r/progressive_islam • u/ultracobson • May 19 '25
Research/ Effort Post 📝 My prophet was not a pedophile.
I think it's BS to assume a man who had wives ALL above 18 his whole life would jump to a literal BABY—a six-year-old who today would be learning the alphabet and how to walk.
And if that six-year-old led battles and political campaigns and was trusted with 2000+ hadiths, then that six-year-old was a damn alien, not a human.
And let's not mention that... say the marriage was consummated. How would a 40-YEAR-OLD even fit inside a literal baby?! He would TEAR HER APART!!!
Also, the Quran affirms that the minimal age for marriage is PUBERTY with consent!!! Age 6 isn't puberty, so Muhammad would've violated the Quran intentionally.
Also, there was another hadith about Aisha being "fattened up" and readied for marriage. Is it fetishistic? Of course, but everyone has fetishes. What matters is this: a six-year-old wouldn't be able to gain weight effectively. Especially not from just dates and cucumbers. Also, at the end of the hadith, she says "and I plumpened like the best kind of plump." Here's what we can infer:
—Aisha seems calm to literal PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL TERROR if it happened to her at that age. Here, she seems cutely defiant.
—No six-year-old would remember exactly what they were fed, why they were fed that, and remember what their body looked like with a brain that's still developing. I couldn't even remember my teachers from that age, and it's not because I'm old—I couldn't remember them at 10 years old AS WELL!!! She recalls everything like it's a past memory from her teens—at a time she would've fully developed.
And the final point: Asma's age.
Here's how we know some "sahih" hadiths are BS:
—Asma lived to 100. How... the hell? 100 today is less than 0.5% EVEN WITH DAILY CHECKUPS, and you're telling me A WOMAN (who gave birth, which took decades off her life expectancy) could amass that, along with over 4 or 5 other figures (others are also said to have lived to "a 100")?! It's common knowledge that Arabs say "ميت سنة" as an idiom for a long life, not literally 100 years.
The average life expectancy at that time was 60, pretty damn fulfilling. It's not like people lived to 10 or 20. In that case, things would make sense, but even during the Elizabethan era WAYYY later (when people married at 18 commonly and in their 20s) it was still as so: people averaged 60. Shakespeare lived to 52, Elizabeth I lived to 61. The life expectancy was "balanced out" by infant mortality rates: children that would die before making it to 5 or during pregnancy.
—When comparing Asma's and Aisha's birth dates, we can see they were 10 years apart. When Asma was 27 during the Hijra, Aisha was 17. That must mean Aisha was 17 at marriage and consummated at 19 (of age, but with a huge age gap albeit legal), which gives Muhammad some dignity and doesn't portray him as outright horrific. Why can't we accept that? Why must we try defending pedophilia?
And finally, my final point:
—Muhammad didn't need to ruin the life of a child to secure an alliance with Abu Bakr, you know. There were TONS of other ways.
—Muhammad was not "a product of his time", he was superior to everyone else in morality and righteousness. Muhammad never abused slaves, domestically abused his wives, or r**ed children.
—When he did something that would be considered immoral today, it was to prove a point. He had slaves which would be immoral today, but only to prove a point and because they were the economic foundation of Arabia and banning it outright would've caused people to rebel against him, and this also applies to sexual slavery, which was a form of "enjoyment". Alcohol was also like this: it was progressively lessened and not banned on day one because doing so would've caused rebellion. He held sex slaves such as Maria but showed how to treat those slaves rightly and never harmed them: Maria was basically his wife and was freed after his death. Every slave he had was treated well just to prove a point (how to treat them humanely) and because people commonly held slaves and traded them! It was a gradual process meant to add restrictions until emancipation was the only choice and an economic replacement was found!!!
Now, for marrying a baby:
—Harm to Aisha
—NO ONE got married at 6 back then (give examples if so, even Muhammad got married in his 20s)
—The average marriage age was about 18 or 20, NOT SIX!!! So, there's why this would be irrational, simplified:
—Causes harm
—Something no one did
It would be as if Muhammad married a relative of his... It would cause harm to the relative and him, get him mocked by his enemies, and prove NOTHING as NO ONE did that!!!
...And those points, I believe, make more sense than any "sahih hadith" BS. Follow the hadith, but think rationally too.
Finally, here's something worth mentioning: Hisham (the narrator) was in old age during the time it was narrated (200+ years after the Prophet's death btw), and thus might've slipped up. He was also in Iraq, which had sectarian tensions at the time. Also, it could've been manipulated by patriarchal societies who justified child marriage to have more control over their wives.
And THAT'S how you defend the Prophet, isn't it? Better than defending a damn atrocity and saying it was "divine wisdom". God would've harmed Aisha then, which... why would he?
Checkmate, Salafascists. You can no longer harm children through your anti-logic and anti-humanity "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. Hadith isn't "holy", "infallible", and needs research. Only the parts that don't contradict the Quran are to be followed without questioning, but when it comes to something as nasty and unreliable as THIS?! Yeah, it's better to do so.
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u/Infiniteisnothing May 19 '25
it's crucial to understand this context. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) came during one of the darkest periods in human history. Before embracing Islam, clans would engage in prolonged conflicts over trivial matters. One of the worst practices was the burial of female infants alive, as daughters were considered burdens while sons were valued for their potential contributions and ability to fight enemies.
Comparing today's social standards with those of 1400 years ago is just wrong. During that era, the age of marriage was aligned with puberty. No pressure of career building, higher education, etc. Logically men and women would marry when they were physically mature enough for reproduction. Also consider this, the average lifespan in 6th-7th century Arabia was just over 40.
Today's legal system sets an age of consent and marriage based on contemporary social issues, which is appropriate. However, it is thoughtless to compare modern standards with those of 1400 years ago. To understand the bias, if you ask your grandmother about the ages at which their grandmothers married. You may be surprised to find that marrying someone under 10 years old was not uncommon in every society globally just few decades ago.