look at what these famous non muslims say about muhammad

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But little girls get bigger every day, according to that song.

I thought ruveyn was being sarcastic?

I know girls don't get their period until they reach a certain weight, so in places where food is scarce, they're more likely to start puberty later. I have a friend who was anorexic as a teen and didn't get her period until she was 16.

Yeah, I think he was. The "For some reason" gives it away.

Oh yeah! It was a Sheldon Cooper moment of mine.

I am ignorant regarding sexual details but am actually thinking for myself and evaluating both arguments. I have heard many great answers to these misconceptions only I don't have them all, however scholars like Zakir Naik and Yasir qhadi have refuted the argument of Muhammad PBUH being a pedophile. i admit my ignorance which is what makes me fair and open minded. But I'm ignorant regarding sexual details and have done some research into this topic, only I'm having a hard time finding the best answers. i actually am learning only i haven't learned everything yet. arrogance is what blinds knowledge. to be able to admit not knowing everything isn't ignorant but rather wise, I am not debating for the sake of debating which is why I'm willing to reference more educated scholars who I've listened to in advance and their answer was a much better answer than I could ever give. and its not brainwashed if I'm using logical arguments and reasoning rather than stated opinions of other scholars. their arguments made sense and refuted a lot of opposing misconceptions and I advise people to watch these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQPweyjLGDk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StISnUEVkaM

That's exactly it.

Most of those people at the very top - in places like Saudi Arabia - probably don't seriously believe in Allah at all. They grow up immersed in that culture, that religion, but they are massive hypocrites that parasite off the people that live there. They do alcohol and drugs, they have all different kinds of sex without thinking about the legality of any of it, they're quite happy to kill people as sport and so on. They head a brutal, religiously totalitarian regime that denies their people the basic right to free speech, to human dignity, to democracy (although, to be honest with you, most of the people living in KSA are probably that pickled by religion that if there were elections, they'd vote for something even worse).



And they left the Arabs/Muslims behind because of the Muslims' all-absorbing fear of change, of progress, of what would threaten their religion. They see nearly any change as threatening Islam and Allah. The only reason that countries like Saudi Arabia, Oman and other Gulf countries are rich now is because of a natural phenomenon that can be dug straight out of the ground: oil. Without oil, they would still be starving peasants. They are, in many ways, only they have people like this wonder - Yusuf al-Qaradawi - the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood - to guide them:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g_QwiYxvkY[/youtube]

This is it. This is well worth mentioning - the rich people, the upper class of a society, often don't believe but use religion as a tool to keep the masses in their place and stop them from rebelling and demanding greater rights and a better standard of living. If you look at places like Pakistan (or Saudi Arabia, as I've already mentioned), rich people are often only lightly religious (or in many cases, not at all). These people have promiscuous sex, take drugs, drink lots of alcohol in secret and then have the nerve to lecture the uneducated poor who are far more religiously inclined. In short, they are massive hypocrites.

And in areas where the church's power had not fully been broken - think about Ireland for example after independence from the UK - they became a priest-ridden backwater that was in complete hock to the Catholic Church and people suffered because of the moralistic, morally bankrupt, ridiculous religious crap that had more force of law than law itself in Ireland. The church was not to be questioned. Anyone who did was treated like a serious criminal, even if the Church perhaps couldn't enforce that opinion in law (but they had blasphemy laws, of course, oh yes - to shut the peasants up).

Women who had babies out of wedlock had to be put away, women who were raped had to be put away and it was always the woman's fault that she was raped (see any similarities with Islamic practice today, anyone?), films, books and magazines had to be censored in line with the whims of the Church. A miserable society. Little children were routinely raped and abused by disgusting, filthy old men that called themselves holy and they fully expected to get away with their evil deeds because of the seniority of their position and the fear against being completely socially shunned, ostracised or vilified by doing so.



Indeed - he has all the time in the world to look up Islamic scripture to 'bolster' his position (and I'm sure he's avoiding Islam-critical websites whilst he's doing it) but he's not looking at the holes in what he's putting forward. He lives in a secular, Western, non-Islamic country that generally praises knowledge and freedom. He has access to a sheer amount of information that doubting Muslims living in Islamic fundamentalist hellholes can only dream about.

It's widely accepted that the age of around 9 is the age when puberty begins, not when it ends and even girls that have 'matured' sexually are often considerably below the age of consent. If I did either of those things, I'd be looking at jail time.

Evaluating...other's arguments. Again, you're allowing others to do the thinking for you. This is the point I'm trying to make.

Look up the information yourself.

The question you are putting forth is 'was he a pedophile?'

Ok. So lets look it up.

What defines pedophile? A quick google search gives you this answer.
How old was the girl in question when she had sex with this guy? You know the answer already. You at least must know sex involves a penis going into a vagina.

In our modern definition of a pedophile the answer is yes. Absolutely he was.

However, one cannot judge someone from many centuries ago by our modern standards. They were completely different worlds. In those times young girls were commonly married off to older males to cement economic & political alliances. Europe did this too even up to the early 1900's. It is still done today in many non-muslim countries too. So its not something that we can see and judge as being a horrendous crime because back then it was just how things were.

Now, one of those videos shows one of those 'scholars' making a very valid point: The law of a country can state a person can get married at age 14 and the law of other countries says at 18. The religious law says 'puberty' is when a girl can get married.

All fine points when it comes down to the technicalities. However, the reality is, a pedophile is by definition an adult that desires/has sexual contact with a minor. A minor is defined as an individual that has not attained full body growth. This definition is true regardless of what any nation's law says or what any religious law says.

However, in religious law this is defined by the girl's first menstruation. This can happen well before full body growth. Heck, there is even documented cases of girls menstruating as early as age 2 but developing no breasts nor reaching near-adult height or facial feature changes.

Thing is, the laws of these countries do define quite clearly that while a man can marry a girl age 14 (for example) he cannot have sex with her until she is older. If sex happens the man commits a criminal act.

So the answer to all of this is clear:

IF the guy married the 9yr old but did not have sex with her until full body growth then he would not be a pedophile.
IF the guy married the 9yr old and did have sex with her much prior to full body growth then he definitely was a pedophile.
...by our modern standards.

So, yes. He was a pedophile. But it cannot be held against him in a criminal sense since in those days this was not a crime but common practice.

But disgusting old men marrying and raping young children is regularly justified in the modern era, today, in countries like Saudi Arabia and Yemen with the excuse that Muhammad did it.

I'm not saying modern day people doing this should not judged as so. They should. They have the knowledge that science has provided them and CHOOSE to ignore it to have their way. Its no different from mormons and other christianity-spin-offs & cults marrying underage girls. What I'm saying is that back then this body of knowledge was not available and the practice was commonly accepted. Ergo, he should be labelled a pedophile for he did engage in sex with an underage girl but not as a criminal because the context of his times it was not an uncommon thing to do. In fact, the only clue they had was menstruation and it is not surprising that when it happened they defined the girl as no longer a child despite her physical appearance. All cultures worldwide have used this as the barrier between girl and woman. Today however we know it marks the start of puberty not its end. Big difference science makes eh?


The problem I see here is that today, people automatically connect pedophilia ~2000 years ago with the modern definition of a crime and have these emotional outbursts.

Context can soften the severity of the action, but it doesn't justify it completely. As I mentioned earlier Plato liked young boys (13/14 years old) and he didn't have sexual contact with them. He said it was "virtuous restraint". So context doesn't justify it completely.

But the main point is that I wouldn't pay atention to this if it was some average Joe who did this 1400 years ago. It was a founder of a major religion. A religion has moral values defined by their canonical scriptures, which remain unchanged through times. A good religion has to have good moral values that stand the test of time. And that isn't the case of islam.

I know I will probably have shoes thrown at me for saying this but he's a dead pedophile.

Negative. The Messenger lives in Paradise comforted by 72 little girls, daily.

ruveyn

Like I said, he was indeed a pedophile so it does not soften the severity of it. It is not a justification of it either, I merely state you do have to keep in mind the context of those times.

Plato's time and culture accepted homosexuality as a normal thing. Young boys did have sexual contact with grown men in those time and in that culture and it was acceptable as long as it was not a forced situation... and just because Plato himself claimed he never did anything doesn't mean that is true. In such a society it would've been perfectly OK to have such contact. So I bet you he boinked a few. Virtuous restraint using himself as an example, and him being a philosopher that was lauding those very ideas reeks of good propaganda... but I sincerely doubt he never engaged in it.

Look at the context of the question at hand: When he married the 6yr old (and had sex at 9..allegedly at 9 who knows if there was contact earlier than that) he was a powerful warlord. Strong social position, powerful, wealthy and a leader in a culture and time period where women were little more than property. Living in a time where even the poorest peasant could marry an underage girl and it was acceptable. Why wouldn't a powerful warlord do it too?

When you look up the how the betrothal took place it is no different than so many of its kind: she was the daughter of one of his most trusted companions. Her father was a very wealthy man and held strong political and economic influence..he even became caliph later on. Marrying the girl off to a powerful warlord he knew so well = political alliance. The girl was used as a pawn in ways no different than european royalty married their kids off to forge alliances with other kingdoms.




I understand your sentiment behind this and I do not personally disagree with you. I will say however that your opinion is based on modern western version of christianity (and all spinoffs)... a religion which for the majority of its existence was no different than islam. It was only until the breaking of the church's power during the renaissance that the church 'toned down' and re-wrote/re-interpreted their scriptures to end up with the current carebear version we have now (love, compassion,etc). When you look up the medieval and late roman era version you will find it quite abrasive compared to our current version.

So, where you take your current beliefs and definition of norms didn't 'stand the test of time'. It was heavily edited and revised to conform to the changing times. It still is. All because one pissed off german nailed the equivalent of a flame-thread to a church door long ago.

Also of note is the 'founder' of islam used religion as a tool in his political armory. When you read all about his 'revelations' they conveniently take place in a time frame where they benefited his political and personal goals the most. This is a common tactic used in all cultures by those in power. Its the prime tool cult leaders today use too. Heck N. Korea's leaders use it. Christianity itself was no different either. You have the 'founder' cast in the role of savior/victim going around making himself more and more politically important. From what we know he did not come from a wealthy background but ended up with a huge following just before his death. The difference between the two founders is one was a warlord the other one quite likely was a good snake oil salesman. Only after their death did things get spun into a religious fire... fueled by those who benefited from it and gained power through it.

I don't believe in religions as you can see.. but I do believe in patterns of human behavior.

My point about Plato is that as early as his time, pedophilia was seen as something imoral. I don't have a clue if he didn't have his way with young boys or not. I'm guessing we agree on this.

Well, I'm not christian. I am perfectly aware of the horrible things done in name of god, be it allah or jehovah or whatever. The old testament is an evil book. However, there's a huge difference between muhammed and Jesus. Jesus at least didn't go to war with anyone or killed anyone or raped children. He preached moral values that stand the test of time. What I mean by that is that the values he teached are as valid today as they were 2000 years ago. The same with Buddha or Mahavira or Patanjali. Wether Jesus' intention was good or not, that's something we'll probably never know.

The Athenians were not habitual pedophiles. The Greek intelligentsia had no problems with intimate relations between young men (already past what we call adolescence) and older men. That is another thing entirely. It was indulged in by both parties who know what the choices were.

ruveyn

Thing is, it was not seen as immoral. The ancient greeks idolized physical male beauty and specifically in the young. Relationships between men and boys were not only accepted but encouraged. Granted, I don't believe it would have been socially acceptable for a 30yr old to be with a 6 yr old (though marriages of that sort between men and girls did happen) because in their worldview the undeveloped child was still an annoying meatbag that should be with the women that cared for him. In early teen years when they start developing muscle and defined features was when it was OK. For us its pedophilia, for them it was a visible transition marker. No different from a girl's first menstruation.



Absolutely. Like I said, both came from very different backgrounds. You can't expect a poor peasant to have the resources or connections or life challenges/opportunities that a warlord has. The values taught (allegedly) by either of them have been twisted and re-interpreted over the centuries by those in religious power. The same happened to buddhism and ANY form of organized or semi-organized religion.

Thing is, there is plenty of evidence to consider that neither of them preached or taught anything. The bible and the quran were written down a long time after the 'founders' had died. The bible was compiled by a roman centuries after the death of jesus from dozens of different christ-following cults AND was edited to appease the roman government so they wouldnt keep killing christians..... the quran went a similar compilation process and the closest approximation to the current version was compiled in the late 8th century/early 9th century. Just like the bible, the quran contains a large amount of stories and passages that have been found to be much older than the times jesus and muhammad lived. Much older.

Its simple human behavior to adapt, compile the old that works, edit it a bit to put a new spin on it and edit it enough so it supports your religious views and those who control the power behind those views (priests/clerics/etc). Pick up any book by scientologists and see how eerie similar their 'this is what happened back then' story is to commonly known story-themes of the era (flash gordon for example!).