Note: I decided to divide some paragraphs into two paragraphs or more for ease of reading. Even though I think some ideas flowed well as one paragraph, some of the paragraphs were so long that I decided to split them instead.
First off, I would like to clarify that I'm not one of the supporters of the view that A'isha was raped if we go by the cultural and marital standards of the time period she lived in. Aside from the fact that no majorly scholarly authentic historical accounts of her life that I have ever read say that she suffered from any problems that would indicate sexual abuse, Muhammad's enemies at the time would have also used the marriage against him had it been uncommon for someone to marry someone that young at his time, but they didn't.
I'm clarifying the above because I personally think that it is unjustified to conclude that she was a victim of child sexual abuse when she went on to live a life that still has no majorly scholarly authentic accounts of suffering from the effects of such. I'm open to changing my current view in light of evidence; it's just that I currently think it would be hasty to conclude that she was sexually abused as a child unless we talk about her marriage in isolation of cultural and historical context.
That said, one of the things that baffle me is when I see some people attack criticism of A'isha's marriage due to her age according to some of the most widely accepted Islamic views as "slander" and "misinformation." I think it is indeed the sign of unfortunate dismissal and the myopic if not outright blind political correctness that accompanies Islamic apologetics in many cases.
When millions of Muslims unwaveringly assert that A'isha was no older than nine or ten years old when Muhammad "consummated" his marriage with her yet some non-Muslims claim that it is "slanderous," "hateful," etc., to point out that belief, I can't help but wonder to what depths intellectual bankruptcy can sink so as to allow people to so readily dismiss viewpoints that they disagree with even if said viewpoints are based on texts that are widely considered authentic by many Muslims and Islamic scholars.
We have, for example, the two most authoritative hadith books in Sunni Islam, Bukhari and Muslim. This is some of what they have to say about A'isha's age at the time of her marriage to Muhammad:
Given that most Muslims consider Muhammad to be a moral role model (with many Muslims considering him a perfect moral example), I can't help but wonder how harmful it can be to assume that what he did 1,400 years ago is acceptable to do now. A middle-aged man marrying a girl who was still playing with dolls—and that, again, is according to one of the two most authoritative hadith books in Sunni Islam, the sect of Islam that makes up the significant majority of Muslims.
This is from the other most-authoritative Sunni Islamic hadith book, Muslim:
And we have more support in one of the major Sunni Islamic views for the marriage based on the view that A'isha was indeed nine years old at the time of the "consummation" of the marriage:
Now, I think it is definitely worth pointing out that most Muslims, at least most Muslims I know, would never allow their daughters to marry at nine or ten years of age. Like most places in the world, the age I'm aware most Muslims I know agree is the minimum age for marriage is 18-20. While I do believe that A'isha's marriage was nothing extraordinary at her time, to say that it is also acceptable for girls to marry at that age today strikes me as outright support for child rape and sexual exploitation of children.
The fact that A'isha's age at the time of her marriage was so young when the marriage was to a man considered by millions of people to be the greatest moral example in the history of humanity seems to me to be more than a little problematic, exploitable, and prone to solidifying and propagating misconceptions about the age of consent for girls.
I haven't mentioned the website from which I took the above quotes yet. Someone might ask which Islamophobic, anti-Islamic website I took this stuff from. I intentionally saved it for last to make a point. Here it is:
Refutation of the lie that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) married ‘Aa’ishah when she was 18 years old
Yes, that's the title of the link; it calls one of the apologetic arguments a "lie." One more tidbit about the link, IslamQA: it states that its general supervisor is Shaykh Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid. This is him according to Wikipedia:
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Al-Munajjid
Of course, someone might argue that the Salafi school of thought doesn't comprise the entirety of Islam, and that would be absolutely true. However, I highlighted in red a part I found interesting above.
The IslamQA link is not the first instance of my reading or hearing strong assertions with quotes from authoritative Islamic texts among the majority of Sunni scholars stating that A'isha was nine or ten years old when Muhammad "consummated" his marriage with her. Like it, hate it, oppose it, support it, or don't even care about it, that view is held and supported by millions of Muslims and many Islamic scholars, and it seems to me that apologetics is not going to change that.
I'm interested to hear thoughts on this subject, be they in agreement or disagreement, or possibly just neutral.
