So in no way does that justify marrying a child. If you want to defend Mohammed, you're going to have to fall back on cultural/historical relativism, the distortion of texts, and turning a blind eye. And frankly, that's okay by me-it's your religion (or not) and I don't think that you need to believe everything literally, or agree with all of it. Plenty of stuff in the Bible is equally fucked up, trust.

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/idiocy.

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I question if it's a coincidence that Sunnis are known to be especially fond of the story of Aisha - and countries with high rates of child marriage like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia are majority Sunni nations.

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What I'm trying to say is this. As a Muslim woman struggling with my faith, my humanism, my feminism, my belief in justice and all such things, I get seriously creeped out when I have to consider that muhammed married a 6 or 9 year old CHILD. Seriously, this fucked with me when I started examining what it is I want from my life. You do some online research and alot of us who've left the faith cite this reason; Muhammad as a paedophile.

What I'm finding is that it may not be so very simple. Like I said, there is evidence that suggests a range of years wherein her marriage might have taken place. Some even say the common interpretation of 6 or 9 is down to a calligraphy error. I do believe though that the West has not done a good enough job of understanding Muhammad (the same can be said of Jesus), the man, not the prophet - He married a woman 15 years his senior, an independent merchant, someone who gave him status and a profession. And by all accounts it was a devoted and successful marriage. So. I think we need to not be so hasty in assuming what we know - frack's sake, I grew up in Islam and I still now very very little.

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I suppose my biggest issue is with the fact - truth aside - that she is widely *known* as his child bride. If I remember correctly, the older woman Mohammad married was the daughter of a powerful bazaar owner who conferred that power to Mohammad after the marriage. However most people primarily remember Mohammad's love for Alisha and credit it with really bringing out his compassionate side. It is upheld as a romance story, with his other and older wives largely forgotten. What I really take issue with is the romanticization of the "innocent child bride" symbol.

I guess what I'm saying is that I have less objection with what is actually written in the Koran and more objection to the warped stories and lessons people seem to pull from it. This goes for ANY religious text (believe me, if this was a post about LDS or the quiver-fulls or the Catholic church, my beef would be the very same!).

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But obviously not all jews, christians, and muslims are pro-killing of "heathens" (the definition of which is basically "anyone who isn't us"), pro-raping of enemy's daughters, pro-swimming in blood through the holy land, pro-giving away your daughters to the hordes to keep the angels safe (hello, Mr. Lot), pro-slaying your enemies with the sword of righteous justice or whatever it was that the crusaders said that jesus said. If you're a thinking-religious person, then you have to recognize that jesus, muhammad, the hebrew fathers, they are either symbols of their religion or fallible humans (...men, it must be pointed out) who sometimes fail. Either the specifics don't matter because they're symbols and so you use the good stuff, or they are men and the specifics don't matter because you can't expect a person to be perfect. And then you move on. And pick the good bits of the religion to listen to, and decide not to follow the absurd rules from 2000 years ago that have no place in this world.

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Trust me, I GET what you're saying re what whackadoos pull from the religion. I have no blinders on to the facts that religion is a tool of the status quo, and that the status quo is the patriarchy.

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And I always thought that the real romance, if that's the right word, was with Khadija. And that it said a lot about the respect and admiration that he had for women's potential and individuality, which can get lost today when this story above is the face of Islam to so many people in the West.

This from a super WASP-y atheist who was a religious studies major.

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I was once told by my friend, who is Pashtun, that Sunnis learn a lot more about the Aisha romance than the Khadija romance. It's amazing how two different sects of the same religion can take the same story in two different directions. I remember being really, really confused as a child as to why my friend said her minister had a wife, but I knew my priest wasn't allowed to get married :)

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@portia_sue: yeah, its that, the ability to not be afraid of a forceful, independent woman, in that context and time, that I am fascinated by. And then trying to square that with the possibility of him being into little girls. Idk, just doesn't gel on some level. Interpretation: its not just a plot device for a Nicole Kidman movie.

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I have beaten my head against a brick wall many many times when I ask my family the hated question: "Why?". This goes for religion and culture, which in my case are two somewhat different things. Most times the answer is 'er, i don't know...stop with the queries this is how we do things, OKAY', followed by a look as if to suggest that i'm in league with the devil and Dubya. ;)

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