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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Are you Muslim? Your information is incorrect. If you doubt my information, I encourage you to sit down with an Imam and ask him your questions. Its terribly irresponsible of you to keep publishing false information about our beloved Prophet. Read books written by Karen Armstrong, an author who wrote correctly about Islam even though she herself never converted to Islam. I don't know if your purpose is to exploit information or if you are simply misinformed.

Aisha was engaged earlier but the marriage was not consummated until age 14. Engagements at this age was perfectly normal in 600 AD.

If people can accept and even deem holy an out of wedlock birth, which in Mary's time was disgraceful and quite scandalous, surely they can accept that girls in 600 AD were married at age 14. [/quote]

Notice that anon hasn’t offered a single quotation from any Muslim source claiming that Aisha was a teenager when Muhammad first had sex with her. Why not? Because there are no such sources. The problem with anon's selective and carefully edited defense (other than the complete lack of references) is that it ignores the numerous accounts we possess which record Aisha’s age when her marriage was consummated. Many of these accounts are from Aisha herself. Indeed, the evidence for Muhammad’s marriage to the young Aisha is as strong as the evidence for just about any other fact in Islam. We have copious traditions from Islam’s most trusted historical sources reporting Muhammad’s marriage proposal when Aisha was six or seven years old, as well as his consummation of that marriage when she was nine:

Sahih al-Bukhari 3896—Narrated Hisham’s father: Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Al-Madina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he wrote the marriage (wedding) contract with Aishah when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated that marriage when she was nine years old.

Sahih al-Bukhari 5158—Narrated Urwa: 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).

Sahih Muslim 3310—Aisha reported: Allah’s Apostle married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.

Sahih Muslim 3311—Aisha reported that Allah’s Apostle married her when she was seven years old, and she 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.

Sunan Abu Dawud 2116—Aishah said: The Apostle of Allah married me when I was seven years old. (The narrator Sulaiman said: Or six years.) He had intercourse with me when I was nine years old.

This is just a sample of the early Muslim traditions reporting Muhammad’s marriage to the young Aisha, but it is sufficient to show that she certainly wasn’t fifteen years old at the time of the consummation, as some Muslims claim.

(For a fuller treatment of the early evidence regarding Muhammad’s marriage to the young Aisha, click here.)

In addition to traditions concerning Aisha’s age, various ahadith also provide details about how the relationship began and progressed:

Sahih al-Bukhari 3895—Narrated Aishah that the Prophet said to her, “You have been shown to me twice in my dream. I saw you pictured on a piece of silk and someone said (to me), ‘This is your wife.’ When I uncovered the picture, I saw that it was yours. I said, ‘If this is from Allah it will be accomplished.’”

After having this dream about Aisha (who couldn’t have been more than six years old at the time), Muhammad proceeded to ask her father Abu Bakr for her hand in marriage. Abu Bakr understandably objected at first, but Muhammad was able to persuade him to consent.

Sahih al-Bukhari 5081—Narrated Urwa: The Prophet asked Abu Bakr for Aishah’s hand in marriage. Abu Bakr said, “But I am your brother.” The Prophet said, “You are my brother in Allah’s religion and His Book, but she (Aishah) is lawful for me to marry.”

The marriage contract was subsequently written. However, Aisha became extremely ill, so she wasn’t taken to his house for consummation until three years later:

Sahih al-Bukhari 3894—Narrated Aishah: My marriage (wedding) contract with the Prophet was written when I was a girl of six (years). We came to Al-Madina and we dismounted at the place of Bani Al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on, my hair grew (again) and my mother, Umm 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 normal, 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 good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Messenger 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.

Once Aisha was a part of Muhammad’s household, she became his favorite wife, even after he had married several other women. Indeed, Muhammad’s other wives had to plead with him for equal treatment (to no avail):

Sahih al-Bukhari 2581—Narrated Urwa that Aishah said: “The wives of Allah’s Messenger were in two groups.” Urwa added: One group consisted of Aishah, Hafsa, Safiyya and Sauda; and the other group consisted of Umm Salama and the other wives of Allah’s Messenger. The Muslims knew that Allah’s Messenger loved Aishah, so if any of them had a gift and wished to give to Allah’s Messenger, he would delay it till Allah’s Messenger had come to Aishah’s home and then he would send his gift to Allah’s Messenger in her home. The group of Umm Salama discussed the matter together and decided that Umm Salama should request Allah’s Messenger to tell the people to send their gifts to him in whatever wife’s house he was. Umm Salama told Allah’s Messenger of what they had said, but he did not reply. Then they (those wives) asked Umm Salama about it. She said, “He did not say anything to me.” They asked her to talk to him again. She talked to him again when she met him on her day, but he gave no reply. When they asked her, she replied that he had given no reply. They said to her, “Talk to him till he gives you a reply.” When it was her turn, she talked to him again. He then said to her, “Do not hurt me regarding Aishah, as the Divine Revelations do not come to me on any of the beds except that of Aishah.”

[b]Thus, Aisha held a place of special favor among Muhammad’s wives, which caused a great deal of tension among the women.[/b] Since it may be taken as historically certain that Aisha was very young when her marriage to Muhammad was consummated, critics sometimes charge that Muhammad’s preference for Aisha reveals his preference for young girls. We find some amount of support for this view in Sahih al-Bukhari:

Sahih al-Bukhari 2967—Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah: . . . When I took the permission of Allah’s Messenger, he asked me whether I had married a virgin or a matron and I replied that I had married a matron. He said, “Why hadn’t you married a virgin who would have played with you, and you would have played with her?” I replied, “O Allah’s Messenger! My father died (or was martyred) and I have some young sisters, so I felt it not proper that I should marry a young girl like them who would neither teach them manners nor serve them.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 6130—Narrated Aishah: I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah’s Messenger used to enter (my dwelling place), they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for Aishah at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.)

Nevertheless, it must be noted that, if Muhammad had truly been obsessed with young girls, he could have taken many others as his wives. Muhammad eventually held complete power in Medina and later in Mecca, yet he didn’t build himself a harem of young girls. Since there isn’t enough evidence to support the charge that Muhammad had a perverted obsession with prepubescent girls, critics should be careful when making such a claim.

To sum up, the evidence makes it abundantly clear (1) that Muhammad had sexual intercourse with Aisha when she was very young, (2) that this relationship was pursued by Muhammad after he had dreamed about her, and (3) that she was his favorite wife. [i][b]With so much historical data concerning the age of Aisha, it should be obvious that Muslims who deny her young age do so out of embarrassment[/b][/i][/quote]

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