Re: Did Muhammad Really Marry a 9-Year Old Girl?

"capsaicin" <mosab.zahedi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ceed99cb-e999-4310-9274-3bf99d6cad9e@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<snip> ...
The Koran doesn't "advocate" child marriage, but a verse mentions divorce
of
wives who have not yet had their "courses"
<snip> ...
This verse can be interpreted in a dozen ways. Why are you always so
quick to choose the worst interpretation? In that you are no better
than the fanatic Muslims you so despise (or is it really THEM that you
despise?)
"A woman which have not had a period" does not necessarily mean a
"prepubescent girl" let alone for it to mean a privilege for child
sex! ...
<snip>
and that in addition to the
fact that sahih ahadith say The Prophet consumated his marriage with
Aisha
when she was nine, - AND stille playing with dolls - is more than enough
...
<snip>
What bothers me is that most Muslims deny any problems in Islam or in
Islam's history,
<snip> ...
It depends upon what you consider "Islam". If you look at the world
today, you will see many versions of it. If by Islam, you mean the
true Islam, then add me to that list of "most Muslims".
Who says there is no problem in Islam's History?
<snip> ...

Comment:-
As a historical observation in regard to early "Islam" or "Islam's history"
at its advent its amazing that anti-Muslimism interlocutors conveniently
forget (tacit denial) the "History of Childhood" in the known Mediaeval
world. It's as though this "childhood" problematic is unique to Middle East
and practices in Europe, in the Middle Ages, were significantly different.
How should intelligent readers interpret this perennial "9-year old girl"
bugbear that's harshly aimed at Islam in isolation? Just read this quick
digest into the "History of Childhood" phenomenon as background into this
controversial "Really Marry a 9-Year Old Girl" topic.

<Quote> ...
The first major works into the history of childhood were those of Philippe
Aries and Lloyd De Mause, 'Centuries of Childhood', and 'The History of
Childhood' respectfully. Both historians took a "progressive" approach to
history, and concluded that the treatment of children by their parents and
society have improved considerably throughout the centuries. Both paint a
very negative image of childhood, and family life in the past. Lloyd De
Mause went as far as saying that;

"The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently
begun to awaken."

believing that;

"The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care,
and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten,
terrorized, and sexually abused".

Aries concluded that there was no concept of childhood as a state different
to adulthood in these centuries, and therefore, even if parents did feel
affection for their offspring, they did not fully understand how to respond
to the emotional needs of their children. This argument gained further
weight with the mammoth work of Lawrence Stone on the history of the family
and family relationships in the early modern period, The Family, Sex and
Marriage in England 1500-1800. Stone too focused on the "evolution" of the
family through these three centuries, arguing that the family changed from
being of an "open lineage" structure in which family relationships were
formal and repressed, to the "domesticated nuclear family", which resulted
in "affective individualism".

On Aries' view, childhood is a very new concept. It did not exist at all in
the Medieval period, grew into existence in the upper classes in the 16th
and 17th centuries, solidified itself somewhat more fully in the 18th
century upper classes, and finally mushroomed on the scene of the 20th
century in both the upper and lower classes. But, on his argument, childhood
did not really penetrate the great masses of the lower and lower-middle
classes until very late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Aries does not claim there were no young people. Not even a Frenchman would
try a claim as bold as that. Rather, while there were an abundance of young
humans between the ages of 7 and 15, they were not seen as children. Their
cultures lacked the concept of childhood. In the Medieval world a young
person of 7 was already an adult. (Recall that in Roman Catholic theology 7
is the age of reason, the age when one could begin to commit serious sin.
This is an argument which Aries overlooked). Aries points out that most
young people were apprenticed, became workers in the fields (later, after
the industrial revolution, in the factories) and generally entered fully
into the adult society at a very early age.

As evidence he cites art work. There are no children. There are babies. But,
what we call children do not exist. Little adults are there. ... Aries
suggests
another explanation, the one generally accepted today, namely that they
couldn't paint young people as children because they were not children. In
their cultures they were little adults, and this is precisely what the
artists saw. Childhood is a later historical creation.
<Unquote> ..

How should we interpret the comments in this thread, so far, in light of the
foregoing serious historical examination of childhood? Doesn't it raise some
interesting historical questions that contradict these repeated
anti-Muslimism accusations? How should we look at past life and society in
the Middle Ages, surely not through a 20th century prism?

Another comparative religious example between Islam, Christianity and
Judaism is contained in this parallel NYT article "The Age of Reason; A
Chilling Crime and a Question: What's in a Child's Mind?". Full story at
this link:-

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E4DC1E3AF935A2575BC0A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Extract:-
AT the age of 7, a child is considered by the Roman Catholic Church to have
reached the ''age of reason'' and is entitled to receive communion. Some
evangelical churches hold that a child of 7 can make an independent
spiritual choice. In Judaism and Islam, a boy of 7 is expected to begin his
religious studies and participate, to some degree, in adult rituals like
fasting and praying. Freud believed the super ego, or the conscience,
develops by age 4 or 5. ...

Religion, a source of society's notions of justice, has been wrestling with
moral codes for millennia. But cases of children committing capital crimes
are rare, so they represent something of a black hole for theologians, a
puzzle that neither faith nor doctrine anticipates.

Both Judaism and Islam, for example, set the age of majority, when children
are liable for their actions, at 13 for boys and 12 for girls. ''It's the
age of full responsibility and therefore full liability,'' said David
Kraemer, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Younger children
are considered to have the impulse to do good and evil, he added, ''but not
the reason to control the impulse.'' ...

Islam, too, holds that a prepubescent child is not ''fully in control of his
senses and doesn't have the power of reasoning to really make an informed
judgment,'' said Jamal Badawi, a Muslim scholar and chairman of the Islamic
Information Foundation in Halifax, Nova Scotia. ...

Neither religion has a concept of original sin. ''The human being is neither
satanic nor angelic by nature,'' said Dr. Badawi, referring to the Koran.
''He simply has the potential to ascend to a level even higher than the
angels or descend to a level lower than animals.'' ...

Christian theology on the nature of the child is more complex, encompassing
a belief that everyone is tainted by original sin as well as accommodating
the idea that everyone is made in the image of God. ...

Since the days of Pope Pius X nearly a century ago, the Catholic Church has
attributed to children of 7 the capacity to understand the consequences of
their actions. ...
End extract.

--
Peace
--
The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you
remember, or pretend you remember" [Harold Pinter]

Zuiko Azumazi
zuiko.azumazi@xxxxxxxxx

.

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