Islam and Child Marriage

Child marriage has touched millions of girls in societies where the Qur’an is absolute truth and Muhammad is the model for all human behavior. More than half of the teenage girls in Afghanistan and Bangladesh are married.

Ayatollah Khomeini told the Muslim faithful that marrying a girl before she began menstruating was “a divine blessing.” He counseled fathers: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.”

Iranian girls can get married when they are as young as nine with parental permission, or thirteen without consent. With child marriage comes domestic violence: “In Egypt 29% of married adolescents have been beaten by their husbands; of those, 41% were beaten during pregnancy. A study in Jordan indicated that 26% of reported cases of domestic violence were committed against wives under 18.”

When Muhammad already had nine wives and numerous concubines, Allah gave him special permission to have as many women as he desired. According to a hadith reported by Bukhari, the Prophet of Islam “married Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consummated the marriage when Aisha was nine years old. At the time Muhammad was in his early fifties. A Muslim historian quoted Aisha thusly: “The Messenger of God married me when I was seven; my marriage was consummated when I was nine.”

An 8-year-old Saudi girl has divorced her middle-aged husband after her father forced her to marry him last year in exchange for about $13,350. Saudi Arabia has come under increasing criticism at home and abroad for permitting child marriages. The United States, a close ally of the conservative Muslim kingdom, has called child marriage a "clear and unacceptable" violation of human rights. The girl was allowed to divorce the 50-year-old man after an out-of-court settlement had been reached in the case.

A court in the central Oneiza region previously rejected a request by the girl's mother for a divorce and ruled that the girl would have to wait until she reached puberty to file a petition then.

There are no laws in Saudi Arabia defining the minimum age for marriage. Though a woman's consent is legally required, some marriage officials don't seek it. Some fathers trade their daughters because they need money.

The 8-year-old girl's marriage was not the only one in the kingdom to receive attention in recent months. Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or young boys including a 15-year-old girl whose father, a death-row inmate, married her off to a cell mate.

Saudi Arabia's conservative Muslim clergy have opposed the drive to end child marriages. In January, the kingdom's most senior cleric said it was permissible for 10-year-old girls to marry and those who believe they are too young are doing the girls an injustice.

There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia each year. Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty marriage gifts or as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.

The sad story above points to the inferior status women play in Islam. Let’s look at some facts:
Women are inferior to men, and must be ruled by them; “Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other.” (Qur’an 4:34)

A woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man: “Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her” (2.282)

Men can marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: “If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with them, then only one, or a captive that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you form doing injustice” (4:3)

It rules that a son’s inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: “Allah thus directs you as regards your children’s inheritance: to the male, a portion equal to that of two females” (4:11)

It tells husbands to beat their disobedient wives: “Good women are obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them” (4:34) Aisha, the most beloved of Muhammad’s many wives, admonished women in no uncertain terms: “O womenfolk, if you knew the rights that your husbands have over you, every one of you would wipe the dust from her husband’s feet with her face.”

The Qur’an takes child marriage for granted in its directives. Discussing the waiting period required in order to determine if the woman is pregnant, it says: “If you are in doubt concerning those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months. The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (Qur’an 65:4)

The Qur’an and Islamic law treat women as mere possessions of men.

Islam allows virtual imprisonment of women in their homes. I witnessed this first hand in Iraq with a Moroccan man and his girlfriend. When he went to work he locked her in their trailer.

Shi’ite Islam allows “temporary marriage” This is a provision for men to gain female companionship on a short-term basis. The couple signs a marriage agreement that is ordinary in every respect except that it carries a time limit. One tradition of Muhammad stipulates that a temporary marriage “should last for three nights, and if they like to continue, they can do so, and if they want to separate, they can do so.”