Saudis talk bullshit about child marriage

 Reuters snores

 

 

This story’s been getting a lot of play the last couple of days. It’s another one of these initiatives we see fairly regularly where the Saudis, or some other Islamic entity, do some media outreach aimed at kinda-sorta making it sound like they’re doing something to mitigate some barbaric Islamic practice or another, when in reality they are doing nothing. And the Western media outlets that cover it, of course, sleepwalk their way through the story, take the Muslims’ word at face value, and ignore entirely the theological, doctrinal underpinnings of the barbaric practice in question.

 

In this case, the Saudis are making an attempt to do a bit of damage control on bad publicity they’ve gotten from the spate of high-profile child marriage cases they’ve received international condemnation for over the last couple of years. But as the story even acknowledges, they never say they are going to do away with this practice. It sounds like, if anything, all their going to do is make the practice more uniform in execution. That’s what the lead of this story should have been, but instead Reuters buries that detail in paragraph four.

 

The reason the Saudis won’t do away with the practice is because child marriage is perfectly legitimate according to Sharia law. Sharia law is all based on the random edicts and practices of a seventh century warlord referred to by Muslims as “The Prophet Muhammad.” His edicts, both his own and those he ascribed to “Allah,” are considered by Muslims to be perfect and immutable for all time, and they can never be changed. Therefore Sharia law has similarly rigid, unchangeable characteristics – all the laws that comprise Sharia are extrapolations of edicts in the Qur’an and of Muhammad.

 

The Qur’an takes child marriage as a given. In setting out rules for Muslims divorcing, it states:

 

“If you are in doubt about those of your wives who have ceased menstruating, know that their waiting period shall be three months. The same shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated.” (Qur’an 65:4)

 

In other words, here the Qur’an is not only envisioning a prepubescent girl being married, but being divorced.

 

Muhammad himself married a six year old girl named Aisha, and consummated the marriage when she was nine. The Qur’an tells Muslims that Muhammad is the perfect example of human conduct to be emulated.

 

Therefore, Sharia law also takes child marriage as a given. It can’t be any other way.

This Reuters story never tells you that though. Strange, eh? Instead, as it seems is always the case in these types of stories, the reporter chalks the practice of child marriage up to “an austere form of Sharia law.”

This is not an “austere” form of Sharia law, or any other marginal “form” of Sharia law. This IS Sharia law, plain and simple. The media’s misrepresentations about this essentially makes it complicit in this pedophilia and enslavement.

 

Saudi Arabia to regulate girls’ marriages

 

Reuters

Tuesday, April 14, 2009; 5:26 AM

 

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia plans to regulate the marriages of young girls, its justice minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday, after a court refused to nullify the marriage of an 8-year-old to a man 50 years her senior.

 

The justice ministry aims “to put an end to arbitrariness by parents and guardians in marrying off minor girls,” Justice Minister Mohamed al-Issa told al-Watan newspaper, partially owned by members of the royal family. 

 

Saudi Arabia is a patriarchal society that applies an austere form of Sunni Islam that bans unrelated men and women from mixing and gives fathers the right to wed their sons and daughters to whoever they deem fit. 

 

The minister’s comments suggested the practice of marrying off young girls would not be abolished. The regulations will seek to “preserve the rights, fending off blights to end the negative aspects of underage girls’ marriage,” he said. 

 

A court in the Saudi town of Unaiza upheld for the second time last week the marriage of the Saudi girl to a man who is about 50 years her senior, on condition he does not have sex with her until she reaches puberty. 

 

The minister added that any new regulations would be made under the provision that the requirements of universal laws were not binding to religious commandments. 

 

Officials at the ministry could not be reached for comment. 

 

Financial considerations could prompt some Saudi families to wed their underage daughters to much older men. Many Saudi clerics, including the kingdom’s chief cleric Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdelaziz Al al-Sheikh, endorse the practice. 

 

“For them this is allowed by Islamic Sharia law,” lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem said. 

 

“Some (clerics) will be against this (plan) but the justice minister is also a cleric and a member of the kingdom’s top clerics body.”  

 

Many young girls in Arab countries that observe tribal traditions are married to older husbands but not before puberty. Such marriages are also driven by poverty in countries like Yemen, one of the poorest countries outside Africa.

 

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF expressed on Monday its “deep concern” over the Onaiza court ruling.

 

“Irrespective of circumstances or the legal framework, the marriage of a child is a violation of that child’s rights,” UNICEF’s chief, Ann Veneman, said in a statement. 

 

(Reporting by Souhail Karam and Patrick Worsnip in New York; editing by Robert Woodward)

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 15th, 2009 at 9:57 am

 

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