If Abdul Azeez Onike said this in the U.S., he would be excoriated as an “Islamophobe.” But in reality, child marriage has abundant attestation in Islamic tradition and law.
Turkey’s directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) said in January 2018 that under Islamic law, girls as young as nine can marry.
“Islam has no age barrier in marriage and Muslims have no apology for those who refuse to accept this” — Ishaq Akintola, professor of Islamic Eschatology and Director of Muslim Rights Concern, Nigeria
“There is no minimum marriage age for either men or women in Islamic law. The law in many countries permits girls to marry only from the age of 18. This is arbitrary legislation, not Islamic law.” — Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-‘Ubeidi, Iraqi expert on Islamic law
There is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.” — Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council
“Islam does not forbid marriage of young children.” — Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology
These authorities say these things because hadiths that Muslims consider authentic record that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage:
“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).
Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:
The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became all right, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah’s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).
Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old.
Marrying young girls was not all that unusual for its time, but because in Islam Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21), he is considered exemplary in this unto today. And so in April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: “Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.” He added a threat: “Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women.” The Mufti said that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage.
Likewise the influential website Islamonline.com in December 2010 justified child marriage by invoking not only Muhammad’s example, but the Qur’an as well:
The Noble Qur’an has also mentioned the waiting period [i.e. for a divorced wife to remarry] for the wife who has not yet menstruated, saying: “And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women, if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated” [Qur’an 65:4]. Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl. The Qur’an is not like the books of jurisprudence which mention what the implications of things are, even if they are prohibited. It is true that the prophet entered into a marriage contract with A’isha when she was six years old, however he did not have sex with her until she was nine years old, according to al-Bukhari.
Other countries make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”
According to Amir Taheri in The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (pp. 90-91), Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful to give their own daughters away accordingly: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” When he took power in Iran, he lowered the legal marriageable age of girls to nine, in accord with Muhammad’s example.
“Islam supports underage marriage: NASFAT,” News Agency of Nigeria, June 9, 2021
The Chief Imam of the Nasrul-lahi-li Fathi Society of Nigeria (NASFAT), Abdul Azeez Onike, says Islam supports underage marriage.
He, however, noted that the religion did not support such marriage if it exposes the wife to dangers.
Mr Onike, who doubles as NASFAT chief missioner, stated this in Lagos at a press conference and campaign to halt violence against women and girls in the country.
The campaign, ‘Ending Violence Against Women and Girls,’ was organised by NASFAT with support from UNICEF under EU-UN Spotlight.
According to NASFAT’s boss, what matters in a marriage is the couple’s ability to shoulder their marital responsibilities.
Mr Onike insisted that the Islamic scripture was clear about marriage instead of using contemporary standards to determine it.
“Self-evident truth is what the scripture says in this regard. If medically a child, because of age, is exposed to sexually transmitted infections, death at childbirth, such marriage is unjust,” stated the NASFAT leader.
He pointed out, “As a person, you must be seen to be promoting mercy and any form of violence against women and girls. God frowns at it.
“The women around us should be cherished and protected in all that we do as a people, for without them, humanity is threatened.”
Mr Onike charged the campaigners to work hard to ensure that violence against girls and women is eliminated in society….
davedutchess says
ISLAMIC LAW DOES NOT SUPERCEDE AMERICAN LAW!!!!!! Muslims refuse to wake up and grow up to updated laws of different countries. THAT makes them second class citizens.
NOTOISLAM says
agreed!
Sylvia Drummond says
Can young boys be married to old women in islam? Or does ‘child marriage’ just mean the sale of little girls.
BlackSabbath says
That is a “strong” sales point of islam to attract pedophiles. Under islam, you can do it “legally.” Islam “legitimizes” all kinds of crimes such as child sexual abuse, rape, incest, murder, and you name it.
gravenimage says
Young boys are sometimes married in Islam, Sylvia–but it is rare. And I have *never* seen the situation you ask about.
peter says
Mohamed himself married Khatijha his firs wife who was fourteen years older than him and was a window and her employer . It was Khatijha who started entertaining the notion that Mohamed was a prophet .Mohamed himself has said that a man should marry a woman for only one the three reasons ,one is wealth , other is beauty or power . He was indeed a shrewd businessman than a prophet .
gravenimage says
Muhamed was a 25-year-old adult man when he married his wealthy first wife–not an abused child.
SecondThoughter says
When I visited Iraqi Kurdistan, my guide took me to several of his family members houses and each had girls who were under 18 years of age and already had children in addition to being married. It was so sad because I knew they would probably never leave the area for the rest of their lives.
gravenimage says
Awful.
Johnny B says
Here in Denmark our previous minister of integration (yes, there is an entire ministry for that here because it doesn’t really work at all) got into a lot of trouble for trying to separate children from adult males because they were married during the migrant invasion of 2015. The left are still doing everything they can to drag her through the mud and threaten with subpoenas and all kinds of things to destroy her reputation and so on. They could care less about the children. If I ever had any sympathy for the left it is far gone by now, I have to say I really loathe them sometimes :((
gravenimage says
Yes–this is just grotesque, Johnny:
“Danish ex-minister faces impeachment in ‘child bride’ case”
“Former Danish Immigration Minister Inger Stojberg, known for her hard stance in that role, is facing impeachment for illegally ordering the separation of underage couples seeking asylum…”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-immigration-probe/danish-ex-minister-faces-impeachment-in-child-bride-case-idUSKBN29J1K8
Of course, the implication that both parties are underaged is quite false–Stojberg makes if plain that these cases involved child brides.
tim gallagher says
There is the world of reasonably civilised people and then there is Islam, this throwback ideology, which has as its ideal of how people should live something straight out of primitive 7th century Arabia. The civilised people of the world can see the obvious truth that pedophilia is wrong, it is against basic human rights. Muslims can’t see this. It is the same for all the other primitive garbage that islam says is OK. Honour killing, stoning people to death, raping non-Muslim women and girls, murdering non-Muslims in terrorist attacks. Islam is a load of way outdated, barbaric crap in its attitude to all areas of human life and it should have become extinct ages ago. Islam has to go. Living life in the way people in 7th century Arabia used to live is not acceptable in the modern world.
peter says
Well said ! We should all endeavor to achieve it in whatever way we can because it is an absolute necessity to preserve our civilization and humanity from extinction.
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comment, Peter. That is the way I see islam. The main policy I would like to see is that all our western countries, well all non-Muslim countries (not just western countries) slam the door on letting Muslims in. Muslims can go on living their barbaric lives in their own backward countries. Ideally, I would love to see the disgusting, primitive ideology become extinct. It is such an evil load of crap.
NOTOISLAM says
The USA states need to elect governments that will not allow islam and parallel governments to govern at all. There need to be laws that are carried out against Islam and make the shariah totally illegal with very stiff CONSEQUENCES if they persist. We need to see deportation en-mass -the whole family if necessary.
THE SHARIAH needs to be declared a POLITICAL IDEOLOGY that is all and using it in the USA will be met with consequences that will not be repealed.
tim gallagher says
I agree, NOTOISLAM. Our countries (I’m in Australia) have all made a mistake in letting Muslims migrate into our countries, but, since we are now stuck with Muslims, your ideas are good. Deportation seems a good idea. I like the policy of Hungary and those other Visegrad bloc countries which ban Muslim migration, but it is too late for many of our countries.. If we could get enough members of our populations to wake up to Islam’s vile nature, we could get the right things done. To me, that seems to be a long way from happening. Certainly where I live, it is a long way from happening.
gravenimage says
Some states have floated bills specifically outlawing Shari’ah law.
gravenimage says
Nigeria: Chief Imam of major Islamic society says Islam supports child marriage
……………
Of course–what is more Islamic than raping children? The foul “Prophet” raped his child bride, after all.
The idea that child rape represents “mercy” is just sickening–and that this is done under the rubrik of “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls” could not be more perverse.
Here’s more grotesque Taqiyya from Abdul Azeez Onike:
https://guardian.ng/features/nigerians-need-education-on-sexual-assault-rape-warning-signs-says-nasfat-missioner/
OLD GUY says
Well of course it does, Muhammad is their example of the perfect pedophile male. And under islam women don’t count anyway so what’s the big deal. These islamic followers will fit right in to your neighborhood, what could possibly go wrong. .