Recordings › Age of Aisha (ra)- Mufti Abu Layth · 11 Jan 2017 › Segment 11 of 18
Why is Aisha's age only being questioned now, and is it just to appease the West?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith malik ibn anas malik bin anas imam maalik imam malik ibn anas al-bukhari imam bukhari sahih al-bukhari sahih bukhari saheeh al-bukhari saheeh bukhari imam al-bukhari imaam imams prayer leader sharia shariat sharee'ah qiyas qiyaas maqasid al-shariah maqasid al-sharia maqaasid maqasid ash-shariah aims of the law muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam haraam forbidden mubah mubaah iman imaan eemaan eeman koran quraan al-quran madinah medina al-madinah madeenah yathrib ulama ulema ulamaa fitnah fitna fitan strife nikah nikkah nikaah nikah nama nikahnama deen al-din ad-deen ad-dinWhy the age of Aisha is an issue now, and whether this appeases the West
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This segment1:17:16 to 1:27:41 · 10 min 25 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenThe age was treated as an issue historically through rulings against marrying girls incapable of marriage, and it is prominent now because Islam faces more scrutiny. Mufti Abu Layth rejects the report with certainty and calls the appeasement charge preposterous.
In more detail
The segment opens with Mufti Abu Layth's assessment of the works defending the Bukhari report, which he says rest on hadith absolutism and which he does not find compelling. He then takes a question on why the age is an issue now and whether questioning it appeases the West. He says he does not accept that it was never an issue, since dissent is often drowned out of the books, and that scholars did treat it as an issue by ruling against marrying a girl incapable of marriage. He calls the suggestion of appeasement preposterous, saying he personally rejects the report with certainty and sees it as a problem for Muslims first. He compares non-Muslim scrutiny to a car buyer looking for faults, says Islam's exposure to non-Muslims over the last one or two centuries made this an issue, and says al-Dawudi's [?] answer that girls then developed faster is ruled out by modern knowledge. He calls the reflex of accepting whatever is in Bukhari an insecure reaction and engaging the criticism a secure and consistent one, notes that Muslims dismiss even human-rights discourse that matches the maqasid of the shari'ah despite the hadith that wisdom is the believer's lost property, and says the view that the marriage did not happen as reported keeps the Prophet a role model and is in line with the Quran.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedWhy is this an issue now when historically the age was not disputed, and is this an attempt to appease the West?
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says he rejects the six-and-nine report with personal certainty and that doing so is a matter of consistency, not appeasement of the West.
“so I don't think this is a matter of sucking up I I believe this is a matter of consistency”
Category: method
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine1:17:16 to 1:27:41 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
refuting uh Dr uh Adan ibraim on on this point as well and referring to his hadithi mistakes so it's not so first of all quite a few things have been written on this are available maybe not not exhaustively but several of these I have taken a look at them read from them listen to them I do not find the argument uh as taken by people like Al uh compelling I do not find that convincing that they argue for the this R of bukari to be Supreme and the
underlying the underlying gist or the what this what their whole thing rests on is Hadith absolutism they're simply trying to state that because the Hadith isah inkari it should override any argument and that has been sufficiently answered uh in our uh section on Hadith relativism and people like Imam Malik in the school of Madina not accepting this argument and so and many other Scholars so um so these things are available you can refer to them if you if you want to expand your research on this
top that's a good question why is this an issue now um as in our recent time as in this recent Century uh the century before why wasn't this an issue before firstly I don't accept holistically completely that this was never an issue before okay uh based on two parts one that not everything that hasn't reached us means that it was not never an issue we see this in in other
topics as well so what happens at times unfortunately descent is drowned drowned out of the discourse and on many occasions out of the books as well until it's discovered at certain times by bringing certain Works in so I I don't believe that necessarily it was was not an issue and we definitely see this point through the fact that the scholars did argue this from a ramification perspective so okay this is an anecdote anecdotal kind of data if you like it's just in it's just descriptive how could this have any actionable value and so they said well
people might infer that you can have a sexual relationship with underage girls and so they did argue and I've answered that they said no you cannot and many of them beginning with and many many others saying it's Haram and and and and Imam Malik and other people making this condition of the girl being new while sexually capable of a relationship to have a relationship and so I do feel that they did uh find this an issue okay the other thing is that well is this being done to kind of appease the
West I think that's preposterous from that perspective if that question means that well in our heart of hearts we don't accept this we don't we actually believe what's in bukari so we believe that oh she was actually six and I'm only doing this to suck up to pretend to people in the west then that's not true I in my heart absolutely with certainty and this is at a personal level reject that re I do not believe it to be accurate I believe it to be wrong and I believe this to be impacting Muslims primarily and then non-muslims by extension you see
the fact that this may have not been an issue previously does not take away from the fact that it is an issue now so for whatever reason I mean there may have been multiple reasons that this was not an issue before but it is an issue now and when you say well non-muslims well of course non-muslims are going to criticize this of course they are this is like I mean what has been referred to as the the flying the M kind of analogy or what I like to call the the kind of car consumer scenario where a person who's going to buy a
car that person is looking for any blemish you could take a person on a a test trial test drive and all of a sudden he's saying well wait a minute what's that sound what's that Creek what's this scratch what's why is why is the tire like that then that sound you may have owned that car for 5 years and never paid attention to that sound so but that's because a person who's about to take something on or is looking at it they are looking for any kind of faults they want to see consistency they want
to see that it's worth the value that people are claiming so when people say Islam is a perfect religion now you see you've set the bar so high you're saying this is from God so people will now look for any kind of shortcoming they will say well ah well this doesn't sound very perfect to me you know you're saying well the prophet married a a six-year-old girl that's not very perfect is it so yes of course it's become a problem because Islam has become more and more exposed to
non-muslims over the last 100 200 years before that Islam was exposed it's not that there was no exposure but there wasn't this level of interaction now we know that obviously there were the whole colonialism and things like this took place and non-muslims began to study Muslim literature internally so yes people are finding problems but and there may be malicious and malign intent behind that but there may also be genuine intent people may say well you set the bar so high I didn't set it high you said this is perfect answer
this so now it has become an issue and Muslims must reflect so Muslims will think well let's evaluate well that's interesting because it happens to clash with so many other interpretations now people previously like you see daudi and other people they previously said oh well ah or maybe one answer was maybe anthropologically they were different oh they you know they uh people people say that they were so developed at Young ages we don't know any better but today we would know anthropology is much more developed today I mean our science of our
knowledge of of physiology of human development of things like this are much more certain today I mean much improved so we would know those things not to be accurate so I don't think this is a matter of sucking up I I believe this is a matter of consistency and the irony here is people this question are you doing this to suck up to the West as an are you being insecure that's actually very ironic because when these evidences are presented to these same people their reaction is very insecure that oh no uh
if the Hadith the proph if the prophet did it then it must have been correct and we don't want to accept anything from uh any critics and especially since this discourse has been popularized by the West we definitely don't want to accept it I would say that's an insecure reaction a secure confident reaction would be well okay let me see your criticism that's interesting because you're right that that is definitely uh something worth reflecting over that can this be true that you're saying well uh you know
if you are so confident in your faith if you are so secure rather than saying oh uh no no no I don't need I don't need your criticism I don't need your thing uh all I know is this said that the prophet did it if if it says the prophet did it if the prophet did it then the prophet is infallible and this is from God and therefore it's okay and some have gone to the extent oh therefore it must be permissible to act on that is a very insecure reaction and and I completely dismiss miss this this this kind of approach and saying well oh this is just to kind of suck up to people or it's this is actually a very I
feel a a very a consistent and a truly Islamic response in engaging the discussion in saying well okay let's take a look at this because I don't believe that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam ever did that and it's worth noticing that the Muslim sentiment in general in the Muslim world is very very dismissive of anything that comes from the West even if that complements Islam so when we take a look at things like human rights human rights in essence most human rights generally this whole discourse on human rights is actually very complimentary to Islamic teachings
the whole Mak of preservation of Life preservation of of of Reason preservation of progeny and of wealth and things like this is the of the Shar yet something that's speaking about preserving human welfare and human rights Muslims as soon as they hear this word in the Muslim World they the first thing they do is dismiss it because it's coming from the West even though the Hadith says that any word of wisdom is is the Lost Property of the believer wherever he finds it he's more deserving of it yet Muslims dismiss that
and that's positive how do you think they will react to criticism when it's criticizing Islam so they say no way on Earth I I don't I don't want to listen but the truth is well let's listen and you're right that that's that's a critical point because this means this means that the prophet sallallah alaihi wasallam is not a perfect role model for Muslims today or for human beings today in this part of the world because people find these actions unacceptable and even Muslims find these actions is unacceptable so Muslims today will not accept to marry
Paragraphs overlapping 1:17:16 to 1:27:41. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2017-01-11-S11, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/0ovisexs4ca/s/11/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2017, January 11). Why is Aisha's age only being questioned now, and is it just to appease the West? [Video, segment 2017-01-11-S11, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/0ovisexs4ca/s/11/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2017. "Why is Aisha's age only being questioned now, and is it just to appease the West?" Video, segment 2017-01-11-S11, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded January 11, 2017. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/0ovisexs4ca/s/11/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2017-01-11-S11, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Why is Aisha's age only being questioned now, and is it just to appease the West?}}, year = {2017}, month = {1}, date = {2017-01-11}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/0ovisexs4ca/s/11/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/0ovisexs4ca/s/11/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2017-01-11-S11, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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