ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[Kadagar_AV]

It only says that he married her, not that they had intercourse when she was nine. I believe it is forbidden to have sex before someone is sexually mature. Not sure though, Hax probably knows.

You are wrong.

IIRC she was 6 when she started to practise to have sex (rub herself against him I guess) and 9 when the penetrational sex happened.



Also, that argument STILL doesn't quite explain why God wouldn't just tell him it's preferable to have sex with people in a position to say no.

For the third time, yes it was common practise back then. However, God REALLY has shaky morals if he bothers telling people what to eat, drink, wear, think and do... But not a word about it possibly being unseemly to rape or have sex with children.

[Rhyfelwyr]

For goodness' sake, are people really going to try and excuse the rape of a 9 year old girl just on the basis that lots of people were doing it?

I'm surprised people are taking their moral relativism this far. There is no way it would ever be OK to sexually abuse a 9 year old. It is unnatural and perverse to have any sort of attraction to a child of that age. It will always be abusive to the girl whatever point in history it happens at.

I think the whole world has gone mad.

[Greyblades]

For goodness' sake, are people really going to try and excuse the rape of a 9 year old girl just on the basis that lots of people were doing it?

I'm surprised people are taking their moral relativism this far. There is no way it would ever be OK to sexually abuse a 9 year old. It is unnatural and perverse to have any sort of attraction to a child of that age. It will always be abusive to the girl whatever point in history it happens at.

I think the whole world has gone mad.

As has been said, it was a political marriage not one based on attraction, and muhammed had a precident of marrying older women: his first being 40 when he was 25, his second being 55 etc. It's reasonable to assume he wasnt attracted to the 9 year old and merely gritted his teeth, as for whether or not he should be blamed for doing so: it is hard to judge someone for doing something everyone in his time period+region had been raised to consider it ok. It's hard to blame a person for not knowing and abiding to the sexual morality of the 21st century when he was born in the 6th.

[Kadagar_AV]

As has been said, it was a political marriage not one based on attraction, and muhammed had a precident of marrying older women: his first being 40 when he was 25, his second being 55 etc. It's reasonable to assume he wasnt attracted to the 9 year old and merely gritted his teeth, as for whether or not he should be blamed for doing so: it is hard to judge someone for doing something everyone in his time period+region had been raised to consider it ok. It's hard to blame a person for not knowing and abiding to the sexual morality of the 21st century when he was born in the 6th.

Bolded A: Why is it reasonable? If he played naked games with 6 year olds already, and full on penetrated 9 year olds... What says he didn't quite enjoy it?

You seriously swear him free of the act because it's possible, just possible, that he REALLY didn't like it but felt forced into it (specially being some sort of damned King with enough power to create a damn world religion... Yeah, he CLEARLY is a victim here, not a thing he could have done to avoid it).

That's from the purely secular perspective.



Bolded B) The religious perspective is where it gets REALLY interesting to me. I have already explained my view on this some posts up, but yeah, Allah is either made up, or an absolute ****hole if he seriously don't consider pedophilia to be worth a clause in the Quaran, no?

How can anyone SERIOUSLY defend this...

Sure PEOPLE at the time might have done whatever weird things... But surely an almighty god would know just a little bit better, and be able to communicate it? He sure seems to have been able to communicate a WHOLE lot of other things very clearly.

"Don't have sex with someone not in a position to say no" is IMHO setting the moral bar so low, that it should be a damn cornerstone in each and every religion worth a ****.

[Rhyfelwyr]

As has been said, it was a political marriage not one based on attraction, and muhammed had a precident of marrying older women: his first being 40 when he was 25, his second being 55 etc. It's reasonable to assume he wasnt attracted to the 9 year old and merely gritted his teeth, as for whether or not he should be blamed for doing so: it is hard to judge someone for doing something everyone in his time period+region had been raised to consider it ok. It's hard to blame a person for not knowing and abiding to the sexual morality of the 21st century when he was born in the 6th.

For hundreds of years before Muhammad's time most of the civilized world set the marriagable age at 12 (including Romans and the Catholic Church). The idea of not sexually abusing children isn't some 21st century innovation. Plus, if Muhammad wasn't attracted to her then why would he consummate the marriage? It may have been normal within the culture of exploitation that Muhammad lived in, but the systematic nature of the abuse in society doesn't change the fact that individual abusers are still responsible for their actions. And whatever Muhammad's culture may have taught, the fact is that to commit the act, he had to overcome all those natural human urges to protect children and to respect the principle of consent, and he also must have fostered some sort of unnatural sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent body.

Its disgusting and against nature whatever century it happened in.

[Greyblades]

I'm going to ignore kadagar because 3600 posts has persuaded me that nothing I can say can ever peirce that thick skull.

For hundreds of years before Muhammad's time most of the civilized world set the marriagable age at 12 (including Romans and the Catholic Church).

Of which mohammed had little contact with before marrying said 9 year old.

The idea of not sexually abusing children isn't some 21st century innovation.

No, but a widespread idea of having an age of consent above 13 is less than 200 years old.

Plus, if Muhammad wasn't attracted to her then why would he consummate the marriage?

Because pre modern marriages werent considered official until consumation, and mohammed was marrying her to gain the loyalty of her father, the man who among other things would become his sucessor in ruling the islamic empire.

It may have been normal within the culture of exploitation that Muhammad lived in, but the systematic nature of the abuse in society doesn't change the fact that individual abusers are still responsible for their actions.

Hypothetical: In 1400 years mankind will have all but completely abolished the consumption of meat, that small population that continue the practice do so underground and are considered disgusting and against nature by 99% of humanity. Now, is it fair for the humans of 3400AD to condemn all the hundreds of thousands of people who were born and raised to consider meat eating to demonising, regardless of thier accomplisments just because what was considered innocuous at the time was reevaluated as evil millenia later?

And please dont insult our intelligence by saying meat eating is natural and paedophillia is not, both happen all over the animal kingdom.
Regardless of any disneyesque preconceptions nature can be equally disgusting at times as mankind; the only difference is that mankind is universally able and expected to restrain itself (save for the severely mentally ill), but humans will only restrain themselves if they know they should, and they are primarily taught to do so by family and society, which mohammed almost certainly was not.

And whatever Muhammad's culture may have taught, the fact is that to commit the act, he had to overcome all those natural human urges to protect children and to respect the principle of consent, and he also must have fostered some sort of unnatural sexual attraction to a pre-pubescent body.

It is highly debatable that the natural human urges comes from instinct instead of following familial and societal examples. As for respecting the principle of consent, the entire political right wing puts the kibosh on the idea that it is a universal human instinct.

[Kadagar_AV]

I'm going to ignore kadagar because 3600 posts has persuaded me that nothing I can say can ever peirce that thick skull.

Way to win arguments mate...

I have changed my mind in a LOT of questions since I joined... Gun ownership and abortions comes to mind...

That argument was just silly and make me think less of you.

[Hax]

What is happening here.

It only says that he married her, not that they had intercourse when she was nine. I believe it is forbidden to have sex before someone is sexually mature.

I think this is the leading theology throughout all jurisprudential schools of Islam. It's not really my area of interest, so if someone comes up with some preacher making idiot claims: okay.

IIRC she was 6 when she started to practise to have sex (rub herself against him I guess) and 9 when the penetrational sex happened.

I don't think the reports are that..ehm "explicit". I just checked the reports considered the most correct within the Islamic tradition (Bukhari and Muslim) and they just mention that Aisha says she was six when she married, and 9 when the marriage was consumed. This is the leading tradition within most Islamic communities (with some rebellious types claiming she was like 16 or whatever, it's still creepy).

I'm gonna get back on why this is not really interesting anyway.

For hundreds of years before Muhammad's time most of the civilized world set the marriagable age at 12 (including Romans and the Catholic Church).

Eh, I was under the impression that it was more-or-less set to "whenever puberty hits", which is usually around 12, but can differ of course. Guys this is starting to creep me out.

Of which mohammed had little contact with before marrying said 9 year old.

Actually this is not true at all: most reports (even within the Islamic tradition) mention that Muhammad travelled to Syria quite a lot. Additionally, the Arab peninsula was much better connected to the rest of the Middle-East than is often assumed. The myth of the "Arab in isolation" is something that we find from 11th century pseudo-nationalistic tracts onward, which had mostly to do with a kind of chauvinism ("our ancestors were pure Arabs, who spoke pure Arabic, and never heard of your fancy modern stuff and-so-on", as well as to stifle criticism towards the Quran ("but Muhammad lived in isolation, so he can't have taken anything from the Bible!"). If you're interested in this subject, cf. Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, Michael Macdonald.

Since when are we supposed to take religion seriously, you are a historian, you should know very well that Mohammed probably never existed at all.

Well this is going a bit too far, but not entirely wrong I think. I don't think there's a lot in merit in saying that Muhammad didn't exist. There's probably some kind of soothsayer-poet-king-figure-person that existed in 7th century Arabia -- but then again, there were a lot of those going around.

What is much more interesting is the way people tend to decontextualise the reports on Muhammad's life, known as the hadiths (english plural, the actually Arabic would be ahadith of course). These were canonised two centuries upwards of Muhammad's death, so what is interesting is that it tells us much more about a degree of orthodoxy that was starting to exist at this point. In this period (cf. shu‘ubiyya) there was a large degree of social upheaval in Caliphate, which led to all kinds of fun stuff, like milleniarism, terror attacks, large-scale revolts, etc., as well as some serious religious criticism -- both from Muslims and non-Muslims -- on certain aspects of Islamic theology. Shi'ism is actually incredibly interesting, because it is a kind of Islam with a huge blend of Persian ideas on kingship.

In any case -- the problem with all this is that these reports (so the ahadith) can't really tell us anything useful about the historical person known as Muhammad. They only tell us something about how 10th century religious scholars liked to think about Muhammad. Keep that in mind when talking about the guy.


Edit: Oh and about ISIS: just wait and see what happens when the money dries up. the caliphate will fall apart more than a Jenga tower in hurricane season. I hope. Otherwise I will drink myself to death. the joke's on you, abu bakr.

[Fragony]

You are wrong.

IIRC she was 6 when she started to practise to have sex (rub herself against him I guess) and 9 when the penetrational sex happened.



Also, that argument STILL doesn't quite explain why God wouldn't just tell him it's preferable to have sex with people in a position to say no.

For the third time, yes it was common practise back then. However, God REALLY has shaky morals if he bothers telling people what to eat, drink, wear, think and do... But not a word about it possibly being unseemly to rape or have sex with children.

Since when are we supposed to take religion seriously, you are a historian, you should know very well that Mohammed probably never existed at all.

[Fragony]

You are wrong.

IIRC she was 6 when she started to practise to have sex (rub herself against him I guess) and 9 when the penetrational sex happened.

Gotcha. Good example to follow indeed.

[Tuuvi]

US air strikes in Syria driving anti-Assad groups to support Isis

[Crandar]

ISIS is washing her kalashnikovs on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Derna, an ancient Greek colony recolonised by Arabs from Spain is notorious for being the first operation of the the United States of America in the old world. Perhaps, it is a sign from fate, whoever conquers Derna becomes the next superpower.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

ISIS is washing her kalashnikovs on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Derna, an ancient Greek colony recolonised by Arabs from Spain is notorious for being the first operation of the the United States of America in the old world. Perhaps, it is a sign from fate, whoever conquers Derna becomes the next superpower.

...in 140+ years

[Fragony]

140 years yeah right, they are allready here, spread all around Europe.

[Kadagar_AV]

Some home-built construction... Can't say the Sergeant in me don't get a boner though...

Blame ISIS for all you want (I for one think they are a rotten cancer on society). But they do seem more organized than most groups in that region...

I think we in the west should just completely withdraw... And let them sort themselves out. When they have something resembling a political party, we should of course be open for discussions again