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Iran: 850,000 girls married under the age of 10. http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/04/sharia-in-action-in-iran-850000-g...


Sharia in action in Iran: 850,000 girls under age 10 are married

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

"Gender and Society In Iran – Part 1: The Debate Over Child Marriage, Including Child Brides Wed To Adult Men," by Y. Mansharof and A. Savyon for MEMRI, April 24:

...Under Iranian law, girls may marry at 13 and boys at 15, and children under 10 may marry with the approval of their guardian and the court.[1]According to official statistics, about one million children, even under age 10, are married. The statistics also show that 85% of these one million married children are girls – meaning that most of them are married to grown men.[2]

Child Marriage Is Growing, And Poses Great Risk To Society – But It's Permitted By Islamic Law

Public figures – sociologists, Majlis members, activists, and others – have warned that the number of children marrying is on the rise, and with it the great health and social risks this poses for society, and have called on the regime to tackle it with legal and cultural reforms.[3] According to one sociologist, arranging marriages for children, especially girls, is common among poor and uneducated urban families that seek a way out of dire financial straits; he adds that the girls themselves are severely damaged both physically and psychologically.

Regime spokesmen have denied the extent of the phenomenon, and have also shrugged off the matter, saying that child marriage is legal and that preventing it is against Islamic law.

The following are facts, figures, and main arguments in the debate on child marriage in Iran.

The Statistics On Child Marriage In Iran

Marriage At Ages 10-15

According to regime statistics, from March through June of 2012, 1,805 children under the age of 15 were married legally and with the permission of the court; that number for the period from March 2011 to March 2012[4] was 7,440.

Expressing concern about the increase, anti-child-bride activist Farshid Yazdani, a member of the Association for the Defense of Children's Rights in Iran, noted that while in 2006 child marriages constituted 2.3% of all marriages, by 2010 that figure had grown 45%, to 4.9%. He warned the regime about the ramifications of child marriages, including divorce and domestic violence, and noted that in 2006, statistics showed that Iran had 25,000 divorced children aged 10-15.[5]

Marriages Under Age 10

According to Islamic law, girls reach maturity at age nine; in 2011, in Tehran province alone, 75 girls and boys under 10 were married.[6] Warning about the increase in marriages of children under 10, Yazdani noted that in 2010, in all of Iran 716 children under 10 wed – twice as many as in 2007.[7]

In an attempt to explain the increase in child marriages in Iran, Amanollah Gharai-Moghadam, who heads the Sociology Association of Iran, pointed at the economic difficulties afflicting Iranian society. He said that in Tehran province many destitute families accept any marriage proposal for their daughters regardless of the girls' ages – and regardless of their rights – so as to reduce the family's expenses. He added, "In some cases, poor families are forced to sell their daughters; in others they are forced to marry off their sons and daughters after the children conduct relations that are forbidden... and in still others, the girl is given to an elderly man in lieu of payment of a debt... In a society rife with poverty, [large] gaps in status, inflation, and unemployment, people act crudely."[8]...

Tags: Aisha, Iran, child marriage, sharia law

Views: 671

Replies to This Discussion

'In a society rife with poverty, [large] gaps in status, inflation, and unemployment, people act crudely."[8]...'

therefore the solution is: give them more money

belief systems have no real bearing on this problem, because the belief system does not see it as a problem.  if it did then Mohammed himself would be in the dock and Islam would be found guilty.

see also here

http://4freedoms.com/group/tiles/forum/topics/03-aisha

In an attempt to explain the increase in child marriages in Iran, Amanollah Gharai-Moghadam, who heads the Sociology Association of Iran, pointed at the economic difficulties afflicting Iranian society. He said that in Tehran province many destitute families accept any marriage proposal for their daughters regardless of the girls' ages – and regardless of their rights – so as to reduce the family's expenses. He added, "In some cases, poor families are forced to sell their daughters; in others they are forced to marry off their sons and daughters after the children conduct relations that are forbidden... and in still others, the girl is given to an elderly man in lieu of payment of a debt... In a society rife with poverty, [large] gaps in status, inflation, and unemployment, people act crudely."[8]...

What a disingenuos reply, after all, they wouldn't do it if it were illegal!  Problem solved.

But don't rest easy.  It won't be long before the Liberal Fascist slime are campaigning for it to be legal over here as well, to avoid 'offending' their poor, downtrodden Muslim 'brothers'.  And of course if we object, they will call us Islamophobes.  The hatred is building.

It's already happening over here. http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2012/jan/islington-girls-force...

That story from a part of London filled with journalists and actors, where the "respectable" muslim priest says that it is sharia-compliant for a man to marry a 9 y.o. girl.  The liberal fascists of Islington, the journalists, the media luvvies, teachers, socila workers, the far-left MP who hob-nobs with Sinn Fein, the ex-mayor who took on Nick Griffin in Barking and won... all kept silent about the 9 y.o. muslim girls being raped by old husbands, on the very doorstep of the liberal fascists.

These same liberal fascists loudly denounced as "racist" any political party or TV company commenting on the muslim gangs grooming & raping young non-muslim girls.  http://bbc.in/ZLDLKq

Islington girls forced into marriage at the age of nine - Islington Tribune

Dianna Nammi of the The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation

TRIBUNE INVESTIGATION: Imam condemns ordeal of youngsters still in primary school amid alarming number of abuse cases

Published: January 27, 2012
by PAVAN AMARA

AN alarming number of under-age girls – some as young as nine – are being forced into marriage in Islington, according to a leading campaign group.

The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) claim that at least 30 girls in the borough  were forced into marriage in 2010.

The practice was condemned by the Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, who said such marriages were against Islam and “unacceptable”.

He pledged to invalidate any marriage which he said were carried out by “back-street Imams”.

IKWRO, which made headlines last month when they revealed there had been almost 3,000 “honour-based” violence cases in 2010, has shown the Tribune records which revealed at least three 11-year-old girls and two nine-year-olds had been forced into marriage with older men within Islington. The oldest girls involved were 16.

They have warned that hundreds of Islington girls could be suffering sexual, emotional and physical scars as a result of the child marriages every year and are calling for teachers, social workers and police to be better trained to spot and manage the abuse.

Information from the Ministry of Justice, following a Freedom of Information request, revealed that 32 Forced Marriage Protection Order applications were made for children under 16 in Britain last year.

Six of these were made for under-16s within Islington at the Royal Courts of Justice, although these were not necessarily made for Islington residents.

At the Islington court, “five or fewer” orders were made to protect children between the ages of 9-11.

The orders are a form of injunction that threaten legal punishment if marriage takes place due to emotional or physical force.

In most cases, the children fear they will be killed if they reveal the truth to anybody, while others believe they will be separated from their families and taken into social services’ care.

Dianna Nammi, director of IKWRO, explained that the girls are married in a mosque’s sharia court. This means they are not legally married according to British law, rendering the Home Office unable to recognise or prove the abuse.

“They are still expected to carry out their wifely duties, though, and that includes sleeping with their husband,” she said.

“They have to cook for them, wash their clothes, everything. They are still attending schools in Islington, struggling to do their primary school homework, and at the same time being practically raped by a middle-aged man regularly and being abused by their families. So they are a wife, but in a primary school uniform.

“The reason it doesn’t get out is because they are too terrified to speak out, and also the control their families have over them is impossible to imagine if you’re not going through it. The way it is covered up is so precise, almost unspeakable.”

Ms Nammi said that one 13-year-old had to sneak out of a maths lesson to contact the group, because she was being monitored so closely by her family.

“Her teacher didn’t notice because she said she’d gone to the toilet, but when she got home that day she was beaten,” she said.

“Her father knew she hadn’t been in maths because he had sent an uncle to spy on who she was talking to through the classroom window.”

Ms Nammi said that the girls are married off to family friends or family members to stop them from losing their virginity to anyone not chosen by their father.

However, the incentive is also often financial.

“The girl automatically becomes her husband’s property, so he takes financial responsibility for her,” said Ms Nammi.

“In fact, often the husband has to start contributing to the girl’s family, so it becomes a way of bringing in another salary.

“Who are girls going to tell? Often they feel like teachers at school won’t understand what their families are like. They will think they’re like Western families, and won’t understand that if they pass on anything at all that they’ve been told to the family, then the girl will be killed. So they just chose not to tell at all.”

IKWRO offers counselling and support to the children, but does not force them to take any action until they are ready. Often, that involves being placed in social services’ care.

Finsbury Park Mosque imam Ahmed Saad said he was glad the issue was being highlighted, and stressed that it was not an Islamic problem, but a cultural one.

“This is down to ignorance, and ignorant people who will use any excuse they can to do this to their children,” he said.

“It is the practice in their home countries and they don’t want to stop that here, so they will say it’s in the Koran, when it is not. According to Islam, it is entirely unacceptable.

“My own grandmother was married at the age of 11, but that was in 1907 in Egypt when lifespans were much shorter.

“I have heard of this happening in Islington by back-street imams. They are imams who have little knowledge of Islam – they are not educated, and they simply lead prayers, and yes they will do this and it is very quietly kept a secret with no one admitting to it.

“Islam says both parties must truly consent in their hearts, and if the girl was forced into it in any way then she can invalidate her Sharia marriage with or without the husband’s permission.

“I will personally do that for anyone who comes to me. This is simply child abuse, as a child does not know what they are doing.

“My heart goes out to the girls.”

Imam Saad explained that Sharia law stated an individual can marry when they begin puberty, with the most important stipulation being that they are “rushd”, or mature enough to understand marriage.

A spokesman for the Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) said he was “unsure” whether the lack of legal status of the marriages affected whether the they could intervene or not, but directed the Tribune to government practice guidelines on dealing with forced marriage.

The spokesman added that due to the lack of legal status the marriages may be a “criminal matter that only the police can deal with”, but admitted to it being "”a very grey area”.

The FMU guidelines state: “It is probable that children’s social care will play a key role in protecting the interests of the child or young person. This can be achieved not only by arranging practical help such as accommodation and financial support, but also by co-operating and working with other agencies such as police, health and education professionals.”

A Turkish and Farsi speaking adviser at IKWRO, said while that the Islington Police’s domestic violence co-ordinators were “brilliant” at dealing with the cases, front-line officers “can make things worse by not being sensitive because they don’t really understand what’s going on”.

“When they try and speak to the child’s parents they often have a language barrier,” she said.

“Too often they don’t bother to call an interpreter so they don’t talk to the parents at all about what they’re doing, until it goes to court much later. A common complaint we have is that it depends on who you are, too – some women say that when they’re from poorer families the police don’t take them as seriously.”

Bride at 12 – ‘I have to be a wife to him...’

ROJIN – this is not her real name – told a Tribune reporter how she had been forcibly married at the age of 12 to a 32 year-old man. She said she grew up in Finsbury Park where she lived with her parents from the Middle East.

After her “marriage” she said she was placed in care and then allowed to live with friends.

“I was forced by my dad,” she said. “He didn’t beat me or anything, he told me I was useless, no one would ever accept me anyway so I’d better just marry while someone wanted me because it wouldn’t happen again.

“I thought that if I didn’t do it I would just be taken away and married anyway, so it was better to co-operate and at least get to stay in England.

“Also, if I co-operated then if my husband treated me badly at least my family would support me against him. But if I said no, they’d say I was bringing shame on the family and wouldn’t support me no matter what he did, because I would have made them angry.

“My parents sorted out an imam to marry us quite quickly. The first one they approached said no, the next one said yes, and this was in Islington. I met my husband three days before my wedding, which only my close family was invited to.

“We were married in my parents’ house.

“He was a 37-year-old man from Birmingham [the Tribune understands he had come from the Middle East]. I told my parents that I had fallen in love with him and I was doing it for myself because my mum felt bad about what they were doing to me. That night I had to go to his flat and sleep with him because that’s what marriage is.

“But I didn’t want to. After that I told my husband I didn’t want to look at him or talk to him. I didn’t want him sitting next to me, standing next to me, nothing. He got frustrated and said that I had to sleep with him because I was his wife, but I said if he forced himself on me then I would call the police and tell them everything.

“After my mum died I was taken into care. I told my social worker about everything, but I missed out the bit about sleeping with him.

“Social services have no understanding of Islam, and they don’t know that for me, as a Muslim, I am still his wife because we were married by an imam and we have not divorced. So I still text him and want to go to see him because I have to as a wife.

“This is more of a marriage to me than a legal one because it’s by Allah. In my mind I know I have to still be a wife to him till he finally divorces me or I feel something bad will happen to me, or my mum, who is now dead, will have shame on her name.

“He refuses to divorce me, though. Friends have said they’d be happy to come with me to the mosque for a divorce to say yes to it.

“I live with friends so I don’t have to sleep with him, cook for him, nothing like that. He can’t beat me, and no one can kill me here, but I am trapped as his wife.

“Even when I am an adult and leave, I’ll have to go back to him as his wife until one day he finally grants me a divorce.”

The Tribune has been unable to authenticate what this girl told us.
We have seen a record kept by the Women’s Rights body (IKWRO) stating she had been placed in care but there did not appear to be independent evidence that this had taken place.
We stress this is the story of a 12-year-old girl as told to this newspaper.

http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2012/jan/islington-girls-force...

I will now post below, the comment that the ubiquitous Iftikhar Ahmed made, justifing child marriage and sex.  Feel free to re-post his justification underneath any of his other comments you come across, in other places.  I'm sure it will grow his reputation, though probably not in the way he intended :-)

Child Rape

By the way there are 12-13 having sex before marriage and getting pregnant all over the country. Just another angle to the arguement that's all. Is this any worse than those 11/12 year olds, some even younger, unmarried but having children?? By the way these 12-13 yr old kids are native Brits and not Muslims. Shock shock horror! Its interesting that there is outrage and rightly so but underage sex is virtually the norm in the country.Just look at the number of kids having sex and teenage pregnancies. Why the hypocrisy. So if chav teenagers want to start having sex at 12 and then have new sexual partners every few weeks for years and years until they have lost count, that's fine, but if a girl consents to marry at 12 that's somehow evil? Sorry, I don't buy that. If being with a person of the same sex is fine then why is it wrong to be with a person under 16? I thought it was live and let live? Has any parent who has allowed their under-16 daughter to sleep with her boyfriend in their home ever been prosecuted, even though there must be thousands of examples occurring every night? Every day numerous teenagers are allowed into each others bedrooms by liberal parents without an eyelid being batted. Teenagers are having sex the choice is whether it is on wedlock or not.
People complaining about this when British teens get pregnant at 15 not knowing who the father is? Hypocrites.

What about the 12/13 year olds who get pregnant and have babies? What about gypsy brides who marry at a young age.. Yet again you uneducated, negative miserable Brits are so quick to pass judgement and make negative comments .. The lowest age in Christian marriage was 4 it was performed in the early 1800s. When teens get pregnant at 15 not knowing who the father is, a lot of the time the act of sleeping with someone was their choice.

Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution beg to differ. Plenty of young girls have had, are having and will continue to have babies, enough of them will be pushing prams down your high street this morning, most of whom will not be Muslim. If they weren't capable, they wouldn't be able to have them. As for being psychologically prepared - what has age to do with psychology? Don't forget, the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is 10 - which means, that were a ten year old to commit an offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, they would be deemed culpable. So, please don't start talking about biology, psychology or anything scientific. This is not about science, it is about the Law and religion.
I don't see any uproar when people of that age have sex.

British girls can have have sex have abortions have alcohol problmes behaviour problems but muslims girls decide to get married respectfully and have sex and have children and be happy with both families is a problem in Britian? If Muslim parents would make their daughters think this is right thing to do...it is still much better than what British teenage girls do with their lives. I don't think of British people to be so double standard and with such a little intelllect? hmmm..

Many Muslims do not see the issue of forced or child marriage as a 'debatable' Sharia issue at all, but a Muslim's right or even his obligation. Opinions vary between Sects and Imams. One Muslim cannot speak for all Muslims it would appear as the Muslims on this site have said 'this is not Islam'. Well clearly it is. Maybe not your Islam but others are lining up waving flags for these ideas.
Iftikhar Ahmad
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/05/afghanistan-8-year-old-bride-of-m...

Afghanistan: 8-year-old bride of mullah bleeds to death on her wedding night

The story below is graphic. But it has to be told, as it graphically illustrates the human cost of Islamic child marriage and the treatment of women and girls as commodities.

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

"The 8-years-old bride who was brutally killed on first night of her wedding," by Mustafa Kazemi on Facebook, May 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ADVISORY – This article includes information that may be undesirable, discomfort & upset some audiences.

The 8-years-old girl whose story you’ll read in coming lines did not make it to the 2nd night of her wedding nor did she make it to her 9th or 10th birthday.

Her name unknown, my source telephoned me last week at 9:30 pm to tell me her story. At the first I thought it’s just going to be a short conversation but later it was unveiled that the story is different.

The story came from a village in Khashrood district of Nimruz province in Afghanistan.

A medical doctor assigned in the main hospital in Zaranj city, the capital of the province, who wished to remain unnamed confirmed that he was “made aware” of the incident and that it was “too late to do anything for her” as well the “remote area didn’t allow them to do anything”.

The girl was one of the several daughters of a man in his late 30s. For an unknown reason he gave his daughter to the Mullah of their village for a big amount of money. It is also common in Afghanistan's rural areas or 3rd level provinces/cities to marry young girls to old men, and trading their daughters for their debts or other items.

The mullah is in his late 50s and is the mosque guy of the village where this incident happened.

The mullah is already married and has many children too.
The two families hold a tribal meeting, agree on the price that the groom’s family pay to the bride’s family, and they set a date for wedding.

In rural areas like this here there are no engagements or any ceremonies beforehand like there are some in the metropolitan and urban areas.

The two families planned a wedding party, the wedding and Nekah (The religious process in which a woman is officially married to a man) took place and the 8-years-old bride became the 50-years-old Mullah’s 2nd wife.

The celebration party was over and the sun downed – the time to have sex (not make love) with the 8-years-old bride.

The girl was just 8 years old and everybody understands the fact that she knows nothing about sex or wedding or making love or virginity or sexual related topics; not even at a basic level for two reasons, one being that she’s just a child – not even a teenager and that in that part of the country, nobody knows anything about these things nor they are given trainings or education about a healthy sexual life.

The mullah takes off the bride’s clothes as well as his owns and with apparent so much happiness approaches her for sexual intercourse with the 8-years-old bride.
Because of the Mullah’s huge physique which gave him a big penis, he threw himself on her and started to penetrate the girl’s vagina.

After several tries that led him to failure to penetrate her vagina, the Mullah was frustrated.

He failed because the 8-years-old girl who was about to die was physically thin and had a very tight vagina opening.

Sourced from the Mullah’s animal behavior, he took out the sharp knife that he always carried with himself in his pocket and tore apart the girl’s vagina from the clitoris side upwards as well as tore it downwards towards her anus in order to make the vagina larger enough so he can enter his penis into her vagina.

Naturally, she started to bleed in a very bad amount, but the mullah was too annoyed for not being able to have sex with her, to care for what he did or her bleeding or her wounds that he gave her.

The girl had her scarf stuffed in her mouth, crying and trying to not raise her voice because others were there in the room adjacent to or outside.

It is a rule in some of the areas in Afghanistan that the groom brings out a piece of cloth that he cleaned his wife’s hymen blood with it as a proof that the girl was virgin.

Mullah entered his penis into the girl’s severely bleeding vagina and had sexual intercourse with her on a blood-covered bed, and then got up and cleaned himself with a cloth.

The girl, who now has lost everything, was bleeding and there was nobody to help her neither could the Mullah ask for help as it was a shame for him and the girl’s family (who were sitting over a cup of tea in the other room, would kill him).

Our 8-years-old bride bled and went into a traumatic shock because of both forced sex as well as severe bleeding. She had lost so much blood, this I can tell for certain.

She bled and bled as herself was in trauma shock until morning and early in the morning around 5 when the sun was about to rise, she passed away.

According to the Mullah, she was pale and her eyes were open when she died. The bed, as he described, was all red with her blood and she was lying in her blood only. No cloth beneath her was recognizable and everything was in dried blood because a whole night had passed on the blood.

She was pale because she had lost all her body’s blood. Her eyes were open as she was shivering when she died and her hands were tied in a praying position, saying her death time prayer.

The Mullah called in the same person and asked him to clean up the mess around and prepare a reason to tell the others for her death. Because the man was a close friend or family of the mullah, he did whatever he could, including every piece of cloth that was bloody.

They wrapped her in a piece of white clothes and called the others that she has passed away.

That morning her family mourned her death in the saddest manner without looking for proper explanation about her death, and then took her to wash her body as a religious ritual.

Because the Mullah had a great influence on the village, none of the women who washed the girl's body dared to ask or seek the reason for the wounds around her vagina.

By 10 am or so they rallied the now-dead 8-years-old bride to the graveyard and buried her.

Her life ended.

The close friend of mullah, who knew everything, was very upset and shared the story with my source that then called me and told me the story.

Another doctor that I asked in Zaranj said that he wasn’t aware of the case, but he remembers that he used to treat the now-dead bride when she was 4 or 5 years old.

This doctor also asked me to not name him anywhere but only said that he was “deeply saddened that incidents like that still happen in Afghanistan”.

He called it one of the reasons of Afghanistan no going forward: People’s idiocy and uncivilized behaviors and traditions.

This story reached to me was told the exact way as it happened by the Mullah to a very close friend of him after the girl’s dead body was buried. According to the Mullah, he had a “bad conscience” about it.

Mustafa Kazemi
War Correspondent
Afghanistan

In any sensible society, the body would be exhumed and an autopsy used to establish what happened, then press charges.  But we're talking about an Islamic society, so let's just forget about it and move on.

Note the highlighted section from the Iranian penal code.  A girl can be engaged before the age of 9, and married at 9.  But this is not 9 of our years, it is years based on the lunar calendar.  By our calendar, that would mean the girl can be married at 8.3 months.

So, muslims from Iran to Bangladesh are saying that it should be legal to marry a girl at 8.3 year of age. And as we know from the girls who die giving birth at the age of 10, these are marriages where the man is raping the child.  No wonder they are doing it in Islington in the 21st century.  And manuals of sharia law like Reliance of the Traveller even have provisions for divorcing a pre-menstrual girl (the divorce provisions only apply if the man has had sex with the pre-menstrual girl).

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/06/afghan-parliament-rejects-ban-on-...

Few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage. Islamic tradition records that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage:

“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).

Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah’s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).

Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old.

Marrying young girls was not all that unusual for its time, but because in Islam Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21), he is considered exemplary in this unto today. And so in April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: “Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam… [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.” He added a threat: “Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women.” The Mufti said that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage.

Likewise the influential website Islamonline.com in December 2010 justified child marriage by invoking not only Muhammad’s example, but the Qur’an as well:

The Noble Qur’an has also mentioned the waiting period [i.e. for a divorced wife to remarry] for the wife who has not yet menstruated, saying: “And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women—if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated” [Qur’an 65:4]. Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl. The Qur’an is not like the books of jurisprudence which mention what the implications of things are, even if they are prohibited. It is true that the prophet entered into a marriage contract with A’isha when she was six years old, however he did not have sex with her until she was nine years old, according to al-Bukhari.

Other countries make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”

Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful to give their own daughters away accordingly: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” When he took power in Iran, he lowered the legal marriageable age of girls to nine, in accord with Muhammad’s example.

"Afghan parliament upholds right to marry children," by Cheryl K. Chumley for The Washington Times, June 10 (thanks to Krazy Kafir):

Afghanistan's parliament has rejected a measure that would have barred men from marrying girls younger than 16, saying the proposal ran counter to Islamic ideology.

The measure also would have banned “baad, [the] traditional practice of buying or selling women to settle disputes,” and outlawed criminal charges being imposed on rape victims, Breitbart reported. Rape victims in Afghanistan often are charged with fornication or adultery.

President Hamid Karzai reportedly supported the measures, but opponents said they “violate[d] Islamic principles,” Breitbart reported.

The failure of parliament to act in accordance with Mr. Karzai highlights a deep rift among the nation’s politicians. And it comes at a time when elections are set for April 2014 for a new president.

There is “a rift between conservative and more secular members of the community,” Sky News reported.

 R Spencer says 

 Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited.

Here is what it really says

CHAPTER 2

MEDICAL FITNESS FOR MARRIAGE

Article 1041 - Marriage before the age, of majority is prohibited.

Note -Marriage before puberty by the permission of the Guardian and on condition of taking into consideration the ward’s interest is proper. 

There is no mention about age, to find out that we have to jump to the below

BOOK 10
Regarding Guardianship and Tutorship CHAPTER 1
ON GENERAL CONSIDERATION

Article 1207 - The following persons are considered as under disability and are forbidden to take possession of their property and their pecuniary rights:

1 - Minor children.

2 - Persons who have not matured.

3 - Lunatics.

Article 1208 - By the words “persons who have not matured” is meant persons whose method of dealing in their property and rights is not in accordance with reason.

Article 1209 - Repealed on 29 December 1982.

Article 1210 - No one, when reaching the age of majority, can be treated as under disability in respect of insanity or immaturity unless his immaturity or insanity is proved.

Note 1 - the age of majority for boys is fifteen lunar years and for girls nine lunar years.

So Article 1041 states that - Marriage before the age, of majority is prohibited, not puberty or maturity as R Spencer and many in the CJ claim.

The Note -Marriage before puberty by the permission of the Guardian and on condition of taking into consideration the ward’s interest is proper. Was added in 2001, after 19 years of pleas by human rights defenders, especially those involved with children’s rights in Iran, and with the support of international bodies, Article 1041 of the Civil Law was changed by the Expediency Council to the following: “Marriage for girls before  before puberty (age 13 and for boys before attaining age 15 is only allowed by the guardian’s permission, with the interests of the subject in mind and by the ruling of a competent court.” So after many years, the legal age for Iranian girls for entering into marriage was raised to what is still a young age of 13)

As mentioned above, Article 1210 of the Civil Law sets the age of majority for girls at 9 lunar years and for boys at 15 lunar years. Therefore, 9 year-old girls and fifteen-year old boys, who are considered adults in the religious sense term by Islamic legislators, can be punished like adults if they commit a crime, and can even be subject to physical punishment. The Islamic Penal Law allows severe physical punishments such as whipping, cutting parts of the body, stoning and execution for those found guilty of a crime.

Since 9 and 15 year-old children are considered adults and, as such, held responsible for their acts with possible severe physical punishments if they commit crimes, they will be subject to the full force of the law and will not receive reduced punishments. Adolescents are treated as adults in the eye of the law and if caught committing a crime, face severe punishments.   

This is confusing.  Didn't Khomeini marry a 9 year old girl?  So has the law been changed since then to 13 years? 

Even then, surely this is still full of loopholes for paedophilia?

 “Marriage for girls before  before puberty (age 13 and for boys before attaining age 15 is only allowed by the guardian’s permission, with the interests of the subject in mind and by the ruling of a competent court.”

Well in Khomeini's case, he is his own court, so can just give himself permission as a high ranking clerical judge.  How many others can obtain a similar exemption?  What is a "competent court"?  

I don't think this legislation is sufficient evidence to let them off the hook on this issue.

The Iranian penal code cited by Shiva does not accord with what is found in Reliance of the Traveller.

Note that these "divorce provisions" only apply if sex has taken place.  The 3 month waiting is to see if the "wife" is pregnant. Clearly this is not about "thighing", but penetrative sex. And the girl maybe prepubescent.

Spencer may be wrong to attribute this to the Iranian penal code.  But it is clearly found as legal in sharia law.  Saudi and Kuwait (presumably following Reliance of the Traveller to the letter) have no age of consent.

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