Marriage of Aisha

Of Pre­pu­bes­cent Girls and Moral Impli­ca­tions : The Young Mar­riage of Aisha

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in today’s cli­mate, there seems to be a sig­nif­i­cant focus among Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies and Islam­o­phobes on dis­cred­it­ing Islam. This is espe­cial­ly true when dis­cussing the mar­riage of Muham­mad(P) to Aisha(R), a top­ic that seems to be under more crit­i­cism now than ever before. As a result, we are see­ing a mul­ti­tude of mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions and dis­tor­tions aimed at twist­ing both his­tor­i­cal and lin­guis­tic facts. These crit­i­cisms range from mild­ly amus­ing to high­ly offen­sive and harmful.

One com­mon and mis­lead­ing argu­ment from these cir­cles cen­ters around the ear­ly mar­riage of Aisha(R) to Muham­mad(P). The insin­u­a­tion, often veiled in less sub­tle lan­guage, sug­gests that Prophet Muham­mad engaged in child exploita­tion. This argu­ment stems from the his­tor­i­cal record that Aisha was betrothed (zawaj) to Prophet Muham­mad at the age of six, with the mar­riage being final­ized (nikah) when she was nine years old and had entered puberty.

If it were not for the repeat­ed prop­a­ga­tion of these claims by some unin­formed indi­vid­u­als, who often reit­er­ate these state­ments with­out ful­ly grasp­ing the con­text, there would be no need for a response. Such an argu­ment relies more on per­son­al bias and sub­jec­tive moral stan­dards rather than sol­id fac­tu­al evi­dence. This arti­cle, there­fore, aims to address and refute this claim, insha’Allah.

Hadiths Report­ing The Mar­riage of Aisha

Jonathan AC Brown explained this beautifully :

    Nar­rat­ed by Aisha : The Prophet ﷺ mar­ried me when I was six years old and con­sum­mat­ed our mar­riage when I was nine years old. Then I remained with him for nine years (i.e., until his death).1

The lapse of time between the zawaj and nikah of Aisha(R) clear­ly shows that her par­ents were wait­ing for her to reach puber­ty before her mar­riage was consummated. 

(to be updated)

Bio­log­i­cal Tran­si­tion to Adult­hood : Puberty

It is under­stood in every human cul­ture and civ­i­liza­tion through­out his­to­ry that women reach puber­ty at dif­fer­ent ages rang­ing from 8 – 12 years old depend­ing on genet­ics, race and envi­ron­ment. Puber­ty sig­nals the bio­log­i­cal tran­si­tion from child­hood to adult­hood, sig­ni­fy­ing a per­son­’s capa­bil­i­ty for sex­u­al repro­duc­tion. This event is marked dif­fer­ent­ly across cul­tures, often through var­i­ous rites or cel­e­bra­tions. In many soci­eties, puber­ty has his­tor­i­cal­ly been con­sid­ered the thresh­old of adult­hood, demon­strat­ing bio­log­i­cal readi­ness for mar­riage and childbearing.

Puber­ty has always been a sym­bol of adult­hood through­out history.

    Puber­ty is defined as the age or peri­od at which a per­son is first capa­ble of sex­u­al repro­duc­tion, in oth­er eras of his­to­ry, a rite or cel­e­bra­tion of this land­mark event was a part of the cul­ture.2
Women reach puber­ty at dif­fer­ent ages rang­ing from 8 – 12 years old depend­ing on genet­ics, race and envi­ron­ment. Click To Tweet

Accord­ing to The Incred­i­ble Machine by the Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Soci­ety, the first signs of puber­ty typ­i­cal­ly appear between the ages of 8 and 12 for girls, slight­ly ear­li­er than boys3. Fac­tors such as genet­ics, race, and the envi­ron­ment sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­ence the onset of puber­ty. In warmer cli­mates, girls often reach puber­ty ear­li­er com­pared to their coun­ter­parts in cold­er envi­ron­ments4.

Soci­etal Norms : Ear­ly Mar­riage in Semit­ic Cultures

In his­tor­i­cal Semit­ic cul­tures, includ­ing 7th-cen­tu­ry Ara­bia, it was com­mon for mar­riage to occur short­ly after the onset of puber­ty. It’s impor­tant to con­tex­tu­al­ize this prac­tice with­in the norms and expec­ta­tions of the time. The idea of child­hood as a pro­tect­ed time of inno­cence and growth is a large­ly mod­ern, West­ern con­cept, and should not be retroac­tive­ly applied to past cultures.

The Tal­mud, an essen­tial text in Judaism, asserts in San­hedrin 76b that a woman should ide­al­ly mar­ry when she has her first menses. Fur­ther­more, in Ketu­vot 6a, it dis­cuss­es rules con­cern­ing sex­u­al inter­course with girls who have not yet menstruated.

This prac­tice was also com­mon among the Israelites, where girls were usu­al­ly mar­ried with­in the larg­er fam­i­ly cir­cle at the onset of puber­ty or around the age of 13, a prac­tice designed to main­tain the puri­ty of the fam­i­ly line5.

Mod­ern Inter­pre­ta­tion and Implications

While his­tor­i­cal norms can pro­vide con­text, mod­ern inter­pre­ta­tions of such prac­tices can be quite dif­fer­ent. Con­tem­po­rary norms, dri­ven by human rights prin­ci­ples and the under­stand­ing of chil­dren’s devel­op­men­tal needs, advo­cate for the pro­tec­tion of chil­dren and dis­cour­age ear­ly marriage.

How­ev­er, it is worth not­ing that even today, there are regions in North Africa, Ara­bia, and India where girls often mar­ry between the ages of five and nine, and it is cul­tur­al­ly expect­ed that a female should be mar­ried soon after reach­ing puberty :

    Today, in many parts of North Africa, Ara­bia, and India, girls are wed­ded and bed­ded between the ages of five and nine ; and no self-respect­ing female remains unmar­ried beyond the age of puber­ty. 6.

While such prac­tices do not align with mod­ern inter­na­tion­al norms, under­stand­ing the his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al con­text of these is essen­tial. Puber­ty, mark­ing the bio­log­i­cal tran­si­tion to adult­hood, has been tra­di­tion­al­ly tied to mar­riage readi­ness in many cul­tures. In Semit­ic soci­eties, such as 7th-cen­tu­ry Ara­bia and ancient Israel, ear­ly mar­riage fol­low­ing puber­ty was a soci­etal norm. Although these prac­tices con­trast with mod­ern prin­ci­ples, under­stand­ing the cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal con­texts is cru­cial in pro­vid­ing a bal­anced perspective.

In Semit­ic soci­eties, such as 7th-cen­tu­ry Ara­bia and ancient Israel, ear­ly mar­riage fol­low­ing puber­ty was a soci­etal norm. Click To Tweet

Were There Any Objec­tions to the Mar­riage of Aisha ?

The answer to this is an emphat­ic no. There are absolute­ly no records from Mus­lim, sec­u­lar, or any oth­er his­tor­i­cal sources which even implic­it­ly dis­play any­thing oth­er than utter joy from all par­ties involved over this marriage. 

Nabia Abbott describes the mar­riage of Aisha(R) to the Prophet(P) as follows :

In no ver­sion is there any com­ment made on the dis­par­i­ty of the ages between Mohammed and Aishah or on the ten­der age of the bride who, at the most, could not have been over ten years old and who was still much enam­oured with her play.7

Even the well-known crit­i­cal Ori­en­tal­ist, W. Mont­gomery Watt, said the fol­low­ing about the Prophet’s moral character :

From the stand­point of Muham­mad’s time, then, the alle­ga­tions of treach­ery and sen­su­al­i­ty can­not be main­tained. His con­tem­po­raries did not find him moral­ly defec­tive in any way. On the con­trary, some of the acts crit­i­cized by the mod­ern West­ern­er show that Muham­mad’s stan­dards were high­er than those of his time.8

Aside from the fact that no one was dis­pleased with him or his actions, he was a para­mount exam­ple of moral char­ac­ter in his soci­ety and time. There­fore, to judge the Prophet’s moral­i­ty based on the stan­dards of our soci­ety and cul­ture today is not only absurd but also unfair.

Mar­riage At Puber­ty Today

The Prophet’s con­tem­po­raries (both ene­mies and friends) clear­ly accept­ed the Prophet’s mar­riage to Aishah(R) with­out any prob­lem. We see the evi­dence for this by the lack of crit­i­cism against the mar­riage until mod­ern times. How­ev­er, a change in cul­ture has caused a change in our times today.

Even today in the 21st cen­tu­ry, the age of sex­u­al con­sent is still quite low in many places. In Japan, peo­ple can legal­ly have sex at age 13, and in Spain they can legal­ly have sex at the age of 12 years oldSource : http://​www​.age​of​con​sent​.com/​a​g​e​o​f​c​o​n​s​e​n​t​.​htm. A 40-year-old man hav­ing sex with a 14-year-old woman may be a pae­dophile” in the Unit­ed States, but not in Chi­na today, where the age of con­sent is 14, nor in the Unit­ed States in the last cen­tu­ry. Biol­o­gy is a much bet­ter stan­dard by which to deter­mine these things, not the arbi­trari­ness of human culture. 

In the U.S. dur­ing the last cen­tu­ry, the age of con­sent was 10 years old. Cal­i­for­nia was the first state to change the age of con­sent to 14, which it did in 1889. After Cal­i­for­nia, oth­er U.S. states joined in and raised the age of con­sent tooSource : http://​www​.age​of​con​sent​.com/​c​o​m​m​e​n​t​s​/​n​u​m​b​e​r​o​n​e​.​htm.

Islam And the Age of Puberty

Islam clear­ly teach­es that adult­hood starts when a per­son has attained puber­ty. From the col­lec­tion of Bukhari9, we read the fol­low­ing tracts :

The boy attain­ing the age of puber­ty and the valid­i­ty of their wit­ness and the State­ment of Allah

And when the chil­dren among you attain the age of puber­ty, then let them also ask for per­mis­sion (to enter).” (Qur’an, 24:59)

Al Mughi­ra said, I attained puber­ty at the age of twelve.” The attain­ing of puber­ty by women is with the start of menses, as is referred to by the State­ment of Allah :

Such of your women as have passed the age of month­ly cours­es, for them pre­scribed peri­od if you have any doubts (about their peri­ods) is three months…” [Qur’an, 65:4]

Thus, it is part of Islam to acknowl­edge the com­ing of puber­ty as the start of adult­hood. It is the time when the per­son has already matured and is ready for the respon­si­bil­i­ties of an adult. So on what basis do the mis­sion­ar­ies crit­i­cize the mar­riage of Aishah(R) since her mar­riage was con­sum­mat­ed when she had reached puberty ?

We also read from the same source :

…Al-Hasan bin Sal­ih said, I saw a neigh­bour of mine who became a grand­moth­er at the age of twenty-one.”(1)

(1) The note for this ref­er­ence says : This woman attained puber­ty at the age of nine and mar­ried to give birth to a daugh­ter at ten ; the daugh­ter had the same expe­ri­ence.“10

Thus, it is clear that if the charge of child molesta­tion” were to be advanced against the Prophet(P), we would also have to include all the Semit­ic peo­ple who accept­ed mar­riage at puber­ty as the norm.

What About Rebekah’s Mar­riage To Isaac ?

Rab­bi Tobi­ah Ben Eliez­er (10501108 AD) also con­firms that she was 3‑years-old when she was mar­ried to Isaac :

Isaac was thir­ty-sev­en-years old at his bind­ing… When Abra­ham returned from Mount Mori­ah, at that very moment Sarah died, and Isaac was then thir­ty-sev­en ; and at that very time Abra­ham was told of Rebekah’s birth ; thus we find that Rebec­ca was three years old when she mar­ried Isaac.“11

Isaac wait­ed three years until Rebec­ca was fit for mar­i­tal rela­tions, which would only make Rebec­ca three years old at the time of con­sum­ma­tion. From this, it seems Jew­ish schol­ars derived an age of con­sum­ma­tion which is then reflect­ed in the Talmud :

In San­hedrin 55 :

R. Joseph said : Come and hear ! A maid­en aged three years and a day may be acquired in mar­riage by coition, and if her deceased hus­band’s broth­er cohab­its with her, she becomes his.

Source : http://​www​.come​-and​-hear​.com/​s​a​n​h​e​d​r​i​n​/​s​a​n​h​e​d​r​i​n​_​55​.​h​tml

This is reit­er­at­ed again else­where in the Talmud :

R. Jere­mi­ah of Difti said : We also learnt the fol­low­ing : A maid­en aged three years and a day may be acquired in mar­riage by coition, and if her deceased hus­band’s broth­er cohab­it­ed with her, she becomes his.

Source : http://​www​.halakhah​.com/​s​a​n​h​e​d​r​i​n​/​s​a​n​h​e​d​r​i​n​_​69​.​h​tml

A female less than 3 years old, her inter­course is not con­sid­ered as inter­course, and her vir­gin­i­ty returns (Haga­hot Yeva­mot). Even if the years were inter­ca­lat­ed (e.g she had inter­course at 37 months old in a leap year) her vir­gin­i­ty returns (words of the Rav, based on Yerushal­mi Ketuboth chap­ter 1).

Source : https://​www​.sefaria​.org/​S​h​u​l​c​h​a​n​_​A​r​u​k​h​,​_​E​v​e​n​_​H​a​E​z​e​r​.20 (note that this text sanc­tions hav­ing inter­course with a child less than three years old)

(to be updated)

Con­clu­sions

In the 7th-cen­tu­ry Semit­ic soci­ety of Ara­bia, it was com­mon­place for mar­riages to occur at a pubes­cent age. No doc­u­ment­ed objec­tions to Prophet Muham­mad’s mar­riage to Aisha(R) were found, from nei­ther allies nor adver­saries. Accord­ing to the numer­ous hadiths report­ed by Aisha her­self, she did not express any dis­sat­is­fac­tion with her mar­riage to Muham­mad. On the con­trary, their union was depict­ed as serene and har­mo­nious. Inter­est­ing­ly, such prac­tices of mar­ry­ing at a pubes­cent age still per­sist in cer­tain con­tem­po­rary cultures.

Adding a broad­er per­spec­tive to this dis­cus­sion, the prac­tice of young mar­riages was­n’t unique to Ara­bi­an soci­ety alone. A promi­nent exam­ple from the Bible is the mar­riage of Rebekah, a cen­tral fig­ure in the book of Gen­e­sis. Rebekah was betrothed to Isaac, Abra­ham’s son, and inter­pre­ta­tions sug­gest she could have been as young as three to ten or eleven at the time of her mar­riage. This instance under­scores the preva­lence of such prac­tices across diverse soci­eties and reli­gious nar­ra­tives, includ­ing sem­i­nal Judeo-Chris­t­ian stories.

In spite of fac­ing these well-known facts, the mis­sion­ar­ies would still have the audac­i­ty to point a fin­ger at the Prophet Muham­mad(P) for immoral­i­ty. Yet, it was he who had brought jus­tice to the women of Ara­bia and raised them to a lev­el they had not seen before in their soci­ety, some­thing which ancient civil­i­sa­tions have nev­er done to their women.

When Muham­mad(P) first became the Prophet of Islam, the pagans of Ara­bia had inher­it­ed a dis­re­gard for women as had been passed down among their Jew­ish and Chris­t­ian neigh­bours. So dis­grace­ful was it con­sid­ered among them to be blessed with a female child that they would go so far as to bury this baby alive in order to avoid the dis­grace asso­ci­at­ed with female children.

When news is brought to one of them of (the birth of) a female (child) his face dark­ens and he is filled with inward grief ! With shame does he hide from his peo­ple because of the bad news he has had ! Shall he retain it on (suf­fer­ance and) con­tempt or bury it in the dust ? Ah ! what an evil (choice) they decide on!“Qur’an 16:58 – 59

Through the teach­ings of Islam, Muham­mad(P) put a swift and resound­ing end to this evil prac­tice. God tells us that on the Day of Judg­ment, the female child will be ques­tioned for what crime she was killed.

    When the female (infant) buried alive is ques­tioned — for what crime she was killed.“12

Not only did Muham­mad(P) severe­ly dis­cour­aged and con­demned this act, he also used to teach them to respect and cher­ish their daugh­ters and moth­ers as part­ners and sources of sal­va­tion for the men of their family.

Abu Sa’id al-Khu­dri nar­rat­ed that :

The Prophet(P) said : If any­one cares for three daugh­ters, dis­ci­plines them, mar­ries them, and does good by them, he will enter Par­adise.‘13

Abdul­lah the son of Abbas nar­rat­ed that :

The Prophet(P) said : If any­one has a female child and does not bury her alive, or slight her, or pre­fer his male chil­dren over her, Allah will bring him into Par­adise.‘13

The Prophet(P) is also cit­ed in Sahih Mus­lim as say­ing :

Who­ev­er main­tains two girls till they attain matu­ri­ty, he and I will come on the Day of Res­ur­rec­tion like this’; and he joined his fingers.

In oth­er words, if one loves the Mes­sen­ger of God and wish­es to be with him on the day of res­ur­rec­tion in heav­en, then they should do good by their daugh­ters. This is cer­tain­ly not the act of a child moles­ter”, as the mis­sion­ar­ies would like us to believe.

Final­ly, we end this with a cita­tion from Muham­mad(P), who said : I have come to defend the two oppressed peo­ples : women and orphans.”

Cite this arti­cle as : Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi, Of Pre­pu­bes­cent Girls and Moral Impli­ca­tions : The Young Mar­riage of Aisha,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, Sep­tem­ber 19, 2005, last accessed March 28, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​m​u​h​a​m​m​a​d​/​m​a​r​r​i​a​g​e​-​o​f​-​a​i​s​ha/

Appen­dix : A Mar­ried Nine-Year-Old In Thai­land Gives Birth

Below is a news arti­cle from the New Straits Times, Malaysia, dat­ed 10th March 2001about a nine-year old girl liv­ing in north­ern Thai­land giv­ing birth to a baby girl. The fact that a nine-year-old girl is mature enough to give birth proves the point above about girls reach­ing puber­ty ear­li­er than men.

Wanwisa Janmuk

The orig­i­nal news report can be read here. Should the hus­band of this young girl be accused of child molesta­tion”, as insin­u­at­ed by the Chris­t­ian missionaries ?Endmark

  1. Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 67, #69[]
  2. Sue Cure­witz Arthen, Rites of Pas­sage : Puber­ty[]
  3. The Incred­i­ble Machine, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Soci­ety, p. 235, 239[]
  4. The aver­age tem­per­a­ture of the coun­try or province is con­sid­ered the chief fac­tor here, not only with regard to men­stru­a­tion but as regards the whole of sex­u­al devel­op­ment at puber­ty.” — Her­man H. Ploss, Max Bar­tels, & Paul Bar­tels, Woman”, Vol­ume I, p. 563[]
  5. West, J., Th.D., no date. Ancient Israelite Mar­riage Cus­toms. Avail­able at : http://​www​.the​ol​o​gy​.edu/​m​a​r​r​i​a​g​e​.​htm [Accessed 29th July 2023][]
  6. Mas­ters, R.E.L., and Edwards, Allan. The Cra­dle of Erot­i­ca. 1st ed., Julian Press, 1962.[]
  7. Nabia Abbott, Aishah, The Beloved of Mohammed, p. 7[]
  8. W. M. Watt, Muham­mad : Prophet and States­man, (Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 1961), p. 229[]
  9. Al-Bukhari, Vol­ume 3, Book of Wit­ness­es, Chap­ter 18, p. 513[]
  10. ibid.[]
  11. Pesik­ta Zutra­ta (Lekah Tov), Gen. 24″ in Rab­bi Tobi­ah Ben Eliez­er, Midrashic Com­men­tary on the Pen­ta­teuch[]
  12. Qur’an 81:9[]
  13. Nar­rat­ed by Abu Dawood[][]

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13 responses to “Of Pre­pu­bes­cent Girls and Moral Impli­ca­tions : The Young Mar­riage of Aisha”

  1. masharib Avatar
    masharib

    you said. San­hedrin 76b clear­ly states that it is prefer­able that a woman be mar­ried when she has her first menses,
    here ı quote for u the orig­i­nal com­plete text of 76b. but ı could not fınd what u say is men­tioned clear­ly. can u plz high­light from whic sen­tence exact­ly did you extract that mean­ing. i will be thank­ful to your excelliency
    This is what Rav Kahana is say­ing : Who is a pau­per who, due to his pover­ty, becomes a con­niv­ing, wicked per­son ? This is one who delays the mar­riage of his daugh­ter who is a grown woman. And Rav Kahana says in the name of Rab­bi Aki­va : Beware of one who advis­es you accord­ing to his own inter­ests, as he is like­ly moti­vat­ed by per­son­al gain.
    Rav Yehu­da says that Rav says : One who mar­ries his daugh­ter to an old man, and one who takes a wife for his minor son, and one who returns a lost item to a gen­tile are all indi­vid­u­als who are the cause of sin. Mar­riage to an old man or a minor leaves the woman unsat­is­fied and is apt to lead to licen­tious­ness. One who returns lost prop­er­ty to gen­tiles adds to the prop­er­ty that they stole from Jews. With regard to each of them the verse states : Lest there should be among you a man or a woman…whose heart turns away this day from the Lord…saying : I will have peace, even though I walk in the stub­born­ness of my heart, that the quenched shall be added to the thirsty. The Lord will not be will­ing to par­don him” (Deuteron­o­my 29:17 – 19).
    The Gemara rais­es an objec­tion to one ele­ment of the rul­ing of Rav from a barai­ta : One who loves his wife as he loves him­self, and who esteems her by giv­ing her cloth­ing and jew­el­ry more than he esteems him­self, and one who instructs his sons and daugh­ters to fol­low an upright path, and who mar­ries them to appro­pri­ate spous­es adja­cent to their reach­ing puber­ty, ensures that his home will be devoid of quar­rel and sin. Con­cern­ing him the verse states : And you shall know that your tent is in peace ; and you shall vis­it your habi­ta­tion and shall miss noth­ing” (Job 5:24). The barai­ta indi­cates that it is a mitz­va to mar­ry one’s chil­dren to appro­pri­ate spous­es while they are young, con­trary to the state­ment of Rav that one who takes a wife for his minor son caus­es sin. The Gemara replies : Adja­cent to their reach­ing puber­ty is dif­fer­ent from mar­ry­ing her to a minor, as there is no con­cern that his daugh­ter will sin dur­ing the brief peri­od until her hus­band reach­es puberty.
    The Sages taught : One who loves his neigh­bors, and one who brings his rel­a­tives close, and one who mar­ries the daugh­ter of his sis­ter, an exam­ple of a woman that he knows and likes before tak­ing her as his wife, and one who lends a sela to a poor man at his time of need, when he has no alter­na­tive source of funds, with regard to each of them the verse states : Break your bread for the hun­gry, and the poor that are cast out bring to your house ; when you see the naked, you shall clothe him, and hide not your­self from your own flesh…then shall you call, and the Lord will answer ; you shall cry, and He will say : Here I am” (Isa­iah 58:7 – 9).
    § The Sages taught with regard to the verse : And if a man takes a woman and her moth­er, it is lewd­ness ; they shall be burned with fire both him and them, and there shall be no lewd­ness among you” (Leviti­cus 20:14). What is the mean­ing of both him and them”? It means him and one of them, as one woman is his wife. He is liable for engag­ing in inter­course with the oth­er woman ; this is the state­ment of Rab­bi Yish­mael. Rab­bi Aki­va says : It means him and the two of them.
    The Gemara asks : What is the dif­fer­ence between them ? Clear­ly Rab­bi Aki­va does not hold that his wife is pun­ished when he engages in inter­course with her rel­a­tive. Abaye says : The dif­fer­ence between Rab­bi Aki­va and Rab­bi Yish­mael is with regard to the inter­pre­ta­tion of the mean­ing of the verse.
    Rab­bi Yish­mael holds that the term both him and them [et’hen]” means him and one of them, as in the Greek lan­guage one calls the num­ber one heina. The pro­hi­bi­tion in the verse is with regard to one who engages in inter­course with the moth­er of his wife. And the pro­hi­bi­tion of engag­ing in inter­course with the moth­er of his moth­er-in-law is derived through an inter­pre­ta­tion of the vers­es and is not writ­ten explic­it­ly in the Torah. Rab­bi Aki­va holds that the term both him and them” means him and both of them ; the pro­hi­bi­tion in the verse is with regard to one who engages in inter­course with his moth­er-in-law, and the pro­hi­bi­tion for engag­ing in inter­course with the moth­er of his moth­er-in-law is also writ­ten here explicitly.
    Rava says : Rab­bi Yish­mael and Rab­bi Aki­va agree that the pro­hi­bi­tion with regard to the moth­er of his moth­er-in-law is derived through inter­pre­ta­tion, and the dif­fer­ence between them is with regard to one who engages in inter­course with his moth­er-in-law after the death of his wife. Rab­bi Yish­mael holds that one who engages in inter­course with his moth­er-in-law after the death of his wife is exe­cut­ed by burn­ing. The verse indi­cates : Both him and one of them, mean­ing that he is liable to be exe­cut­ed by burn­ing even if only one of the pair of his wife and moth­er-in-law is alive, i.e., when his wife is deceased and he engages in inter­course with his moth­er-in-law. And Rab­bi Aki­va main­tains that in that case, one vio­lates a mere pro­hi­bi­tion and is not liable to be executed.
    mish­na And these are the trans­gres­sors who are killed by decap­i­ta­tion in the imple­men­ta­tion of the court-imposed death penal­ty : The mur­der­er ; and the res­i­dents of an idol­a­trous city, all of whom engaged in idol worship.
    The mish­na elab­o­rates : In the case of a mur­der­er who struck anoth­er with a stone or with iron, or held him in the water or in the fire, and the vic­tim could not extri­cate him­self from there and he died,the mur­der­er is liable to be executed.
    If one pushed anoth­er into the water or into the fire and that per­son could have extri­cat­ed him­self from there but failed to do so, and he died, the one who pushed him is exempt from pun­ish­ment by a court, as he caused the death but did not actu­al­ly kill the vic­tim. For the same rea­son, if one set a dog against anoth­er and the dog killed him, or if one set a snake against anoth­er and the snake killed him, the one who set the dog or the snake is exempt from pun­ish­ment. If he imbed­ded the snake’s fangs into anoth­er and caused the snake to bite him and kill him, Rab­bi Yehu­da deems him liable to be exe­cut­ed, as he is a mur­der­er, and the Rab­bis exempt him, as they main­tain that he indi­rect­ly caused the individual’s death.
    gemara The vers­es state with regard to a mur­der­er : And if he struck him with a stone in hand, by which a man may die…or if he struck him with an instru­ment of wood in hand, by which a man may die, and he died, he is a mur­der­er ; the mur­der­er shall be put to death” (Num­bers 35:17 – 18). The term in hand” indi­cates that one is liable for mur­der only if he uti­lized a stone or a wood­en instru­ment that was of at least a cer­tain mea­sure. Shmuel says : For what rea­son was the term in hand” not stat­ed with regard to the iron instru­ment, as it is writ­ten : But if he struck him with an instru­ment of iron, so that he died” (Num­bers 35:16)? The rea­son is that an iron instru­ment of any size kills.
    This is also taught in a barai­ta. Rab­bi Yehu­da HaNasi says : It is revealed and known before He Who spoke and the world came into being that an iron instru­ment of any size kills. There­fore, the Torah did not pro­vide a mea­sure for it. The Gemara com­ments : And this state­ment applies only when the mur­der­er stabbed him with the iron instru­ment. But in a case where the mur­der­er struck anoth­er with an iron instru­ment, he is liable only if the instru­ment was at least a cer­tain mea­sure capa­ble of caus­ing death.
    § The mish­na teach­es : Or held him in the water and that oth­er per­son died, the mur­der­er is liable. The Gemara com­ments : The first clause of the mish­na teach­es us a nov­el ele­ment, and the lat­ter clause of the mish­na teach­es us a nov­el ele­ment. The first clause teach­es us a nov­el ele­ment : Even though it was not he who pushed the indi­vid­ual into the water, since he held the vic­tim and the vic­tim could not extri­cate him­self from there and he died, the one who held him in the water is liable to be exe­cut­ed. The lat­ter clause teach­es us a nov­el ele­ment : Even though he pushed the indi­vid­ual into the water, since the vic­tim could have extri­cat­ed him­self from there but failed to do so and he died, the one who pushed him is exempt from punishment.
    The Gemara asks : From where do we derive that one who held anoth­er in the water is liable to be exe­cut­ed ? Shmuel says : It is derived from a verse, as the verse states : Or in enmi­ty he struck him with his hand and he died, the assailant shall be put to death ; he is a mur­der­er” (Num­bers 35:21). The phrase or in enmi­ty” serves to include one who con­fines anoth­er in a place where he can­not survive.
    There was a cer­tain man who con­fined the ani­mal of anoth­er in a place in the sun and it died from expo­sure to the sun. Rav­ina deemed the man liable to rec­om­pense the own­er as though his action caused the death of the ani­mal. Rav Aḥa bar Rav deemed him exempt from rec­om­pens­ing the own­er, as it was not his action that caused the death of the animal.
    The Gemara elab­o­rates : Rav­ina deemed him liable to rec­om­pense the own­er, and he derived it by means of an a for­tiori infer­ence : Just as with regard to a mur­der­er, where the Torah did not ren­der the legal sta­tus of one who kills unwit­ting­ly, who is exiled, like that of one who kills inten­tion­al­ly, who is exe­cut­ed, and did not ren­der the sta­tus of one who kills due to cir­cum­stances beyond his con­trol, who is exempt from pun­ish­ment, like that of one who kills with intent, who is liable, nev­er­the­less the Torah ren­dered one who con­fines anoth­er in a place where he can­not sur­vive liable to be exe­cut­ed, even though he did not per­form an action ;

  2. Shaiz Avatar
    Shaiz

    Assala­mual­laikum!!!! Can any­body tell me what was the con­cept of Slave women in Prophet’s (pbuh)time.…??? i aware that Islam abol­ished slav­ery but then i won­der what slave women had to do…??? if it means just like Ser­vants or Maids why are they referred as women whom they can mar­ry or Con­su­mate for that mat­ter… Cor­rect me if i am wrong…!!! Some­body help me out with this..?

  3. Shaiz Avatar
    Shaiz

    To Aboobacker,..

    Salaam Broth­er and thanks a ton for shar­ing this PDF — Age of Aysha.…

  4. Aminul Avatar
    Aminul

    RE : aian jaafar

    Just thought I would like to add that the thai girl was mar­ried and so the child was not born out­side marriage.

  5. Abdul Sattar Khokhar Avatar
    Abdul Sattar Khokhar






    065.004 وَاللائِي يَئِسْنَ مِنَ الْمَحِيضِ مِنْ نِسَائِكُمْ إِنِ ارْتَبْتُمْ فَعِدَّتُهُنَّ ثَلاثَةُ أَشْهُرٍ وَاللائِي لَمْ يَحِضْنَ وَأُولاتُ الأحْمَالِ أَجَلُهُنَّ أَنْ يَضَعْنَ حَمْلَهُنَّ وَمَنْ يَتَّقِ اللَّهَ يَجْعَلْ لَهُ مِنْ أَمْرِهِ يُسْرًا065.004 Such of your women as have passed the age of month­ly cours­es, for them the pre­scribed peri­od, if ye have any doubts, is three months, and for those who have no cours­es (it is the same): for those who car­ry (life with­in their wombs), their peri­od is until they deliv­er their bur­dens : and for those who fear Allah, He will make their path easy.Al-Qur’an, 065.004 (At-Talaq [Divorce])
    Text Copied from
    DivineIs­lam’s Qur’an View­er soft­ware v2.910

    065.004 ????????? ???????? ???? ?????????? ???? ??????????? ???? ??????????? ?????????????? ???????? ???????? ????????? ???? ???????? ????????? ?????????? ??????????? ???? ???????? ??????????? ?????? ??????? ??????? ???????? ???? ???? ???????? ???????
    065.004 Such of your women as have passed the age of month­ly cours­es, for them the pre­scribed peri­od, if ye have any doubts, is three months, and for those who have no cours­es (it is the same): for those who car­ry (life with­in their wombs), their peri­od is until they deliv­er their bur­dens : and for those who fear Allah, He will make their path easy.

    Al-Qur’an, 065.004 (At-Talaq [Divorce])

    — — — — — —
    Authen­tic­i­ty of Quran has been test­ed by a large num­ber of West­ern­ers and it stands con­firmed that it is Divine Message.

    Mus­lims should real­ly not care whether con­tem­po­rary west­ern soci­ety has objec­tions towards any­thing or not, because they have lost their Divine Mes­sage. It is indeed laugh­able that Bible is pub­lished in var­i­ous edi­tions and ver­sions. Even what­ev­er they have, they dont care to read or follow.

    Quran does not spec­i­fy age of mar­riage for women in terms of years. How­ev­er, 65:4 men­tions that Iddat for a female who has not had her men­stu­ra­tion peri­ods yet is the same as for women who have their men­stru­al cycle. Thus, if Allah Almighty does not have any objec­tion over minor mar­riage, then nobody should have any objection.

    I have read the argu­ments by Abdur Rah­man Sid­diqi Kand­hal­wi. His argu­ment car­ries weight. How­ev­er, even if we accept the Hadith in Sahih Bukhari, then we have endorse­ment of Quran to this effect. If Allah Almighty allows some­thing, we should not be apolo­getic about that.

    Allah Knows Best

  6. tabasca36 Avatar

    To AbuBakr,

    Thank you for that great ref­er­ence. The author did such a schol­ar­ly job prov­ing that Aicha’s age was indeed 19 and not 9 as claimed by decep­tive Chris­t­ian evan­ge­lists. She was (Allah’s peace and bless­ings on her) noblest of char­ac­ter and a war­rior at heart. She was­n’t play­ing with toys, as their fake hadiths allege, but clash­ing swords with Islam’s ene­mies and car­ry­ing the flag of vic­to­ry to many deci­sive bat­tles. Her leg­endary courage and devo­tion to the faith would put their Joan of Arc to shame.

  7. AbuBakr Avatar
    AbuBakr

    This book by Allamah Habib ur Rah­man Kand­halvi proves from many points that Aisha (ra) was 19 not 9 :

    http://​upload​.wiki​me​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​s​o​u​r​c​e​/​e​n​/​8​/​8​f​/​A​g​e​_​o​f​_​A​i​s​h​a​.​pdf

    ALL the hadiths that say she was 9 are traced to just 1 man called Hisham the son of Urwah.
    EVERY SINGLE ONE of these hadiths, whether from Bukhari, Mus­lim etc, include this man and the above schol­ar shows us how he made this error in the lat­ter part of his life.

    The Allamah shows from the Hadith Lit­er­a­ture itself that Aisha (ra) was born sev­er­al years before 610 CE. So that at the Hijrah in 623, she was about 17.

    How can we dis­agree with a con­clu­sion of a result when we all agree with the indi­vid­ual data??
    We all agree with the following :
    Aisha(ra) was 10 years younger than her sis­ter Asma(ra).
    Asma(ra) died in 73 AH aged 100.
    Thre­fore Asma(ra) was 27 at the Hijrah.

    There­fore Aisha(ra) was 17 at the Hijrah.
    WHY CANT YOU AGREE TO THIS SIMPLE LOGIC??

    Please read the book. All its argu­ments are from Islam­ic sources.
    Hisham bin Urwah was a reli­able nar­ra­tor while he was in Mad­i­nah, and all his nar­ra­tions from there are Sahih. But Imam Bukhari seems to be unaware of what hap­pened to him when Hisham moved to iraq aged 71.
    The Allamah quotes Dha­habi & Hafiz Ibn Hajr to show that Hishams mem­o­ry became so bad that he even con­fused his own wifes mar­riage date say­ing that he mar­ried her when she was 9 ! Before he was even born!! She was actu­al­ly 11 years old­er than him & they mar­ried when she was 29.
    So, Mus­lims should speak with knowl­edge or remain silent.

  8. shery Avatar
    shery

    The Bible degrades the Prophets of God by vilification :
    For a Mus­lim, many of the claims to be found in the Bible with regard to the prophets of God, and even God him­self, are mon­strous and pre­pos­ter­ous. One is hard pressed to find a sin­gle prophet or mes­sen­ger who was not a drunk­ard, an idol­ater, an adul­ter­er, guilty of incest, a liar, and so forth. The Bible prac­ti­cal­ly over­flows with such sto­ries from almost every Tom, Dick, and Har­ry. The mes­sen­gers of God are even made to be guilty of mul­ti­ple cas­es of adul­tery and worse. Abra­ham (pbuh) is alleged to be a liar and worse (Gen­e­sis 12:13). Noah (pbuh) a drunk­ard (Gen­e­sis 9:21). Lot (pbuh) a drunk­ard and guilty of incest (Gen­e­sis 19:30 – 38). Solomon (pbuh) a wor­ship­per of idols in his old age (1 Kings 4 – 9), King David (pbuh) com­mits adul­tery with Uri­ah’s wife and then mur­dered her hus­band (2 Samuel 11:3 – 4,15 – 18), David’s son Ammon is guilty of incest and the rape of his half sis­ter (2 Samuel 13:14). Aaron (pbuh) fash­ions an idol (the gold­en calf) for the Jews to wor­ship (Exo­dus 32:1 – 4), to name but a very few of the many alle­ga­tions to be found in the cur­rent Bible. (Misha’al Ibn Abdul­lah Al-Kad­hi, What Did Jesus Real­ly Say ? [online Source]
    Here is a brief summary :
    Noah got drunk, Lot com­mit­ted incest, Moses was a mur­der­er, Aaron built the calf, David com­mit­ted adul­tery, and Solomon was guilty of idol-wor­ship. Yet the Prophet Muham­mad is not guilty of any of these crimes !
    Strange­ly, Chris­tians defend the false por­tray­al of God and His prophets, yet have the audac­i­ty to charge the Prophet Muham­mad with falsehood !

  9. WaltDe Avatar
    WaltDe

    Very good read­ing. Peace until next time.
    WaltDe

  10. aian jaafar Avatar
    aian jaafar

    hi prashanth,

    all over the world hav­ing sex at a young age is con­sid­ered bad ONLY RECENTLY. but what is real­ly bad is hav­ing sex OUTSIDE MARRIAGE.

    no law that man can ever leg­is­late can pre­vent a nine-year old girl from get­ting preg­nant pro­vid­ed she has reached puber­ty at that age. so, what are we going to do, con­sid­er that young Thai mum­my’s child a bas­tard, since it did not ful­fill your arti­fi­cial require­ments ? she’s not sup­posed to have a child, right ? why did­n’t you stop God from let­ting her bear one ?

    i am real­ly puz­zled at some peo­ple who react to the Beloved Prophet’s mar­riage to the young Aishah, who was phys­i­cal­ly, bio­log­i­cal­ly, and nat­u­ral­ly capa­ble of bear­ing chil­dren by then (since the mar­riage was con­sum­mat­ed when she has reached puber­ty). it will not do to argue that the Prophet and the respect­ed Moth­er of the Believ­ers did not have chil­dren, since puber­ty is the way to deter­mine one’s readi­ness to have children.

    and what if they are odd ? rare does not make some­thing evil. i’d rather that peo­ple would com­plain against homo­sex­u­al rela­tion­ships, whom God Almighty has cursed with per­pet­u­al steril­i­ty (to any homo­sex­u­al who would react to this, please bring any proof that you serve mankind’s bio­log­i­cal invest­ment of prop­a­ga­tion of the species through your homo­sex­u­al relationship).

    while the legal age has been high­er, there is no decrease to the num­ber of bro­ken fam­i­lies around the world. i won­der why ?

  11. Prashanth Avatar
    Prashanth

    no i do not agree to this
    all over the world hav­ing sex at a young age is con­sid­ered bad.especially in india there is a law to pro­hib­it this.the usu­al age for mar­ry­ing is 23 in india.The inci­dents that you told have tak­en place(rarely) but they are con­sid­ered odd now.

  12. George Carty Avatar
    George Carty

    IMO the Islam­o­phobes who make a big thing about Aishah’s age are try­ing to prof­it from the con­tem­po­rary West­ern hys­te­ria about the pedophile threat”…

  13. Abid Khan Avatar
    Abid Khan

    May Allah reward you for this arti­cle — can i use it on my web­site http://​www​.tawheed​.co​.uk
    Walakum salaam
    Abid

    [Admin : Wa alaykum salaam, brother…yes, you may use this arti­cle, pro­vid­ed that you men­tion its source and give attri­bu­tion to us and the author. Wassalam.]

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