Not really. Saying there is ‘no debate’ isn’t actually factually accurate. While some traditional sources mention that age, there is a massive amount of historical and academic scholarship that suggests otherwise. The claim of age 9 have been used by bad faith actors on all sides. (Some fanatics to justify child marriage, and other fanatics who think their religion/group of people are superior to muslims in particular).
Here is a decent article explaining this if u wanna engage with it in good faith. There have been various debates on it and hadith is not considered accurate always, unlike the quran. The claim she was that young may have originated from sectarian divides among early muslims for whom virginity meant being “pure”.
U dont really need to particularly agree with the claim that she was not 9yo as a total fact. The Bukhari hadiths saying she is 9 is very well accepted by a vast majority of rhe fundamentalist muslim word, but not everyone. Saying there is “no debate” at all is a factually wrong statement as well. And reduces all of a particular group of people as brainwashed fanatics who support the horror of child marriage.
People can choose not to accept anything, that doesn’t mean that it is debatable.
It’s factually wrong, according to the ONLY SOURCE who would know. Do you understand? Nobody else would know better than her. There is no “opposing view” that was there to dispute it. All were in agreement she was a child, and she knows her own age better than anybody.
So, there’s no debate.
People can choose to accept it, or not. There is still no debate, because how the fuck would they know? It’s babble.
Yeah exactly. Thats the point. There is no record of Aisha herself saying her age was 9 at marriage. Nor is there any hadith from medina (where the marriage took place) that mentions aisha age. Only more than a generation later, in Iraq, someone who has poor memory, claimed that he has “heard” from someone else that Aisha said she is 9. So there is no reason to believe him over anyone else. Its a babble. No one knows Aishas age for sure. Historians and timeline analysis say she was 19-20. Pedophiles and Islamophobes say she was 9. People can choose to accept whatever they want. There is no good debate.
Why wud u accept something as true tho if there is no opposing view. I can makeup anything and say since there is no else opposing view point, my claim is the truth. I say that outside of the observable universe its all turtles. That does not make it true just because there is no other evidence of anything else. Its a debate about facts not what ifs.
This is a classic appeal to ignorance fallacy.
Because there is no opposing view from all of the evidence available.
You can choose to accept it, or say that they are liars and/or crazy. So why IMAGINE she was older? All from the time that we know of are in agreement (I know she’s referred to at least once in another Hadith, playing with dolls).
Yes, you can pretend that you have some special insight, but you don’t. “You” describing anyone who might disagree.
For example, I have a memory of when I was a child. I know what happened, and nobody else does, or everybody else who did know is dead/absent. You will call me a liar?
Why pretend that I’m lying? You have no clue. There is no evidence of anything else happening.
That’s why it’s not a debate.
If you had evidence that she was whatever age, and other people who were there disagree? Well, then you can debate based on the merits and testimony of the witnesses. But as it is, she said she was young, others who were there said she was playing with dolls. Nobody from the time is saying “No, I was there, she was in her 30s”. Her being a young child is not unusual in any way at that time.
Does this mean all testimony is fact? No. But without evidence to the contrary, any other opinion is fantasy and conjecture.
“The Muslim scholar Yasmin Amin makes an interesting point, however, noting that the report in question is not technically a hadith at all, since it is ultimately attributed to Aisha and not Muhammad. She makes the argument that traditionalist Muslims can and should differentiate between prophetic and non-prophetic reports found in Sahih Bukhari.”
Obviously the article has a lot more content than this but I found this funny. "Don’t listen to the kid he is accused of raping as a child, listen to the prophet instead. And just ignore that.
Also this one
“The attribution of this young age to Aisha should thus be understood as reflecting not chronological or historical accuracy but, rather, a symbolic concern for her virginity, chastity and purity.”
That paragraph is supposes to highlight the difference between hadith from the prophet vs haditths that are just oral collections from diff ppl. The author is saying here that the hadith does not carry the same weight as other bukhari hadiths because its not attributed to the prophet and is merely an oral claim by hisham(someone who has memory issues) that “someone said that Aisha said she was 9”
You are quoting the ending parts of the article which have nothing to do with the original argument it presents and simply is there to cleanup and establish the new status quo, and these tiny “things” whatever you call them are meaningless in the context of the greater discussion.
The symbolic part is discussed all through the article (for eg age 40 as a symbol for being wise, and for extra info age 70 in islamic world is considered the timeline for eternity(sorry if I cant explain it well, english aint my first language, but for eg u say to smone like “bro why r u so weak, r u already 70yo?”)
You not liking it does not change the fact that ages were used a lot more for symbolism back then than the actual time since the person has been born. There were no objectively correct ways of knowing smones birthdate back then except for word of mouth (if ppl cared to remember, because islam uses the lunar calendar, its much more complicated to track birthdays and date than how we do today)
Why not quote some of the earlier longer parts about timeline inconsistencies and sectarian incentives, those are up for discussion.
Why, through centuries of Muslim scholarship, was this conclusion not came to earlier? There are thousands and thousands of pages written by thousands and thousands of Muslim commentators and scholars that did not have a problem with her age at marriage, nor consider it particularly notable. It’s only now, at a Western university, in a world which unequivocally does not accept people fucking 9 year olds that the story changes.
Aisha was active a long time after Mohammad’s death. How old are we suggesting she was married at?
There are other hadiths that mention her being young (playing with dolls). So we’re throwing out a Hadith that many many Muslims have historically accepted, that seems to align with other hadiths that many many Muslims have historically accepted.
This is a clear Occam’s razor situation.
Is it “Christophobic” to point out that Mary was fourteen when God impregnated here? That seems to make the Christian god a clear pedophile.
Aisha was such a badass I wish some radical feminist Muslim women would retool the entire religion around her though.
Well you have a point. But I would suppose that the idea is child marriage was a very common thing even upto the last century, and is still common today in less developed parts of the world. Since no one considered it an issue, no one questioned the particular hadiths either. Also there is no “centuries of scholarship” done specifically on Aishas age, it was a hadith that everyone ran with because there were no reason for ppl to doubt it. Islamic jurisprudence were about laws and ethics, not history. And whatever scholarly work has been done have pointed strongly to the idea Aisha was not 9. (Even tho ibn-kathir, in the 1300s, ran into timeline issues and has reported about how Aishas age dont match up, and the timeline that he compiled suggested aisha was in her late teens. So it is technically mot even true that no one had any issues before the west pointed it out)
I find it weird that everyone is getting so defensive here, quick to calling it apologia and bullshit. You are allowed to believe whatever you want about Islam (or christianity, or religion itself). But what I was just trying to point out in my original reply that not all muslims especially in the west and academia today, agree or accept the fact Aisha was 9. Again many still do. But it does not really help that the excuse is used by Islamophobes all around the world. Its the same as quoting the worse parts of Talmud and calling every jew a violent person. Even though most prolly never though abt it and might be conflicted if u tell this, or outright deny its supposed to be taken literally, or contextualize whatever. You can say that is all apologia, so whatever really ig, at the end people just believe whatever they want to believe, and hurling insults and accusing them of promoting child rape is unlikely to bring a change in their worldview.
Not really. Saying there is ‘no debate’ isn’t actually factually accurate. While some traditional sources mention that age, there is a massive amount of historical and academic scholarship that suggests otherwise. The claim of age 9 have been used by bad faith actors on all sides. (Some fanatics to justify child marriage, and other fanatics who think their religion/group of people are superior to muslims in particular).
Here is a decent article explaining this if u wanna engage with it in good faith. There have been various debates on it and hadith is not considered accurate always, unlike the quran. The claim she was that young may have originated from sectarian divides among early muslims for whom virginity meant being “pure”. U dont really need to particularly agree with the claim that she was not 9yo as a total fact. The Bukhari hadiths saying she is 9 is very well accepted by a vast majority of rhe fundamentalist muslim word, but not everyone. Saying there is “no debate” at all is a factually wrong statement as well. And reduces all of a particular group of people as brainwashed fanatics who support the horror of child marriage.
https://newlinesmag.com/essays/oxford-study-sheds-light-on-muhammad-underage-wife-aisha/
In this case it’s the liberal side.
That’s not what a debate is
People can choose not to accept anything, that doesn’t mean that it is debatable.
It’s factually wrong, according to the ONLY SOURCE who would know. Do you understand? Nobody else would know better than her. There is no “opposing view” that was there to dispute it. All were in agreement she was a child, and she knows her own age better than anybody.
So, there’s no debate.
People can choose to accept it, or not. There is still no debate, because how the fuck would they know? It’s babble.
Yeah exactly. Thats the point. There is no record of Aisha herself saying her age was 9 at marriage. Nor is there any hadith from medina (where the marriage took place) that mentions aisha age. Only more than a generation later, in Iraq, someone who has poor memory, claimed that he has “heard” from someone else that Aisha said she is 9. So there is no reason to believe him over anyone else. Its a babble. No one knows Aishas age for sure. Historians and timeline analysis say she was 19-20. Pedophiles and Islamophobes say she was 9. People can choose to accept whatever they want. There is no good debate.
Those “someone’s” are the only ones who knew. The reason to believe them is that there IS NO ONE ELSE offering an opposing view point from that time.
You either accept it as true, or reject it as untrue (in spite of knowing absolutely nothing).
No debate at all
Why wud u accept something as true tho if there is no opposing view. I can makeup anything and say since there is no else opposing view point, my claim is the truth. I say that outside of the observable universe its all turtles. That does not make it true just because there is no other evidence of anything else. Its a debate about facts not what ifs. This is a classic appeal to ignorance fallacy.
Because there is no opposing view from all of the evidence available.
You can choose to accept it, or say that they are liars and/or crazy. So why IMAGINE she was older? All from the time that we know of are in agreement (I know she’s referred to at least once in another Hadith, playing with dolls).
Yes, you can pretend that you have some special insight, but you don’t. “You” describing anyone who might disagree.
For example, I have a memory of when I was a child. I know what happened, and nobody else does, or everybody else who did know is dead/absent. You will call me a liar?
Why pretend that I’m lying? You have no clue. There is no evidence of anything else happening.
That’s why it’s not a debate.
If you had evidence that she was whatever age, and other people who were there disagree? Well, then you can debate based on the merits and testimony of the witnesses. But as it is, she said she was young, others who were there said she was playing with dolls. Nobody from the time is saying “No, I was there, she was in her 30s”. Her being a young child is not unusual in any way at that time.
Does this mean all testimony is fact? No. But without evidence to the contrary, any other opinion is fantasy and conjecture.
So no debate.
“The Muslim scholar Yasmin Amin makes an interesting point, however, noting that the report in question is not technically a hadith at all, since it is ultimately attributed to Aisha and not Muhammad. She makes the argument that traditionalist Muslims can and should differentiate between prophetic and non-prophetic reports found in Sahih Bukhari.”
Obviously the article has a lot more content than this but I found this funny. "Don’t listen to the kid he is accused of raping as a child, listen to the prophet instead. And just ignore that.
Also this one “The attribution of this young age to Aisha should thus be understood as reflecting not chronological or historical accuracy but, rather, a symbolic concern for her virginity, chastity and purity.”
Lol what bullshit. come on
That paragraph is supposes to highlight the difference between hadith from the prophet vs haditths that are just oral collections from diff ppl. The author is saying here that the hadith does not carry the same weight as other bukhari hadiths because its not attributed to the prophet and is merely an oral claim by hisham(someone who has memory issues) that “someone said that Aisha said she was 9”
You are quoting the ending parts of the article which have nothing to do with the original argument it presents and simply is there to cleanup and establish the new status quo, and these tiny “things” whatever you call them are meaningless in the context of the greater discussion.
The symbolic part is discussed all through the article (for eg age 40 as a symbol for being wise, and for extra info age 70 in islamic world is considered the timeline for eternity(sorry if I cant explain it well, english aint my first language, but for eg u say to smone like “bro why r u so weak, r u already 70yo?”)
You not liking it does not change the fact that ages were used a lot more for symbolism back then than the actual time since the person has been born. There were no objectively correct ways of knowing smones birthdate back then except for word of mouth (if ppl cared to remember, because islam uses the lunar calendar, its much more complicated to track birthdays and date than how we do today)
Why not quote some of the earlier longer parts about timeline inconsistencies and sectarian incentives, those are up for discussion.
This is apologia.
Why, through centuries of Muslim scholarship, was this conclusion not came to earlier? There are thousands and thousands of pages written by thousands and thousands of Muslim commentators and scholars that did not have a problem with her age at marriage, nor consider it particularly notable. It’s only now, at a Western university, in a world which unequivocally does not accept people fucking 9 year olds that the story changes.
Aisha was active a long time after Mohammad’s death. How old are we suggesting she was married at?
There are other hadiths that mention her being young (playing with dolls). So we’re throwing out a Hadith that many many Muslims have historically accepted, that seems to align with other hadiths that many many Muslims have historically accepted.
This is a clear Occam’s razor situation.
Is it “Christophobic” to point out that Mary was fourteen when God impregnated here? That seems to make the Christian god a clear pedophile.
Aisha was such a badass I wish some radical feminist Muslim women would retool the entire religion around her though.
Well you have a point. But I would suppose that the idea is child marriage was a very common thing even upto the last century, and is still common today in less developed parts of the world. Since no one considered it an issue, no one questioned the particular hadiths either. Also there is no “centuries of scholarship” done specifically on Aishas age, it was a hadith that everyone ran with because there were no reason for ppl to doubt it. Islamic jurisprudence were about laws and ethics, not history. And whatever scholarly work has been done have pointed strongly to the idea Aisha was not 9. (Even tho ibn-kathir, in the 1300s, ran into timeline issues and has reported about how Aishas age dont match up, and the timeline that he compiled suggested aisha was in her late teens. So it is technically mot even true that no one had any issues before the west pointed it out)
I find it weird that everyone is getting so defensive here, quick to calling it apologia and bullshit. You are allowed to believe whatever you want about Islam (or christianity, or religion itself). But what I was just trying to point out in my original reply that not all muslims especially in the west and academia today, agree or accept the fact Aisha was 9. Again many still do. But it does not really help that the excuse is used by Islamophobes all around the world. Its the same as quoting the worse parts of Talmud and calling every jew a violent person. Even though most prolly never though abt it and might be conflicted if u tell this, or outright deny its supposed to be taken literally, or contextualize whatever. You can say that is all apologia, so whatever really ig, at the end people just believe whatever they want to believe, and hurling insults and accusing them of promoting child rape is unlikely to bring a change in their worldview.