Prophet Muhammad did not marry a child

[KWED]

This is just one example and there are many more. You can do your own research if you have time.

What was Ayesha’s (ra) Age at the Time of Her Marriage?

Well, I have done yours for you....
How Old Was ‘Aishah When She Married the Prophet ? - Islam Question & Answer

 

[KWED]

You seem not to understand language very well then.

Was that irony deliberate?

When basically everyone in a given society personally knows someone who has done X, it is fair to say X is common. Especially when in most societies almost no one would be expected to know someone who had done X.

Do you need a hand with those goalposts? They look heavy.

You initially said 5% of a population doing something makes it common and widespread.
Now you have changed that to "everyone personally knowing someone who does it makes it common".

We'll note you failed once again to provide any actual history to support your claims about pre-Islamic Arabia and instead quibbled a subjective definition. I guess you must be an apologist then

I provided evidence. You refused to acknowledge it. I provided rational argument. You insist your opinion trumps it.
You are the one whingeing that a word must mean whatever you choose it to mean at any given time.

 

[Augustus]

Do you need a hand with those goalposts? They look heavy.

You initially said 5% of a population doing something makes it common and widespread.
Now you have changed that to "everyone personally knowing someone who does it makes it common".

Seeing as you seem to be struggling with many things, most people know more than 20 families personally hence if infanticide is practiced by 5% of families as you said you'd accept...

I provided evidence. You refused to acknowledge it. I provided rational argument. You insist your opinion trumps it.
You are the one whingeing that a word must mean whatever you choose it to mean at any given time.

You provided no historical evidence, just some head nod to Islamic theology combined with an ignorance of actual history.

The idea that Arabia was relatively peaceful and stable in the century before Islam is laughable (see previous posts), but you insisted caravans could travel safely with little to no protection.

But quibble the definition again, if it makes you feel better

 

[KWED]

Seeing as you seem to be struggling with many things, most people know more than 20 families personally hence if infanticide is practiced by 5% of families as you said you'd accept...

1. Those two claims are not the same.
2. Provide historical evidence that most people in pre-Islamic Arabia knew more than 20 families.
3. I did not accept that 5% of the population doing something makes it common and widespread.

I am certainly struggling to figure out where you are trying to go with all this.

You provided no historical evidence, just some head nod to Islamic theology combined with an ignorance of actual history.

So you are now claiming that the only evidence for battles in the ANE is from Islamic theology? What was that you were saying about "an ignorance of history".

The idea that Arabia was relatively peaceful and stable in the century before Islam is laughable (see previous posts), but you insisted caravans could travel safely with little to no protection.

Another straw man. You really can't help yourself, can you?

But quibble the definition again, if it makes you feel better

If I have to choose between the OED and some random, internet faux-intellectual, wannabe apologist for the definitions of words, there's only going to be one winner. Care to take a guess?

 

[loverofhumanity]

And the topic is the story of Aisha's necklace.
I asked you "How does the the hadith about Aisha's necklace agree with the Quran?"

You’ve already made up your mind and whatever I say you’ll just dispute it and argue with it. There’s no point you have your views and I have mine and I’m not changing my beliefs. So there’s no point discussing this further.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Cheat!
You just said that you don't accept the hadith. Now you are relying on unreliable hadith to argue against reliable ones.
The article I linked deals with this in great detail. Why don't you address that?


Brilliant!

You’re using hadiths so I’m just showing you how futile it is to rely on hadiths to substantiate your false accusations. There are just as many hadiths which say the opposite. My point is hadiths are unreliable. The Quran is my authority and not hadiths but you needed to have it pointed out the ridiculousness of using hadiths to slander Muhammad.

Only the Quran is reliable nothing else.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Well, I have done yours for you....
How Old Was ‘Aishah When She Married the Prophet ? - Islam Question & Answer

The problem with hadiths is that they are so unreliable. That is why Baha’is rely only on the Quran which is the text which is considered the Word of God by all. So basically you can believe what you want as far as hadiths go. The reason many who are against Islam including terrorists groups prefer hadiths to the Quran is because there are so many which promote their agenda which the Quran does not.

This is another instance where enemies of Islam cling tenaciously to hadiths to try and slander Muhammad as the Quran praises him as moral and upright by the highest standards. And people who hate Islam don’t want to hear anything good said about it. So they desperately cling to hadiths whereas it’s the Quran which is the Word of God in Islam not hadiths.

 

[KWED]

You’ve already made up your mind and whatever I say you’ll just dispute it and argue with it. There’s no point you have your views and I have mine and I’m not changing my beliefs. So there’s no point discussing this further.

Always puzzles me when people on debate forums claim that there is no point in responding because the other person will just debate the issue.

BTW, are you saying that you haven't made up your mind and will just dispute everything I say?

Just try me. You are certain that the hadith of the necklace is confirmed by the Quran and is therefore acceptable as the truth. Explain how it does.

 

[KWED]

You’re using hadiths so I’m just showing you how futile it is to rely on hadiths

Hadith are graded according to reliability and authenticity. I only cite hadith of the highest grade (sahih). (Well, there is an even higher grade, 'mutawatir', but there are few and far between).

to substantiate your false accusations.

They are not "my accusations". It has been the consensus of Muslim scholars for over 1000 years.
You keep avoiding this key issue. It is not me who is claiming Aisha was 6 when Muhammad married her. It is the entire body of Islamic scholarly thought. It is only in the last few decades act a few modernist apologists have sought to mitigate the obvious problem of the perfect, timeless moral role model having sex with a child.

There are just as many hadiths which say the opposite.

Wrong!
There are no hadith that give Aisha's age as anything other than six/nine.
And BTW, what is "the opposite of six"?

My point is hadiths are unreliable.

In an historical sense perhaps, but not in an Islamic sense.

The Quran is my authority and not hadiths but you needed to have it pointed out the ridiculousness of using hadiths to slander Muhammad.

Once again you are telling Muslims what they can believe. To most, the sunnah is a vital and reliable authority.

Only the Quran is reliable nothing else.

In an historical context (which is where you seem to have planted your flag), the Quran is not reliable either.
However, if you are talking in an Islamic context, then sahih hadith are definitely considered reliable. You can't have your cake and eat it.
What's more, you have used hadith to support your argument.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Always puzzles me when people on debate forums claim that there is no point in responding because the other person will just debate the issue.

BTW, are you saying that you haven't made up your mind and will just dispute everything I say?

Just try me. You are certain that the hadith of the necklace is confirmed by the Quran and is therefore acceptable as the truth. Explain how it does.

Here’s where I stand.

As to Islam, Baha'is accept only the Qur'an as legitimate scripture WITH THE EXCEPTION of the few Hadith which Baha'u'llah actually quoted Himself! So arguing about hadiths has no real meaning for me.

We ignore (and effectively reject) all other Hadith; and this is only proper as even the Muslims themselves can't agree on which subset of them is in fact accurate and reliable!

 

[KWED]

The problem with hadiths is that they are so unreliable. That is why Baha’is rely only on the Quran which is the text which is considered the Word of God by all. So basically you can believe what you want as far as hadiths go. The reason many who are against Islam including terrorists groups prefer hadiths to the Quran is because there are so many which promote their agenda which the Quran does not.

This is another instance where enemies of Islam cling tenaciously to hadiths to try and slander Muhammad as the Quran praises him as moral and upright by the highest standards. And people who hate Islam don’t want to hear anything good said about it. So they desperately cling to hadiths whereas it’s the Quran which is the Word of God in Islam not hadiths.

Yes, you keep repeating this claim that anyone who accepts sahih hadith as reliable is an enemy of Islam who wants to slander Muhammad, and that only Bahais know how Islam really works.
You really have no idea about Islam and Muslims, do you?

 

[loverofhumanity]

Hadith are graded according to reliability and authenticity. I only cite hadith of the highest grade (sahih). (Well, there is an even higher grade, 'mutawatir', but there are few and far between).

They are not "my accusations". It has been the consensus of Muslim scholars for over 1000 years.
You keep avoiding this key issue. It is not me who is claiming Aisha was 6 when Muhammad married her. It is the entire body of Islamic scholarly thought. It is only in the last few decades act a few modernist apologists have sought to mitigate the obvious problem of the perfect, timeless moral role model having sex with a child.

Wrong!
There are no hadith that give Aisha's age as anything other than six/nine.
And BTW, what is "the opposite of six"?

In an historical sense perhaps, but not in an Islamic sense.

Once again you are telling Muslims what they can believe. To most, the sunnah is a vital and reliable authority.

In an historical context (which is where you seem to have planted your flag), the Quran is not reliable either.
However, if you are talking in an Islamic context, then sahih hadith are definitely considered reliable. You can't have your cake and eat it.
What's more, you have used hadith to support your argument.

I have explained the Baha’i position with regards to hadiths in another post.

With due respect, Muslim scholars are not infallible and are only human prone to mistakes like the rest of us. Even the most knowledgeable and famous scholars can get it wrong.

 

[KWED]

As to Islam, Baha'is accept only the Qur'an as legitimate scripture

So you accept as true and reliable everything it contains, and consider it practically and morally acceptable?

WITH THE EXCEPTION of the few Hadith which Baha'u'llah actually quoted Himself!

So if Bahaullah accepts hadith as reliable, why don't you?
Did he ever say that hadith in general are unreliable and should be rejected?

So arguing about hadiths has no real meaning for me.

But here you are, arguing about hadith. Not only that, you are insisting that over a billion Muslims are wrong in their belief and need to reject an integral and vital part of Islam.

We ignore (and effectively reject) all other Hadith; and this is only proper as even the Muslims themselves can't agree on which subset of them is in fact accurate and reliable!

Wromh again. There is consensus on the reliability of hadith.
It is ironic that you criticise Muslims for selective acceptance of hadith when you have just admitted doing exactly the same thing!

 

[KWED]

I have explained the Baha’i position with regards to hadiths in another post.

But the Bahai position on hadith is irrelevant to Muslims. They consider Bahais to be heretics and blasphemers.

With due respect, Muslim scholars are not infallible and are only human prone to mistakes like the rest of us. Even the most knowledgeable and famous scholars can get it wrong.

And yet you don't seem to apply this maxim to your own position. It seems you reject scholarly consensus simply because you don't like it rather than having any rational or evidential argument. After all, you accept some hadith as reliable.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Yes, you keep repeating this claim that anyone who accepts sahih hadith as reliable is an enemy of Islam who wants to slander Muhammad, and that only Bahais know how Islam really works.
You really have no idea about Islam and Muslims, do you?

Not so much an enemy just misinformed as Islam was founded on the Quran not hadiths.

The Baha’i view is that religion is renewed from age to age and the subsequent Prophet will clear up misunderstandings. For example in the Quran it addresses the issue of Christ being the physical son of God and refutes it as even the Bible states that God is Spirit.

Another issue is the trinity which the Quran rejects. With Baha’u’llah and His Successor His Son Abdul-Baha and Shoghi Effendi, all considered infallible, we have been given various narratives of Islam and of course it disagrees with the current views among Muslims, their scholars and many ideas that have crept into Islam based on misinterpretations of the Quran.

So we give no credibility to hadiths at all and don’t use them or read from them in our Houses of Worship. We follow all the Baha’i interpretations of any Islamic Teaching because we believe this knowledge comes from God.

 

[loverofhumanity]

But the Bahai position on hadith is irrelevant to Muslims. They consider Bahais to be heretics and blasphemers.

And yet you don't seem to apply this maxim to your own position. It seems you reject scholarly consensus simply because you don't like it rather than having any rational or evidential argument. After all, you accept some hadith as reliable.

That’s fine. We believe in the Quran and Muhammad but according to the interpretation of Baha’u’llah Who we believe is from God so it is 8nfallible not human or academic knowledge which is prone to error. I only support the Baha’i teachings on any topic.

 

[loverofhumanity]

So you accept as true and reliable everything it contains, and consider it practically and morally acceptable?

So if Bahaullah accepts hadith as reliable, why don't you?
Did he ever say that hadith in general are unreliable and should be rejected?

But here you are, arguing about hadith. Not only that, you are insisting that over a billion Muslims are wrong in their belief and need to reject an integral and vital part of Islam.

Wromh again. There is consensus on the reliability of hadith.
It is ironic that you criticise Muslims for selective acceptance of hadith when you have just admitted doing exactly the same thing!

Only the hadith which is agreed to by Baha’u’llah that then becomes the Word of God. I have no authoritative opinion but all people have personal opinions.

 

[danieldemol]

This is just one example and there are many more. You can do your own research if you have time.

What was Ayesha’s (ra) Age at the Time of Her Marriage?

Thanks for sharing, it is an interesting article, although it reads as though written by an apologist. It starts out, "To begin with, I think it is the responsibility of all those who believe that marrying a girl as young as nine years old was an accepted norm of the Arab culture, to provide at least a few examples to substantiate their point of view. I have not yet been able to find a single dependable instance in the books of Arab history where a girl as young as nine years old was given away in marriage. Unless such examples are given, we do not have any reasonable grounds to believe that it really was an accepted norm."

It is a good point that we should in theory be able to find a few examples, however the author does not state there are no examples, rather the author says there are no *dependable* examples. The author does not list all examples and then say why they are not dependable, so it could just be a no true scotsman on the part of the author.

Also can the author provide at least a few examples of where this was an accepted norm of Iraqi culture to marry a girl as young as nine prior to the dating of this hadith? It would seem from the acceptance of the hadith that it did not raise a storm of content specific objections to the hadith that I know of that it can't have been contrary to the Iraqi culture of the time and place, so if the author cannot find such examples from Iraqi culture then perhaps there are reasons for the alleged silence of the history books on this matter.

It then goes on to state that the hadith was not narrated in Medinah, however the folks at Islamqa seem to disagree with that;
'Then he named those who narrated it from Hisham ibn ‘Urwah among the scholars of Madinah. The reader should understand that this hadith is one of those that were also narrated by Hisham in Madinah. They were: Abu’z-Zinnad ‘Abdullah ibn Dhakwan and his son ‘Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi’z-Zinnad, and ‘Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn ‘Urwah.'
Source: How Old Was ‘Aishah When She Married the Prophet ? - Islam Question & Answer

Finally we come to the first hadith that is listed as contrary to the hadith of 9 years old, it says "I was a young girl" (at the time of the authorship of the 54th surah of the
Quran). Assuming this means that Aisha was not an infant (I've got no knowledge of Arabic so can't comment on that, although it sound funny inEnglish because in English it is possible for a female to be both a young girl and an infant), both hadith can't be true, the question is how did you decide one hadith to be "historical" and not the other? Is it just picking the hadith that aligns with your desire for it to be true?

In my opinion.

 

[loverofhumanity]

Thanks for sharing, it is an interesting article, although it reads as though written by an apologist. It starts out, "To begin with, I think it is the responsibility of all those who believe that marrying a girl as young as nine years old was an accepted norm of the Arab culture, to provide at least a few examples to substantiate their point of view. I have not yet been able to find a single dependable instance in the books of Arab history where a girl as young as nine years old was given away in marriage. Unless such examples are given, we do not have any reasonable grounds to believe that it really was an accepted norm."

It is a good point that we should in theory be able to find a few examples, however the author does not state there are no examples, rather the author says there are no *dependable* examples. The author does not list all examples and then say why they are not dependable, so it could just be a no true scotsman on the part of the author.

Also can the author provide at least a few examples of where this was an accepted norm of Iraqi culture to marry a girl as young as nine prior to the dating of this hadith? It would seem from the acceptance of the hadith that it did not raise a storm of content specific objections to the hadith that I know of that it can't have been contrary to the Iraqi culture of the time and place, so if the author cannot find such examples from Iraqi culture then perhaps there are reasons for the alleged silence of the history books on this matter.

It then goes on to state that the hadith was not narrated in Medinah, however the folks at Islamqa seem to disagree with that;
'Then he named those who narrated it from Hisham ibn ‘Urwah among the scholars of Madinah. The reader should understand that this hadith is one of those that were also narrated by Hisham in Madinah. They were: Abu’z-Zinnad ‘Abdullah ibn Dhakwan and his son ‘Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi’z-Zinnad, and ‘Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn ‘Urwah.'
Source: How Old Was ‘Aishah When She Married the Prophet ? - Islam Question & Answer

Finally we come to the first hadith that is listed as contrary to the hadith of 9 years old, it says "I was a young girl" (at the time of the authorship of the 54th surah of the
Quran). Assuming this means that Aisha was not an infant (I've got no knowledge of Arabic so can't comment on that, although it sound funny inEnglish because in English it is possible for a female to be both a young girl and an infant), both hadith can't be true, the question is how did you decide one hadith to be "historical" and not the other? Is it just picking the hadith that aligns with your desire for it to be true?

In my opinion.

Hi Daniel. I didn’t decided on any hadith actually but on what Baha’u’llah and the Quran say about Muhammad as I consider those Sources to be the Word of God and more accurate.

 

[Augustus]

. I did not accept that 5% of the population doing something makes it common and widespread.

Which of the following seems more natural to you?

a) Fortunately, covid infections remain quite uncommon; last week only 5% of the UK population had covid.

b) Unfortunately, covid infections remain common and widespread; last week 5% of the UK population had covid.

Hmm, I wonder...

If I have to choose between the OED and some random, internet faux-intellectual, wannabe apologist for the definitions of words, there's only going to be one winner. Care to take a guess?

Hard not to read that in a Southern American drawl

Cletus, that boy's using evidence and reason!

"He must be one of them fowx-in-ter-leck-chew-all, wanabe a-pologists for the definitions of words"

Another straw man

You do struggle to make inferences, don't you?

The people who cry strawman the most frequently usually do so as a result of their own comprehension errors. Good to see you keeping up the trend.

1. You claimed "Caravans used to travel the length and breadth or Arabia with little or no military protection" before Muhammad
2. This would require Arabia to be relatively stable and peaceful. The alternative is people moving large amounts of unprotected valuable goods for weeks openly through unstable and violent regions with little or no military protection..

So you are now claiming that the only evidence for battles in the ANE is from Islamic theology? What was that you were saying about "an ignorance of history".

The people who cry strawman the most frequently, also tend to be oblivious to the fact they frequently commit the same thing they keep crying about (often in the same post).

I just noted several wars that are not from Islamic theology, so perhaps you can work out your mistake. Numerous battles are only known from Islamic sources of course though.

But, I'm saying the only evidence for numerous thing you keep citing as history are only known from Islamic sources.

You keep saying what Muhammad did, for example raiding caravans, or what was happening in Mecca pre-Muhammad, etc. Where does this information come from? Why is it reliable?