At 01:48 PM 12/24/2012, de Bivort Lawrence wrote:
A discussion of the issue of Ayesha and her age and condition at the
time of marriage, and some related descriptions. Thanks.
I had not discussed this issue for probably almost a decade. I've
been rummaging around and found three web sites that address the age
of Ayesha at marriage.
http://www.misconceptions-about-islam.com/muhammad-married-young-girl.htm
links to the other two sites for a discussion of the issue of
Ayesha's age. For itself, it's concerned with what the Qur'an says
about marriage. The points to take away:
There is mention of "marriageable age." It is not given in years, and
the context makes it clear why: different people mature at different
times. It appears, as we would sanely expect, that sexual maturity --
which might be the meaning of "marriageable age" in some contexts"--
might also not be the only criterion, i.e., "sound judgment" is also mentioned.
"Marriageable age" is also the "age of consent." The traditional
material I cited yesterday made it clear that if a marriage is
contracted before "marriageable age," it is not final until the
parties, having reached the "age of consent," have confirmed it
personally. "Consent" before that is considered moot, except that
traditions mentioned considered it offensive to even contract a
marriage, as for a very young girl, *absent her request,* and, of
course, this could only be done with parental permission.
The web site above also points to two pages, each taking a very
different position.
The first page is
http://www.irfi.org/articles/articles_151_200/ayesha_age_the_myth_of__a_prover.htm
It takes the position that, yes, marriage at nine would be offensive,
but it didn't happen. It addresses and purports to debunk the
traditions that establish the age of consummation of Ayesha's
marriage as nine. It makes many points that might seem to be solid.
However, it's sociologically naive, assuming that marriage at sexual
maturity -- which can happen before nine -- would be "offensive" to
anyone. One thing is clear about the widespread story that Ayesha was
nine: this only arouses rage or disgust among people from different
cultures, often unaware of the history of their own culture,
certainly what the culture of their ancestors might have been
fourteen hundred years ago.
In the other direction is
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=7&ID=4604&CATE=1
I may know the author of this page fairly well; the position is
highly conservative. The author uses polemic, and dismisses the
concerns of the questioner -- which match those of the first page
above -- as ignorant. On the other hand, it's also fairly clear that
the depth of knowedge of the writer of this page is greater.
Unfortunately, the page quotes material (from the first site above?)
without distinguishing it by indention or a different type face. So
it's a bit confusing to read.
To truly resolve the issue with certainty as to the actual age of
Ayesha is probably beyond possibility, and one problem is that those
arguing the point generally already have some vested interest. With
the first page, the writer has accepted modern cultural norms and
applies them anachronistically, and he's then highly motivated to
impeach the traditions on which the earlier ages are based. The
second page is defending the traditional scholars who came up with
nine years old.
All it would take is an early error, though, repeated about a few
times, to create multiple chains of transmission. This is a common
problem in hadith studies. All one can come up with, in general, are
probabilities. That's why "proof" is such a dangerous word. The first
page is pretty clearly reasoning from conclusions: since marriage at
nine is obviously offensive, it couldn't have happened that way.
While we might not like what history is telling us, prejudgment like
that is not Islam, which essentially requires us to accept Reality,
whether we like it or not. We can still dislike it! And we don't
necessarily know what Reality is, but when we reject evidence because
it's inconvenient to our conceptions of Reality, we've lost our
foothold. Reality is the standard, not our ideas.
(You can see how I end up being involved in science! And my views on
this are mine, but they are also not isolated, this approach was
actually dominant for a time in Islam, early on, but ... let's say
they over-reached, and become just like everyone else, i.e., if some
thought differently than them, they were Bad, Wrong, and to be
rejected or forced to believe correctly. Power is given in turns to
people, that we not become arrogant.)
But *everyone* agrees on one point, there isn't any doubt about it at
all. Ayesha was sexually mature when her marriage was consummated.
There is not a shred of evidence otherwise. And *many cultures*
permit consummation of marriage -- or they just call it "marriage" --
after menarche.
There is a lot of confusion on the subject because betrothal is
sometimes called "marriage." Betrothal is more a "promise to marry,"
and it's clear that the parties must consent for the promise to
become a consummated marriage. And it's very clear that a young woman
before the "marriageable age," cannot give consent. "Marriageable
age" in modern culture has come to mean a specific age, but in
non-literate cultures, generally, it is nailed to puberty, not age in
years. The Qur'anic analysis provided on the first page cited above
actually extends that to include consideration of other forms of
maturity, i.e., sound judgment, without mentioning an age in years.
