# Doesn't Aisha's marriage age justify child marriage?

*Defending Aisha's marriage by comparing the Prophet to medieval kings*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/s/19/
- Date: 2020-08-24 · Kind: question · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Monday Nights with Mufti #179 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth (1:10:44–1:17:12)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWmtt2TQAO0&t=4244s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/

**Topics:** The age of Aisha; Dawah and debate culture

**Question as asked:** What about paedophilia: do we normalise that too?

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Paedophilia is unacceptable; he says defending the Prophet by comparing him to kings who married children is no defence and, in his view, blasphemous.

## Longer summary

Asked in chat whether paedophilia will be normalised too, Mufti Abu Layth says it is absolutely unacceptable, and plays a clip in which a speaker defends the Prophet's marriage to Aisha at six by citing St Augustine, Richard II and Henry VIII marrying young girls. Mufti calls this a dumb attempt to save face and says he personally finds comparing the Prophet to these kings blasphemous and an insult to the Prophet's honour, since nobody claims Henry VIII was a prophet or infallible. He says an Islamophobe does not care what an English king did, and that Muslims are stuck in an in-house debating game of quoting an opponent's own imam, such as a Maliki scholar against him or Ibn Taymiyya against Salafis, which does not work in the real world. He ends by saying that the Prophet did not marry Aisha at such a young age.

## Sources and names cited

- Aisha
- report: the prophet married aisha at six and consummated the marriage at nine
- St Augustine
- Richard II
- Henry VIII
- Ibn Taymiyya
- Maliki

## Transcript (machine tier, 1:10:44–1:17:12)

[1:10:07] that subconsciously reminds them of something within them this is often like jungian analysis and psychoanalysis and other things often will speak of this this is nothing new really and people will project and then chastise that demon so something i hate i may project it on to somebody else who has it or see amplify it and then it's not that i'm projecting the thing because in this case the other person is already gay he's not projecting the homosexuality on them but what he's doing

[1:10:44] is he's chastising his own demons vicariously virtually okay ah right so so what is going on people what about pedophilia we normalize that too well i hope we don't um that that is just absolutely utterly unacceptable and discussed in that i've got a clip here actually uh a discussion if i

[1:11:23] can see it ask did prophet muhammad beast upon him marry a child was this a normal practice 1400 years ago what was the wisdom behind it according to authentic sources prophet muhammad peace be upon him married when she was six years old and the man i would like you to take a look at this however it is important to understand things in their historical context for instance it would be silly to ask what kind of milk did they drink 1400 years ago or to ask what kind of engine they used to have back then therefore one must understand that things 1400 years ago were very different from now time have changed and so human have fourteen hundred years ago it

[1:12:02] was very common for women to marry at a young age it is a historical fact that girls from ages 9 to 14 were married off in europe asia africa and america for example sam augustine 350 a.d he married a 10 year old king richard ii 1400 a.d he married a seven-year-old henry viii 1500 a.d he married at six years old right so as you can see they're saying king richard ii king henry viii and blah blah blah right what is utterly absurd and so

[1:12:40] ridiculously stupid about this is people thinking they are doing islam a favor by saying well do you know king richard ii did this do you know king henry viii did this well he chopped the heads off so many of his wives or whatever right why on earth it is blasphemous i feel as a muslim to be comparing the prophet to king henry viii or king richard ii or whoever it is why are you comparing

[1:13:20] these people why are you to the prophet and that makes it okay just because king henry viii did it who the hell is king henry viii just because king richard ii did it the this you know what is so dumb i'll tell you this is so stupid and it gets on my nerves they think this is some kind of a legitimate argument like i'm going to get into a debate with an islamophobe and he's going to say oh oh your prophet was a pedophile because you're saying and i'm going to say

[1:13:58] well actually king richard ii and king henry viii they'll be like i don't give a rat you know they'll be like i don't give a damn about king henry viii they'll be like well he was a pedophile as well the point is they don't care this is not your you see this is where muslims are so dumb sometimes in they're so used to muslim bulimics so in muslim debates the way they win a debate is they uh what they'll do is they'll try to quote

[1:14:37] a an opinion of that imam so somebody trying to debate me is going to try which they do all the time ah but a maliki scholar said oh you're stuck now because you're maliki this is a maliki scholar so imagine i'm saying something i'm maliki i followed the maliki school the school of medina they're going to say oh but you know let's catch him out imam malik said this ha caught you out caught you up so when people are debating salafis they will say sometimes oh even a tamiya said this hahahaha caught you out caught you out now you can't come back so the muslims get so lost in this dumb

[1:15:15] bubble they think the world operates like that okay okay news flash nobody gives a damn about your stupid bulimics because in the real world nobody plays that game okay that's just you and your two loser uh muslim friends in a corner sitting there just playing this stupid game of how to debate that's not how it works in the real world okay here by you trying to say ahahahaha but you're english so there was a person in english history who did this ha

[1:15:54] and they're thinking you want me like sorry are you drunk like i don't give a damn if somebody 300 years ago in england did this it's wrong they're not bound by these stupid little by rules that you guys have made these in-house rules so first of all this is the dumbest most stupid attempt to ever save face for the prophet by trying to compare him to richard ii and king henry viii right that is as far i personally find it blasphemous and an insult and an affront to the honor of the prophet

[1:16:34] sallallahu alaihi sallam that you're trying to redeem him by trying to say oh but look at king henry viii because nothing to do with king henry the eighth okay and nobody claims king henry viii was a prophet from god and people that may admire let's say rich king richard ii they don't say he was a prophet from god they don't say he was infallible they don't say oh he couldn't make mistake you know whether they murdered people people will just say yeah okay they murdered people and so i just want to get that out the way the other thing is the prophet did not marry isis at such a young age

[1:17:11] you need to get off your stupid horse whatever it is that you're so caught up on just because your sectarian scholars won't from their position right you need to think for yourself see the evidence and realize that look it's true this hadith is fabricated it's been fabricated by hisham all the people that transmit it are iraqi all the people that are transmitting this hadith at a lower level where the people from the books of the books get it from

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment KWmtt2TQAO0/s/19. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/s/19/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.