Take the wooden block out of your eyes before you criticise the splinter in someone else's eyes

Let me say first off: My views are well known, and I feel no sympathy, respect or empathy towards Extreme Muslims, or any religion or organisation, especially where violence, intimidation, and manipulation are concerned when they use their religion as a weapon against Western Values, but that equally means the other extreme is also unacceptable, and I feel the same contempt for the BNP.

But recently there has been a lot of criticism of Mohammad and his alleged paedophile tendencies when referring to Aisha, one of his many wives with whom it's alleged (in the Koran) he consummated his marriage to her when she was aged only nine years old. But to call the Muslim Prophet a paedophile, with the image it conjures, is vindictive and inflammatory, and I feel this type of attitude will get Western Europeans nowhere, and should not be condoned in the slightest - in fact, it needs to be roundly condemned.

I know the argument, Ah! but it happened, see the Koran, there is little doubt about it, and I'm not disputing that, or the despicable way in which some Muslims still today treat their women. And yes, if it happened today, it would be paedophilia, and I would be the first to shout about it. But you must look at the actions in the context of the ago, and not from our perspective by transposing today’s values on yesterday’s actions.

Consummating a marriage with a nine year old girl is wrong when looked at from where we are today, abhorrent even, but it was not wrong then, and to get heated about something that may, or may not have happened centuries ago beggars belief. Does it matter one way or the other?
I think not, the average life expectancy at that time, when Mohammad lived, was around 40 years of age. Whether he consummated the marriage with his nine-year-old bride is an irrelevance, he was married to her: it was the law, and the West shouldn't judge. Mary Boleyn was not that much older when her father gave her encouragingly to Henry the VIII as one of his many mistresses.
It was a part of life then, and accepted as natural and normal: a girl was mature enough to engage in sexual intercourse immediately she reached puberty. So to judge and place our current day moralistic values towards a culture, which existed many hundreds of years ago, and to take a judgemental stance, is not just wrong, but cogently preposterous.
He, Mohammad, was doing what everyone else was doing at that time. To suggest, or to use that as an example to suggest Mohammad was a flawed individual is the wrong premise by which to denigrate the Muslim religion. Remember, they were an enlightened culture in art, medicine, architecture, mathematics, far in advance of the rest of the world and still, a lot of their ideas we use and benefit from to this present day.

But to suggest that Mohammad hated and had no respect for women is to falsify the truth. Indeed, I go even further, and take an opposite stance, it shows that Mohammad had respect for women, and was far more enlightened towards them than the culture he was a part of, and which he helped to shape for future generations.
I quote from an article from Creeping Sharia:
“While it is widely accepted that the girl’s father first offered her for betrothal to Muhammad when she was just six, many argue that Muhammad married Aisha when she was nine and the union was not consummated until she reached puberty, years later.” Which I'm inclined to accept, but even if that were not the situation, it still shows him up in a good light.
As (I know he’s a bit of a loud mouth, but what he said has relevance) Anjem Choudary says in the article. “At nine she reached her menses and in those days a girl was considered to be mature when that happened. No one will swallow talk about child brides. It would lead to a huge backlash.”
So let us not criticize or take a highbrow tone today, it has no relevance, something that happened long ago and we should move forward. But I will add a cautionary note. There are still some within the Muslim faith who see no wrong with a man having sex with a girl of nine or ten providing she has had her first period, with agreement from the girl's father, and she is married to the person concerned, arguing that it is acceptable because if it was good enough for Mohammad, it should be good enough for other Muslims, even today. That is a puerile argument, and anyone who holds those tendencies today, Muslim or otherwise, should get short shift, and be shown up for what they are: Woman - Girl - Child - abusers, and nothing to do with religion.

So instead of division, let us heal the rift whether we are Christian, Muslim, Atheist - we are all one family, the family of humankind, read a comment made to my last blog by an anonymous contributor. It made me think, division is divisive, and it is time to heal and stand together. But where there is no justice, or where it is misplaced, we need to speak out, or otherwise the strong and aggressive in wickedness will prevail over the good and the weak, and I make no appologies for that remark.

SEE MY OTHER ARTICLES:

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