Lomax and Bivort, why is it that you consider the work of scholars who
lived 1600 years later better than the testimony of the person herself as
recorded by your own muslim scholars. I find this attempt at deception
instructive but puzzling.
A'isha herself said, in 2 respected hadiths, that she was 9 years old when
muhammed had his first intercourse with her. Now, here comes all these
westernized scholars and "experts", that claim otherwise and you take their
work as more authoritative than Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari. I really
don't understand this. Islam is indeed a malady.
Jojo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Abd ul-Rahman Lomax" <a...@lomaxdesign.com>
To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com>; <vortex-l@eskimo.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 12:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Vo]:OT:JoJo's "Truth" about islam and little girls.
At 07:29 PM 1/2/2013, de Bivort Lawrence wrote:
Thanks, Abd ar-Rahman.
Some time ago I wrote a long post on Muslims, marriage, and pre-and post
Quranic practices. Jojo said he would respond later, but never did. FYI, I
subsequently read that post to a well-regarded Muslim scholar and he
confirmed the accuracy of the post, so I'll let my post stand.
Do you have a link to it? Or the date and time?
I do notice that you "mispell" my name correctly as a common variation.
I think memetics is the way to understand the
birther/Muhammed/aliens/illuminati alternative "reality". For reasons I
think you and others here will appreciate, I'd prefer not to discuss this
field further, here or in any other public venue.
You can write me privately. Anyone who subscribes to this list can, if you
read the list as a subscriber.
I admire your patience, and wish I had as much of it!
Patience or foolishness, I can't tell. Thanks.
On Jan 2, 2013, at 6:48 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg75072.html
On the subject of Ayesha's age at "marriage" i.e. when she began to live
with the Prophet, I found some sources I'll share. I am *not* claiming to
know the age of Ayesha, and my own opinion is that it's impossible to know
for sure. But I'd still pay attention to authoritative analysis. Too much
of what I've seen may have been contaminated by bias.
http://dawn.com/2012/02/17/of-aishas-age-at-marriage/
This is a newspaper source and might be a cut above the average. The
author is called "a scholar of the Qur'an," which could make him outside
his expertise. Some of the arguments I've seen elsewhere. The argument
about the kunnat, the name Ayesha adopted, "Umm Abdullah," is interesting.
He concludes that she was 21 when she moved into the Prophet's House (I'll
call that "marriage"). And God knows best.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-liepert/islamic-pedophelia_b_814332.html
This is a reputable media site. The author has clearly done a lot of
research. He's also not necessarily a "muslim scholar," but has probaby
collected materials and analysis from some. The above site and this one, I
just found today, and I find, here, many of the facts and arguments I came
up with myself. He comes up with a possible age of 20 at marriage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/sep/17/muhammad-aisha-truth
Article in the Guardian by a Muslim woman, "studying for a DPhil at Oxford
University, focusing on Islamic movements in Morocco." She comes up with
my opinion, roughly, saying "it is impossible to know with any certainty
how old Aisha was," but estimates of her age range from nine to 19.
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=7&ID=4604&CATE=1
This is a reputable web site apparently affiliated with Nuh Keller, whom I
know. The page is written by G.F. Haddad, whom I also know. Keller is
definitely a Muslim scholar, and recognized as such. Haddad, as I recall,
was studying, and that was more than ten years ago. The page is poorly
formatted and the questions that he is answering are not set off from his
answers, but he concludes that Ayesha "could not have been less than 14."
I looked for some time for some page that appeared to me to be
authoritative. I did not select pages for skepticism on the age. But I
didn't find one that actually argued for nine years old.
Trying to find some other opinion, I cast a bit wider net. I found a page
titled "Authentic Tauheed," and mentioning the "Salaff" The could be a
highly conservative site, but I didn't read widely enough to be sure.
http://authentictauheed.blogspot.com/2011/07/age-of-hazrat-aisha-ra-when-she-married.html
He comes up with age 9-18, and says that regardless, she had reached
puberty and was very happy.
(The site seems amateurish in ways, so I'm not confident in the authority
of this site as to scholarship.)
Okay, I found something.
http://www.islamic-life.com/forums/local_links.php?action=jump&catid=3&id=879
has a PDF download, of a paper prepared that argues for an age of 9. The
controversy is portrayed as between "history" and "hadith." Basically, a
fundamentalist position is being taken. The hadith are correct, and
history is false, and that actually seems to be the major point. If you
want to know how a fundamentalist Muslim thinks, the paper is detailed.
The paper has the Abu Dawud hadith, previously mentioned, in Arabic,
should I be crazy enough to pursue this further.
My own stand is that we cannot know the age with certainty, and that the
age is actually irrelevant.
Legally, the conditions of marriage and consent are crucial, and age is
only a proxy for those conditions. A community may use such a proxy to
protect children, and I commend the practice of requiring judicial consent
for a marriage under some specified age. That process could review
testimony, etc. From a religious perspective, if a woman is actually ready
for marriage, delaying it can be harmful, so, ultimately, the welfare of
the child must be paramount. That determination may also vary with the
social conditions present. And God knows best.
