Hello Eddy,
format_quote Originally Posted by
Eddy
Tafsir Ibn Kathir
Allah the Exalted clarifies the waiting period of the woman in menopause. And that is the one whose menstruation has stopped due to her older age. Her `Iddah is three months instead of the three monthly cycles for those who menstruate, which is based upon the Ayah in (Surat) Al-Baqarah. [see 2:228] The same for the young, who have not reached the years of menstruation. Their `Iddah is three months like those in menopause. ...
Understanding of this issue needs a deeper study than simply looking at a few quotes, otherwise a person can easily draw conclusions that are not correct and which neglect the different types of marriages and maturities in Islamic law. There are various scenarios that have been discussed by the scholars based upon the texts of Islam: divorce that occurs prior to consummation and after consummation. Then there is the issue of what is meant by consummation - sometimes it can mean intercourse, other times it can mean seclusion of the couple. So, one way of understanding the issue at hand is that if a man married a girl who had not started menstruating as she was prepubescent and was then in seclusion with her - yet they did not have intercourse - then they got divorced, in that case she would observe an Iddah of three months, based upon the verse 65:4. However, those women that do not menstruate can include women who reached the age of maturity yet still did not menstruate due to a medical condition. The following sheds more light on this:
...the fact that a girl had not yet reached menarche was only evidence that she had yet to manifest the usual signs pertaining to legal majority—not that she was physically immature. A girl could technically still be considered mature based on other physical features, such as her biological age. With regard to this particular possibility, the leading Central Asian 12th-century jurist, Ali ibn Abu Bakr al- Marghinani (d. 1197), provided this legal context behind the above verse (65:4):
And similarly those who have attained puberty (balaghat) by age, but have not menstruated, based on the end of the verse [“And those who have not menstruated” (65:4)], meaning those who have reached puberty by age, but not by menstruation; [those who have attained puberty] by reaching the age of 15 years according to the opinion of both (Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Shaybani) or 17 years according to the opinion of Abu Hanifah and Malik, but have not yet menstruated; when they divorce they observe a waiting period based on months as well. [Imam ibn al-Humam, Fath al-Qadir, Vol. 4 (n.d.), p. 280.]
It should be clear at this point that had Islam allowed for the sexual exploitation of children, many of these nuances would not exist. Case in point, the Qur’an would have never provided clarifications on the types of women who have waiting periods or even mention a ‘marriageable age’ to begin with if it allowed for any woman, regardless of maturity, to engage in sexual relations. And had jurists permitted such acts they too would never have bothered to distinguish between girls who were physically mature and those who were not. More importantly, however, had the Prophet ﷺ himself been perceived as promoting the exploitation of children, then said scholars would have simply considered the age of nine to be the only condition necessary for a young girl to be considered mature. However, the age of nine has never been mentioned as one of the conditions by which to judge maturity in the Islamic tradition. Rather, jurists derived a completely different understanding from the relationship between the Prophet ﷺ and Aisha (ra): that he had entered a contracted marriage with her when she was six years of age, and then consummated the marriage after she had reached maturity three years later. Simple logical deduction led scholars to conclude that if Islam allowed for the abuse of children, then the Prophet ﷺ would not have needed to wait three full years before finalizing his marriage—but he did wait. He waited because he knew that to do otherwise would have caused harm to his wife, and one of the principle objectives (maqasid) of Islamic law is “the prohibition of subjecting oneself to harm (darar) or causing harm to others (dirar). [Al-Shatibi, Muwafaqat, vol. 3/3, pp. 14-15.]
Obviously, such nuance has been lost on Islamophobes, who in their utter desperation to impugn Islam and its followers, interpret certain passages of the Qur’an as condoning pedophilia or child abuse.
I'm sorry if my curiosity is causing displeasure as explained by Muhammad.
I'm interested in studying and getting to know the real Islam.
I can get the answers in many other places but I figured this is an "Islamic Forum" so who better to give me answers about Islam.
My little research shows that Islam allows underage marriage.
The Tafsir by Ibn Kathir for Quran 65:4 seems very clear to me.
I'm an Agnostic, liberal and very western and in no way I condemn Islam for the rules emanating from Allah.
Why should Muslims feel ashamed or uncomfortable for the rules coming from your God?
Sorry again, I would not ask any questions in the future if that makes you uneasy.
How thoughtful of you. But don't worry, we have entertained the 'curiosity' of numerous visitors to this forum before you, who made similar claims that they just wanted to know the 'real Islam'. And yet, when they had clearly made up their own minds and believed they had found contradictions in our texts despite being shown evidence to the contrary, we realised we were wasting our time. Still, we like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Had we felt in any way ashamed or uncomfortable with the teachings of our religion, we would not have allowed people like your good self to make more than 10 threads questioning them.
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