Muhammed a pedophile?
This is
Razib. Don't want my co-bloggers associated with this in case an Islamic fundamentalist cell wants to track me down for the subject line and slit my throat. Anyway, this
article talks about the Southern Baptists spewing their typical intolerance toward Muslims. They seem to be judging Muhammed quite harshly for marrying Aisha when she was 6 and consummating the marriage when she was young (I see the ages 9 and 13 bandied about-and some Muslims claiming the info is based on false
hadiths-like any of them are really valid!). But what I'm interested in is the response of a prominent Islamic apologist, Ibrahim Hooper:
Of the pedophilia charge, Hooper said: "The prophet Muhammad didn't do anything not in accord with the norms of the time."
Now, I believe in judging people in the context of their times-but this guy had a pipeline to God via the angel Gabriel. The God of History-above and beyond his mere Creation. And his disciple, his voice among the mortals, must be judged according to the mores of his time? The fact is-in mosques that I've been to, Muhammed is held up as an
exemplar. Muhammed liked dates, so Muslims like dates, Muhammed liked beards (he turned away from two shaved Persians), so Muslims like beards, Muhammed liked green, so, well, you get the picture.
Qualification: Please note that many of my criticisms of Muslims obviously apply to other religions-especially the two other Abrahamic faiths. They claim to have a God of History-rather than a distant myth. And yet all three religions have made their compromises with slavery (see
here,
here and
here ),
genocide and
sexism. Theists are always asking us atheists, "For what foundation of morality will you have without God?" Well-perhaps they should look to their own history and see how little their axiomatic God of History has done for them in the past to temper their animal passions and prejudices.