…to marry girls under 16. The Prophet did it, so why can’t Muslim men? Afterall, they are only trying to live out the sunnah, or the way the Prophet lived. I do not make these claims, but yet another Muslim clown/cleric (the two are becoming synonymous) has claimed:
the marriage of nine-year-old girls was allowed by Islam as the Prophet Muhammad consummated the marriage to one of his wives when she was that age.
He derided criticism of his claims as “part of a secular attack against the Islamic nation and its theologians”.
Sheikh Mohamed Ben Abderrahman Al-Maghraoui has come under attack from the ulema in the region of Rabat, Morocco, for his statements and views. But this issue does not rest its hands there; rather it gazes across toward yet another Islamic country.
In Indonesia:
a wealthy Muslim cleric who married a 12-year-old girl and is reportedly planning to wed others aged seven and nine, a spokesperson said on Tuesday [...]
Widiyanto has been backed by some high-profile Muslim figures, including Hilman Rosyad Syihab, the deputy head of the Islam-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), according to the Detikcom online news service.
Islam allows for marriage regardless of whether a girl has reached sexual maturity, Syihab was quoted as saying.
“It is not a problem under Islamic law,” Syihab said.
What we can at least be assured about is our knowledge of it. We can glad in that we at least know these things are occurring, spurring our anger into action. The fact that other bodies of clerics are decrying these practices; that governments and police are investigating the violation, in Jacarta, of the “2002 child protection law for forcing or trading a child into sex and for marrying below the legal minimum age of 16.”
Such acts are abhorrent, yet fall under swift reappraisal from behind faith. “What would Muhammad do?” seems to be swan song for human sensibility. Down it goes, echoing into the chasm where reason would normally dwell.
But aside from this so-called “fringe” acts (no moderate, TRUE Muslim would do this would be the usual claims), we must wonder at the outright instigation toward this act. What else other than religion could justify such retardation of values? Where else would someone find himself in a position to say “God says I can” except behind faith, an eternal book that is the word of god, and being a leader of the faith. This is not some random Muslim, but a religious leader. Yet, why shouldn’t he make such claims? Yet again, I am not surprised, but I am shocked. And it proves yet again that with faith, anything is justified.
The old maxim of Ivan Karamazov is flipped on its head. It is not “Without god, anything is permitted”, it is rather “with god, anything is permitted”. Be it slavery, child abuse, child marriage, enforced sexual relationships with children or non-consenting women, murder, – you can find many places in the holy books to justify it. Afterall, I’m not stating this as something new or from “thin air”, I’m merely quoting this from what the clerics, priests and leaders say. They’ve told us why and how they are able to justify it. We must make a stand to show faith as not a virtue, as irrational and a plague to our species.
We can so easily toss it out and find respect and faith and happiness, behind all this silliness. We are better than this! We are worth it. It takes faith to not believe our worth; It takes reason to realise it.
I am, however, pleased that we are all, regardless of religion or faith, able to view this as abhorrent and stand against it. Let this be a mark next to faith’s name and a tick next to reason’s.
Pledge Your Virginity to Your Father
Sunday, November 9th, 2008Purity Balls are making the world better, one father-daughter union at a time. On Monday night I watched a documentary at my mom’s place on purity balls. Although I’ve always had an aversion to the idea of abstinence until marriage, this was all just creepy. Apparently 1 in 6 girls pledges their virginity to their father. A thousand questions started to pop up in my head – what if their dad dies? Are they home free? How good is that first honeymoon sex? How can they know they’ve found a good relationship if they don’t know if the sex is satisfying? …etc.
The things the girls were saying were pretty repulsive like “I’ve chosen a higher standard in my life” and “I wouldn’t want to bring anything unhealthy into my body.” That unhealthy thing, being a relationship that is toxic. They even went as far as to compare a bad relationship, where someone suffers because of a broken heart…to cancer. Yes. Cancer. I guess I’ve had the equivalent of cancer. How can someone learn to deal with pain, develop a mature attitude toward love and compare different men/women in the world without…”shopping around” so to speak. Having a broken heart is a part of life. It happens. And I find it pretty insulting that I am living a lower standard of life because I’ve chosen to have sex before marriage. That’s just rude. -_-
There is a long line of events that has to happen before that cherry can be popped. First the girl has to let the male meet their father. Their father has to approve of the male. They have to group date with other people. Then all those group dating have to group date with their parents. Then the male has to ask the girls father for their hand in marriage. Then finally, on the wedding day… after the “i do”s…they can have their first kiss. These girls don’t even kiss before marriage. Their first kiss is at the alter, before God, their father and their family… pledging themselves to one another. I don’t know about everyone else, but it took me a lot of kissing to perfect it all. I’d hate for my wedding day kiss to be that awkward first kiss.
Besides the fact that this all seems somewhat perverted, incestual and against basic biological urges, I have a few other issues. The first in the notion that if a girl doesn’t have a father in her life, they she is going to be royally messed up as she’s growing up and when she is grown up. And more ridiculously, she won’t be able to form any sort of normal, healthy relationship. Most people know this, but for those who don’t, I was basically raised without a father. He died when I was 8, so my sister and I both didn’t have a father. …But guess what? I am in a normal, healthy, loving, nurturing and beautiful relationship. And my sister is too. I can see why not having a father figure in someones life might have them miss out on a few life experiences and might mess a few things up. However – the lack of a father does not lead to a slutty, mislead, screwed up young woman. And I’m sorry – but if I had to pledge my virginity to my father, that would mess me up in so many different ways than the loss of my father did.
I have some friends that took this purity vow.
Case one: she met a guy, dropped out of university 2 months later and married him within the next 6 months. They’re up for divorce after a year.
Case two: she met a guy and married him after 7 months and had 3 kids within the first 1/2 a year. she had to drop out of university and lives in poverty because niether of them can get a job.
Case three: they actually got pregnant before they were married and were thus ostracized from their church, family and circle of friends. her mother didn’t go to her wedding.
Case four: he met a young lady, and had to go on 5 dates with her father before he was allowed to take her on one date. again, they married within three months and divorced after less than 1.5 years.
My point – they get married too fast, they get confused, they get tangled up in this idea that for some reason because they’re not having sex in those first few months that it means they’ve gotten to know each other better than those who DO have sex…because instead of screwing they spend more time talking and getting to know one another. …But given the divorce rate that I’m seeing, rushing into marriage just to have sex isn’t really worth it. (or is it…? i guess it depends how much the wedding costs…)
These kids are getting married after dating for less than a year. They end up dropping out of university to start a family, but then get divorced after there is a kid involved so its hard to just go back to school and start your life where you left off. It’s scary.
And finally, the most screwed up thing that I heard on this documentary: if they date someone else, have sex with someone else or kiss someone else other than the person that they end up marrying it is cheating. It is breaking a 10 commandment – committing adultery. Because they are GOING to be married to that person in the future, they can’t kiss anyone else before they meet that person, because it would be cheating on the person they’ve never actually met and who may not actually exist – or who may be the person that they didn’t kiss and didn’t feel that incredibly “za za zoo” for. Sometimes an unexpected kiss can be the thing that opens your eyes to the beauty of a person.
But no, if you kiss another person, or love someone else before the one that you are destined to be with then you have given away parts of your heart. Parts of your heart that you can never get back, and thus when you get married and find “the one” you will be unable to give them all of your heart and all of your love because you’ve given some of it away already.
That is so. screwed. up. …And essentially what I would deem as child abuse, again. Fair enough that some of these girls are 18 – 25 years old. ..Fine. If they want to give the rights of their vagina to their father, let them. Its their loss. But there were girls as young as 4 – 12 at these things. Thats a scary age to be telling kids that by experimenting, dating and loving people before they are married is committing adultery and that they thus should pledge their life to their father. And let him be the one that she loves until he decides that shes met the right man. …ew.
Tags: atheism, child abuse, evangelica, incest, love, marriage, pure, purity, purity balls, religion, sex
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