Mansoor: Your accepting ambiguity in Aisha's age is a good beginning.

Submitted by Plato (India), Mar 22, 2008 at 04:15

Mansoor, you write to spa:

>>There is lot of ambiguity in the matter of Ayesha (R.T.A) marriage age with Prophet<<

We are making progress with you Mansoor. You admit there is ambiguity in the matter of Aisha's age. Islamic mathemagic gives us numbers ranging from 6 to12, to 15, to 19. Nineteen is the highest figure I have seen. By today's standards a granddad marrying a teenager is unambiguously a case of near child-molestation.

>>.. and to me it is important that my beloved Prophet married women but did not create any relationship illegitimately.<<

What is your definition of illegitimate? If he accepts a slave (Maria) from someone and keeps her as a concubine, is that legitimate? If he marries Safiya before she completed here iddat period, is it legitimate? If he takes Rehana as a concubine after killing her menfolk is that legitimate? If he marries his cousin-daughter-in-law and has it retrospectively legitimised by Allah, is it legitimate? If he demands marriage to a girl of 6 or 9 or 12 or 15 when he more than fifty is it legitimate?

>> On the matter of Hazrat Ayesha (R.T.A) the early marriage was well in the favor of Muslims who had the source of Ahadith and information about the lifestyle of the Holy Prophet living for a long time after the death of the Prophet.<<

This is another of those facetious explanations from Muslims for Aisha's age at marriage. Allah decided on this so that Aisha would live to a ripe old age and so be a good source of hadith for Muslims. The big problem with this is that many Muslims dispute Aisha's age at marriage despite her claiming in many authentic hadith that she was six, that she was still playing with dolls, etc. How then to believe the rest of her hadith?

Regards

Plato

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