Here's an interesting/horrifying news story:
Saudi court tells girl aged EIGHT she cannot divorce husband who is 50 years her senior
By
22nd December 2008
A father gives his 8 year old daughter in marriage to a 58 year old in exchange for a dowry. The mother, funny enough, did not approve and filed papers with a Saudi court.
As the article states: Lawyer Abdullar Jtili said:"The judge has dismissed the plea, filed by the mother, because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty."
Too bad that the mother does not have equal rights as the father with regards to the daughter... not to mention the daughter's rights!
So as I wrote before in my "Why I engage in religious debates..." essay,
In Islam, Mohammad’s life is the best example of how to lead a virtuous life. How he lived his life is to be emulated by faithful Muslims. It is blasphemous to suggest that Mohammad’s moral example could be improved upon. This leads to some tragic modern day occurrences. The Sahih al-Bukhari is the most trusted Sunni collection of Hadiths which records the life of Mohammad.
It has passages like the following (the link is to the specific quote in the USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts):
Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88: Narrated ‘Ursa:
The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
The Prophet is, of course, Mohammad, who is seen consummating a marriage with a nine year old.
{ 28 comments }
The Koran is not alone in “promoting” things that most people would look at and cringe in disgust. In the Old Testament, a prophet summons two bears to kill a bunch of youth that made fun of his baldness.
Any kind of fundamentalist belief based on a single text is foolish and leads to disaster.
Good. We need more bear-related murders to deal with these punk-ass teenagers. Seriously, they ruined my generation's image completely.
The term “backward” has just been defined…
Wow, I did not know that Mohammed was a fucking degenerate pervert. He had sex with a 9(!)-year old girl? Put his ass in jail, fucking pedophile.
Oh please. We put 8 year olds in halter tops, and hot pants that say “juicy” across the seat, and see to it they are preggers or at least deflowered by 15.
I love how judgmental of other cultures we are. We have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world, the highest prison population of the industrialized world, and we’re hip deep in a pedophile witch hunt.
We don’t care in this country if 8 year old boys are molested by the elderly clergy en mass, but one little foreign girl MIGHT get molested and we lose our minds.
The bottom line is a lot of men read that and got jealous because they want a 16 year old at 40, and this is just a bit much even for them. The Saudi depravity reflects their depravity hence the rage.
If you’re really so pissed, how about we bomb them? Oh wait they can fight back. And they sell us our oil.
In short, put up or shut up.
The Saudi society doesn't recognise women as human. They have almost no rights what so ever, and are subjugated. I doubt their happy about that even if they don't speak out. It's disgusting that their religious beliefs cloud their governing bodies.
I am quite sure people do care when old men molest their 8 year old boys.
Thank you for sharing this story. I personally find it reprehensible that some people in the modern world still live and think like barbaric bronze age idiots, treating women and children like less than dogs. The bibles and qurans and torahs of the world cause so much crazy trouble. Disgusting.
This headline is misleading. The girl has basically been promised to marry this dude once she reaches the age of 18.
2. that’s a more ass-backward part of the world than the US, so it’s not surprising those people still believe in supernatural fairies that watch you masturbate then punish you when you die.
3. there is no god. get over it. it’s not even worth discussing which is why i won’t discuss it. pull your head out of your ass and think for yourself.
According to the story, there is a verbal agreement that the man will not have sex with his wife until she is 18.
Let’s say the unthinkable happens, and the man has sex with his legally wedded 8-year old wife … maybe in a year or two.
What possible recourse could ANYONE have?
None.
after reading the article and all the comments, i just wanna say kudos to the author of this article and if mohammad is like that, then how can u expect the people who follow islam to be any better, in fact they are WORSE.
Uh-Oh Hot-Dog!
@Brandon M. Sergent -
1.) I don’t put 8 year olds in halter tops and hotpants, nor do I see to it that they’re statutory raped. If you do stuff like that, please stop. Or at least stop projecting it upon others.
2.) I’m assuming you live in sub-Saharan Africa when you say “we”, because they’ve got the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the world. The United States has the highest population percentage in prison; what does that have to do with any aspect of this article? Also, I can’t tell if you’re outraged that there’s a “pedophile witch-hunt” going on.
3.) I care if little boys are being molested by clergy. I’m also allowed to care if “one little foriegn girl” might be molested thru conventions of regional religious doctrine. Once again, plz stop projecting.
4.) Most disturbing projection yet. Is that the bottom line? You really don’t think people can earnestly get upset over tacit governmental approval of (at best) systemic undermining of women’s rights or (at worst) statutory rape? That this is clearly the sole fault of the envy of depraved Western mid-life-crisisers?
5.) What a preposterous false dilemma. And even more projection. “If you do not approve of someone’s actions, destroy them UTTERLY or you are a hyprocrite!” Is that how the world works for you? Utter subservience to your will, or destruction? No other options? Absolutely everything in life is more complicated than “A; if not A, B.”
You’re a psychopath. Not in the flippant, disparaging term; the clinical term.
To Frohergeist, thank you, exactly what I was thinking, but probably better articulated
@Frohergeist
“I don’t put 8 year olds in halter tops and hotpants.”
I’m pleased that you personally do not engage in this behavior but a quick trip to your local mall or walmart will show that others do. If you do not see this behavior personally in your area, well good for you. In that case I’d suggest you go clothing shopping for an 8 year old girl. It’s an eye opening experience for those that have not.
See the rest of my reply at http://newshate.blogspot.com/2008/12/8-year-old-girl-cannot-legally-divorce.html
I will not reply in full here, I doubt the post’s author wants a flame war.
@Brandon M. Sergent –
Congratulation, you didn't get the point.
@Phil E. Drifter –
She didn’t “promise to marry him when she turns 18″; HE agreed not to consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty. There’s no saying whether he would follow through on that agreement or not, and little she can do about it if he decides not to wait.
@Brandon M. Sergent –
Actually we do care you dick.
And, coincidentally virtually all of those trends you mentioned are highest among the highly religious.
Hmmm….
@Akolyte01
It’s hard to come off as mature when you open with name calling.
But of course you’re correct, it is a religious problem at the root, but I stand behind my statements (as if you went and read them) since they apply to our culture as a whole, believers and disbelievers alike.
It’s all well and good to wring our hands post nasty comments, but at the end of the day…
Silence is the voice of complicity.
We wave torches and throw fruit just like the rest of the puppets when the state says its ok but where was our fervor when they dragged us into war with the wrong country?
The religious people for all their flaws, at least do something some of the time.
All this crap reminds me of the Two Minutes Hate.
I’m unsubscribing now, enjoy the last word, consider it my christmas gift.
It’s funny…
It’s funny to see that some people here… describe all Muslims as identical automatons who blindly follow every rule written in a book.
Why is this so funny ? I know of a kid who’s trying to find his way in life. He’s leaning towards religion lately and he complained to me that his atheistic father very much disagrees with his choice, so much even that the kid’s afraid to express his opinion.
Am I therefor correct in assuming that all Atheists deny their kids free will or could there be a distinct possibility that he’s just an *ssh*le claiming to be atheist ???
Is it a fact that all muslims are/think/act the same way or… is it just a BELIEF ? It’s no proof, but people like these could show us their infinite wisdom by giving us the names and birth dates of 1% of all Muslims. That would start to indicate some knowledge about Muslims and it would be a very small favor.
I may be prejudiced (or maybe I can foresee the future), but nobody will pass such a test.Correct me when I’m wrong, but wasn’t… atheism about NOT making up stories ?
I guess…. idiots can be found everywhere.
At least in this culture they don’t abort female fetuses due to social pressures.
John Lennon said it best when he said, “Imagine no religion”
Guess the Catholic church isn’t the only pedophile cult around. Just add this to the long list of reasons why Muslims are a bunch of sick, evil fucks.
@Jim –
I don’t think quoting the Koran really has any merit here. I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to assume that marrying a very young woman wasn’t an uncommon practice due to life expectancy and what have you. If you’ve ever bothered to read the Koran (or any other religious text for that matter), while there are a lot of objectionable things such as savage murders and father raping ect, the core messages can be interpreted in a secular fashion that isn’t at all harmful. I’m sure you know plenty of believers who don’t do anything different than you except believe in God. Why do we always have to blame misdoings on religion or lack there of?
To those of you who read the quote from the Koran and became enraged…
You’ve just become a victim of spin. It’s a neat technique people use to get you to agree with them. They give you a little bit of fact, stretch the truth a whole bit, turn it into a tasty tidbit… and before you know it, you’re swallowing crap and liking it.
How many of you know a Muslim? Personally? As in… Oh, I don’t know… You’ve actually sat down and talked to one? You know, outside of an interrogation room at the local airport? Taxi cabs don’t count either.
Sure, the Koran supports some pretty indecent things… But it was written in a time when it wasn’t indecent. The Bible supports sodomy, and who do you hear whining about that?
It’s a terrible thing that that girl is forced to marry someone so much older than her. The government that controls her life needs to be changed. But don’t attack the religion. Just because I’m an atheist, doesn’t mean I need to be a hate-ridden, biased idiot.
If you can’t name the five pillars of Islam… I challenge you to look them up before you post a comment again. True Muslims follow these pillars.
They’re not evil. Quite the contrary, actually.
I agree with you to some extent; atheists too often tend to be just as arrogant and childish and intolerant as any religious person. And it's also true that very few of the people here know much about Islam.
But we should try to note some of the more twisted parts of religion, and we should also take note of how they affect the world.
You say "the government that controls her life needs to be changed". But this government is based entirely on Islam, and this article is a clear illustration of the horrendous problems caused by that. A government based entirely on the Bible would be just as terrible.
Of course I don't think that all Muslims blindly follow the examples set in the Koran. But some clearly do; particularly some in places of power. And that causes serious problems.
The point of this article is not to accuse all Muslims of being pedophiles.
It is to illustrate that, like the bible, the Koran supports some morally atrocious behavior, and although most Muslims realize this, some use it to their advantage. It is all an issue of interpretation.
@Jenn – I fail to see where any amount of truth has been stretched in this post. Don’t attack the religion? This is a part of the religion. As an atheist, you should also be deeply concerned about stories such as these and the effect that passages such as that might have on today’s society.
By the way, the Bible does not support sodomy. It explicitly forbids a man to lie with another man.
True all muslims would not support marrying an 8 year old, but they must be at odds with their beliefs as it is true that they claim Muhamed is the pinnacle of morality.
What is worse than letting religion influence your personal beliefs and choices is when it influences, or guides, politics. This is a prime example, there should be no government on Earth, let alone one of our "allies" that allows and provides political haven for this type of thing. In a similar move, Afghanistan recently passed a law that married women can not deny sex with their husbands, gain child custody, or even leave the house without permission. These policies are entirely due to the religious/cultural background of the people, and should not be tolerated.
And to compare marrying off an 8 year old to allowing children to wear jogging pants that say juicy on them is a little rediculous. Especially when this is a country where it is probably not even possible for her to divorce him, and his word is worth twice hers in the court of law. Also, you are comparing them to the USA, the most religious of the deveoloped nations. What I get out of the article is the dangers and horrendous consequences of allowing religion to guide politics.
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