Quran 65:4 – Islam is not relevant in the 21st century

Islam is not relevant in the 21st century because it does not know what is worse, adultery or child rape. Islam shows that adultery, which is consensual sex, must be punished, but the rape of a child is acceptable because the “Prophet” Muhammad did it. These terrible injustices are worthy of a false religion contrived in medieval times, but not worthy of a modern religion for modern times.

girl wearing blue hijab — Photo by Binti Malu on Pexels.com

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The Fundamentalist Muslim opinion of Adultery

Osama bin Laden would represent most Fundamentalist Muslims’ views on adultery. This is what he says in his Letter to America about the Lewinsky scandal:

Who can forget your President Clinton’s immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he ‘made a mistake’, after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver (2012/09/05)]

Bin Laden’s disgust at President Clinton’s adultery in the Lewinsky scandal is obvious, but like most Muslims, I expect he is not the least bothered by his prophet’s behaviour in the Aisha Scandal.

The Lewinsky scandal

At the time of the Lewinsky scandal President Bill Clinton was a 49 year old married man:

The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerging from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a then 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewinsky_scandal (2012/10/04)]

The Aisha scandal

The Aisha scandal started when at 52 years of age Muhammad had sex with Aisha when she was only nine years old:

Narrated by ‘Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
[Sahih Bukhari 7:62:64]

Another account says:

Narrated Hisham’s father: Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married ‘Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed that marriage when she was nine years old.
[Sahih Bukhari 5:58:236]

These accounts are anecdotes about Muhammad (called hadith by Muslims) and come from Bukhari’s hadith collection. Bukhari and Muslim were collectors of hadith and their collections of hadith are considered to be the most reliable by Fundamentalist Sunni Muslims:

…Bukhari and Muslim in particular, claimed that they were collecting only the soundest of sound hadiths. These later scholars tested their claims and agreed to them, so that today, they are considered the most reliable collections of hadith.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith (2012/10/04)]

Here are two more hadith about the Aisha scandal from Muslim’s collection:

‘A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house at the age of nine. She further said: We went to Medina and I had an attack of fever for a month, and my hair had come down to the earlobes. Umm Ruman (my mother) came to me and I was at that time on a swing along with my playmates. She called me loudly and I went to her and I did not know what she had wanted of me. She took hold of my hand and took me to the door, and I was saying: Ha, ha (as if I was gasping), until the agitation of my heart was over. She took me to a house, where had gathered the women of the Ansar. They all blessed me and wished me good luck and said: May you have share in good. She (my mother) entrusted me to them. They washed my head and embellished me and nothing frightened me. Allah’s Messenger (,may peace be upon him) came there in the morning, and I was entrusted to him.
[Sahih Muslim 8:3309]

And:

‘A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old.
[Sahih Muslim 8:3311]

The treatment of Aisha by Muhammad, in 7th century Arabia, is usually considered to be acceptable by Fundamentalist Muslims, but if this happened to a European or American girl today it would be a scandal.

Modernist Muslims don’t believe that their prophet could have done this. They either:

Deny this happened
Believe Aisha was older at consummation
Believe the hadith is a forgery
Claim that Aisha must have been sexually mature at nine years old
Claim that the culture at the time allowed it, but it is not acceptable now

What does the law say?

So, what does Western and Islamic law say about these scandals?

Fundamentalist Muslims believe that Sharia (Allah’s law) are the laws that can be found in the Quran and the Hadith. The Quran is the holy book of Islam, and the actual words of Allah (according to Muslims). The Hadith are the collections of anecdotes about Muhammad (the Messenger). The reason why hadith were collected was because the Quran says obey Muhammad:

So obey Allah, and obey His Messenger: but if ye turn back, the duty of Our Messenger is but to proclaim (the Message) clearly and openly.
[Quran 64:12]

And whatsoever the messenger giveth you, take it. And whatsoever he forbiddeth, abstain (from it). And keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is stern in reprisal.
[Quran 59:7]

He who obeys the Messenger, obeys Allah
[Quran 4:80]

Allah also says Muhammad is the example for Muslims to follow.

Verily in the messenger of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh unto Allah and the Last Day, and remembereth Allah much.
[Quran 33:21]

So whatever Muhammad did became law. If he married a six year old girl and had sex with her when she was nine then that is acceptable to Fundamentalist Muslims because it is part of Sharia (Allah’s law).

Men having sex with nine year old girls is absolutely not acceptable in the modern West. In the West, what Muhammad did to Aisha is called statutory rape:

The phrase statutory rape is a term used in some legal jurisdictions to describe sexual activities where one participant is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior. Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sex with minors under the age of consent, it is a generic term, and very few jurisdictions use the actual term “statutory rape” in the language of statutes. Different jurisdictions use many different statutory terms for the crime, such as “sexual assault,” “rape of a child,” “corruption of a minor,” “carnal knowledge of a minor,” “unlawful carnal knowledge”, or simply “carnal knowledge.” Statutory rape differs from forcible rape in that overt force or threat need not be present. The laws presume coercion, because a minor or mentally challenged adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act.
The term statutory rape generally refers to sex between an adult and a sexually mature minor past the age of puberty. Sexual relations with a prepubescent child, generically called “child molestation,” is typically treated as a more serious crime.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_rape (2012/09/05)]

At the age of nine Aisha was below any reasonable age of consent, and her rape could have been the more serious crime of child molestation.

Comparisons

What do we learn if we compare these scandal’s and how the West and how Fundamentalist Islam would deal with them?

The essential facts of these scandals are:

The Lewinsky scandal is about a 49 year old married man having consensual sex with a 22 year old unmarried woman.
The Aisha scandal is about a 52 year old man having sex with his 9 year old wife who, by 21st century Western standards, was below any reasonable age of consent.

The verdicts of Fundamentalist Muslims on these two scandals would be:

Lewinsky scandal – The married man should be stoned to death, and the unmarried woman should receive 100 lashes.
Aisha scandal – The man has no case to answer because the noble Muhammad did exactly this.

However, most Westerner’s verdicts would be:

Lewinsky scandal – Adultery is not illegal in (most of) the West. Adultery is usually viewed as a personal matter between the people involved.
Aisha scandal – Even if the child was sexually mature a man having sex with a 9 year old child is one of the most serious crimes there is!

Muslims claim that Islam is still relevant in the 21st century, but:

If Muslims say: “Muhammad waited until Aisha was sexually mature before he had sex with her”, then most 21st century Westerners would say that at nine years old she was below any reasonable age to give consent, and it must be statutory rape.
If Muslims say: “You can’t judge Muhammad’s actions by today’s standards”, then they are admitting that Sharia, a fundamental part of Islam, is not relevant in the 21st century.
If Muslims say: “Allah allowed it so it must be OK”, then most 21st century Westerners would be opposed to a religion that allowed this type of injustice to happen.

The Aisha Scandal shows why Sharia, the 7th century laws of Islam, is not relevant in the 21st century.

Sharia is confused, it does not know which is worse: adulterers having consensual sex, or the rape of a child.

Muslim sanatisation

Modernist Muslims squirm on the hook of Aisha’s age when she first had sex with Muhammad.

There seems to be a public relations exercise by Modernist Muslims to improve the image of Islam in the West, and part of the PR is to raise Aisha’s age of first sexual intercourse with Muhammad.

Despite the many hadith that categorically say that Muhammad had sex with Aisha when she was nine Modernist Muslims do not believe it, and concoct a story pieced together from different hadith that appear to show that she was 19 or over.

They may be correct and Aisha was nineteen when she first had sex with Muhammad. However, if they prove she was older than nine, then they prove the soundest of the sound hadith are unreliable, and this has profound consequences because hadith are one of the foundations of Sharia (Allah’s law). [Read more]

Of course, if Allah really can do anything, as the Muslims say, then Allah could have predicted this confusion and have clearly shown in the Quran what the earliest age a girl could marry. However, all the confusion in the Quran is evidence that it was Muhammad who wrote it. [Read more]

Child marriage

For Fundamentalist Muslims the Quran appears to condone men having sex with their child wives, as can be inferred from this verse which gives waiting periods (iddah) for divorced women before they can be remarried and have sex again so the true fathers of children can be known:

And (as for) those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, if you have a doubt, their prescribed time shall be three months, and of those too who have not had their courses; and (as for) the pregnant women, their prescribed time is that they lay down their burden; and whoever is careful of (his duty to) Allah He will make easy for him his affair.
[Quran 65:4]

This is the definition of Iddah:

In Islam, iddah or iddat (… period of waiting) is the period a woman must observe after the death of her spouse or after a divorce, during which she may not marry another man. Its purpose is to ensure that the male parent of any offspring produced after the cessation of a nikah (marriage) would be known. The length of iddah varies according to a number of circumstances.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iddah (2015/04/18)]

Here is how the Fundamentalist Muslims interprete verse 65:4 of the Quran:

The following is a summary of the main directives entailed in this verses:

The waiting period of a woman after menopause (no longer having her menstrual cycle) is three months; The waiting period of a girl who has not had her menstrual cycle is three months;
The waiting period for a pregnant woman is until after they deliver the child.

Rulings from Islamic scholars (fatwas): –

The waiting period (idda) for a female who does not experience menstruation due to childhood (saghira),
who is on menopause (a’yisa) and who has reached the age of puberty (baliga) without experiencing menstruation, will be three consecutive Islamic months. (Hanafi scholar, Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam, Darul Iftaa, Leicester, UK)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iddah (2015/04/18)]

The Islamic scholars include girls (children) who are too young to have had a period in their interpretation of this verse. This shows that Fundamentalist Muslims believe that Allah allows child marriage.

It is difficult for Fundamentalist Muslims to see that child marriage is wrong when they believe Allah allows it and their prophet did it. This is not a cultural problem, this is a problem with Islam.

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Quran 2:223 & 65:4 – Islam’s laws that endorse rape [Read more]

Countering Islamism

Investigating, questioning, and challenging Islam

Quran 65:4 – Islam is not relevant in the 21st century

The Fundamentalist Muslim opinion of Adultery

The Lewinsky scandal

The Aisha scandal

What does the law say?

Comparisons

Muslim sanatisation

Child marriage

Next article >>

See also

The Fundamentalist Muslim opinion of Adultery

The Lewinsky scandal

The Aisha scandal

What does the law say?

Comparisons

Muslim sanatisation

Child marriage

Next article >>

See also

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