Nupur Sharma was forced into hiding for saying what Irena Akbar is being praised for saying.
Islamic tradition records that Muhammad consummated his marriage with (i.e., raped) Aisha when she was nine, and the resultant fact that child marriage is accepted in wide swaths of the Islamic world.
“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. Nowadays in the West there are elaborate efforts to deny all this. An Islamic scholar/apologist named Joshua Little has constructed an elaborate argument from close study of the chains of transmitters (isnads) of various traditions about Aisha, claiming that those traditions, despite appearing in Sahih Bukhari, the hadith collection Muslims consider most reliable, are actually inauthentic. Little’s argument, however, is absurd and self-contradictory. He acknowledges that the hadiths are late and unreliable from a historical standpoint, and even admits that the chains of transmitters, like the stories themselves, were freely forged. Then he bases his whole argument for the traditions being inauthentic even on Islamic grounds on the basis of the isnads that he just admitted could be forged.
Little also denounces people he calls “Islamophobes” for making much of Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha. He ignores the primary reason why anyone cares about this: not because, as he claims, “Islamophobes” contend that Muhammad’s example forces Muslims to condone child marriage, but because all too many Islamic authorities do condone child marriage. 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.
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
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.
“Muslim journalist repeats claim about Prophet Mohammad’s marriage with young Ayesha, which was pointed out by Nupur Sharma, wins praise by Islamists instead,” OpIndia, December 1, 2023:
On Friday (1st December), former Indian Express ‘journalist‘ Irena Akbar tweeted the same thing that former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma had said, with several fellow Islamists agreeing with her. She tweeted (archive) a racist cartoon of a Hindu man (dark-coloured skin with saffron tilak), stating his objection to the Islamic Prophet’s marriage to an underage girl. “Your Prophet married a 9-year-old!!!” the cartoon depicting a Hindu man said. A ‘fair-skinned’ man, bearing a skull cap and representative of the Muslim community, is shown to defend Prophet Muhammad. “Yes and? Aisha’s father had no problem. Aisha’s family had no problem. Aisha’s tribe had no problem. Even the arch enemies of the Prophet had no problem.”
The ‘dark-coloured’ Hindu man is shown crying over the antecedents of the Islamic prophet and saying, “We have a problem.” The ex-Indian Express ‘journalist’ conceded that Prophet Muhammad married an underage girl. “Alhamdulillah,” she said.
Irena Akbar was seen responding to Muslim apologists, who were claiming that Aisha was 18 when she married Prophet Muhammad. In a tweet (archive), she emphasised, “No, she was 9 when the marriage was consummated, as per authentic sources of the Seerah. Some apologetic ‘scholars’ attempted to advance her age to 18 in order to ‘fit’ Islam into the flawed Western-liberal-secular-feminist framework.”
“We shouldn’t change facts to appease Islamophobes. Aisha (RA) & her family had no problem with the marriage. The enemies of the Prophet (SAW) could’ve easily used the marriage to target him but they didn’t. It’s only modern-day Islamophobes who keep blabbering about this. And we should stop being apologetic,” Irena Akbar emphasised.
She urged other Muslims to own up to the fact that the marriage between Prophet Muhammad and Aisha was consummated when the latter was 9 years old.
Irena Akbar tweeted (archive), “I am going by authentic Seerah sources, such as The Sealed Nectar. Please read it and listen to the detailed commentary about it by scholars from the Islamic University of Madinah.”…
Irena Akbar, who has acknowledged the underage marriage of Prophet Muhammad with Aisha, had targeted ex-BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma for essentially saying the same thing during a debate on Times Now in May last year.
“First, ruling BJP’s NupurSharma spewed vulgar language against the Prophet (SAW). Now, BJP’s Naveen Jindal went 10 steps ahead to tweet a horrific allegation against Prophet (SAW). Insulting Prophet (SAW) has become the latest self-promotion tool for India’s ruling party members,” she said in a tweet on 4th June 2022.
Nupur Sharma found herself at the centre of a raging storm after Islamists, egged on by the likes of AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair and Irena Akbar, issued multiple threats against her and her family for expressing her views on Prophet Muhammad and Islam….
Muslims agree with Irena Akbar, do not issue threats
One Khazadah I Awadh appreciated, “Massive respects and salute to you. This coming from a woman is applaudable. In the times when liberalism and feminism are corrupting Muslim males and females, you chose to be unapologetic. May Allah (swt) bless you.”…
John Allan says
Well, Mohammed was a dirty old git … and a paedophile, to boot!
Something that UNDOUBTEDLY applies to MORE than a few of his acolytes!
As for his ‘moral character’? ???
bagsgroove says
Man,those muslums can’t get enough of those prepubescent girls !
࿗Infidel࿘ says
This statement of Irena Akbar was priceless:
In a nutshell, according to Irena Akbar, people who oppose child marriage are islamophobes
Hoi Polloi says
Yes, her own statement is preposterous. “We shouldn’t change facts to appease Islamophobes.” Yet she had no problem, whatever that means, making the extrakoranic assertion that “Aisha (RA) & her family had no problem with the marriage. The enemies of the Prophet (SAW) could’ve easily used the marriage to target him but they didn’t.” Absence of record by a pedophilic cult does not equal complete record of absence.
Not to mention the fact that asserting that the entire cult is pedophilic is hardly a win.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
There’s also the small fact that Abu Baqr wasn’t too thrilled w/ the idea when Mohammed first suggested it to him. He probably had other ideas for Aisha’s marriage, and probably a tad later, like maybe 12. Irena Akbar is lying when she states that Aisha’s family had no issues
Hoi Polloi says
+1
Boris Yeltsin says
What’s so wrong about a non-existent man child-raping an equally non-existent 9-year old? Just let him do what’s not… Perhaps in preparation of penetrating 72 grapes. Must be a small non-existent you know what…
࿗Infidel࿘ says
A couple of problems:
➤ His followers don’t concede that he’s non-existent
➤ What’s worse, they make their laws based on that non-existent example. See the entire list that Robert enumerated above from all over dar-ul-islam – from Turkey to Bangladesh to Nigeria to Pakistan & beyond
Also, the main point of the OpIndia story was that muslims threatened a Hindu woman when she pointed out this very thing. Difference is that she was criticizing the practice whereas the muslimah in this story is lauding it. Not just that, when Nupur Sharma cited it, it was in response to mockery of the Hindu god Shiva in the context of the controversy over a mosque in Varanasi that was built over a Hindu temple: not b’cos she wanted to tread on muslim sensibilities
Wallter Sieruk says
One scholar on Islam, Robert Spencer, wrote that the Islamic tradition records that Muhammad consummated his marriage with (i.e., raped) Aisha when she was nine, and the resultant fact that child marriage is accepted in wide swaths of the Islamic world. Child marriage has abundant attestation in Islamic tradition and law.”
Male Muslim marriage of an adult man to a young girl who is really only a child of common in the world of Islam. One of the “reasons” for this female child abuse in Islam is because of the corrupt and perverse wickedness in the hearts of men. This is seen and described in the Bible with reads “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. [N.K.J.V.]
Furthermore, another “reason” girl/child marriages occur with middle aged and even old men is because the founder and prophet of Islam Muhammad married a child. Muslims throughout history as well as in current times actually view Muhammad as a “perfect man” and a “great example for them to follow.”
This well might prove the old saying to be true .The saying is that “Evil is always looking for an excuse.”
It’s also wise to remember prophet Muhammad did likewise engaged in brutal, ruthless murderous warfare. As do Muslims today such as the jihadist Muslim of ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah Hamas and so forth. Many that old saying, just sited above, also explains the excuse for Muslim terrorism in the world today.
Jesus Himself taught “By their fruits you will know them.” Matthew 7:20. Which might explain the vile child “marriage” of Muhammad and his violent and deadly behavior .Likewise also explains the twenty- first century Muslims who in child marriages and blood and murderous violence of Islam .As they see the prophet Muhammad d as their example of who to follow.
With all this about the fruits of Islam along with fruits history reveals about the life of the prophet of Islam, Muhammad .It thus further appropriate to make known that it might be in keeping with teaching of Jesus that Muhammad could well have been an actual prophet . Nevertheless the very most important thing to understand is the Muhammad was not a prophet send by God. Instead Muhammad was a lying deceptive false prophet send by Satan to start a false religion to lead many people astray.
For Jesus taught “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” Matthew 7:15.
Walter Sieruk says
The Islamic practice of an adult male Muslim having a marriage with a little girl who is only a child is part of Islam since all Muslim admire the prophet of Islam, Muhammad and attempt to live like him and he did marry a 9 year old girl.”.
Nevertheless this heinous Islam tradition is accepted as “normal “in most of the Islamic world. Therefore, this may serve as an example of how the influence of Islam is able to warp the cogitation of the human mind to the extent that a person who is a Muslim might not be able to understand the obvious difference between right and wrong.
Such an awful thing as not having the discerning mental power to seethe clear difference is described in the Bible. For in Isaiah 5:20. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…” [N.K.J.V.]
tim gallagher says
I don’t think this piece of crap, Muhammad, ever actually existed. islam is all based on lies. But surely, to any decent human being, which this Musilm woman plainly is not, a 50 year old man, a total degenerate, if he had existed, having sex with a 9 year old girl, is just plain wrong in principle. I guess that this idiotic Muslim woman here would have had no problem if she had been married off at 8 or 9 years old and been screwed by some 50 year old man. islam really does twist its followers’ minds up in extreme ways, that’s for sure.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Tim
I tend to agree w/ you. I read Robert’s book “Did Muhammad exist?”, and watched some of his Jay Smith interviews, & came to the same conclusion
Historically, it does then beg the question about the Arab conquests. Since Mecca & Medina did not exist in the timeframe in question, the focus then shifts to Damascus. The intriguing question would be – what were the Byzantines or the local Syrians up to that Damascus fell so quickly & easily? Apparently, there was a rift b/w the people there & the rulers in Constantinople over the divinity of Christ, which would explain that Damascus was already in revolt
That leads me to believe that the Arab conquests actually started in Damascus, & spread. It doesn’t make sense to believe that an Arab army traveled all the way from Medina in the 7th century, in the absence of roads or rail, & was fresh enough to overpower a Syrian army in what’s today Jordan. What does make more sense is that this revolt started in Damascus, they invaded their south, defeated a Byzantine army at Yarmouk, & then branched out against the Byzantines in Jerusalem and against the Persians at Qadisiyyah. Quickly overran Palestine, Egypt and Iraq, & broke into Iran. That was where, in the 9th century, they put all these myths together
But yeah, all that would explain that neither Muhammad nor the Rashidun caliphate ever existed, the Umayyads were the ones who started the Arab conquests, while the Arabs and the Turks in Baghdad and Buqhara were the ones who put the laws of islam together. It explains why historically, the Turks were the biggest spreaders of islam from Central Asia to South Asia to the Middle East to Anatolia and the Balkans
tim gallagher says
You have a lot of knowledge, Infidel. I look at islam as a disgusting, barbaric, evil load of morally degenerate crap in endless different ways. To me, whether this low life creature, Muhammad, existed or not, is not really significant because islam is just full of so much evil and murderous hatred towards all of us non-Muslims. For me, it is just kind of appr opriate that Mo did not even exist and islam is all based on a gigantic lie at its centre. I think that i heard or read that Muhammad was simply not mentioned for a long time after islam was rampaging through the world destroying and murdering people. I’ve said before that it seems to me that islam was made up by a bunch of incredibly evil men, gangster types, i say maybe like a bunch of serial killers getting together and saying, let’s make up a version of god, allah, who condones all the the evil stuff we really love doing, murdering, raping, pedophilia, etc, and hey presto, there you have islam, that curse on mankind. I can find nothing good or noble and decent, in a moral sense, in islam, so I loathe it. It is on alevel with nazism in my eyes. whether some evil scumbag such as Muhammad actually existed or not, I can’t imagine a god, if God does exist, and I mostly am a believing Christian, though sometimes an agnostic, choosing such an evil creature as its prophet at all. To me, islam is just plain evil and I hate it for that reason.
James Lincoln says
tim gallagher says,
“You have a lot of knowledge, Infidel.”
Yes, he’s absolutely brilliant.
I learn a lot from him.
tim gallagher says
That is definitely true, James. Many people here at Jihad Watch know a huge amount about islam and other subjects as well. I recall that Mortimer was another person who seemed to have a really deep knowledge on islam. I know enough to know how evil islam is and that it is totally incompatible with civilised human life.
ceres says
Raping a child causes tearing and moves the internal organs about tearing some of the ligaments holding bits in place and this can result in internal haemorrhage and many of these young girls die or are permanently injured. Men can marry (own) a suckling baby and are free to sexually enjoy her in whatever way he thinks she can ‘cope’ with and this includes intercourse. I have text of a recent imam endorsing this and saying that if you still haven’t had intercourse by the time the girl was 9 in their shorter lunar system (possibly only 8 in our longer solar time scale) then you must have it even if she resists as this is what mohammad did …but you can do it earlier. This woman just shows how muslims are incapable of humane, rational thought as whatever was allowed is OK regardless of the damage done. I have come to loathe muslim women who endorse and participate in the vile abuse of females and nonmuslims. How damaged was Aisha who never had a child?