Photo Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Anywhere else in the world this would be an innocent image of groomsmen and flower girls at a large wedding. But these are Muslims and Muslims have the nasty habit of marrying young, pre-pubescent girls (1); one can only imagine what is really happening in this scene. A mass marriage ceremony to emulate and honor their Prophet's (pbuh) marriage to a 6 year old Aisha, perhaps?

Well, it is a mass wedding, here's the story:

Life Magazine, Hamas Holds Mass Wedding in Gaza City

Grooms pose with young relatives during a mass wedding organized by the Palestinian party Hamas August 5, 2005 in Gaza City, the Gaza Strip. Dozens of people were married in the ceremony which featured young girls as a substitute for the men's actual wives, who have a seperate [sic] ceremony behind closed doors. During the two-day celebration, 111 couples will be married.

OK, so while I agree that in this particular case it is true that the little girls are not the brides, it is also true that Mohammed (age 51) married a 6 year old girl and deflowered her when she was only 9 years old. For more than a thousand years, Muslim scholars have acknowledged this version of Islamic history.

For example, Aisha tells us that she was six when first engaged to marry Mohammed and that she was playing on a swing shortly before her marriage was consummated at the age of nine (2).

Now some modern Muslims, not wanting infidels to think badly of their prophet insist that ancient scholars erred when stating her age, that Aisha was in fact nineteen and not nine when she lost her virginity. Well, is it likely that a nineteen year old is still playing on swing on the day her marriage is consummated? How does one explain the fact that Aisha was still playing with dolls in the presence of Mohammed? (3)

Sounds like a little girl to me.

Some Muslims will defend Mohammed's actions by countering that taking child brides was relatively common in Bedouin societies at the time and equally common throughout the non-Muslim world as well. That is quite true.

Jews Abrogated Ancient Savage Laws

But 2,000 years ago Jewish religious authorities declared that the lex talionis of the Old Testament was too barbaric for their times. They recognized that stoning those who failed to observe the Sabbath or killing one's child for being disrespectful were ancient savageries not to be tolerated by an enlightened and civilized people.

Likewise, Mohammed, 700 years later, should have been more civilized. Instead, he continued the barbarisms of the times. And because the Qur'an is absolute, uncreated, and cannot be changed or questioned, Muslims to this day still cut off the hands of thieves, still marry and deflower pre-pubescent little girls, and still carry out Jihad against the unbelievers.

Some Muslims are defiant and ask so what? The following Muslim website reprinted a newspaper article from the New Straits Times reporting on the birth of a baby to a nine-year old non-Muslim girl and asks a fair question:

Answering Christianity, A 9-year old Thai girl gave birth:

In our world today, we still have people especially in the third world countries, marry very young girls. Why should we call someone who married a 9-year old girl 1400 years ago a child molester, when we still practice it today?

What does he mean "we still practice it today?" In the past two hundred years there were 6 reported cases of 9 year old girls giving birth, most as result of rape [Wiki]. 6 or even 60 cases in two centuries does not make a practice nor does it excuse it.

In my lifetime, Nazis were busy killing all the Jews they could find. I suppose these same Muslims in the 1940s would have said that Mohammed did no wrong when he had all the Jewish male adults of the Banu Quraizah tribe hacked to death because "we still practice it today." And when they say "we" they mean "we Nazis." Do me a favor, Ahmed, don't include me in your "we."

We, meaning civilized adult infidels, do not go around marrying 6 year old girls. In civilized countries, "we" arrest and prosecute old men who have sex with pre-adolescent girls. Mohammed should have set an example for his religion. That he was a common savage barbarian of that century should be proof that he was no messenger of God. God would have told him that what he was doing was wrong because it is wrong today and will always be wrong.

Because Aisha was barely preadolescent, I doubt that she was pubescent or was even acquiescent when Mohammed in his senescence introduced her to his tumescence. Hey, sorry about that, I couldn't resist.

So if you hear a Muslim deny that Mohammed married a six year old, tell him you do not believe in Islamic Myths.