Thursday 1 November 2018

What does Islam say about sex with children (pre-pubescent girls)?

TLDR: Islam allows the marriage, consummation and divorce of children (pre-pubescent girls).



There has been a lot of controversy about this recently - most notably a woman in Austria being convicted for saying Mohammed's would be considered a paedophile today. And that conviction being upheld by the European Court of Human Rights as they declared the statement was not covered by 'freedom of speech'.

There is a whole story about the gross incompetence in the ECHR's judgement, but this blog is about what Islam says about sex with children, what we now call paedophilia.

There is lots of information about a 50+ year old Mohammad marrying a 6 year old girl, and consummating the marriage when she was 9 years old. This is denied by some people, but it seems only by those who are trying to reconcile Islam and Western cultures, but it is generally accepted that this was the case in Muslim environments.

Because disputes over the age of Aisha that have been discussed at length there seems little point in repeating the discussion.

But I found another source that shows that child marriage/sex has been acceptable in Islam, so there is no reason that any Muslim should have any issue with Mohammad marrying a child. it is in their divorce and remarriage laws.

To ensure that a yet to be born child can know its father, Islam requires that a divorced woman does not remarry until three menstrual periods have successfully are past. Islam has identified two situations where this would be a problem - where the woman has passed he menopause, and where the girl has not started her periods.

These cases are specifically spelt out - here I quote from Wikipedia - while not necessary an authority links to such


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iddah

2. The waiting period of a child who has not had her menstrual cycle yet is three months;
and
﴾The same for the young, who have not reached the years of menstruation. Their `Iddah is three months like those in menopause. (Quran Tafsir Ibn Kathir) 

So it is clear that Islam makes specific provision for the marriage of pre-pubescent of girls, and not only marriage, but divorce and re-marriage while still a child.

More concerning to western values that the Koran says that Iddah is only required for divorces in consummated marriages.

“O you who believe! When you marry believing women, and then divorce them before you have sexual intercourse with them, no ‘Iddah [divorce prescribed period] have you to count in respect of them”[al-Ahzaab 33:49]

So Islam fully expects that a 'husband' of a child they are divorcing may have consummated the marriage (so requiring Iddah as set out above). Further as the law of Mohammed is immutable, unchanging, this will always be seen as fundamentally allowable for all devout Muslims for all time.

Finally, I don't expect any genuine devout Muslim would disagree with anything written here - why would they? It is what Mohammed said, so must be good/correct. Denials would either be knowingly false, or made by those who don't genuinely follow Islam.

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