This one is from Saudi. Apparently, a 16 year old girl drank bleach in order to kill herself so that she wouldn’t be forced to marry a 75 year old guy. The father of the 16 year old was doing it so that the 75 year old would let him marry the 75 year old’s 13 year old daughter. You can read about it here.
There are several things wrong with this picture. Forcing girls to marry, the huge age discrepancies in age, and of course the desire to marry a 13 year old. I think it’s safe to assume that we’re dealing with a couple of first class creeps…
The comments on that article are pretty interesting as well. There are a ton of people that basically say, “See, Islam is a barbaric religion,” despite the fact that one of the first things said in the article is that forced marriages are haraam. So these guys are operating outside of accepted religious guidelines.
“But what about the marrying of a 13 year old? Isn’t that nasty? Shouldn’t Islam ban that?” Oh come on, like there has never been a 13 year old bride in the US. And please point out to me where in the Bible it says what a good age is to be married… Religion isn’t a cut and dried affair, and it always bows down to cultural norms in the mainstream.
To me, that is a more damning aspect of this. Many places in the middle east (and especially Saudi) are stuck in the 5th century when it comes to things like this. I can sort of, kind of understand the importance of marrying off a girl at 9 back then. Life was pretty different, and much harder in 500AD. Things are much different now, and so people that want to marry young girls really strike everyone as people trying to take advantage of “the law” for their own, creepy agenda.
So I’m not laying this at the feet of Islam, but I do wish that more Imams would take on some leadership roles when it comes to things like this. I wish they would say, “Yes, the prophet (PBUH) did marry a 9 year old, and yes, he waited until she was 12 before consummating the marriage HOWEVER, you are not him and there really isn’t a good reason to marry a girl that young any more.” Would that be so difficult?
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middle east, pedophile, religion, Saudi arabia, whahabi, child bride