This marriage at least could have been politically motivated, as Nasr maintains. Muhammad may have married Aisha to cement the loyalty of her father, who was his principal disciple and who had earlier agreed to give Aisha's hand in marriage to a pagan. Even if that were his only reason to take his child bride, however, surely he could have waited until Aisha was older to consummate the marriage. But Bukhari reports: "Narrated `Urwa: `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).' "25
Of course, this was not unusual by the prevailing standards. Muslims in Muhammad's day thought nothing of marrying girls who had just begun menstruating-and even girls who had not yet reached that point. Indeed, this practice was common enough that, after the Qur'an instructs that a man must wait three months before divorcing a wife who has ceased menstruating (in order to make sure she isn't pregnant), there is this additional command: "The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated" (Sura 65:4). Those who have not yet menstruated! One may imagine that the prospects of a prepubescent divorcee would have been rather dim.
Problems arise when behavior like this is abstracted from its historical context and proposed as a paradigm for human behavior in all times and places. The results can be seen all over the umma. In imitation of the Prophet, many Muslims have taken child brides. The Ayatollah Khomeini himself, at age twenty-eight, married a ten-year-old girl.26 She became pregnant at eleven, but miscarried. Khomeini called marriage to a girl before her first menstrual period "a divine blessing," and he advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."27
This practice continues to this day, despite the severe injuries girls often incur from early intercourse and childbirth. One example of its prevalence came from an anguished young Muslim who wrote in to a fatwa website, asking if he could legitimately marry a girl even though he lusted after her mother. "I have looked at my mother-in-law (Auntie) with lust at her breasts, thinking that her daughter when she will grow up will have breasts like that etc."28 Note that he is imagining what his fiancee will look like when she reaches sexual maturity! The fact that he is about to marry a child doesn't trouble either him or the imam he is consulting.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports that child marriage is by no means a minor problem today; in fact, over half of the girls in the Muslim strongholds of Afghanistan and Bangladesh are married before they reach the age of eighteen.29 In early 2002, researchers in refugee camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan found half the girls married by age thirteen. In an Afghan refugee camp, more than two out of three second-grade girls were either married or betrothed, and virtually all the older girls were already married. One ten-year-old was engaged to a man of sixty.30 Likewise, Time magazine reports:
In Iran the legal age for marriage is nine for girls, 14 for boys. The law has occasionally been exploited by pedophiles, who marry poor young girls from the provinces, use and then abandon them. In 2000 the Iranian Parliament voted to raise the minimum age for girls to 14, but this year, a legislative oversight body dominated by traditional clerics vetoed the move. An attempt by conservatives to abolish Yemen's legal minimum age of rs for girls failed, but local experts say it is rarely enforced anyway. (The onset of puberty is considered an appropriate time for a marriage to be consummated.)31
Apparently these child brides need a considerable amount of discipline to keep them in line. According to one researcher, "in Egypt 29 percent of married adolescents have been beaten by their husbands; of those, 41 percent were beaten during pregnancy. A study in Jordan indicated that 26 percent of reported cases of domestic violence were committed against wives under 18."32
Temporary Marriage
The Prophet also brought to life a notion that American high school boys have only been able to fantasize about: temporary marriage (muta). According to Bukhari: "Narrated Jabir bin `Abdullah and Salama bin Al- Akwa': While we were in an army, Allah's Messenger came to us and said, `You have been allowed to do the Muta (marriage), so do it.' 1133 The parenthesis is in the original, and a footnote further explains that this Arabic word means "temporary marriage for a limited period of time." (It also means simply "pleasure.")
Another hadith explains that "their 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."34 The editors of Sahih Bukhari also note that "this type of marriage was allowed in the early days of Islam in cases of necessity, but the Prophet finally prohibited it forever."35 However, Shi'a Muslims in Iran dispute with Sunnis on this, and it is a relatively conventional practice in the Islamic Republic. Its defenders point to Sura 4:24, translated thus: "To women whom you choose in temporary and conditional (muwaqat and muta'a) marriage, give their dowry, as a duty."36 (The Arabic words are supplied in the translation as quoted.)
Shi'ite apologists argue that the muta is an acceptable Islamic method of avoiding fornication, a wise provision by the Prophet of a sexual outlet that is morally superior to masturbation. The fifth imam of Shi'a Islam is said to have remarked: "If the second Caliph had not prohibited temporary marriages, no Muslim, save perchance a few utterly degraded lewd fellows of the baser sort, would have ever committed fornication. "37
Perhaps. But what is the essential difference between fornication and temporary marriage? The giving of the dowry? If that's it, how then is this practice to be distinguished from prostitution-especially given that in Iran, contracts for temporary marriage can be for as short a duration as one hour?
"Temporary wives" congregate in seminary towns (such as the holy city of Qom), which are full of restless theological students away from their wives for extended periods. These students know what temporary marriage is for. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the seminarian Aqa Najafi Quchani wrote a vivid account of a temporary marriage:
... Fortunately, the woman was at home and I married her for a while. When I had quietened my desire and enjoyed the pleasure of the flesh from my lawful income, I gave the woman the qeran [an old Iranian monetary unit].... It is reported that the Imams have said that whoever makes love legitimately has in effect killed an infidel."' That means killing the lascivious spirit." It is obvious that when a talabeh [student] has no problem with the lower half of his body he is happier than a king.4o
Most "temporary wives" in Iran, according to Amir Taheri, were "young widows, who used the opportunity for making ends meet." But if they became pregnant in a temporary marriage, they would be worse off than before, for the contract gave them no claim on their "temporary husband" for child support.41
The issue of temporary marriage is complicated, but the potential for abuse is obvious. It is difficult to see how women would be safeguarded from being essentially used and abandoned. One defender of temporary marriage points out:
There exists no law anywhere in the world which is not twisted by the wicked to their own ends and against its original purpose. This is true of laws which are of the greatest benefit to society. The law of "temporary marriage" is one such. It should be backed with the full authority of the state. Those who misuse it should be punished. Those who use it right should be supported and aided in their righteous living.4z
It is true that any good law can be abused; but some are more susceptible to abuse than others. Muhammad's "wise" provision for temporary marriage is susceptible to abuse to an extent that's truly outstanding.
Take Any Slave Girt
If the potential for abuse in temporary marriage is great enough, even worse is the license that Muhammad allowed for rape-at least in certain circumstances. I have already noted that the Qur'an permits Muslim men to have intercourse with their slave girls as well as their wives. The holy book, moreover, rules out any exception for slave girls who happen to be married: "Forbidden to you are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal a
nd maternal aunts.... Also married women, except those whom you own as slaves. Such is the decree of God" (Sura 4:23-24).
Numerous hadiths make it clear that these slave girls were usually the captives of war. Muhammad himself did not disdain to find wives and consorts this way. After one successful battle, he told one of his fellows, "Go and take any slave girl." But someone else informed the Prophet that the slave girl thus selected was "the chief mistress of (the ladies) of the tribes of Quraiza and An-Nadir"-therefore "she befits none but you."43 The Prophet then changed his mind and took the girl for himself. His followers wondered if she would become his wife or his slave: "The Muslims said amongst themselves, `Will she (i.e. Safiya) be one of the mothers of the believers, (i.e. one of the wives of the Prophet) or just (a lady captive) of what his right-hand possesses?""' In this case, he made the lady one of his wives.
After one battle, some of Muhammad's men presented him with an ethical question, as Bukhari reports:
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri that during the battle with Bani Al-Mustaliq they (Muslims) captured some females and intended to have sexual relations with them without impregnating them. So they asked the Prophet about coitus interruptus. The Prophet said, "It is better that you should not do it, for Allah has written whom He is going to create till the Day of Resurrection." Qaza'a said, "I heard Abu Sa'id saying that the Prophet said, `No soul is ordained to be created but Allah will create it."'45
When Muhammad said "It is better that you should not do it," he was referring to coitus interruptus, not to raping their captives. He took that for granted. These men were concerned with one moral question, yet neither they nor the Prophet seemed at all troubled about the more important question concerning what was, essentially, rape. These women had just suffered the trauma of seeing their fathers and brothers murdered, their homes vandalized and perhaps burned to the ground, their possessions seized or destroyed. Then they themselves were taken captive. It just doesn't seem to be the right setting for a "consensual relationship," as they say these days.
In any case, the Qur'an is silent about the preferences of the girls. As we'll see more fully later on, neither the Qur'an nor the traditions of the Prophet have provided adequately for protecting women from rape. There is no clear definition of the crime in the Sharia, and the rules of evidence dictate that the testimony of the victim has no weight because she is female; rape can be proven only by the testimony of four male eyewitnesses to the act itself.46
In other words, rape can almost never be proven. Not surprisingly, women have been prosecuted under Sharia adultery laws when they have actually been the victims of rape.
Here Muhammad's lack of respect for women takes its toll in human lives: his own example, as well as the rules of evidence that he established for Islam, leave them at the mercy of anyone who chooses to take advantage of them.
No Mercy to the Unbelievers
Related to the jeopardy of women is the problem of Muhammad's brutality in warfare and in his general dealings with his enemies. Here again he presents a figure of a prophet quite different from the Western model. The ultimate Western prototype of the prophet/king, of course, is still Jesus. Some apologists for Islam promoted the idea of Muhammad as a sort of Arabian Jesus-more robust, as required by the harsh climate of the desert, than the Europeanized figure of the One that Julian the Apostate called the "Pale Galilean," but like him, essentially a prince of peace.
Because of the role this analogy plays in modern Western assessments of Muhammad, it is useful to look at Muhammad's actual behavior in comparison with that of Jesus, which is relatively familiar even to post-Christian Westerners.
Muslims themselves acknowledge that the hallmark of Jesus' teaching is merry. The Qur'an says so: "We sent other apostles, and after those Jesus the Son of Mary. We gave him the Gospel, and put compassion and mercy in the hearts of his followers" (Sura 57:27). It is difficult to picture Jesus saying these words from the Qur'an: "When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly" (Sura 47:4).
Indeed, the contrasts between Jesus and Muhammad are many and obvious. For example, here is how Jesus dealt with rejection and unbelief in one case:
When the days drew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; but the people would not receive him, for his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to bid fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. (Luke 9:51-55)
The example that the Prophet of Islam gave of how to react to opposition is quite different. At one point, two young men murdered one of Muhammad's fiercest opponents, Abu Jahl, in cold blood as he was "walking amongst the people." Abu Jahl's crime? One of the murderers explained: "I have been informed that he abuses Allah's Apostle."
Just as in the coitus interruptus case, when his focus was on the completion of the sexual act rather than on the moral implications of rape, here Muhammad was concerned not with the murder, but merely with the proper distribution of the spoils: "Allah's Apostle asked, `Which of you has killed him?' Each of them said, `I have killed him.' Allah's Apostle asked, `Have you cleaned your swords?' They said, `No.' He then looked at their swords and said, `No doubt, you both have killed him and the spoils of the deceased will be given to Mu'adh bin cAmr bin Al- Jamuh,"' one of the murderers .17
Another enemy of the Prophet, named Umaiya, provoked a hadith that establishes, in a chilling fashion, Muhammad's unimpeachable veracity. In the course of a dispute with Umaiya, the Muslim Sad bin Mu'adh cried: "Be away from me, for I have heard Muhammad saying that he will kill you."
Umaiya responded, "Will he kill me?"
When Sa'd answered that he would indeed, Umaiya showed that even though he opposed Muhammad, he knew his character: "Umaiya said, `By Allah! When Muhammad says a thing, he never tells a lie."'
Umaiya recounted the incident to his wife, who agreed: "She said, By Allah! Muhammad never tells a lie." Sure enough, at the Battle of Badr, Umaiya was done in, although the hadith is silent about whether or not Muhammad himself did the deed. All it says is that "Allah got him killed. 1141
Muhammad's truth-telling is a preoccupation of many hadiths. In another, the Prophet climbed a mountain and began calling the various tribes of the Quraysh, a people who opposed him. When they assembled, he asked them, "Suppose I told you that there is an (enemy) cavalry in the valley intending to attack you, would you believe me?"
They knew they were standing before an honest man, and so responded, "Yes, for we have not found you telling anything other than the truth."
Muhammad replied, "I am a warner to you in face of a terrific punishment."
This pious warning annoyed one man of the Quraysh, Abu Lahab, who doubted Muhammad's prophethood. Abu Lahab was Muhammad's uncle, but after all, no prophet is honored in his own country. He called out to Muhammad, "May your hands perish all this day. Is it for this purpose you have gathered us?"49
Whereupon the Prophet received a new revelation from Allah: "May the hands of Abu Lahab perish! May he himself perish! Nothing shall his wealth and gains avail him. He shall be burnt in a flaming fire, and his wife, laden with faggots, shall have a rope of fibre around her neck!" (Sura rlr:r-5) A hadith adds, "and he indeed perished,"50 but doesn't specify how.
Although he never told a lie, Muhammad didn't hesitate to grant those close to him permission to do so for a good cause-in this case, another murder: "Allah's Apostle said, `Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin alAshraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?"'
Ka'b bin al-Ashraf was a poet from a Jewish tribe in the area. He seems to have "hurt" Allah and his Prophet with his words only. Sahih Muslim specifies the offense this way: "He has maligned Allah, the Exalted, and His Messenger."51
The story continues: "Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama [one of
the followers of the Prophet] got up saying, `0 Allah's Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?'
"The Prophet said, `Yes.'
"Muhammad bin Maslama said, `Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Ka'b).'
"The Prophet said, `You may say it.'"
The hadith goes on to recount how Ka'b was deceived and murdered by Muhammad bin Maslama.52 But after all, according to the Prophet, "war is deceit."53
On another occasion the Prophet was at prayer when his enemies committed a particularly vile deed, evocative of the barbarism of the place: "Narrated `Abdullah: While the Prophet was in the state of prostration, surrounded by a group of people from [the] Mushrikun [unbelievers] of the Quraish, cUgba bin Abi Mu'ait came and brought the intestines of a camel and threw them on the back of the Prophet." The great man found in this undeniable humiliation no occasion for mercy:
The Prophet did not raise his head from prostration till Fatima (i.e. his daughter) came and removed those intestines from his back, and invoked evil on whoever had done (that evil deed). The Prophet said, "0 Allah! Destroy the chiefs of Quraish, 0 Allah! Destroy Abu Jahl bin Hisham, cUtba bin Rabi'a, Shaiba bin Rabi'a, `Ugba bin Abi Wait, cUmaiya bin Khalaf (or Ubai bin Kalaf)." Later on I saw all of them killed during the battle of Badr and their bodies were thrown into a well except the body of Umaiya or Ubai, because he was a fat man, and when he was pulled, the parts of his body got separated before he was thrown into the well.54
A shorter version of what seems to be the same incident is even more unsettling, as Muhammad goes one better than Jesus' cursing of the fig tree in demonstrating his awesome power: "Narrated cAbdullah bin Mas'ud: The Prophet faced the Ka'ba and invoked evil on some people of Quraish, on Shaiba bin Rabi'a, cUtba bin Rabi'a, Al-Walid bin cUtba and Abu Jahl bin Hisham. I bear witness, by Allah, that I saw them all dead, putrefied by the sun as that day was a very hot day."55
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