- 1/2/3/4/5 Whether they were Prophet or not doesn't matter. We all agree here that Muhammad wasn't a Prophet, thus he was an Arab man of the 7th century. The question is whether he is a pedophile. I am saying that he did nothing different than many of your grandfathers. Are you ready to call your grandfathers pedophiles? Or is there perhaps more than meets the eye here?
If my grandfather had screwed a nine year old girl when he was in his fifties then yes, I would call him a paedophile.
- 6/7 In the USA, we still have Gypsys who arrange their daughters for marriage at a very early age, as young (ironically) as 9 years old. We have some Christian religious groups who arrange their daughters at a very young age as well. Of course we all know Muslims and people in many of our home countries, in the Middle East or the Sub-Continent, still practice arranged marriage with children. Are all these people pedophiles? In the USA it is illegal to marry a child. A pedophile to us is usually a guy who kidnaps children and has sex with them, and might even kill them. That isn't what Muhammad did. That isn't what people around the world do. That isn't what many of our grandfathers did.
Paedophilia of itself has nothing whatsoever to do with kidnapping and murder. Those are separate topics. Paedophilia is simply a sexual interest in children.
And yes, if the groups you mention are promoting adult men having sex with young girls then they are promoting paedophilia and/or the sexual abuse of children, however you wish to phrase it.
- 8 Aisha was actually arranged to marry someone else before Muhammad. No one protested Muhammad's marriage to Aisha. Abu Bakr thought that since Muhammad was his 'brother', as Muhammad had been teaching them that they are all brothers, perhaps Aisha would then be somehow forbidden for Muhammad, he thought Muhammad was as a mahram to Aisha. Muhammad seems to have encouraged all of his closest Companions to intermarry into each other's families. I believe that this was a strategy on his part.
You guys speak about Muhammad like he was prowling around parks in a trench coat or something. It was an arranged marriage and it isn't even so much an act of Muhammad as it is an act of 7th century tribal Arabia.
Now I don't mean to say I think this is a good practice, I don't think it is. If it was pedophilia I would have no problem in recognizing that. It just isn't though. If you want to use this as a proof against Muhammad's prophethood I think that it works in the sense that you can point out that God should know that child marriage violates such and such. However, if Muhammad is a just another man of 7th century tribal Arabia, what do you expect him to know?
Ok, you can take that line if you want to but it has nothing to do with Islam as such, because it directly contradicts the tenets of Islam. Hence, it is hardly relevant to discussions about Islam or to conversations with Muslims.
Topic: Top Ex-Muslim Myths