
>
>>>>child rape...
No, forced, unwanted sex is rape by definition.
Was Ayesha A Six-Year-Old Bride?
The Ancient Myth Exposed by T.O. Shanavas
A Christian friend asked me once, "Will you marry your seven year old
daughter to a fifty year old man?" I kept my silence. He continued,
"If you would not, how can you approve the marriage of an innocent
seven year old, Ayesha, with your Prophet?" I told him, "I don't have
an answer to your question at this time." My friend smiled and left me
with a thorn in the heart of my faith. Most Muslims answer that such
marriages were accepted in those days. Otherwise, people would have
objected to Prophet's marriage with Ayesha.
However, such an explanation would be gullible only for those who are
naive enough to believe it. But unfortunately, I was not satisfied
with the answer. The Prophet was an exemplary man. All his actions
were most virtuous so that we, Muslims, can emulate them. However,
most people in our Islamic Center of Toledo, including me, would not
think of betrothing our seven years daughter to a fifty-two year-old
man. If a parent agrees to such a wedding, most people, if not all,
would look down upon the father and the old husband. In 1923,
registrars of marriage in Egypt were instructed not to register and
issue official certificates of marriage for brides less than sixteen
and grooms less than eighteen years of age. Eight years later, the Law
of the Organization and Procedure of Sheriah courts of 1931
consolidated the above provision by not hearing the marriage disputes
involving brides less than sixteen and grooms less than eighteen years
old. (Women in Muslim Family Law, John Esposito, 1982). It shows that
even in the Muslim majority country of Egypt the child marriages are
unacceptable.
So, I believed, without solid evidence other than my reverence to my
Prophet, that the stories of the marriage of seven-year-old Ayesha to
50-year-old Prophet are only myths. However, my long pursuit in search
of the truth on this matter proved my intuition correct. My Prophet
was a gentleman. And he did not marry an innocent seven or nine year
old girl. The age of Ayesha has been erroneously reported in the
hadith literature. Furthermore, I think that the narratives reporting
this event are highly unreliable. Some of the hadith (traditions of
the Prophet) regarding Ayesha's age at the time of her wedding with
prophet are problematic. I present the following evidences against the
acceptance of the fictitious story by Hisham ibn 'Urwah and to clear
the name of my Prophet as an irresponsible old man preying on an
innocent little girl.
Reliability of Source. Most of the narratives printed in the books of
hadith are reported only by Hisham Â…Tehzibu'l-Tehzib, one of the most
well known books on the life and reliability of the narrators of the
traditions of the Prophet, reports that according to Yaqub ibn
Shaibah: "He [Hisham] is highly reliable, his narratives are
acceptable, except what he narrated after moving over to Iraq"
(Tehzi'bu'l-tehzi'b, Ibn Hajar Al-'asqala'ni, Dar Ihya al-turath
al-Islami, 15th century. Vol 11, p. 50). It further states that Malik
ibn Anas objected on those narratives of Hisham which were reported
through people in Iraq: "I have been told that Malik objected on those
narratives of Hisham which were reported through people of Iraq"
(Tehzi'b u'l-tehzi'b, Ibn Hajar Al-'asqala'ni, Dar Ihya al-turath
al-Islami, Vol.11, p. 50). Mizanu'l-ai'tidal, another book on the life
sketches of the narrators of the traditions of the Prophet reports:
"When he was old, Hisham's memory suffered quite badly"
(Mizanu'l-ai'tidal, Al-Zahbi, Al-Maktabatu'l-athriyyah, Sheikhupura,
Pakistan, Vol. 4, p. 301). CONCLUSION: Based on these references,
Hisham's memory was failing and his narratives while in Iraq were
unreliable. So, his narrative of Ayesha's marriage and age are
unreliableÂ…
If Ayesha was betrothed in 620 CE (at the age of seven) and started to
live with the Prophet in 624 CE (at the age of nine), that would
indicate that she was born in 613 CE and was nine when she began
living with the Prophet. Therefore, based on one account of Al-Tabari,
the numbers show that Ayesha must have born in 613 CE, three years
after the beginning of revelation (610 CE). Tabari also states that
Ayesha was born in the pre-Islamic era (in Jahiliya). If she was born
before 610 CE, she would have been at least 14 years old when she
began living with the Prophet. Essentially, Tabari contradicts
himself. CONCLUSION: Al-Tabari is unreliable in the matter of
determining Ayesha's ageÂ…
Vol. 4, p. 377, Maktabatu'l-Riyadh al-haditha, al-Riyadh, 1978). If
Ibn Hajar's statement is factual, Ayesha was born when the Prophet was
40 years old. If Ayesha was married to the Prophet when he was 52
years old, Ayesha's age at marriage would be 12
years.CONCLUSION: Ibn
Hajar, Tabari an Ibn Hisham and Ibn Humbal contradict each other. So,
the marriage of Ayesha at seven years of age is a mythÂ…According to
almost all the historians, Asma, the elder sister of Ayesha was 10
years older than Ayesha. If Asma was 100 years old in 73 AH, she
should have been 27 or 28 years old at the time of the hijrah. If Asma
was 27 or 28 years old at the time of hijrah, Ayesha should have been
17 or 18 years old. Thus, Ayesha, being 17 or 18 years of at the time
of Hijra, she started to cohabit with the Prophet between at either 19
to 20 years of age.Based on Hajar, Ibn Katir, and Abda'l-Rahman ibn
abi zanna'd, Ayesha's age at the time she began living with the
Prophet would be 19 or 20. In Evidence # 3, Ibn Hajar suggests that
Ayesha was 12 years old and in Evidence #4 he contradicts himself with
a 17 or 18-year-old Ayesha. What is the correct age, twelve or
eighteen? CONCLUSION: Ibn Hajar is an unreliable source for Ayesha's
ageÂ…
Chapter 54 of the Quran was revealed eight years before hijrah (The
Bounteous Koran, M.M. Khatib, 1985), indicating that it was revealed
in 614 CE. If Ayesha started living with the Prophet at the age of
nine in 623 CE or 624 CE, she was a newborn infant (sibyah in Arabic)
at the time that Surah Al-Qamar (The Moon) was revealed. According to
the above tradition, Ayesha was actually a young girl, not an infant
in the year of revelation of Al-Qamar. Jariyah means young playful
girl (Lane's Arabic English Lexicon). So, Ayesha, being a jariyah not
a sibyah (infant), must be somewhere between 6-13 years old at the
time of revelation of Al-Qamar, and therefore must have been 14-21
years at the time she married the Prophet. CONCLUSION: This tradition
also contradicts the marriage of Ayesha at the age of nine.
All those who know the Arabic language are aware that the word bikr
in the Arabic language is not used for an immature nine-year-old girl.
The correct word for a young playful girl, as stated earlier, is
jariyah. Bikr on the other hand, is used for an unmarried lady without
conjugal experience prior to marriage, as we understand the word
"virgin" in English. Therefore, obviously a nine-year-old girl is not
a "lady" (bikr) (Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Vol. 6, p. .210, Arabic, Dar
Ihya al-turath al-'arabi, Beirut). CONCLUSION: The literal meaning of
the word, bikr (virgin), in the above hadith is "adult woman with no
sexual experience prior to marriage." Therefore, Ayesha was an adult
woman at the time of her marriage.
All Muslims agree that the Quran is the book of guidance. So, we need
to seek the guidance from the Quran to clear the smoke and confusion
created by the eminent men of the classical period of Islam in the
matter of Ayesha's age at her marriage. Does the Quran allow or
disallow marriage of an immature child of seven years of age? There
are no verses that explicitly allow such marriageÂ…
A women must be consulted and must agree in order to make a marriage
valid (Mishakat al Masabiah, translation by James Robson, Vol. I, p.
665). Islamically, credible permission from women is a prerequisite
for a marriage to be valid. By any stretch of the imagination, the
permission given by an immature seven-year-old girl cannot be valid
authorization for marriageÂ…
It was neither an Arab tradition to give away girls in marriage at an
age as young as seven or nine years, nor did the Prophet marry Ayesha
at such a young age. The people of Arabia did not object to this
marriage because it never happened in the manner it has been narrated.
Obviously, the narrative of the marriage of nine-year-old Ayesha by
Hisham ibn 'Urwah cannot be held true when it is contradicted by many
other reported narratives. Moreover, there is absolutely no reason to
accept the narrative of Hisham ibn 'Urwah as true when other scholars,
including Malik ibn Anas, view his narrative while in Iraq, as
unreliable. The quotations from Tabari, Bukhari and Muslim show they
contradict each other regarding Ayesha's age. Furthermore, many of
these scholars contradict themselves in their own records. Thus, the
narrative of Ayesha's age at the time of the marriage is not reliable
due to the clear contradictions seen in the works of classical
scholars of IslamÂ…
Iran
THE FAMILY
Marriage regulations are defined by Shia religious law, although non-
Shias are permitted to follow their own religious practices. Before
the Revolution, the legal marriage age was eighteen for females and
twenty- one for males, although in practice most couples, especially
among lower- class urban and rural families, actually were younger
than the law permitted when they married. Consequently, the average
marriage age for both sexes was 18.9 years. Since the Revolution, the
minimum legal age for marriage for both males and females has been
lowered to fifteen and thirteen years, respectively, although even
younger boys and girls may be married with the permission of their
fathers. The average age of marriage is believed to have fallen as a
result of official encouragement of earlier marriages.
lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+ir0069)
http://www.ihr.org/
http://www.natvan.com
http://www.thebirdman.org http://www.nsm88.com/
http://wsi.matriots.com/jews.html 
