Time Immortal

Also, he still thinks I’m Jewish. Weird.

And if I read him correctly, he seems to be suggesting that the disappearance of some 2,000 Muslim female children — most of whom were likely sold into forced marriages — is justifiable by the fact that…uhm…he can’t properly quote from the Book of Numbers^[1], and from the fact that some Jewish rabbis might have said something about three-year old girls. Maybe. But he can’t be bothered to link to a source.

Oh, also: the forced marriage of thousands of Muslim girls under the age of ten is also, by his logic, justified by the fact that the Blessed Virgin is thought, by some scholars, to have been thirteen or fourteen years of age when Jesus was born. Which would have been, actually, pretty normal…in that day and age, some 2,000 years ago.

Well done, Shaukat Khawja. That’s some solid reasoning you have going for you there: it worked 2,000 years ago…why can’t it work today?

Islam really is trapped in the Bronze Age, isn’t it?

Also, Aisha was nine when her marriage to the (false!) prophet Muhammad was consummated. That has been attested by multiple historians, and is essentially beyond debate.

Update: hyperlink now goes to Rehmat’s blog!

Patriot Update: Welcome, BCF readers!

Clear and Present Update: Blogging for a free world has also covered this story.

1) Numbers 31:17-18 (which Rehmat cites) reads thusly:

[17] Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him.
[18] But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Numbers 31:35-40 reads thusly:

[35] and thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known man by lying with him.
[36] And the half, the portion of those who had gone out to war, was in number three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred sheep,
[37] and the LORD’s tribute of sheep was six hundred and seventy-five.
[38] The cattle were thirty-six thousand, of which the LORD’s tribute was seventy-two.
[39] The asses were thirty thousand five hundred, of which the LORD’s tribute was sixty-one.
[40] The persons were sixteen thousand, of which the LORD’s tribute was thirty-two persons.

I’m not sure which Biblical translation Rehmat is using — I expect it’s the REV, the “Rectally Extracted Version” — but wherever he’s getting his quotes from, he needs to re-think it as a source.

Also, it should be noted that in Jewish theology, there is no way to turn Numbers 31:17-18 into a broad justification for taking women for later sexual use; the injunction which Moses grants in that chapter is specific to the time and place, and only applicable in the battle against the Midianites^[2].

Unlike in Islam, in which Muhammad’s paedophilic marriage to Aisha is, evidently, a model to be emulated.

2) That doesn’t make it right, of course, and I can’t help but think that Matthew 19:8 is applicable, in principle, to Moses’ instruction here. But the point is that this instruction, however detestable, is also specifically limited in its application.