Two Questions

format_quote Originally Posted by islamstudying

I am very interested in this faith, but there are two things I cannot get my mind over to accept it.

1)How old was Mohammed's youngest wife, wasn't she 6 she married him?

2) Why did Mohammed use war to expand his faith?

Thanks

regarding the age of marriage, this was a normal practice through out the world in ancient times not just among the arabs, there was nothing strange about it, once a women reached the age of menstruation she was considered old enough to have children. People in general picked up lifes responsabilities at early ages.

in jewish culture for example,

The minimum age for marriage under Jewish law is 13 for boys, 12 for girls; however, the kiddushin [betrothal] can take place before that, and often did in medieval times.

One passage for Jews held that a man who marries off his sons and daughters near the period of puberty (samukh le-firkan) will receive the scriptural blessing: “you shall know that your tent is in peace” (Job 5:24),

Christian laws with regards to marriage. The Catholic Encyclopedia says:

The marriageable age is fourteen full years in males and twelve full years in females, under penalty of nullity (unless natural puberty supplies the want of years [i.e. if puberty occurs before the age of twelve])… The canonical age holds in England, Spain, Portugal, Greece (Ionian Isles excepted, where it is sixteen and fourteen), and as regards Catholics even in Austria. While in some parts of the United States the canonical marriage age of fourteen and twelve still prevails, in others it has been enlarged by statutes.

taken from "Age of Consent: A Historical Overview"

Age of Consent throughout history has usually coincided with the age of puberty although at sometimes it has been as early as seven…The Roman
tradition served as the base for Christian Europe as well as the Christian Church itself which generally, essentially based upon biological development, set it at 12 or 14 but continued to set the absolute minimum at seven. In the past century there has been a tendency to raise the age of consent but the reasons for the change have not always been clear and the issue has been further complicated by the reluctance of many contemporary historians to recognize what the actual age of consent in the past has been. This failure has distorted the importance of biology on age of consent in the past.

Traditionally in pre-modern societies, AAFM [age at first marriage] for girls corresponded with the visible onset of puberty. In these early societies, high mortality rates demanded an offsetting high-birth rate. As a result, younger marriages were required to facilitate population growth.

The Age of Marriage in Ancient Rome,

some historical examples,

Saint Augustine betrothed himself to a ten year old girl
Saint Agnes fielded marriage proposals when she was younger than twelve years old.
Saint Hedwig of Andechs She was married off at the age of twelve to Henry I of Silesia
Saint Rita of Cascia was betrothed at the age of twelve to a man named Paola Mancini
Saint Elizabeth of Portugal, patron of the Third Order of St. Francis, was married off at the age of twelve.
Saint Joseph, the supposed foster father of Jesus, was in his nineties when he married the twelve year old Mary. Some claim that Joseph was in his thirties—and not his nineties

King Richard II, at the age of thirty, married a French princess named Isabella who was only seven years old at the time.
Duchess of Milan, Bianca of Savoy, was married off at the age of thirteen
Theodora Comnena was married off at the age of thirteen to King Baldwin III, who was more than double her age.
King Adronikos I Komnenos, the valiant Christian leader of the Byzantine Empire, married the twelve year old Agnes of France when he was sixty-four years old.
King Denis of Portugal married the twelve year old Saint Elizabeth of Portugal.
Girolamo Riario, Lord of Imola and Forli, married the nine year old Caterina Sforza.
Jeanne III of Navarre was wed at the age of thirteen.
Giovanni Sforza married the thirteen year old Lucrezia Borgia.
King Haakon VI of Norway married the ten year old Queen Margaret.
Count Agness of Essex was betrothed at the age of only three years old and married off at the age of twelve to a man who was almost fifty years of age.
Prince Edward of Wales married the French king’s daughter, Isabella, who was only seven years old.
Romanos II married Bertha (renamed Eudokia), the daughter of the King of Italy, when she was only four years old!

The prophet Abraham was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
David: We read in the Bible that King David lay beside a young virgin, by which was meant a girl who had just attained the age of puberty (1 Kings, Chapter 1, verses 1–4, NIV)
The Prophet Isaac (peace be upon him) was forty years old when he married Rebecca (Rivka) who was only three years old
Prophet Jesus’s mother Mary (peace be upon her) who was only twelve years old when she was betrothed to the ninety year old Saint Joseph [Catholic Encyclopedia]

2) Why did Mohammed use war to expand his faith?

He never used war to spread his faith, that is just a myth you can check the historical accounts. For the first thirteen years of his prophethood he was persecuted by his tribe and people in the city he lived, he eventually had to flee this persecution to another city called yathrib [now known as medina], The arabs where relentless and wouldnt let him be so they chased him even to this far away city, there is where he first retaliated for all the persecution that was done to him and to deter them from future persecution he didnt attack to spread his faith it was growing by itself. You see the Arabs back then recognised moral values so the more his tribe persecuted him and he showed persaverance the more they saw he was a moral man and not a trecherous one so they went to him themselfs to find out more and eventually converted.

war was used after his time and towards the end of his life but Islam was already established in arabia, it was the nature of the world back then this is how they dealt with issues, you cant force anyone to convert and there are no cases of forced conversion's. When the muslims went into a new land they gave them two options pay the jiziya tax and remain on your religion or you can follow our faith. The jiziyah tax was to maintain the army that was protecting that rejoin. If another people came to attack the people of this land they where rulling they where obliged to defend its people, in some cases when they where not able to do so the jiziyah money was given back to it's people becouse they could not uphold there end of the bargain.