A courageous, and difficult, essay by David Liepert on Islamic pedophilia and the age of Aisha.
He makes a very solid case on the merits – but isn’t afraid to throw an elbow to wake people up to the implications of their contradictions and excuses. Example:
There are really only three reasons to insist — as so many do — that Aisha was only 9 years old when Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) married her: Either you are such a crazy Islamophile that you are willing to go to your grave insisting Muhammad could do whatever he wanted, or you are such a crazy Islamophobe that you want to insist he did, or you are such a weirdly religious sex-crazed pervert that you hope accusing him makes it OK for you to do it too.
There is absolutely no other reason to either make or repeat that disgusting claim.
Like I said, he throws a sharp elbow. But that’s to get your attention. What follows is not quite as harsh – but easily the most compelling argument for this case I’ve ever seen.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee, 
Arwi, 
shams and 
Crabby are discussing. 
Haider, 
Len, 
thabet are discussing. 
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 9:57 am on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
If the author wishes to actually engage with the mainstream of believing Muslims, he needs to drop the uber progressive Qur’an-only nonsense. There are worthwhile points in the post, but overall I think it is unhelpful, precisely because the implication of it is in order to stand against pedophilia one has to go against traditional Islamic scholarly understandings of methodology hadith, tafsir, and fiqh.
aziz 10:02 am on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
characterizing his point as “uber progressive” and “qur’an only” is quite a misrepresentation, AN. He’s making a nuanced case for what to do when hadith clearly contradict each other, in teh same volume.
You surely agree (as you’ve stated many times before) that QUr’an comes first, and when hadith are confusing, to use QUr’an guidance to resolve those contradictions. That is what he is doing.
Some knee-jerk defensiveness is to be expected, given his main thesis. Perhaps you could indicate what points you agree with, or disagree with, rather than dismiss him with labels such as “progressive” or mischaracterize his approach to hadith as an outright rejection of the entire corpus rather than an attempt to navigate and sift between contradicting examples.
At any rate, we are commanded by Allah to use our own judgement. Centuries of tradition and fiqh are good starting points. But you yourself quite eloquently have made the case that if you believe a thing to be right, the number of those who believe it to be otherwise is irrelevant, as is how long people have believed it. You made that argument in teh context of Milad, as I recall.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 10:19 am on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I go through some of this below, and it seems likely futile for me to try to resist a point by point analysis, even though my initial inclination was a point by point analysis is not helpful. And this is mainly because no productive discussion can take place at the level of detail without a shared methodology. Sunnis start from a place of accepting the hadith in Sahih Bukhari as authentic, this doesn’t mean that this issue can never be discussed by qualified scholars, but lay people cannot simply rehash every debate first principles on every issue.
As I try to indicate below I believe there are ways to argue that Aisha could have been mistaken about her age without questioning the authenticity of the hadith, but one should realize that for most Muslims her direct statement in an authentic report will be stronger evidence than all the indirect surmise from circumstantial evidence which is characteristic of arguments for other ages.
His argument is uber progressive because he uses a bizarre interpretation of the word daraba, (Again one can argue persuasively against domestic violence from within the tradition, but that is not how you do it), he basically parrots Qur’anist arguments about hadith including the tortured understanding of the ayah from Surah Luqman. His underlying tone about the Prophet (saw) is also progressive, but it would take me longer to explain why.
Again, these are all separate discussions that may be worthwhile. This is the project of “progressive Muslims.” But he and those who support his arguments should realize why they don’t work for a traditional orthodox Muslim.
Allah knows best.
I also think, and I can’t tell if he is making this point or not, that it is important to separate pedophilia from child marriage or underage marriage. Sexual “attraction” or abuse of biological children is a different phenomenon than sexual attraction to those who are biologically and physically mature adults but may fall under either an arbitrary age of majority in the society or who may be thought to be emotionally or intellectually immature.
aziz 2:14 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
“parrots” and “tortured” – these are judgement calls of language. I think that we shoudl avoid that kind of construction.
Lay people should indeed not rehash every issue – but some issues are worth re-examination and i would argue that sometimes, an argument is genuinely new. Especially when it is in the broader context of how the possibility of it being wrong might have repercussions on society and the ummah.
Ultimately, reliance on scholars is a good default position. You cant be faulted for accepting this and not proceeding further. But thats not sufficient to dismiss a “progressive” argument, either.
abunoor 7:49 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink
See below on why I think it is important to be very clear of why this argument is problematic.
You are right to notice that perhaps I reacted quite harshly and emotionally. Part of it was the tone of Lieperts piece, and part of it was I guess becasue I kinda see myself in the role of defender of orthodoxy and tradition here at TI. Believe me, in different contexts, my tone is quite different.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 10:08 am on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
By the way, I listened to Kamran Pasha (author of Mother of the Believers) speak about his novel about Aisha the other day and (I guess he talks about this in the book itself) he talked about how he thought it was important in his book that Aisha (ra) is 9 years old at the time of the marriage even though he said he personally believes that she was older.
The fact is, the hadith in Bukhari is authentic. Aisha said she was 9. Now, maybe based on other evidences one can argue she was actually a different age. That’s possible too. As one might expect, with regard to collections of oral reports from people who lived in a largely illiterate premodern society…there is difference of opinion about precise dates and chronology about all matter of events in the life of the Prophet (saw).
As the author mentions there is no doubt that Aisha consented to her marriage and she was considered an adult by her society at the time of consummation. Her age at the time of her marriage was not an issue for her, for the Prophet’s enemies or anyone else I’m aware of until recent times.
By the way, although the issue of whether the Prophet (saw) could do whatever he wanted is not really relevant to this issue — it is actually true that there are different rulings around the marriages of the Prophet (saw) than is true for others….most obviously he (saw) can and did marry more than four women at a time and his wives, the mothers of the believers (may Allah be pleased with all of them) were not allowed to remarry after his death.
aziz 2:18 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yes. IN fact one should argue that even if the hadith is accurate and Aisha actually said she was 9 – so what? what bearing does that have on what age she actually was, and then why are we so insistent that we not use other evidence to determine her age to better precision than her own statement, given the very factors you listed above?
that if her age was 9 at consumation, then what does that imply? What does it imply about her age at the Battle of the Camel? Her age when she accepted Islam?
Look at it the other way. Assume Aisha is correct. Then what does that imply about her age at teh Battle of the Camel? About her age when she accepted Islam? Do these things accord consistently with our common sense and other knowledge of the Prophetic era?
and if not, then why didnt the scholars notice? Or perhaps they did.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 10:37 am on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
My main point is to Liepert is this: there is another reason why people might insist that Aisha (ra) was 9….because she said so.
This doesn’t stop us from opposing pedophilia, and it doesn’t make us weird, and it doesn’t really say anything about what we would say about minimum marriage ages or anything else, and because of that the way he frames his argument is offensive, and obscures from the good points he may make needlessly.
aziz 2:10 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
i agree.
abunoor 7:55 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
And that is what I can’t really understand. I can understand Liepert trying to be bold and assertive in his argument…but other parts of the article suggest he is trying to convince traditional orthodox Muslims that they shouldn’t have a problem questioning Aisha’s age, but yet he then cites other arguments which will turn off traditionalists. Does he realize this?
Muffy 12:48 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
That’s kinda how I feel about this matter. Aisha was one of the most prolific narrators of Hadith — she had plenty of opportunities to complain about rape or molestation — and yet I don’t see any indication that she thought of herself as a victim. If anything, she comes across as a jealous wife who wanted the Prophet to spend more, rather than less, time with her. Nor do I recall John of Damascus, one of Islam’s earliest critics, dwelling on the topic of Aisha’s age (from what I’ve read of his).
Our concepts of “pedophilia” and “age of consent” are largely modern, anyway, so I see no need to anachronistically apply them to 7th century Arabia.
aziz 2:09 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
i think there is agreement that Aisha did not see herself as a victim – but the point is that if the popular understanding of her age is wrong, then it is being used and perpetuated as an excuse to justify pedophilia today, and is part of why it persists.
Thats the link he is trying to illustrate. I agree with Abu Noor he could have been less abrasive but clearly he felt he needed to get the attention.
Arwi 5:45 am on February 2, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Where is Aisha’s age being used to justify pedophilia?
It is used to justify a lower age of consent to marraige, but differing definitions of adult-enough-for-marraige is not the same thing as advocating sex with children.
For comparison, European laws set age of consent laws from 7 to 12 before the 20th century.
corned beef n' carnage 9:27 pm on February 3, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
‘Where is Aisha’s age being used to justify pedophilia?’
Iran? Yemen? Afganistan?
Maitham 1:00 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Just a comment: I looked at the relevant book of Sahih Bukhari both translated and in Arabic, and the same statement, that…
“The Prophet (saw) married her (Aisha) (ra) when she was a girl of six years, and went in to her (consummated the marriage) when she was a girl of nine years, and she lived with him for nine years.”
…appears at least two times (possibly more) in almost exactly the same form, and is attributed once to Aisha and at least once to a different narrator (‘Arwa), each time with a different chain of narrators. To me this suggests two possibilities:
(1) that the hadith was legitimately passed down through two separate chains, and that the chain beginning with ‘Arwa somehow forgot to mention that the real originator of the hadith was ‘A’isha (ra), or
(2) that the chain of narrators purportedly beginning with ‘A’isha did not really begin with ‘A’isha (ra).
Based on this alone, I would say there is at least some reason to ask whether ‘A’isha (ra) really did describe her age of marriage in this way.
Also, I am not sure about Arabs at the dawn of Islam, but modern Arabs are not and classical Arabs were not accustomed to reckoning their age in years, and typically refer(ed) only to the year of their birth.
Other than this, the article is very interesting, and I think Abu Noor makes some very good points as well.
Maitham 1:10 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Extra detail: the chains of narration are not completely separate. One is:
Muhammad bin Yousef <– Sufyan <– Hisham (bin 'Arwa) <– his father ('Arwa) <– 'A'isha (ra)
The other is:
Qabiisa bin 'Uqba <– Sufyan <– Hisham bin 'Arwa <– 'Arwa
This of course opens up the additional possibility that it is just an editing inconsistency. God knows best.
aziz 2:18 pm on February 1, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
well done, cracking teh reference and providing some data
Have a scan handy?
David 6:35 am on February 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Assalamu-Alaikum all,
Just noticed this conversation, and I’m not sure there’s anyone paying attention to it anymore, but I only have two comments.
1. I’m sorry for any offence, but with last week’s news report from Yemen (I have friends there) of a 9 yo girl who died of a haemorrhage because she forced to have sexual intercourse by her misinformed Muslim husband, I think it’s quite inappropriate to focus on whether I was polite enough in my post.
2. I don’t disagree with Sahih Bukhari. I completely accept that someone remembered Aisha saying she was only 9 when her marriage was consummated. However, there are so many ways that can be true without her having actually been 9, that, given all the REAL evidence that she was much older, I am profoundly disgusted with the last thousand years of scholars and the scholars of today who still claim that that piece of evidence by itself is sufficient to confirm her age and allow men to have sex with 9 year old girls.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 10:44 am on February 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Dr. Leipert,
Thank you for commenting here. I appreciate your concern about the abuse of young girls, one which I share completely. Professionally, I have dedicated my entire career as an attorney to the representation and protection of children here in Chicago who face all types of abuse and neglect.
I think the questions raised about whether your post was “offensive” was simply a discussion of whether a different tone would have been more likely to achieve the results you wished. That is certainly debatable. One understands the desire to express outrage in an appropriate way. So I guess that is my main question, who are you trying to reach with this piece? Are you trying to reach traditionalist Muslims who feel constrained to come out against “child marriage” because of the hadith we’ve talked about? Are you trying to give some more Islamic arguments to progressive Muslims? Are you talking to non-Muslims worried about Muslims sensitivity?
I have to say, that living here in the US, the discussion while important to many, is more theoretical than it is in many other places. It is difficult for me to know what arguments may or may not work in socially conservative societies where traditional norms and religious arguments are often mixed in odd ways.
My main point (we could go over everything point by point and have interesting discussion about usul-fiqh, usul-hadith, etc. but I don’t think that is your purpose) is that I think you could have made basically the same argument in a way that was less offensive and thus it would have worked better with traditional Muslims. Again, it all depends on your audience.
For example even in this last comment you say you accept the authenticity of the statement in Sahih Bukhari, but then you call other evidence “REAL evidence.” This seems to imply that a hadith in Sahih Bukhari is not real evidence, or in the least it seems to be a belittlement of what, for traditional Sunni Muslims, is the most authentic and trustworthy source of evidence other than the Qur’an.
I think the hope in moving this discussion forward is to avoid turning it into a “culture war” issue where people feel their understanding of religion is being threatened if they agree with your campaign against child marriage. I think this is what you are trying to do, inshAllah I’m trying to help you do it better. Again, in all these situations societal dynamics around these issues are complex, and Islamic textual arguments do not actually play as large a part as I would like.
In any event, many Muslim scholars have not objected to setting minimum ages for marriage much higher than nine, without questioning the hadith or the fact that Aisha was married at nine. And I think any Muslim scholar would agree that a woman must be physically mature (has begun menstruating) before a marriage can be consummated and should be emotionally mature as well (although the definitions of that will undoubtedly vary from society to society and from scholar to scholar.
None of this takes away from the responsibility of the individual Muslim male to not to do things which are physically or emotionally harmful to his wife and the conscience and concern of the husbands or potential husbands involved should be the main thing to which we appeal. I know that abusive men are an unhappy reality for many Muslim and non-Muslim women, but if you marry a husband who doesn’t care that he is hurting his wife physcially or emotionally you will have continuing problems regardless of your age.
Allah knows best…again thanks for visiting and commenting and may God reward you for your sincere efforts to protect our young sisters of whatever religion from any abuse or mistreatment.
Arwi 5:03 pm on October 30, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
And I think any Muslim scholar would agree that a woman must be physically mature (has begun menstruating) before a marriage can be consummated
It’s a bit late to be replying but I finally read Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics in Islam last night and she comments that she has found no reference to Aisha’s menarche pre-dating her consummation of marriage, and that consummation of marraige before menarche was accepted by Bukhari, jurists etc.
Abu Noor 9:58 am on October 31, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yeah, I meant specifically any contemporary scholar and I said this based on what I had heard from them. But I think I was being a bit sloppy. What is usually said is that consummation should only take place once the woman is physically ready for intercourse. Some associate this explicitly with the onset of menstruation, but others do not.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 10:50 am on February 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Dr. Liepert,
I just clicked through to your blog…I actually didn’t realize you were Muslim (I wasn’t sure whether you were or not), it doesn’t really change anything else I wrote but I just wanted to say: As salaamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullah!
David 12:07 pm on February 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
And WaAlaikum AsSalaam to you as well Brother Abu Noor!
The purpose of the essay was all those you listed and more, and my tone was intended to get everyone’s attention. And although I consider Sahih Bukhari to be good evidence of people’s remembrance, I don’t consider it to be good evidence of Aisha’s actual age, which I thought I’d made clear- many thanks for allowing me to clarify it better. I am convinced that the path to peace for all mankind is a better understanding of the Quran and the Sunnah, and that the answers to ALL abuses of Islam (violence, misogyny, and pedophelia to name a few) are found in a fuller understanding of both the path and the man who walked it for us all when our Ummah began, peace be upon him.
I vastly appreciate your own attention to this matter, and I’m grateful to have an opportunity to apologize in person for the fact that my tone offended you in my initial post: That said, it got your attention, and for that I can only say AlhamdilAllah!
David 7:05 pm on February 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Also, one final comment. Prior to last week, if you searched Islam and Pedophelia together, you got pages after pages of insulting, anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic and anti-Muhammad (pbuh) screeds. Now, if you search using those terms, my article comes up at #3, defending our Prophet and our religion from those claims, AlhamdilAllah.
Abu Noor Al-Irlandee 9:10 pm on February 7, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Alhamdulillaah.