Nargis' letter still needs some comments

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jun 13, 2011 at 18:32

Dear Dr. Pipes:

Your reader Nargis from Australia wrote a rather sensible letter defending Muhammad's marriage to a 9-yr old girl/woman. Nargis' letter is sensible in tone but still needs some comments.

First, Nargis made a factual error. Islam's prophet did not live 14000 years ago. It was just 1400 years. Second, Nargis acknowledges that marrying a 9-year old can be wrong by today's standards but was a norm 1400 years ago. So what may have been right 1400 years ago may not be right today. That is the main point that objectors to Islamic fundamentalism want to assert. No code of law can be written that can apply to all situations and for all times. So Quran and Hadiths may provide good guidelines but cannot be treated as laws to be followed literally.And that is why Islamists rendition of their religion as the best and only path to God is absurd and, certainly, no basis for calling everyone else a sinner.

Finally, even if by Nargis' definition Aeisha could be classified a woman, many of us find it strage that a midddle-aged matured man takes a nine year old person as wife. Did the Muhammad realize that he would die many decades before Aeisha? Did he not prohibit Aeisha from remarrying?

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