Many people have heard about Muhammad’s marriage to Aisha when she was 6 years old, and how he had sexual intercourse with her when she was 9, and he was in his 50’s (Bukhari, and Muslim). This is either denied outright (without evidence) or explained as an anomaly. The truth however is that classical Islam, shaped by its scripture, its prophet’s life, the actions of the early Muslim community, and the consensus of its juristic schools, created a system in which children were married to, and thus effectively forced to have sex with much older adult men.
It was so permitted, and normalised that no early scholar ever spoke about it in a negative way. It was as normal as water being Halal. No one questioned it or saw it as bad. This may be shocking to the everyday Muslim, it was shocking to me too when I discovered it, but unfortunately it is the unshakeable truth that every single primary source – including the Qur’an – lays out as a good, praiseworthy thing.
The laws granted adults sexual authority over these children, and treated them as wives to them. These children could not refuse sex, except under very strict conditions – none of which included not wanting to do it, or being scared to do it, or feeling discomfort or pain from doing it. They had no ability to not consent, in the way that we understand it today.
To understand how such a system formed and became normalized, we must trace the phenomenon from its cultural roots to its legal codification – without evasiveness, without apology, and without linguistic disguises. This is an objective evil at the foundation of Islam’s history and legal system, which was normalised and treated as good for many centuries. It is a great thing that Muslims today have effectively updated their religion such that (I would say) most Muslims think a person ought to be an adult before they are married, they also ought to consent to it, and never be forced into sex. This is a wonderful result of modern liberal thinking, and the spread of more rights based philosophy. In any case, it’s a good thing.
Finally: everything I lay out in this essay comes from primary sources, and is confirmed by multiple layers of evidence at every level i.e. Qur’an, Hadith, actions of Muhammad, actions of his companions, and mainstream rulings of the 5 main schools of law. I apologise if this shakes your faith, but the truth must be spoken such that Islam can continue to modernise away from this dark part of its origin.
1. Child Marriage Before Islam: The Cultural Ground from Which Islam Emerged
Arabia before Islam was a society without a concept of childhood as a protected developmental stage. A girl was considered under the total authority of her guardian. She did not possess personal autonomy, legal agency, or any recognised right to delay marriage until maturity. Historical sources – genealogies, poetry, tribal chronicles – indicate that girls were routinely married at ages as young as 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11. In many tribes, this was not exceptional but expected. Marriage was not primarily about love or adult companionship; it was a tribal mechanism to strengthen alliances and consolidate families.
This context is essential, because Islam did not arise in opposition to this practice. It arose inside it, and its legislation reflects that environment.
2. The Qur’an: Formalizing the Existence of Child Marriage
The Qur’an does not reject or forbid the marriage of children, or sexual activity with children. It does not place a minimum age. It does not warn against the practice. Instead, it addresses child marriage by acknowledging it exists and building legal rules around it.
It is important to remember that to Muslims the Qur’an is the perfect word of God, and Muhammad had full authority to act on God’s behalf in any matter. In other words, the Qur’an very easily could’ve ruled that child marriage was no longer allowed, and the followers of Muhammad would’ve obeyed. But this did not happen. In fact, the Qur’an only gave a ruling which effectively said: child marriage is ok.
Just for reference, rulings ‘came down’ about far less important things than this: such as not entering upon a person who is sleeping in a state of undress, or not drinking wine (something that many of the early believers loved to do). It was not as if the believers would’ve rejected any ruling on child marriage – no, that would be disbelief and apostasy (punishable by death). They would’ve obeyed it right away. But it didn’t ever ‘come down’. The conclusion therefore drawn by all the main schools of law was that the Qur’an itself – when taken literally – justified marrying and having sex with children.
The clearest example is Qur’an 65:4, which discusses waiting periods for divorce.
Among the categories listed are girls who “have not yet menstruated.”
Classical commentators – al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, al-Qurtubi, Ibn al-‘Arabi, Fakhr al-Razi – unanimously explain this as referring to children who are too young to have begun puberty. These girls are given the same divorce procedures as adult wives. There is no indication that the Qur’an sees this as problematic. This alone makes it clear that the scripture accepted child marriage as part of its normative world.
3. Muhammad’s Marriage to Aisha: Ages and Implications
The hadith collections recognised as the most authoritative – Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim – record Aisha stating explicitly:
- She was married to Muhammad at six years old.
- He had sex with her for the first time at nine.
Muhammad at this point was fifty-three.
These reports were never rejected by classical scholars. Scholars such as Ibn Hajar, al-Nawawi, Ibn Sa‘d, and al-Tabari accepted them without hesitation. For them, this was not an embarrassing detail, nor a difficulty to explain away – it was simply historical reality.
Aisha’s young age became a legal and moral precedent, later used by jurists when discussing when a child could be married to an adult man and when he could have sex with her. No early Muslim source shows moral discomfort, and no companion objected. This silence is telling: it shows that, for the early Muslim community, a child being placed into a sexual marriage role with a much older adult man was neither shocking nor controversial. It was both normal, and Sunnah i.e. a good, praiseworthy practice of Muhammad.
It is worth remembering that in Islamic thought Muhammad is seen as a blameless, perfect (in terms of character) messenger of God. So to criticise him, or say he has done something evil, would effectively be kufr i.e. disbelief. Hence, the early Muslims did not criticise him at all, but rather imitated him.
This is the great trouble with accepting a human being – a member of Homo Sapiens as being a special messenger who has Divine authority. You end up in situations where you must agree with something evil, and call it good. Or deal with cognitive dissonance of trying to explain it away as a product of the past – while saying he was and is the perfect example for all times. We must instead remember that we are all just human beings. Flawed, and trying our best to be good. There are no perfect messengers, and none who are receiving revelation from the Infinite.
4. The Companions: Further Examples of Child Marriage
Muhammad’s closest followers – the very people classical Islam reveres as ‘the purest generation’ – engaged in the same practices.
The historical works of Ibn Sa‘d, al-Tabari, and Ibn Kathir document several notable cases:
- Umar ibn al-Khattab at around 57 years old, married Umm Kulthum bint Ali, who was around 10–12.
- Talha ibn Ubaydullah, in his 50s, married a girl around 12.
- Zubayr ibn al-‘Awwam, in his 40s, took a girl around 10–12 into his household as a wife.
These were not fringe figures. They were leaders, lawmakers, generals, and luminaries in early Islam. All three of them in fact were ‘promised paradise’ by Muhammad himself. Their actions show us how the earliest Muslims understood marriage: a system in which a grown man could marry, and have sex with children without social or moral objection.
No debates.
No dissent.
No recorded discomfort.
No one objecting to the age difference or the vulnerability of the child.
The culture accepted it. The early Muslim community accepted it. And the legal tradition inherited that acceptance.
5. Classical Islamic Law: Legal Structure and the Rights of the Adult Over the Child
As Islamic law developed between the 8th and 13th centuries, jurists formalised what they believed to be the prophet’s example and the practice of the earliest Muslims. The result was a legal system that clearly allowed:
- a guardian to arrange a child’s marriage to an adult without her consent,
- a marriage contract at any age i.e. the child could be 5, 6, 7, 8,
- and the eventual transfer of the child into a marriage and sexual relationship with an adult once adults deemed her physically capable (usually just the onset of puberty – could be 9 or even younger).
No Minimum Age
The Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi‘i, Hanbali, and Ja‘fari schools all agree:
- There is no minimum age at which a marriage contract becomes valid.
- A child may be contractually placed into a marriage at any age.
Consent Not Required
Classical law holds that a child’s consent is not needed for the contract.
The guardian’s decision is binding.
Physical Capability, Not Age, Determines When the Adult Gains Marital Claims
Classical jurists used two concepts:
- Start of puberty, often assumed to occur as early as 9–13 for girls.
- Physical capability – not emotional maturity, not psychological readiness, not that it would cause some physical pain or discomfort, or she’s scared – but an adult’s assessment that the child would not suffer severe physical damage.
This means a child could be placed into a sexual role within an adult man’s household around the beginning of puberty – or even earlier if adults judged her “capable.” In other words, an adult could have sexual activity with a child even before puberty if it would not cause her actual physical harm, and he was contractually married to her. In other words, an adult could legally sexually assault a child in his house as often as he liked, even before she entered puberty.
The Adult’s Sexual Claim
Once the conditions were met, the adult man received full sexual claim over the child, meaning:
- he had the legal right to have sex with the child,
- the child was viewed legally as his wife,
- and she had no meaningful mechanism to refuse these claims except in narrow cases tied to physical illness or danger.
Refusal by the Child Was Not Recognised
Classical Islamic law did not conceptualise personal autonomy for children. More importantly, it did not conceptualise modern sexual consent even for adults.
A wife – adult or child – could not reject the husband’s physical marital claims unless:
- she was physically ill in a way that made harm severe,
- she was in a religiously forbidden period (like menstruation),
- or there was immediate danger to life.
Emotional distress, fear, psychological unreadiness, or simple unwillingness did not count.
This means the child could not say: ‘ I don’t want to have sex with an adult. I’m too young to have sex.’
None of these would be accepted, if the adults deemed the child was fit to be married and to have sex with.
They had no ability to not consent unless they had some Islamic reason, which did not include simply not wanting to do it.
The only exception to this was if there was actual serious physical harm being caused, but even in these cases, the adult could simply do something else such as oral.
It’s fucked up shit.
Thus, the legal system did not merely permit the situation – it enforced it.
6. Why This Is Unethical Objectively
If it needs to be said (and if you require it to be said, I would highly recommend you seek therapy and/or report yourself to law enforcement for the safety of all children) the ethical problems are overwhelming:
- A child cannot give informed consent.
- A child will be psychologically traumatised by being raped by an adult – which is what all sex with a child is.
- A child is psychologically and emotionally undeveloped.
- A child is vulnerable, dependent, and unable to resist adult authority.
- A child cannot comprehend or negotiate a spousal role.
- Power imbalances turn the arrangement into a form of sanctioned exploitation.
Classical Islamic law was built on assumptions that hold no objective legitimacy. It defined harm too narrowly, ignored psychological dimensions, and equated adulthood with the onset of puberty rather than psychological, and fuller physical development.
The system treated consent as irrelevant for children – and limited for adults. It embedded male authority at the center of family life. And it framed children as entities who could be placed into a sexual role by adult decision alone.
No amount of apologetics changes this picture. This is the problem with basing your morality on a ‘revealed’ text. No, it does not make your morality objective. It makes it a slave to whatever the homo sapien wrote in the text. You must agree with things that are fundamentally, objectively immoral.
Being objective means seeing what’s true regardless of any anchor or limiting glasses. It’s not saying ‘God said’. It’s seeing that children have no ability to consent to sex, or a life decision like marriage and hence cannot be made to do either. They cannot ‘choose’ to do either – they don’t have the psychological development for that. They are therefore in need of being protected.
God does not have a habit of speaking to humans, and moreover, as soon as a human says ‘God says’, it is not God’s voice I hear, but a human’s.
Hence, it is never the divine that is being referred to, but always the human claiming divine authority. Do you not think if God wanted to speak to us human beings, and God was All Mighty and All Loving, and All Wise, he wouldn’t just speak into our minds? Or write his words in the sky where all could see? Why would he choose a person born around 2 million years after the emergence of Homo Erectus (the first human being) to be the messenger of his message? Does this actually make sense to you?
Ask yourself the question objectively. If you were not already Muslim, what answer would you give?
In any case, basing your morality on revelation is a terrible idea because you end up in situations where you are forced to say an evil thing is good because ‘God said’ it. Even though you know in your soul it is evil. And not just your soul, but if you examine it objectively, asking what is true outside of all religious thinking, all human opinions, you will see it is evil.
Moreover, what happens is rather than society developing away from the practice, instead you have the fucked up terrible crime, the exploitation and abuse of countless children, continuing – crystalised, not allowed to be questioned, in a verse of man-made ‘revelation’.
It’s fine if people wish to take their texts as myth, or metaphor, or inspiration. But as soon as the story and the words are taken literally, then you have all manner of evils forced upon everyone.
Also, it is worth knowing that as soon as Muhammad died, his companions fell into civil war. Killing each other over who should lead, and who were the true followers of what ‘God said’. Why? Because when you create a text and call it revelation, then human beings are forced to interpret it. This is unavoidable and happens any time you read a text. And because we each have different viewpoints, we will have disagreements over who’s interpretation is correct. Disagreeing over Shakespeare is one thing, but over a text that we both believe to be Divine is a whole nother matter. Eventually, swords will be drawn and each will accuse the other of disbelief. This is what happened, not 400 years after Muhammad died, but literally two decades after.
The people fighting each other were not new converts, or people who ‘don’t know the original pure view of the companions’: they were the companions lol. They were the very people Muslims are supposed to reference. These were the one’s disagreeing over the Qur’an and the succession of Islamic leadership. They were the ones who literally bled alongside Muhammad, and now only a few short years after he died, they were killing each other. This is not to mention all the Muslims who left Islam immediately after he died and were then declared war upon by Abu Bakr.
This civil war among companions is known euphemistically as ‘the Fitnah’, and is often not taught by scholars even to very dedicated Muslims. Three out of the four of the first caliphs were assassinated in this period, by other Muslims who were alive during Muhammad’s lifetime. That is the true reality of what happens when you say a text is perfect and has all the authority to make laws, and speak for God. You get war and death.
Conclusion
Classical Islam did not merely fail to prohibit child marriage – it absorbed it, sanctioned it, codified it, and elevated it into a ‘moral’ practice through its scripture, its prophet’s example, and its legal traditions. The system granted adult men legal sexual access over children, with minimal restrictions and no real regard for the child’s developmental or emotional reality.
This would be understandable, and explainable even from the lens of: it was a product of the time. They did not understand physical, or psychological development. Hence, why similar things are found in Rome, and other ancient places. They had it for a time, and then moved on from it when they learned better. This, unfortunately, did not happen.
Instead, the claim was made that the people doing it were following the literal word of God, given and acted out by a perfect messenger of God. Thus it became, and could become (God forbid), not a product of the time, but a justification for continued evil.
I would implore, therefore, all Muslims to continue to see their faith as a source of strength, spirituality, community, meaning, but to not take the laws literally, and not treat the leader of it as a perfect human being. For there are no perfect human beings, only flawed human beings – some good, some bad. I will leave the judgement of Muhammad, and his companions to you.
I myself take the path of philosophy. I try my best to align with virtue as best I can. I try to live with Truth, Love, Courage, Justice, Kindness, Humility and so on. And I believe in the Infinite mystery (what you can call God) at the source of all existence. So I have spirituality in my life too without any book or ‘messenger’. That being said, my path is my path, and though I would warmly welcome any Muslim or anyone else to join me on it. I do not seek to try to take away anyone’s religion. I simply wanted to share the truth of something which is, and was incredibly dark.
I am glad that humanity as a whole continues to move toward the light. May we continue to move in that direction.
God bless us all.
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