by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
Jihad Watch<\/em><\/p>\n Muslim “child-marriage” \u2014 euphemism for pedophilia \u2014 is making headlines again, at least in Arabic media:\u00a0Dr. Salih bin Fawzan<\/a>, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, just issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage, and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.”<\/p>\n Appearing in\u00a0Saudi papers<\/a>\u00a0on July 13, the fatwa complains that “Uninformed interference with Sharia rulings by the press and journalists is on the increase, posing dire consequences to society, including their interference with the question of marriage to small girls who have not reached maturity, and their demand that a minimum age be set for girls to marry.”<\/p>\n Fawzan insists that nowhere does Sharia set an age limit for marrying girls: like countless Muslim scholars before him, he relies on Koran 65:4, which discusses marriage to females who have not yet begun menstruating (i.e., are prepubescent) and the fact that Muhammad, Islam’s role model,\u00a0married Aisha<\/a>when she was 6-years-old, “consummating” the marriage \u2014 or, in modern parlance,\u00a0raping<\/em>\u00a0her \u2014 when she was 9.<\/p>\n The point of the Saudi fatwa, however, is not that girls as young as 9 can have sex, based on Muhammad’s example, but rather that there is no age limit whatsoever; the only question open to consideration is whether the girl is physically capable of handling her husband\/rapist. Fawzan documents this point by quoting Ibn Batal’s authoritative exegesis of\u00a0Sahih Bukhari<\/em>:<\/p>\n The\u00a0ulema<\/em>\u00a0[Islam’s interpreters] have agreed that it is permissible for fathers to marry off their small daughters, even if they are in the cradle. But it is not permissible for their husbands to have sex with them unless they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men. And their capability in this regard varies based on their nature and capacity. Aisha was 6 when she married the prophet, but he had sex with her when she was 9 [i.e., when she was deemed capable].<\/p>\n Fawzan concludes his fatwa with a warning: “It behooves those who call for setting a minimum age for marriage to fear Allah and not contradict his Sharia, or try to legislate things Allah did not permit. For laws are Allah’s province; and legislation is his excusive right, to be shared by none other. And among these are the rules governing marriage.”<\/p>\n Fawzan, of course, is not\u00a0the<\/a>\u00a0first<\/a>\u00a0to insist on the legitimacy of\u00a0pedophilia in Islam<\/a>. Even the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia supported “child-marriage,” since “the Koran and Sunna document it.”<\/p>\n Nor is this just some theoretic, theological point; the lives of many young girls are being destroyed because of this ruling. Recall, for instance, the 13-year-old girl who died while her much older husband was copulating with her (it was later revealed that, due to her reluctance, he was tying her up and “raping” her \u2014 as if there is another way to describe sex with children); or the 12-year-old who\u00a0died giving birth to a stillborn<\/a>; or the 10-year-old who made headlines byhiding<\/a>\u00a0out from her 80-year-old “husband.”<\/p>\n Then there are the countless anonymous girls who do nothing to warrant any media attention \u2014 such as die \u2014 and have learned to live with their elderly husbands pawing at them, like, no doubt, the girl who married Islam’s most popular cleric, Yusuf Qaradawi, when she was 14.<\/p>\n What do we make of the fact that it is always Islam’s religious, authoritative voices \u2014 not aberrant voices, not “terrorists,” “extremists,” or any other euphemism coined for the occasion \u2014 that are constantly demonstrating Sharia’s savageries? Weeks before this fatwa, a female politician and activist in Kuwait called for\u00a0institutionalizing sex-slavery<\/a>\u00a0(recommending that Muslims buy and sell female Russian captives from the Chechnya war); a popular Egyptian preacher not only said the same thing, but added that the solution to Islam’s poverty is to go on jihad and\u00a0plunder the lives and possessions of infidels<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sounds odd?\u00a0 Perhaps; but it is perfectly consistent. After all, distilled and in the eyes of the non-believer, Sharia law is nothing less than a legal system built atop the words and deeds of a seventh-century Arab, whose behavior \u2014 from pedophilia and sex-slavery to war mongering and plundering \u2014 was very much that of a seventh-century Arab. Having enticed or enslaved his contemporaries into following him, his teachings continue to entice and enslave their descendants; and, now as then, it is always the innocent who suffer.<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch Muslim “child-marriage” \u2014 euphemism for pedophilia \u2014 is making headlines again, at least in Arabic media:\u00a0Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, just issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage, and that girls can be married “even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[29,421,227],"tags":[443,431,30,1077,545,1018],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Et","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2477,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/rationalizing-pedophilia-in-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":2509,"position":0},"title":"Rationalizing Pedophilia in Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch Earlier this month we saw \u2014 or rather, were once again reminded \u2014 that Islam permits pedophilia in the guise of \"marriage\": Top Saudi cleric, Dr. Salih bin Fawzan,\u00a0issued a fatwa\u00a0asserting that there is no minimum age for girls to marry, \"even if they are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5360,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/real-talk\/","url_meta":{"origin":2509,"position":1},"title":"Real Talk?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Saudi king ought to stop killing non-Muslims first. by Raymond Ibrahim National Review Online According to the\u00a0Associated Press, Saudi King Abdullah, in an unprecedented move last week, \u201cmade an impassioned plea for dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews\u201d \u2014 going so far as to refer to the latter two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1542,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-fatwa-calls-on-men-to-drink-womens-breast-milk\/","url_meta":{"origin":2509,"position":2},"title":"New Fatwa Calls on Men to Drink Women’s Breast-Milk","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media Last month, I wrote a\u00a0PJM article\u00a0dealing with some of Islam's \"problematic\" practices, specifically those attributable to the Muslim prophet Muhammad. One of these \u2014 the Muslim phenomenon of \"adult-breastfeeding,\" or\u00a0rida' al-kabir\u00a0\u2014 is making headlines again, precisely three years to the day since it\u00a0last created controversy\u00a0in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1447,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/in-the-jaws-of-sharia-the-liberal-and-the-temptress\/","url_meta":{"origin":2509,"position":3},"title":"In the Jaws of Sharia: The Liberal and the Temptress","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers Editor\u2019s Note: These postings were taken from\u00a0Jihad Watch\u00a0and\u00a0Pajamas Media, internet journals in which the author posts frequently. Ibrahim\u2019s observations below remind us of the depths of Dante\u2019s\u00a0Inferno\u00a0where the three-headed devil masticates the worst criminals of Dante\u2019s imagination: Brutus and Cassius are second only to Judas.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":910,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/saudi-grand-mufti-calls-for-destruction-of-all-churches-in-region\/","url_meta":{"origin":2509,"position":4},"title":"Saudi Grand Mufti Calls for “Destruction of All Churches in Region”","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch According to several\u00a0Arabic\u00a0news\u00a0sources, last Monday, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared that it is \"necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.\" The Grand Mufti made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/religion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6064,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/saudi-police-arrest-flying-naked-african-sorceress\/","url_meta":{"origin":2509,"position":5},"title":"Saudi Police Arrest Flying, Naked, African ‘Sorceress’","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPage Magazine Last month, according to\u00a0Emirates247\u00a0,\u00a0\u201cA Saudi court sentenced two Asian housemaids to 10 years in jail and ordered their lashed 1,000 times each after they were found guilty of indulging in sorcery at their employers\u2019 houses\u2026 Their Saudi employers reported the two maids to the Gulf\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Saudi Arabia"","block_context":{"text":"Saudi Arabia","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/saudi-arabia\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2509"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2511,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2509\/revisions\/2511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}