The worst expected stupidity from any educated human is his calling a bad man a bad man on his face and/or that bad man's admirer's faces. The reason is no matter how educated a person appears to be, if his mind and heart are not spiritually educated by which I mean to have acquired the mastery and control of his natural instincts (to be happy when praised and hurt when not or worse when he is lambasted or lampooned). A spiritually educated man remains unaffected by praises showered on him and insults heaped on him, because he knows very correctly that these praises do not elevate his self and the insults do not degrade it either. However very few on this earth are actually gifted with spirituality. I therefore shall not attribute goodness or badness to Muhammad the pioneer of the faith of Islam or its propagator, or argue on his and followings dogma that he was God's ultimate messenger on earth and God's lecturing him of His nature and His commands. That is left for the wise to understand and evaluate if at all an evaluation seems to be necessary. I mean there are other important things of priority for the benefit of mankind to talk and be concerned about than him and his faith and his claims and his traditions.
I during my stay as an auditor checking the finances of an Indian Railroad Company, in the days of Saddam's supreme command and control on Iraq, that was awarded laying rail tracks from Basra to Ain Al Tamar (the date's eye) city and building rail stations in between, had an eight months long stay to be able to learn Arabic (speak, read and write). The teacher, an Iraqi from Basra told me that this was a low language in comparison to the language of the Koran and the traditions of Muhammad. I asked him what that other Arabic was called
and he said it was Al Lisaan Al Fusahaa (the language of the eloquent and learned). That was how I learned to read and recite and copy the Koran verse by verse in the Arabic Naskh calligraphic script and primarily read and learn to understand, the translations in English of the Koran and later the commentaries (Tafseers) of Jalaluddin Ibn Jalaluddin Assuyuti and Ibn Kathir et al. This lead me to study the entire history of Islam and Muhammad's biography by learned Arab Muslim biographers as Ibn Ishaaq and Ibn Hissaam, and a few books of his traditions (SIhaah Sitteh). I therefore have some basic knowledge of Muhammad's life and times and the Koran itself containing 6,666 lines of 114 verses as seen edited and authorized by the 3rd Caliph Osman Ibn Affan (Al Mushaf Al Usmani).
Instead of attributing goodness or badness on Muhammad, I venture with utmost humility and fear of God in my heart, so as not to hurt anybody's feelings a simple question that takes its origin from the post of Kassault37 at the beginning of this web page. The subject of the nine year old Aaisha the second famous daughter of Abi Bakr Al Siddiq. Abi Bakr was Muhammad's closest companion and friend and nearly of his age, later to be instated as the 1st Caliph and successor to Muhammad's seat of supreme governance on the Muslims. Aaisha's marriage to the 52 year old Muhammad is a story of double standards imposed by Islam on women that has carried on till date.
Biologically perhaps this kind of conjugation and copulation between opposite sexes of very different ages may not pose a problem and historically too this is not a new phenomenon. In fact Muhammad's very first wedding in his prime youth of 25 years had been with a 40 year old rich Arab widow called Khadija in Mecca, before his becoming God's last messenger!
In India's Mahabharata, we see the fifty-nine year old sage Parashar getting aroused sexually by the charms of 11 year old Matsyagandha a fisherman's daughter, and asking her father to give her in marriage to him. The poor lower caste fisherman in fear of repercussions from the upper caste Brahmins, agreeing to that demand, and the birth in total social seclusion on an island surrounded by the Yamuna river, of India's revered sage and compiler of the Mahabharata, the famous Krishnadwaipyaana Vyaasacharya out of that hush hush copulation, after which Parashar returns Matsyagandha to her father and takes his son Vyasa for ever from his mother. Fortunately for Matsyagandha, the aged King of Hastinapur Shantanu later being infatuated by her beauty eventually marries her and she lives like a queen for the rest of her life.
My case is that of the 9 year old girl Aaisha, who lives as Muhammad's girl bride for no longer a year. What kind of marital pleasures or pains she experiences in that short period is only to be imagined, though volumes of traditions exist today of her own testimonies of copulating with her aged 52 year old husband and their attaining sexual surmises many times together on a regular basis. The matter is did she conceive and attain motherhood which was the social and desired reason for her marriage? History says 'No!' Alright there. Not all couples bear children in their long marital span from youth to old age. Nothing unhappy about that. The question is what is expected of an young issue less widow in her early teens in her 11th year of life? Should she not got married again and enjoy a full womanhood as a mother? What then had happened to her in her widowhood? Islam talks with command to get widows remarried after the period known as the Iddah. This is what is dictated in the Koran itself! Could she also not live a full married life like her elder sister Asma Bint Abi Bakr (awarded the title of Zaat Un Nataaqin) who was the wife of Zubair Ibn Awwam, Muhammad's cousin, and the mother of the martyred Caliph Abdullah Ibn Zubair whose birth had heralded joy to the Quraish in refuge at Medina during the years of exile?
All widows are religiously expected to get married soon after the Iddah! Aisha had no choice but to live a life of celibacy till death in her old age. Why? Because the Koran (God's Lectures) had declared Muhammad's wives to be the Mother's of the Believers,(Ummahaat Al Momineen) years before his death! Which Muslim could dare to marry his spiritual mother? Leave aside the fact that out of 13 recorded marriages, only three were Muhammad's virgin wives, the rest being either widows or divorced or as the case of the hapless Safiya (Sophia) the beautiful Jewish wife of the slain Jewish chieftain from a Jewish village near Medina whose people having earned Muhammad's wrath for not aiding him during him being attacked by his non-believing kinsmen from Mecca. After the skirmish from the attcking hordes from Mecca was over the Muhammad gave notice to these Jews to convert to Islam and pay obeisance (Jaziya) to him and be protected from his attacks, or vacate their settlements and move elsewhere far from his reaches, or to be ready for his armed attack. The small number of Jews fell easy preys to Muhammad's Jehadis and were all butchered. The women and children were enslaved and led to live as slaves forever even after converting to Islam. The enslaved Jewish women were distributed by lottery to each Arab house hold to live and die as concubines bearing children to their masters who could not share and bequeath their property as the wedded heirs could. Safiya however was the prize catch and given over to Muhammad who the traditions say did marry her with the permission from the Koran that allows Muslim men to wed Jewish and Christian chaste girls but forbids Muslims to give their daughters in marriage to Jewish or Christian boys.
That same Koran that had said about Muhammad to be no father to any man in belief (meaning Muslims)! Wa Maa Muhammadan Aba Ahadin Min Rijaalikum! And Muhammad is not the father to any of you men! What a controversy in God's Lectures to His messenger! What double standards! Why??????
