[SerycegeBunny]

Islamic law does not sanction child marriage

this article is incorrect in many ways:

This doctrine, which also finds a mention in the Delhi HC ruling, is known as khiyar al-buloogh or, option of puberty. It is based on a report in Abu Dawood's hadess collection, wherein the Prophet is supposed to have given a minor girl the option to repudiate her marriage when she informed him that her father had married her off against her will

agreed. then he says:

Also, there is no mention of puberty in the report and hence, the Prophet could not have advised her to wait until puberty to exercise her right to divorce.
how is this conclusion drawn?only conclusion is the girl was married against her will. and minor does refer to 'lack of puberty'. so how does this report not mention puberty?
Further along,

Even if it is hypothetically assumed that bikran refers to a minor, the wordings of the Abu Dawood hadees clearly indicate that the Prophet had the marriage annulled immediately on knowing from the girl that her consent was not obtained

exactly. how does it refer to her age. even if a girl is not a minor the marriage can be annulled in a similar way. it has nothing to do with age but consent of the girl.
In a similar narrative mentioned in Sahih Bukhari, the Prophet annulled the marriage of Khansa'a bint-e-Khizaam when she complained to him that her father had forced her into a marriage which was not to her liking. The only inference that could be drawn from these reports is that child or forced marriage has no legal validity in Islam.

this shows marriage was annulled because it wasnt to her liking. not because she was minor. there is no mention of 'minor'. he is forcing conclusions down people's throat.
This conclusion is supported by another hadees, found in both Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, in which the Prophet is quoted as saying, “An ayyim (a widow or divorcee) shall not be married till she gives her consent, and nor a bikr (a virgin) be married till her consent is sought.”

again it is consent that is important. in both cases. he says above that bikr means a grown up virgin and not a minor. so how does he conclude it means minor here and also the hadith somehow refers to prohibition of this 'minor' marriage?

Child marriage in Islam is also justified on the basis of a hadees which claims that the Prophet married Hazrat Aisha when she was just six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. The authenticity of this report is doubtful for several reasons. First, the Prophet could not have gone against the Koran to marry a physically and intellectually immature child

phsycially and intelelctually immature now was not so back in 19th century. even now there are girls in parts of the world who attain puberty at this age and they are not a rarity. you just think the women of the world are represented by who you see in your university and on tv.

Second, the age of Hazrat Aisha can be easily calculated from the age of her sister Hazrat Asma who was 10 years older than Hazrat Aisha. The author of the hadees collection. Mishkath, in his biography of narrators (Asma ur Rijal), writes that Hazrat Asma died in the year 73 Hijri at the age of 100, 10 or 12 days after the martyrdom of her son, Abdullah ibn Zubair. It is common knowledge that the Islamic calendar starts from the year of the Hijrah or the Prophet's migration from Mecca to Medina.

what evidence is there of the difference between the sister's ages?
what evidence she died in 73 AH at age of 100?

it is evidence from books of ahadtih isnt it?
yet the same books give her age to be 9 as he mentions.

and that is a sahih hadith. ironically no scholar before the modernists started to seek acceptability from the west, realized this 'grave error' in judgement on their side?

even so if you reject some sahih hadiths why do you believe in the others from mishkat telling about the age of the older sister?

it is not based upon academic study of ahadith. he are accepting and rejecting ahadith according to what he likes. and he should provide exact hadith number for mishkat where he quotes from.
again, 1000 years of scholarship missed this and modernists 'realized' this when they wished they would be more acceptable to the west.
The foregoing scriptural evidence shows that there exists a strong case to delegitimise child marriages and fix 18 as the age of marriage for Muslim girls, thereby bringing Muslim personal law in conformity with the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet. This would prevent right-wing parties from exploiting controversial court judgments to time and again threaten the Muslims with a Uniform Civil Code.

proof of what i just said.
try and give dawah to right wing parties instead. does wonders.
however if one continues to appease islamophobes know that they will not rest unless islam conforms completely to their secular way of thinking and their whims and desires. this cycle will never end.

Yet traditions are cited by the jurists to justify child marriage as if to suggest the Prophet allowed what the Koran clearly did not encourage. For instance, Sunni law, without any Koranic or Prophetic basis, empowers the father, granting him the status of wali (guardian), to impose marriage on his minor children in their “best interests.”


without Qur'anic or Prophetic basis. and what about the first three generations of Islam that are unanimously agreed to be daleel?
the author seems to have no idea how any fiqh ruling is derived. even more so since later iin the article he himself gave evidence that he does not understand hadith one bit.

Mulla's Principles of Mohammedan Law
clear bias and hatred towards scholars. whenever you see such words know immediately whatever the person will say afterwards will be nothing but an attack on islam.