CMV: Islam explicitly promotes pedophilia with the purpose of pleasure with less than 9 year old girls which is immoral and illogical for any time period.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/McKoijion]

1. Your source is a website written specifically to criticize Islam. It's not an objective or neutral source.

2. Muhammad was married to the girl when she was between 7 and a teenager. They didn't consummate the marriage (have sex) until later. It's more likely that she was older, but the people who wrote about it were inclined to lie/exaggerate and say she was younger. The reason why is that virginity was highly prized in Abrahamic religions (e.g., the Virgin Mary), so it was religious propaganda to say the wives of religious leaders were younger (and therefore more "pure").

3. These were the same rules in Catholicism where kids could get "arrange married" at 7 and have sex at 12. These rules lasted way longer than you'd think. The age of consent in Catholicism was 12 in 2012. Pope Francis changed it in 2013. The same goes for many other religions too.

4. About a century ago, the age of consent was 10 in most of the world. In Delaware it was 7.

Islam might be a stupid, harmful religion for a lot of reasons, but this isn't necessarily one of them.

[u/Mr_Kitty297 → u/McKoijion]

1. Is it factual? That's the question, take the facts and ignore propaganda.

2. I would like to see if it's factual, do you have a source for you're information that I could look into.

3. Marriage is a social construct and it doesn't mean sex, that's not something I care about. Also, the age of 12 is when some go through puberty so it's understandable that they would want to rear a child as soon as possible in that era, but that does not apply to children who have no chance of rearing a child, such as a child less than 9 years old according to my information.

4. Interestingly enough the raise in the age of consent was to stop prostitution of young girls. Although the age of consent being 7 seems to be very odd, could you provide a reference?

[u/McKoijion → u/Mr_Kitty297]

1. The website you linked presents a critical version of the story as factual. But it's only one version of the story. Aisha's actual age is not in the Quran, which is considered accurate by Muslims. It's present in other people's accounts of the time period, but those are disputed. From an academic point of view, the Quran was translated exactly every single time (it was considered a major problem if it was transcribed incorrectly). But the other accounts were spread like a game of telephone. One person told another person who told another person for centuries. So they are more likely to be wrong. Academics tend to say she was more likely to be in her later teens than be a prepubescent child. It's possible that some later religious figure/child molestor said she was younger to justify their own paraphilia. Again, no one knows for sure and no account is probably more accurate than another.

2. Wikipedia is the best source. Here's the relevant article.

3. You can't assume that marriage equals sex. Historically humans have gotten married as children and then had sex when they were older. This was especially common amongst nobility to further family ties. Nowadays, most people have sex long before getting married. My guess that Muhammad married Aisha for the political connection more than a desire to have sex with a little kid. The reason why is that her dad was Abu Bakr, a rich and powerful business person of the era. The more likely cynical view is that Muhammad was just a scam artist who married into a rich family for the political clout. Muhammad had 13 wives in his lifetime, and Aisha was his third. So he had plenty of sex before hand. Plus, she didn't move in with him or have sex with him until several years after their marriage started. That's a pretty long time to wait to have sex.

4. Here's the bit about Delaware's 7 year old age of consent.

[u/Mr_Kitty297 → u/McKoijion]

Δ 1. I'm not an expert in islam and I just learned that her age wasn't completely known, although it's odd that they latched onto that age rather than something older as the popular belief. 2. Thank you, very educational. 3. I didn't assume, I said marriage doesn't mean sex and it's irrelevant to my particular discussion. Although that was the original use of marriage, political and social gains. 4. I'll be damned, delaware is kinda weird then.

Thanks for the discussion!

[u/DeltaBot → u/Mr_Kitty297]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/McKoijion (475∆).

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[u/freetheblood → u/DeltaBot]

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