Continuing from the previous part (https://answeringislamblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/16/was-aisha-really-only-nine-pt-2/).
15. Very
young marriage was normal in pre-Islamic Arabia.
Argument 1
It is argued:
The marriage
happened 1400 ago, not today. At that time, their marriage was not considered
unusual …and the proof is that the enemies of Muslims at that time did not
criticize this marriage. They attacked prophet Mohammad on many issues, yet
they didn’t criticize his marriage to Aisha.[103]
The argument seems
to be that because the marriage was culturally normal, there was nothing morally
wrong with it.
Answer 1
Actually we do not
know whether this marriage was culturally normal or not. We do not know much
about the pre-Islamic Arabs because they left no written records.
It is true that
there have been many cultures where it was normal for marriages to be arranged
at a very young age and consummated immediately after puberty. However, there
have not been many cultures where it was normal for a marriage to be
consummated before puberty. People who believe that
pre-Islamic Arabia was the exception to this norm should produce evidence to
support their case.
These two issues
should not be conflated. The first issue is that Aïsha was legally married before
she was mentally mature enough to give informed consent. Further, her father
forgot to tell her that she was married, so she had no opportunity to consent
anyway. While no woman should be married without her own
consent, whether she is six, sixteen, thirty-six or sixty, it was indeed
“culturally normal” in most of the world.
Nevertheless, although
this unethical practice of marrying infants was commonplace in Muhammad’s
culture, it was certainly not universal. The Jews believed that a girl could
not be validly married until she was mentally old enough to
consent and she expressed her willingness.[104] Muhammad
claimed to be a prophet in the line of the Jews, so he should have had the same
moral understanding as the Jews in Medina.
Even some Muslims in
the generation after Muhammad felt uncomfortable about child-marriage, for they
disputed whether a little girl was able to give informed consent to such a
contract. They concluded that the debate about child-marriage only applied to
children under nine, for:
The Prophet married
a nine-year-old. Aisha said: “If she reaches the age of nine years, she is a
woman.”[105]
If the scholars
needed to debate a minimum age, and if Aïsha needed to spell it out for them,
then it was not a universally accepted cultural norm.
Therefore there were
some people even in seventh-century Arabia who felt uneasy about child-marriage;
but they were probably a minority. If pre-natal betrothals were legal, that
suggests that the average Arab did not find anything wrong with marrying off
children. Far from being ahead of his times, Muhammad held views on
child-marriage that appear to have been average and mainstream for his culture.
If we are to judge Muhammad by the standards of his own culture, the fact that
he contracted marriage with a child is not too surprising.
The second issue,
quite separate from Aïsha’s infant betrothal, is the fact that her marriage was
consummated before she had reached puberty.
That was almost
certainly abnormal. Most cultures throughout history have understood that a
girl should not be touched before puberty. This is not a “cultural” norm based on
the need to complete a certain type of education or to achieve a certain level
of life-experience. It is a biological norm based on evolution. The idea of
waiting until puberty is found in nearly all cultures.
The Jews in Medina
most certainly understood this. It is assumed in the Bible that puberty is the
minimum age of consent,[106] and it is
spelled out in the Talmud that a bride must have passed menarche in
addition to being at least twelve and a half years old and of sound mind.[107]
Unlike the informed
consent issue, which simply reveals that Muhammad was a product of his culture,
his willingness to consummate his marriage with Aïsha betrays that he was
different from his own culture. He rejected the moral norms of his wisest
contemporaries and abused a little girl for no better reason than that Abu Bakr
had made it easy for him to do so. He demonstrated for once and for all that he
had no timeless, universal moral insight to offer the world – in short, that he
was not a prophet.
Argument 2
If the pagan Arabs
had considered child-marriage wrong, Muhammad’s enemies would have criticised
him for doing it.
Interestingly, of
the many criticisms of Muhammad made at the time by his opponents, none focused
on Aisha’s age at marriage. According to this perspective, Aisha may have been
young, but she was not younger than was the norm at the time.[108]
Answer 2
It would be
difficult to prove that Muhammad’s enemies never criticised his
marriage to Aïsha. We don’t know what people said behind closed doors; and we
don’t know what they said that was of no interest to Muslim historians.
Muhammad tended to assassinate his critics,[109] so
most people were afraid to say what they really thought of his behaviour. Those
who did speak out focused on their really big complaint, which was that
Muhammad killed people.
Answer 3
Even if it is true
that early Arabia was such an ignorant, immoral and unmonitored culture that many
girls were married off before puberty and nobody cared: so what? All that would
prove would be that seventh-century Arabs did not understand children’s rights.
It would not prove that their culture was morally correct.
Nothing is morally
right just because it is culturally acceptable. For example, sixth-century
Arabs buried unwanted babies in the sand (although the public opinion began to
turn against this practice shortly before Muhammad’s time).[110] Muhammad
did not condone child-killing on the grounds that it was part of his culture;
he joined the modern moralists who condemned it as murder.[111]
Muhammad claimed
that Allah had sent him to tidy up the “evil” things that were wrong with
pre-Islamic culture. If child-marriage really had been part of Arabian culture,
then it should have been Muhammad’s job to stop it, not to perpetrate it.
Mohammed was a son
of his time and by his time must his actions be justified. Agreed. This fact,
as we said at the very outset, might and would make us excuse and justify an
ordinary man, the story of whose life is being told relatively to his times;
and were Mohammedans consistent in taking this line, there would be the less to
be said … Well, it may have been good enough for Arabia in the Seventh Century.
But we were talking, we thought, of humanity for all time?[112]
16. Aïsha
suffered no harm from being a child-bride.
Argument
The argument seems
to be that since Aïsha never suffered any adverse consequences, there was
obviously nothing immoral about her child-marriage.
when a child is
abused he suffers terrible physiological consequences … [Aïsha] lived the rest
of her life in loyalty to him and honoring his name as the beloved one who was
a cause of her joy and pride in this life and the life hereafter. Were there
any women happier than her in marriage as her with him? Surely not.[113]
Answer 1
The assessment that
Aïsha had a very happy marriage is inaccurate. Although she loved Muhammad and
was proud of her status as the Prophet’s wife, it is clear that many aspects of
their marriage made her unhappy.
Our problem is that
we don’t have enough information to make direct cause-and-effect links. It is
difficult to assess how much of her unhappiness was due to her marrying too
young, how much to her husband’s infidelity and how much to the general problem
of living in a brutal culture where there was little respect for anyone’s
rights.
Was there “harm”
done to Aïsha? Yes, beyond question. It is obvious that she sometimes dealt
with the multiple difficulties presented by her life-situation by being equally
disrespectful to people around her. However, we are in no position to gauge the
extent to which her character flaws were directly caused by sexual abuse or by
some other form of abuse as opposed to being ordinary human faults. We do not
know how far her capacity for psychological intimacy was damaged, because we do
not have enough information about her closest relationships. We do not know
whether she grew up with an unhealthy sexuality, because her adult life was
celibate. We do not even know how far her good traits can be attributed to the
positive aspects of her childhood and how far to a personal determination to
overcome difficulties.
It is possible that
Aïsha did in fact suffer “terrible consequences” due to her abused childhood.
Perhaps, if her childhood had been more normal, she would have chosen to
forgive Ali early, and hence she would never have fought the Battle of the
Camel. We just don’t have enough information to determine what drove her motivations.
Answer 2
Even if – for the
sake of argument – we could demonstrate that Aïsha never suffered any harm from
being married too young: so what? That is like saying: “I didn’t suffer any
harm when the burglar stole my laptop. It was an old laptop that I was about to
throw out, and now my insurance company has paid for a new one.” The lack of
actual “harm” does not alter the principle that the burglar was wrong to steal.
Similarly, nothing
can alter the principle that a fifty-two-year-old man should have known better
than to engage sexually with a nine-year-old.
17. People
who criticise this marriage are people with a problem.
Argument
Some modern writers
make emotive suggestions that people who criticise Muhammad for marrying a
child are almost as bad as people who use his example as an excuse for
practising child-marriage today.
Those who manipulate
[Aïsha’s] story to justify the abuse of young girls, and those who manipulate
it in order to depict Islam as a religion that legitimises such abuse have more
in common than they think. Both demonstrate a disregard for what we know about
the times in which Muhammad lived, and for the affirmation of female autonomy
which her story illustrates.[114]
Answer
These arguments are
simply emotional appeals lacking in logical content. They try to discredit
people who criticise Muhammad by discussing the critics’ flaws instead of
Muhammad’s.
These writers are
usually Westernised Muslims who want to present Muhammad as a good person yet
at the same time want everyone to behave better than he did. While they agree
that some of Muhammad’s behaviour is “not suitable for today,” they don’t allow
anyone to criticise Muhammad for setting an unsuitable example. Hence, they
allege, people who blame a modern atrocity on Muhammad’s example are almost as
bad as people who commit the atrocity. Critics who make a direct connection –
that some people behave badly because they are copying
Muhammad – must be motivated by hatred.
But common sense
shows that there is no moral equivalence between people who commit
child-marriage and people who complain about child-marriage. One group cares
about children and wants to save little girls from lives of sexual abuse and
domestic drudgery. The other group rejects the concept of children’s rights in
order to use little girls as sex objects and domestic slaves. As long as the
second group uses the excuse, “Muhammad set the example,” the first group must
reply, “Muhammad was wrong to set that example.”
Was
Muhammad a Paedophile?
Critics of Islam
often include the charge that Muhammad’s marriage to a child made him a
“paedophile”. This is an emotive word that of course provokes strong protests
from Muslims.
If the question is
“Was Muhammad mentally ill?” or “Did Muhammad have anti-social personality
disorder?” the answer is that we don’t know. We don’t have enough information
to make a formal psychiatric diagnosis about a person who lived so long ago.
If the question is
“Would a modern law-court convict Muhammad of child molestation?” then of course
the answer is yes. It would also convict Abu Bakr for facilitating and perhaps
Umm Ruman and Asma for failing to protect. But this is beside the point, for
Muhammad lived in a society were his actions were not recognised as criminal.
If he had lived in our society, knowing that child molestation could be
punished, he might well have behaved differently – we don’t know.
While there is no
real point in asking whether Muhammad was mentally ill or criminally liable,
the question that we can ask is: “Do Muhammad’s
actions with Aïsha meet the diagnostic criteria for paedophilia?” Definitions
of behaviour are always changing, but the DSM-5 gives this definition of
“paedophilic disorder”.
Over a period of at
least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges,
or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children
(generally age 13 years or younger).[115]
For at least five
years, the adult Muhammad was involved in sexual activity with a prepubescent
child. Therefore his behaviour meets the definition of “paedophilic disorder”.
The reason he stopped his paedophilia was not, of course, due to his ceasing
his sexual activity but due to the child’s reaching puberty.
We can see that most
objections to labelling Muhammad’s behaviour as a paedophilic do not stand up
to this official definition.
“We cannot prove that Muhammad had sexual fantasies or urges involving
children.” No, we cannot, but we don’t need to. The definition does
not say “and behavior” but “or behavior”. So
if his behaviour meets the criterion, that is sufficient for a verdict of
paedophilic disorder, and we don’t need to know his thoughts.
“Muhammad’s primary sexual interest was in adult women; Aïsha
was an exception.” Yes, Muhammad was attracted to females of every age under
forty-five. But this is irrelevant. The definition does not require that a
paedophile be attracted exclusively to children. In fact, it recognises these
sub-types.
Specify type:
Exclusive Type
(attracted only to children)
Nonexclusive Type[116]
Muhammad’s
paedophilic disorder was of the non-exclusive type; it did not cease to be
paedophilic.
“Muhammad did not have sexual activity with numerous children,
but only with Aïsha.” This is also irrelevant. The
definition says “child or children”.
Sexual activity only needs to be directed to one child to meet the definition
of paedophilia.
However, see chapter
20 [of Unveiled – The Nineteen Wives of Muhammad[117]] for
the stories of two children even younger than Aïsha in whom Muhammad also
showed sexual interest. Nor can we be absolutely certain that Muhammad’s
“small” wife Mulayka (chapter 14) had reached menarche. We cannot prove that he
had fantasies or urges about these children, or that his interest in any of
them lasted as long as 6 months; but the dating (i.e., after Aïsha had reached
puberty) is circumstantial evidence that he continued to be attracted to
children even after Aïsha grew up.
Does Muhammad’s
behaviour meet the formal definition of paedophilic disorder? Yes. According to
the standards of his own culture, should he have known better? Yes. Is it
appropriate to label Muhammad a “paedophile”? That depends on what you hope to
achieve. There are some situations where it is better to steer clear of
name-calling and anger-stirring because it will defeat your purpose. There are
other situations that call for objective accuracy, even if that means using a
clinical term like “paedophile”.
Conclusion
When people
desperately insist that Aïsha could not have been a nine-year-old bride, we
need to ask those people about their motives. Obviously they are not worried
about Aïsha herself. She is dead, and it is too late to help her.
Do these apologists
harbour some obscure hope that, if only they could convince the world that
Aïsha was not a child-bride, then child-marriage among Muslims today would
stop?
That will not work,
for the weight of history is against them. There are several groups of people
who are unlikely to give up their belief that Muhammad married a nine-year-old
just because of a few cyberspace debates.
1. Muslims
who know Islamic history. These people are not necessarily scholars, but they
know what their traditions have always taught. They do not necessarily believe
that child-marriage is acceptable for today, but they do tend to assume that it
must have been all right for Muhamad.
2. Adult
men who want to marry little girls. They do not necessarily care about the
truth or about Islam (although some of them do), but they find it convenient to
use Muhammad’s example as their justification.
3. People
who hate Islam. Again, they do not necessarily care about the truth (although
some of them do), but they will grab any excuse to prove that Muhammad was a
very bad person.
4. People
who care about children’s rights and, as a step towards stopping
child-marriage, want an honest understanding of why it is happening. Some of
these people also “hate” Islam (the philosophy), but only as
a result of caring about human rights and not because they hate any group
of people.
5. People
who care about the truth, no matter what that might happen to be.
Trying to argue that
“Muhammad did not marry a nine-year-old” is unhelpful because it is untrue. The
weak and silly claim that “Aïsha was older than nine” might convince
Westernised Muslims (the kind of people who would never support child-marriage
anyway) and it might convince uninformed Westerners who want to believe the
best of other cultures. But it will not convince anyone who knows Islamic
history, with the result that it will not stop child-marriage in Islamic
cultures.
Or is the
history-rewriters’ true priority something quite different? Perhaps their real
focus is not on Aïsha at all but on Muhammad. Perhaps they want to make him
look like a hero, someone whose behaviour would be palatable and even inspiring
to the West. That means they have to explain away any behaviour that the West
would find unheroic, distasteful or despicable. Perhaps their true goal is to
make Muhammad look good at any cost.
In that case, they
should bear in mind that it is real children, this very day, who are paying
that cost.
About the Author
Tara MacArthur is a
pseudonym. If you ever meet a person whose real name is Tara MacArthur, she is
not the author of this article.
More of Tara’s
writings can be accessed online via http://www.answeringmuslims.com/2018/09/tara-is-free.html.
Continue to the final part of the response (https://answeringislamblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/16/was-aisha-really-only-nine-pt-4/).
IHS
We come to the final segment of the rebuttal (https://answeringislamblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/16/was-aisha-really-only-nine-pt-3/).
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[16] Bukhari
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[17] Haddad
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[19] Amjad
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[21] Ibn
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[22] Muslim
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[23] Nasaï
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[24] Nasaï
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[25] Haddad
(2004).
[26] See
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[27] Amjad
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[28] Haddad
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[32] Tabari
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[33] Haddad
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[34] Amjad
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[35] Al-Haj
(2010).
[36] Muhammad
ibn Ahmad al-Dhahabi. Siyar al-Lam al-Nubala (Biographies of
Noble Persons) vol. 2 #143.
Literally, “a few
years and ten”. The Arabic word translated “a few” means “three to nine”. Ten
or more would be “many”.
[37] Dhahabi
vol. 2 #143.
[38] Ibn
Saad (Bewley) vol. 5 pp. 372-373.
[39] Al-Haj (2010).
[40] Al-Haj (2010).
[41] Dhahabi vol. 4 #668.
[42] Amjad
(1998). Saleem (2008).
[43] Jalal
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[45] Muslim
33:6426.
[46] Bukhari
5:59:423.
[47] Amjad
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[48] Muslim
19:4455.
[49] Bukhari
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[50] Amjad
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[51] “Truther”
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[52] Haddad
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[53] Saleem
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[54] Saleem (2008).
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Muslim 37:6673.
[56] Muhammad
ibn Yazid ibn Maja al-Qazwini. Sunan Ibn Maja (Ibn Maja’s
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Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari. Tarikh al-Rusul
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[57] Suyuti
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[58] Ibn
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[59] Yusuf
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[60] Muslim 8:3450.
[61] Ali ibn Ahmad al-Wahidi. Asbab
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[62] Muslim
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[64] Abu
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[65] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) p. 263.
[66] “Truther”
(2012).
[67] Quraan
65:1, 4 (Shakir).
[68] Quraan
33:49 (Shakir).
[69] Muslim
3:675.
[70] Bukhari
6:61:515.
[71] Quraan
4:3.
See also Ismail ibn
Umar ibn Kathir. Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Ibn Kathir’s Commentary) on
Q4:3.
[72] Saleem
(2008).
[73] François-Cerrah,
M. “The truth about Muhammad and Aisha.” The Guardian, 17 September
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[74] Ibn
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Bukhari 3:34:344.
[75] E.g.,
Ibn Ishaq (Guillaume) parts 2 and 3 orients the reader to time by mentioning
dates in 35 separate instances. It is unlikely that Ibn Ishaq (writing 150
years later) was inventing these dates since there are other events that he
leaves undated. More likely, he knew the dates of these 35 events because the
dates had been marked in the time of Muhammad.
[76] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) pp. 286-289, 617-618, 620, 642, 651.
[77] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) p. 115.
[78] Muhammad
ibn Saad. Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir (The Big Book of Categories) vol.
2. Translated by Haq, S. M. (1972). Ibn Sa’d’s Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir
Volume II Parts I & II, p. 481. Delhi: Kitab Bhavan.
Ibn Saad vol. 8
(Bewley), p. 47.
[79] Ibn
Saad vol. 8 (Bewley) p. 55.
[80] Muslim
8:3311. Nasaï 4:26:3260. Ibn Maja 3:9:1877.
[81] Saleem
(2008).
[82] Zaatari,
S. “A Detailed analysis of the Prophet’s Marriage to Aïsha.” Muslim
Responses.
[83] Bukhari
8:73:151. See also Bukhari 3:48:829. Muslim 4:1940.
[84] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) p. 490.
[85] Bukhari
3:48:829. Bukhari 5:59:462. Muslim 37:6673.
[86] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) pp. 494-495. Bukhari 3:48:829. Bukhari 5:59:462. Muslim
37:6673.
[87] Muslim
4:1940. See also Bukhari 2:15:70.
[88] Muhammad ibn Umar al-Waqidi. Kitab
al-Maghazi (The Book of Battles). Translated by Faizer, R., Ismail, A.,
& Tayob, A. K. (2011). The Life of Muhammad, p.
244. Oxford and New York: Routledge.
Ibn Ishaq
(Guillaume) p. 457.
[89] Waqidi
(Faizer) pp. 251-252.
[90] Ibn
Saad vol. 8 (Bewley) p. 76.
[91] Nasaï
2:19:1598. The Mina days of relaxation and celebration after the solemn
pilgrimage days were 11-13 Zu’l-Hijja.
[92] Waqidi
(Faizer) p. 312.
[93] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) pp. 493-499. Waqidi (Faizer) pp. 208-216.
[94] Ibn
Saad vol. 8 (Bewley) p. 193.
[95] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) p. 530. Waqidi (Faizer) p. 365.
[96] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) p. 531.
[97] Muhammad
was also in Medina for the Mina Days of the subsequent year (4–6 April 630)
(Ibn Ishaq (Guillaume) p. 597). But we are reluctant to believe that Aïsha
was still prepubescent at age 16. The following year, 24–26 March 631, is
absolutely ruled out, since Abu Bakr was in Mecca at that date (Ibn Ishaq
(Guillaume) p. 617), but Aïsha specifically states that he was in Medina on the
day of the Abyssinian display (Bukhari 2:15:70; Muslim 4:1940). In the final
year of Aïsha’s marriage, the whole family was in Mecca for the Mina Days (Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) pp. 649-652).
[98] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) p. 530.
[99] Abu
Dawud 42:4914.
[100] Bukhari
8:73:151.
[101] Bukhari
3:34:318. Abu Dawud 32:4146.
[102] See
Finley, H. (2003). “Average age at menarche in various cultures.” The
Museum of Menstruation and Women’s Health.
See also Terry, M.
B., Ferris, J. S., & Tehranifar, P., Wei, Y., & Flom, J. D. (2009).
Birth Weight, Postnatal Growth, and Age at Menarche. American Journal of
Epidemiology, 170, 72-79.
In the Middle Ages
in the Middle East, the mean age of menarche was 12½ years. This is quite
similar to today, when the standard deviation is about 18 months. So it was
probably quite rare for any of Aïsha’s contemporaries to hit menarche before
age 10 or after age 15. While it is not impossible for a well-nourished girl of
only just nine to reach menarche (even under the natural circumstances before the
era of environmental chemicals), the records clearly indicate that this is not
what happened to Aïsha.
[103] Saleem
(2008).
[104] Auerbach,
L. (1944). The Babylonian Talmud in Selection, p. 192. Santa Cruz, USA: Evinity Publishing.
[105] Muhammad ibn Isa al-Tirmidhi. Al-Jami
al-Sahih (The Collection of the Sound) 2:6:1109.
[106] Ezekiel
16:7-8.
See also Rich, T. R.
(1996–2011). “Prohibited Marriages and Illegitimate Children.” Judaism
101. http://www.jewfaq.org/marriage.htm
[107] Rich
(1996–2011).
[108] François-Cerrah
(2012).
[109] Ibn
Ishaq (Guillaume) pp. 367, 495-496, 550-551, 675, 676.
[110] Bukhari
5:58:169.
[111] Quraan
81:8-9.
[112] Gairdner,
W. H. T. (1919). Mohammed without Camouflage: Ecce Homo … Arabicus. The
Moslem World, 9, 25-57..
[113] Al-Haj
(2010).
[114] François-Cerrah
(2012).
[115] American
Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
[116] APA
(2013).
[117] Macarthur,
T. (2014). Unveiled – The Nineteen Wives of Muhammad.. https://www.amazon.com/Tara-MacArthur/e/B00QG84RO0
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