New York: Muslim accused of raping 12-year-old girl and 14-year-old girl

Why would he think of young girls in a sexual manner? Might it have something to do with Islamic tradition?

Islamic tradition records that Muhammad consummated his marriage with (i.e., raped) Aisha when she was nine, and the resultant fact that child marriage and the sexualization of children are taken for granted 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. He claims to be able to determine the age of various traditions by how they were forged, but here is argument is so conjectural and subjective as to be essentially worthless.

Little is also a standard-issue lemming academic. He 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

“Greece man arrested for alleged sexual assault of 2 minors,” by Katie Skoog, WIVB, November 18, 2024:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — A Greece man was arrested on sexual assault and rape charges after he allegedly sexually assaulted two minors in October 2024, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday.

Officials said on Oct. 17, Ahmed Yaqoob, 24, traveled from Greece, New York, to North Collins where he picked up a 12-year-old female and a 14-year-old female….

Yaqoob was charged with the following:

predatory sexual assault against a child less than 13
first-degree rape: forcible compulsion, two counts
second-degree rape…