From the article:
‘Let’s set aside the fact that Mohammad
married Aisha when she was six years old and consummated the marriage when she was nine years old according to Islamic scripture. Let’s also set aside the fact that as a matter of historical record Islam did indeed spread by the sword.’
These concerned Christians aren’t up to speed with the most recent research on Islam.
First of all, on the age of Aisha, there’s this:
New scholarship suggests the story of Islam's prophet marrying a minor is baseless propaganda fabricated for political and sectarian motives
newlinesmag.com
Joshua Little has also gone into some depth about what motivated him to do his research here:
In late September of 2022, I passed the final exam (viva/defence) for my PhD at Oxford University, pending minor corrections. The subject of my thesis was the famous and controversial hadith about the Islamic prophet Muḥammad’s marriage to his wife ʿĀʾišah bt. ʾabī Bakr at a young age: according...
islamicorigins.com
Moving on to the claim that Islam was spread by the sword, this is not consistent with the archaeological evidence that dates from the early period of expansion and other written records from the time. The consensus among reputable scholars like G.W. Bowersock and Fred Donner is that the early ummah were a loose coalition of monotheists who may not have even self-identified as Muslim. They also appear to have been well-received by Christian and other groups in places like Palestine rather than marauded their way into the Holy Land.
Thirdly, the track record of Christianity is nothing to write home about when it comes to women. For example, famous Christian theologians like John Chrysostom and Ambrose thought women must veil at all times, Tertullian called women ‘the devil’s gateway’, St. Augustine said they were not fully made in God’s image, and St. Thomas Aquinas regarded them as ‘misbegotten males’.
Having said that, there is no getting around the fact that these vile creatures did invoke their faith to justify what they did. In doing so I am detecting elements of what might be deemed, for want of a better word, Islamofascist thinking in what they said, which in turn might possibly be traceable to the Wahhabi theology that has, in recent times, taken root in Pakistan, thanks to the Saudis.
And so this is something that the inquiry needs to look at, as it did not, as far as I know, receive a mention in the report I have already drawn attention to that dates from December 2020.
It is therefore important that the word ‘Islamaphobia’, a term that may have some traction in other instances, is not invoked as a smokescreen to deflect attention away from valid criticism of Islam. And this could also get painful, as the tradition about the age of Aisha is found in a corpus of hadiths that many mainstream Muslims deem to be authoritative.
So that’s where I am with this at the moment.
There’s one last thing: the mother of one of the victims, Elizabeth McDonnel, once said in an interview that she didn’t think that Islam had anything to do with the creation of groomers and that these men were well beyond the reach and influence of the mosques.
My view is somewhat different: given a large enough body of scripture, it is usually possible to find a passage (or passages) that appears to justify something despicable that you have already decided to do. And that’s an issue with sacred texts in general.
rapecrisis.org.uk
