Third, the Muslim claim that Aisha was a "precocious child" strains the evidence. Aisha herself reports that, when she was taken to Muhammad’s house, she was playing on a swing with her friends. She was also still playing with dolls. Based on the evidence, Aisha sounds like a normal little girl, not like a young adult. Besides, Muhammad didn’t marry her because she was precocious; he married her because he was dreaming about her.

Fourth, it is unlikely that God was using Muhammad’s relationship with Aisha to establish puberty as the appropriate age for marriage, since the Qur’an itself seems to allow marriage to prepubescent girls. According to Surah 65:4, a man must wait three months to divorce a wife who hasn’t yet reached menses. If Islam allows a man to divorce a girl who isn’t old enough to have her period, it follows that Islam also allows a man to marry a girl who hasn’t yet reached menses. And if the Qur’an allows marriage to prepubescent girls, then Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha would in no way rule out such a practice. (In the spirit of interpretive charity, I’m open to alternative interpretations of the Qur’an here. That is, I’m willing to give Muslims the benefit of the doubt if they offer another reasonable view of this passage. Based solely on 65:4, I would say that several interpretations of the text are possible. However, if we consider early Muslim commentaries on the verse, the understanding I give above appears strongest. To read these commentaries, click here.)

Fifth, Muslims search for reasons to justify Muhammad’s relationship with Aisha because they are convinced that everything Muhammad did had a divine purpose behind it. When critics point out Muhammad’s numerous murders and assassinations, Muslims claim that these violent acts were just. When critics note the extent of Muhammad’s polygamy, or his participation in the slave-trade, or his countless robberies,^[21] Muslims provide answers based on the view that Muhammad was an outstanding moral example. Similarly, when Muslims are confronted with the evidence for Muhammad’s sexual encounters with Aisha, they assume that there must have been a reason for it. They then invent reasons for Muhammad’s behavior (i.e. the other little girls needed someone to talk to about sex), and they offer these reasons as a defense of Muhammad’s morality. However, non-Muslims do not share this confidence in Muhammad’s moral perfection. Indeed, when non-Muslims hear about Muhammad’s violence, his greed, his polygamy, and his support of spousal abuse, we aren’t as quick to say "He must have had a reason" as Muslims seem to be. Because of this, Muslim justifications for Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha sound hollow when presented as a logical defense of his actions.

Finally, Muslim explanations for Muhammad’s behavior fail to take into account the dangers that accompany sex at a young age. Many Muslims claim that, as soon as a young girl gets her first period, she is ready to bear children. This "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed" mentality, aside from being disgusting, is completely false. A nine-year-old girl isn’t ready for sex or children, even if she reaches menses earlier than other little girls. Children that young are still growing; when they become pregnant, their bodies divert nutritional resources to the developing fetus, depriving the growing girls of much-needed vitamins and minerals. Further, complications often result from adolescent pregnancies, because the bodies of the young girls simply aren’t ready to give birth.

(For a discussion of child-brides, click here.)

The West has discerned the dangers posed by adolescent pregnancies. Muslim apologists often claim that marriage to young girls was common in biblical times. This may be correct, but it is because these marriages were part of the culture, not because God endorsed them. Whereas many Christian countries have recognized the potential harms brought on by pregnancies among adolescent girls and have raised the legal age for marriage, Muslim countries are often kept from such advancements because of Muhammad. This is very interesting, for Muslims often claim that Muhammad was scientifically enlightened and that the Qur’an is a scientific masterpiece.^[22] In reality, Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha is injuring young girls across the Middle East and North Africa. The dangers have even been noted by the United Nations, which issued the following report in an attempt to curb the practices supported by Islam:

Traditional cultural practices reflect values and beliefs held by members of a community for periods often spanning generations. Every social grouping in the world has specific traditional cultural practices and beliefs, some of which are beneficial to all members, while others are harmful to a specific group, such as women. These harmful traditional practices include female genital mutilation (FGM); forced feeding of women; early marriage; the various taboos or practices which prevent women from controlling their own fertility; nutritional taboos and traditional birth practices; son preference and its implications for the status of the girl child; female infanticide; early pregnancy; and dowry price. Despite their harmful nature and their violation of international human rights laws, such practices persist because they are not questioned and take on an aura of morality in the eyes of those practicing them.

Child marriage robs a girl of her childhood-time necessary to develop physically, emotionally and psychologically. In fact, early marriage inflicts great emotional stress as the young woman is removed from her parents’ home to that of her husband and in-laws. Her husband, who will invariably be many years her senior, will have little in common with a young teenager. It is with this strange man that she has to develop an intimate emotional and physical relationship. She is obliged to have intercourse, although physically she might not be fully developed.

Health complications that result from early marriage in the Middle East and North Africa, for example, include the risk of operative delivery, low weight and malnutrition resulting from frequent pregnancies and lactation in the period of life when the young mothers are themselves still growing.

Early pregnancy can have harmful consequences for both young mothers and their babies. According to UNICEF, no girl should become pregnant before the age of 18 because she is not yet physically ready to bear children. Babies of mothers younger than 18 tend to be born premature and have low body weight; such babies are more likely to die in the first year of life. The risk to the young mother’s own health is also greater. Poor health is common among indigent pregnant and lactating women.

In many parts of the developing world, especially in rural areas, girls marry shortly after puberty and are expected to start having children immediately. Although the situation has improved since the early 1980’s, in many areas the majority of girls under 20 years of age are already married and having children. Although many countries have raised the legal age for marriage, this has had little impact on traditional societies where marriage and child-bearing confer "status" on a woman.

An additional health risk to young mothers is obstructed labor, which occurs when the baby’s head is too big for the orifice of the mother. This provokes vesicovaginal fistulas, especially when an untrained traditional birth attendant forces the baby’s head out unduly.^[23]

Contrary to Muslim claims, a nine-year-old girl just isn’t ready for sexual intercourse or for its possible ramifications (i.e. pregnancy, giving birth, breast-feeding, and raising a child). It is unnecessarily dangerous, for a much safer relationship could be crafted if the marriage were to take place several years later, when the girl reaches her late teens. Muslims may respond to this by arguing, "But Aisha never became pregnant, so none of this matters." Yet it does matter. Every year, countless young girls, still playing with dolls, are taken to live with much older husbands. If these husbands were to be challenged, they wouldn’t respond by saying, "But it’s part of Arabic culture"; instead, they would reply, "It can’t be wrong, because Muhammad did it." In other words, even if we grant the bizarre claim that Aisha was somehow ready for sex and marriage, most nine-year-old girls aren’t ready for sex and marriage. Yet the practice of marrying children continues to this day in many Muslim countries, largely because Muslims hold up Muhammad as their highest role model.

FOURTH MUSLIM DEFENSE: The average lifespan in Muhammad’s day was so low that people had to marry young.

Osama Abdallah argues that Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha was understandable because people in Muhammad’s day needed to marry early:

Life 1400 years ago was very rough in the too hot desert. From my personal knowledge, the average life span back then was 50 years. People used to die from all kinds of diseases. Both parents of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) for instance, died natural deaths before he even knew them.^[24]

On this view, since people could die at any time in the "hot desert," they would get married at a very early age to make sure they had as many years together as possible.

RESPONSE: Muhammad was already more than fifty years old when he consummated his marriage to Aisha, so there was no need for him to marry such a young girl.

Abdallah’s claim might make sense if Muhammad had been nine or ten years old when he married Aisha. But the Prophet of Islam was already well advanced in years. He was far closer to death than any young woman he might marry, so why not marry a young woman instead of a young girl? Why not marry a fully developed twenty-year-old instead of a little girl playing on a swing? By marrying Aisha when she was so young, Muhammad was, in effect, condemning her to a life of widowhood, for the Qur’an prohibited the marrying of Muhammad’s widows (33:53). Beyond all this, Abdallah’s argument ignores the facts. Muhammad didn’t marry Aisha because the average life span was fifty years old; instead, he married her because (1) he had been dreaming about her, and (2) he had the power to persuade Abu Bakr to give him his daughter in marriage.

FIFTH MUSLIM DEFENSE: Other people have done it too—even Christians!

Abdallah also employs an "everybody’s doing it, so it’s okay" defense:

Not only was it a custom in the Arab society to Engage/Marry a young girl, it was also common in the Jewish society. The case of Mary the mother of Jesus comes to mind. In non biblical sources she was between 11-14 years old when she conceived Jesus. Mary had already been "BETROTHED" to Joseph before conceiving Jesus. Joseph was a much older man. Therefore Mary was younger than 11-14 years of age when she was "BETHROED" to Joseph. We Muslims would never call Joseph a Child Molester, nor would we refer to the "Holy Ghost" of the Bible, that "Impregnated" Mary as a "Rapist" or "Adulterer.".^[25]

RESPONSE: Besides committing the "tu quoque" fallacy, this defense misses the point of the criticism against Muhammad.

Tu quoque is a type of fallacy that attempts to ignore a criticism because of some hypocrisy found in the critic. For instance, suppose I’m a thief. One day, I catch someone stealing my car, and I say, "Stop, Thief!" If the person stealing my car turns to me and says, "But you’re a thief too, so it’s not wrong for me to steal," he will be committing the tu quoque fallacy.

Muslims rely heavily on the tu quoque. When people criticize Islam for terrorism, it’s common to hear Muslims say, "But Americans are killing Arabs!" as if this were a meaningful response to the charge. Likewise, when someone says, "Look at all the people Muhammad killed," Muslims respond by saying, "But people were killed in the Bible too."

To say that Joseph married a young girl in the Bible does nothing to address the problem of Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha. At best, such a defense would only show that Christians are being inconsistent. But in reality, the Muslim defense doesn’t even show this, since their comparison fails for several reasons.

First, there is no real historical data reporting the age of Mary when she married Joseph. True, given the custom of the time, she was probably fairly young, perhaps as young as twelve or thirteen. But since we have no historical references to her age, we can’t rule out the possibility that Mary was twenty years old. The point here is this: people criticize Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha based on what we know (i.e. that Aisha was nine years old), whereas Muslims reply based on what we don’t know (i.e. the age of Mary).

Second, we must not forget that thirteen years old is very different from nine years old. Nine-year-old girls typically haven’t reached menses. In a best case scenario, a girl that young may have entered the beginning stages of puberty. A thirteen-year-old girl, on the other hand, may be coming to the end of puberty. Thus, even if we grant a young age for Mary, there would still be a world of difference between her and Aisha.

Third, Muslim apologists seem to miss the fact that Joseph is not the standard of morality in Christianity. When critics point to the age of Aisha, they are arguing something like this: "You’re trying to tell me that Muhammad was the greatest moral example of all time and that I should believe everything he says? I can’t believe that a person who would have sex with a little girl was the greatest man ever." More simply, Muhammad is foundational to Islam. If there is a problem with Muhammad, there is a problem with Islam. If Muhammad was immoral, then it becomes difficult to take his teachings seriously. Thus, it makes no sense for a Muslim to say, "Well, Joseph married a young girl too." Joseph isn’t foundational to Christianity. If an ancient text were found tomorrow, and this ancient text proved that Joseph was a thief and a murderer, this wouldn’t affect Christianity at all, because Christians don’t consider him to be a prophet, or a bringer of revelation, or even an important figure in Christianity. Thus, if Muslims want to show that Christians are being inconsistent, they need to show that Jesus, or Peter, or Paul, or someone central to Christianity, did the things that Muhammad did. Fortunately, Jesus was sinless, and the apostles lived exemplary lives once they had committed themselves to Jesus.

The internet is filled with examples of Muslims responses of this sort. Muslim websites constantly note that young girls are married in various countries and that these young girls sometimes give birth. No one doubts this. The problem is that this has nothing to do with whether or not marriage to a nine-year-old girl is morally acceptable for a mighty prophet. The fact that Muslims are forced to resort to an "everyone’s doing it" defense shows that they have run out of responses.

ASSESSMENT: While the evidence isn’t enough to condemn Muhammad as a "pedophile," his sexual relationship with Aisha is unacceptable.

Muhammad has been accused of pedophilia in numerous writings, sermons, and conversations. We have seen that the earliest Muslim traditions offer support for this view. However, the evidence sustaining the charge of pedophilia is perhaps too limited to warrant such a harsh conclusion. We know that Muhammad had a sexual relationship with a young girl, and that this was reprehensible. Yet we must take cultural differences into consideration in formulating an accurate appraisal of a person’s character. In Muhammad’s society, sexual intercourse was acceptable when a girl reached menses, and Muhammad may have waited until Aisha had reached this age. (Note: There’s no good historical evidence that Muhammad waited for Aisha to reach menses. However, I think it’s important to be generous in our interpretations as much as possible, so I’m willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that Aisha had reached puberty.)

Similarly, we don’t have enough information to call Muhammad a "pervert." While Muhammad’s sexual acts may seem startling, we don’t know enough about the nature of these acts to condemn him as a sexual deviant or a predator.

Nevertheless, Muslims are too hasty in dismissing Muhammad’s relationship with Aisha. We can’t simply ignore a prophet’s marriage to a nine-year-old girl. Muslims view Muhammad as the highest example of a moral life, but his marriage to Aisha conflicts with that view. If they want to put Muhammad forward as the standard of morality, Muslims need to come to terms with the many questionable things Muhammad did, as well as the awful impact of these actions.

There is a simple, but highly explicit, way to evaluate the importance of Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha. We must begin by trying to get a mental picture of a morally perfect man. For Muslims, this will include all the things they have been taught about Muhammad. According to their picture, he is kind, generous, patient, humble, and trustworthy. He protects orphans and widows, endures persecution, helps the needy, and promotes justice. He prays faithfully, fasts regularly, and obeys God in everything. He is loyal to his friends and patient with his enemies. He never gives in when tempted with evil. Now we must picture that same man in a room with an innocent little girl. He takes away her doll, climbs on top of her, and puts his penis inside her. She doesn’t know what is happening because she is too young to know much about sex. Frightened and confused, she cries because of the pain and bleeds on her bed, but she tries to remain quiet out of respect for her new husband, who, in return, endangers her life.

If a person is able to keep the same vision of moral perfection throughout that description, he may have the faith necessary to be a Muslim. But if his vision of the perfect man is at odds with what Muhammad did on numerous occasions, he will need to look elsewhere for an ideal human being.

Notes:

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