Prophet�s marriage to �Aisha

Laurie wrote: Culture or no culture a CHILD of nine is neither physically or mentally advanced to commence adulthood let alone in the confines of a marriage.

Dear Laurie,

Who and what will define a child? remember there cannot be just one parameter.

The developmental time window of every species is different. Further it keeps changing, due to the effect of several environmental factors.

You cannot draw, with the pen of science,  a rigid, fixed line between a child, an adolescent and an adult for every generation and in every culture at the same point.

Take for an example,  the age at which a girl may start her period has come to depend a great deal on the diet. If this was 11-13yrs has now shifted to 7-10yrs. This is more common for those who are fed with a diet of animals grown on growth hormones. Is this not an event that prepares the body for hormonal changes? If so, the texts of science need to be re-written(at least for some), and the time window called 'puberty" needs to be re-described.

In the same way, science says that a woman who conceives her (first) baby after the age of 35, significantly increases her chances of deformity(mutation) in foetus. In the arab culture in olden times, women had conceived even at the ages of 65 - successfully.

If one does not study why this time frame keeps shifting, one may differ in parameters that describe who an adolescent is. But then we need to look at all the parameters that govern our mind, body and soul, not just one.

 If you look at the way children are maturing in mind these days, it is very different from former generations. Not just this, it has always been so that the human race has improved in intelligence in the new generations. These days children know a lot more than what their parents did at their ages. This definitely dictates them to react to the same circumstances differently.

"immaturity" in psyche depends on circumstances and responsibilites. for example, a seven year old may behave differently, from family to family and culture to culture, depending on if he or she is the single child, or has 4 siblings, the eldest child or the youngest, if is being broughtup in poverty and hunger, or affluence, with healthy education, whether or not has to earn for the family etc, etc....

My eldest aunt was married at the age of 13, and she had her first baby at the age of 14. She is the eldest daughter to my father's parents. Since much before her marriage she was taking care of the financial accounts of her grandfather. After her marriage she has taken care of all the daily chores in the household very efficiently, and we have never heard her complaining about "losing out on her childhood". She is not abnormal in anyway, trust me

In the west people are still in the prime of their lives at 35, where as in asian societies, if ur not settled between 30 and 35 ur getting late.

Going back to Aisha's (RAA) marriage with our beloved prophet (SAW), if you have read Umar's posts carefully, he wrote that Aisha(raa) was enggaged to some other person, but the enggagement was broken even before the Prophet (SAW) proposed her.

So from here one can conclude that his (SAW) proposal was not so much out of the norm for her (Aisha's) parents.

The effect of her marriage was in no way negetive on her personality and development. You can say that she was a special child, but in those days there were many such special children (if ur considering her age at marriage alone), she was not the only one in arabia.

 Our Prophet had 11 wives, and none other were as young as Aisha. - thus his (SAW) marriage to her was in terms of choosing a child bride, was not out of sheer tastes, and habit. In fact most of his wives were much older and all were widows, except Aisha (raa) and Maria (raa)

He is the best of creation and the best in character. Had he or her parents known that she was not ready in any way for the marriage, there was no reason for them not to wait a couple of years. Aisha's (raa) father Abu Bakr (RAA) was our prophet's best friend and companion since they were children. The love, trust, and faith between them and the honor with which they held each other was not ordinary. A promise or an extended engagement could not have hurt anyone, except that we do not know the wisdom behind timing for this marriage completely.

Therefore, the answer why they got married, when they did, is indeed that there was great wisdom in that marriage. We cannot understand all of it. We cannot even begin to fathom how much the community has benefited because Aisha (RAA) received a great deal of *training* under the kind care of our holy Prophet (SAW) since that age.

Not to mention she spent only 9 years of her entire life in marriage with him(SAW). ie she was a widow at the age of 18, but lived until 65. She was a scholar, a hadith narrator, a hafiz Quran (memorise the entire Quran), and a lot more. had her marriage been delayed, we dont know how it might have affected her character and development in terms of preservation of the religion. And we dont know if there would have been another candidate with the same family background, intelligence and persona to replace her.

Please note that every marriage of our Prophet (SAW) is an example in its own, and carries a wisdom in its own. there are several lessons to learn, and one cannot generalise or give a judgemental comment based on our perspectives of values.

He(SAW) has been recognised  as the most successful leader of human generation. He could not have erred in his choices of social behaviors. He was sent on a divine mission, and his choices were goverened by divine inspirations.

The error is not in his examples, rather in human perceptions, analyses and following of those examples.

Peace,

Nausheen

As I said cultural "spectacles" need to be changed before passing judgements. Even in this time of modern history, young girls are giving birth at the age of 9 what to talk of getting married. A very famous case of a Thai girl, that luckly got media's attention, must not be forgotten. If some one can guide me how to up-load jpg file, I can show the cutting of the news paper in this forum. Or you can visit the website yourself at http://www.aol40.com/thai_girl.htm and upload the picture on mybehalf.

Hopefully, that shall help getting right spectacles for the right moment. Cheers.

Bi ismillahir rahmanir raheem

assalamu alaikum

"if Prohet had intercourse with Aisha (R.A) when she was 9 years old??"

The way that is fraised has negative conotations in western society. An important question has to be asked "Who defines morality in western culture". According to most prior cultures up to the advent colonialism and golbalisation people married at the age of 10 or 15, since people matured and took resposibility for themselves at a much younger age. In modern times childhood has been extended by some 10-15 years due to modern lifestyles, we have moraly digressed not progressed since noble human charecter traits are frowned upon with slogan's like "i'm no saint".

Laurie you need to have a wider perspective, understanding and respect of differing cultures the society we both live in preaches narrowmindedness and soap opra morality.

Hi Laurie,

I couldn't understand your specific point of concern over here when you use words like "violated", even though you seemed to have read the article posted above that has not only answered your part of the question but has gone beyond it to cover all other possible questions as well. Can you be specific as what your presumptions are on this issue? Otherwise, the article has tried to encompass all possible issues related to moral ethics, legality, religiously, socialogically, and above all, from the perspective of the "child" herself in the later years of her life. To convince yourself on this issue, one has to remove his/her spectacle of life and need to learn about other cultures around the world through their spectacles. Probably that is the hardest part of it, and not everyone can do it. Cheers!