pile lists of potential victims and as
was mentioned his other wives were
not particularly young.
Historically Incoherent
Thus, without a shred of evidence, the
premise falls flat and the rest of the argument
dissolves. There is no way to
justify calling the Noble Prophet a a
pedophile. Making such a claim is similar
to reporting a murder to the police
and there being no weapon found, no
dead body and no murderer. Despite
this, these antagonists don’t give up so
easily. At the end of their tether, they
will try to patch and pump up the flat
tire hoping they can somehow finish
the race.
Child Marriage
Once it is realized that the pedophilia
approach doesn’t work, they may try
to argue that it is child marriage itself
that is the immoral ingredient. Thus,
the argument would be: child marriage
is immoral. the Prophet Muhammad
a married a child. Therefore
he was immoral. Hence, Islam is false.
This version of the argument loses
some of its shock effect but seems to
be more compelling. However, all we
have to do is look at the premises and
see if they are true or false. If we can
demonstrate that the premises are untrue,
then the conclusion will not necessarily
follow.
What is a Child?
Similar to the pedophile argument, we
first want to see if the definitions of the
words used in the argument are accurate.
Is there a universally agreed upon
age which the word child falls into? Or
do we base it off biology, law and social
norms? Is the current secular definition
of a child the same as it was in
the 7th century? Was the landscape of
the economy, warfare, education and
societal life in general congruent with
that of the 21st century modern world?
Not at all.
An interesting point is raised in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
under the entry of the Philosophy
of Childhood. It reads: “Almost single
handedly, Philippe Ariès, in his
influential book, Centuries of Childhood
(Ariès, 1962), made the reading
public aware that conceptions of
childhood have varied across the
centuries. The very notion of a child,
we now realize, is both historically
and culturally conditioned. But exactly
how the conception of childhood
has changed historically and how
conceptions differ across cultures is a
matter of scholarly controversy and
philosophical interest (see Kennedy,
2006).”1 It seems quite unreasonable to
ignore the historical variance of what
a child is and expect the people of the
past to have behaved like the present.
Presentism
The conditions of the people in that
time were completely different all
over the world. With a culturally biased
lens, using present-day ideas and
perspectives to interpret the past is
a fallacy known as presentism. Why
weren’t the pre-teens and teenagers
in grade school getting ready for field
trips to the zoo and getting ready for
the prom? Why weren’t they allowed
to apply for college or university in
order to get a degree? Why weren’t
they given a proper secular education
like we have today with which they
could have advanced the industrialized
modern world (of their time) and
made it a better place? Well, because
none of that existed.
With average life expectancy of
around 22 to 35 years, children became
adults much earlier based on
utility. Civilizations and their economies
were built on numbers not hightech
manufacturing facilities. They
didn’t have advanced healthcare like
vaccines and operating rooms with
multiple medical professionals and
assistants. They struggled with even
basic diseases, malnourishment, famines,
wars, arduous labor, no electricity,
no running water and many other
social handicaps which would drag the
life expectancy down from a materialistic
point of view. On top of that, they
were dealing with a child mortality rate
of almost 50% according to University
of Oxford researcher Max Roser. He
writes in his research2 titled Mortality
in the past – around half died as children:
“Across the entire historical sample
the authors found that on average,
26.9% of newborns died in their first
year of life and 46.2% died before they
reached adulthood. Two estimates that
are easy to remember: Around a quarter
died in the first year of life. Around
half died as children. What is striking
about the historical estimates is how
similar the mortality rates for children
were across this very wide range of 43
historical cultures. Whether in Ancient
Rome; Ancient Greece; the pre-Columbian
Americas; Medieval Japan or
Medieval England; the European Renaissance;
or Imperial China: Every
fourth newborn died in the first year
of life. One out of two died in childhood.”
This means that women had to
endure 5-7 full term pregnancies in
order to keep the population afloat.
Survival wasn’t a weekend camping
trip for them, it was a struggle to live.
For the young generation to not have
transitioned into adulthood at a much
younger age would have been the difference
between survival and extinction.
Thus, given the circumstances,
to expect the young of the past to be
given the “opportunities” of the modern
secular world is ludicrous. How is
it then considered immoral when it
was not only lacking in harm but was
considered a necessary mechanism
and practiced by the vast majority of
the world for their survival?
Why Make Such a Poor Argument?
What’s really happening behind the
scenes? What is the driving force of this
argument and what is their agenda?
Do they have any backup arguments
or moves to get out of checkmate?
There are still so many criticisms to
continued on page 30
22 January – February 2022 | AL-MADINAH