Top Saudi Muslim Clerics Fight for the Right to Marry Children

         

ISIS Member wants to get married with 7-Year-Old Girl  kidnapped by ISIS

Muslim attempts at "reformation" continue to be limited to words not actions. A few days ago, efforts to set a minimum age for marriage in Saudi Arabia "received a blow after the Grand Mufti said there was nothing wrong with girls below 15 getting married."

Two years earlier, the justice ministry began pushing for setting a minimum age in the Arabian kingdom. According to Arabian News, "It submitted an integrated study on the negative psychological and social effects of underage marriages to religious scholars and requested a fatwa that sets a minimum age."

However, the ulema—the "religious scholar," the learned ones of Islamic law—responded by totally ignoring the request. Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority, its Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, shrugged the whole matter off by saying "There is currently no intention to discuss the issue." In other words, case closed.

Although the brief news report focuses on the age 15, going back to earlier reports when the justice ministry began bringing this issue up, one discovers that the issue at stake is full-blown pedophilia.

       

 Salih bin Fawzan   

Back in 2011, for example, Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia's highest religious council, issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married "even if they are in the cradle."     

The grand point of the Saudi fatwa, however, is not that girls as young as nine can be married, based on Muhammad's example, but rather that there is no age limit whatsoever. The only question open to consideration is whether the girl is physically capable of handling her "husband." Fawzan documented this point by quoting Ibn Battal's authoritative exegesis of Sahih Bukhari: 

The ulema [Islam's scholars and interpreters] have agreed that it is permissible for fathers to marry off their small daughters, even if they are in the cradle. But it is not permissible for their husbands to have sex with them unless they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men. And their capability in this regard varies based on their nature and capacity. Aisha was six when she married the prophet, but he had sex with her when she was nine [that is, when she was deemed capable].

Fawzan concluded his fatwa with a warning: "It behooves those who call for setting a minimum age for marriage to fear Allah and not contradict his Sharia, or try to legislate things Allah did not permit. For laws are Allah's province; and legislation is his exclusive right, to be shared by none other. And among these are the rules governing marriage."

     

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Fawzan, of course, is not the first to insist on the legitimacy of pedophilia in Islam. Nor is this just some theoretic, abstract point; the lives of countless young girls are devastated because of this teaching. Recall, for instance, the 8-year-old girl who died on her "wedding" night as her "husband" raped her; or the 12-year-old who died giving birth to a stillborn; or the 10-year-old who made headlines by hiding from her 80-year-old "husband."

Finally, it should be borne in mind that Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz—the highest Islamic authority in the land of Islam's birth—not only dismisses calls to place an age restriction for marriage, but is the same Grand Mufti who called for the destruction of all Christian churches on the Arabian Peninsula.