Muhammad(pbuh): A pedophile?

[Abdurrahman]

"Was Muhammad (pbuh) a pedophile?"

This is the question that keeps popping up in my mind for a while now, thus leaving me no choice but to reflect on the question.  And when i finally reached a final answer to the question i couldn't help but ask myself: why the question in the first place? Why do people even like raising this kinda question? Too much time to spare/not having work to do?

Wait! Who am i kidding? I know the answer to the why, because one must be naive if he ignores the intolerance and prejudice that are swiftly escalating in this world, the flimsy accusations people tend to throw just to slander or disparage a particular group of people, either out of ignorance or a sheer fanaticism. As heart breaking as it is, this is the world that we live in today. And it's so sad and heartrending, especially when one remembers that we are in the 21st century, we are supposed to be smart and more civilized.

It is the same with this allegation of pedophilia against the prophet of mankind Muhammad(pbuh). It will only take a common sense to understand that this accusation is nothing but a blatant lie meant to tarnish the image of prophet Muhammad(pbuh). Yet even the so called educated and civilized people are clinging on to this lie, disseminating it incessantly.

Lets look at the definition of pedophilia and see whether prophet Muhammad (SAW) could be lebeled as a pedophile or not.  But before going further i would like to emphasize that pedophilia was first formally recognised and named in the late 19th century. Even though a significant amount of research in the area was said to have taken place since 1980s. Which simply means that engaging in sexual activity with someone under 18 was incontestably normal before at least 1980.

Now, what is pedophilia?

*The DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF MENTAL DISORDERS (DSM-5) defines it as a paraphilia involving intense and RECURRENT sexual urges towards prepubescent CHILDREN.

*The INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES (ICD-10) defines it as a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age.

I can only ask one question, did prophet Muhammad (pbuh) prefer children over adults??? The answer will definitely be a capital NO! Because whoever has even the slightest knowledge of his history will know that the prophet had 11 wives all of whom were divorcees with the exeption of Aisha(may Allah be pleased with her),  three of them were even older than him, they are; KHADIJAH, SAUDAH AND ZAINAB BINT KHUZAIMAH. So how does the term "pedophile" apply to him (SAW)???

Let's assume hypothetically that the only wife the prophet had was Aisha, a person just can't apply his own ideas on morality to what happened more than 1000 years ago, he/she has to look at what was and wasn't right for back then. Age categorization is a modern concept, it doesn't work if you apply modern day societal constructs to 1400 years ago.

If we look back into history we will find many similar cases and proofs that marrying "under age" girls was a norm. We can see that in the bible also, even though they claim the books are apocrypha. But apocrypha or not, the fact that such marriage was mentioned in the old book shows that the act was prevalent.

Catholic Encyclopaedia shows that joseph married 12-year-old Mary when he at the time was ninety years old. So i think my christian brothers should be wary of flippant name-calling.

The influential founder of Canon law in medieval europe, Gratian, in the 12th century accepted age of puberty for marriage to be around 12 (girls) and around 14 (boys) but acknowledged Consent to be meaningful if the children were older than 7.

The first recorded age of consent law dates from 1275 in england; as part of its provisions on rape, the statute of Westminster 1275 made it a misdemeanor to "ravish" a "maiden within age" whether with or without her consent. The phrase "within age" was later interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke as meaning the age of marriage, which at that time was 12 years of age.

Sir Edward Coke made it clear that the marriage of girls under 12 was normal. Of course the big example i can give of this is that of Mary Hathaway( Virginia, 1689) when she married William Williams while she was at the age of 9.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, because in the United states, as late as the 1880s most states set the minimum age of sexual intercourse at 10-12, and in Delaware the minimum age was 7 in 1895.

With all these evidences i think someone shouldn't ask why the prophet married Aisha at 7 or 9, rather, the question should be: "Was it normal back then?"

Answer is, yes! So this leaves the un-answerd question: Was Muhammad (pbuh) a pedophile??? Difinitely No. How can he be, when such marriages were normal at their time and hundred of years after them? How can we impose our 20th century law on people that lived many many centuries before us? Who gave us the right to judge them???


I think what the world needs is a little tolerance and altruism in order for us to be able to live in peace and to amply accept each other.

"Inner compassion
And outer tolerance
Can easily make a new world,
     A better world" Sri Chinmoy.