What Does Islam Say About Pedophilia?

In this seven-minute conversation with Matt Fradd of Pints with Aquinas, former Muslim Ismail Youssef dives into the details he says most Islamic apologists won’t discuss: the fact that Muhammad married a nine-year-old girl, and the religion itself condones sex slavery. If you’ve ever wondered about this topic, the Koran itself makes it clear; Youssef cites both chapter and verse.

Editor’s Note: The transcript that follows was automatically generated and lightly edited, so please be aware there could be typos or other small errors. The Stream is working toward a transcription service that does fast, accurate, and reliable work; thank you in advance for your patience!

00:00:00:11 – 00:00:10:03
Just to give some clarification, the Koran is, the direct word of God. And in the hadith are the sayings or the teachings of Muhammad. Yeah.

00:00:10:04 – 00:00:11:05
This is how it’s understood.

00:00:11:05 – 00:00:36:13
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s almost like the Bible and the church tradition. That’s the best way to like to explain it to a Catholic. Yeah. Yeah. The Koran itself, there is issues in it. But I would say if there are Muslims that only believe in the Koran, they’re a huge minority and are relatively peaceful because the Koran is just a lot of it’s just stories of prophets where when it comes to the hadith or the sayings or the collections of Muhammad’s life.

00:00:36:16 – 00:00:38:15
It’s not pretty. It’s pretty bad.

00:00:38:18 – 00:00:42:25
So after your friend challenged you, that was one of the first things you went to to study.

00:00:43:02 – 00:01:02:20
Well, yeah, I read it on a Monday. I remember it took me a week to leave Islam. I read I opened up the hadith on a Monday and I didn’t have to use a translation. I spoke fluent Arabic. And there’s this verse in the Koran. This was the first hint and it says, I’ll just say it in Arabic, in the Koran or the hadith.

00:01:02:21 – 00:01:29:02
Well, this is in the Koran first. It says, or in other words, you, him or Amina come. And what permissible for you is your wife’s and what your your right hand possesses. Now in English they try to change a little bit which side note never trust an English version on the Koran or the hadith. We can get to that later, but in English they try to say that like, oh, it’s not saying what it’s saying, but I know Arabic.

00:01:29:04 – 00:01:30:15
So what’s it saying?

00:01:30:18 – 00:01:54:02
Right hand possession is a saying in Arabic, meaning slaves. So there’s something called, as Babin Rasul in the hadith, which means the reasons for recitation or the reasons for the first being, like, revealed by God. And the story goes, basically to summarize, is Mohammed and his army. They surround this village and the village surrenders. And it’s a time of war.

00:01:54:04 – 00:02:16:09
And they asked him, like, what do we do about the wives and the women in the village who, you know, like their husbands are dead from the from the war? Like they’re already married. They were married to them. And we actually don’t want to have sex with them. We don’t want to take them as wives. And Mohammed said that it is permissible to take them as wives against their will.

00:02:16:12 – 00:02:37:22
And as soon as I read that, I knew what it was going to say, because I know the saying. But as soon as I read the clarification of the verse. I was like. So you’re assaulting women and you’re like, I can’t say the word for censorship, but you know what they’re doing? Like taking someone against their will. That’s terrible.

00:02:37:24 – 00:02:39:06
That’s the most disgusting thing in my life.

00:02:39:06 – 00:02:42:24
When you said you looked at the interpretation of it. What does that mean? Or when you.

00:02:42:25 – 00:03:08:11
So there’s a few commentators that they’re called, tafsir, which just means commentators. And the most famous one is Cathedral, and he is by far the most populous, like in the entire Muslim world. And like Saudi Arabia, like the people there, they love him and he is probably the most accurate to. He’s like, said Ignatius of Antioch, close to disciples type of thing.

00:03:08:13 – 00:03:32:23
And he explains, this is what was happening. And he knows, because he’s getting from accounts of people who were in the battle and saying, this is what Muhammad said to do in the battle. And my first instinct was almost to throw up, like, because I couldn’t, I couldn’t do that. I can never do that to someone. And then other things would come up.

00:03:32:25 – 00:03:54:28
The very popular one is, one of his wives, Aisha, was nine years old when they consummated their marriage. And people can say that all was a different time and place. There’s an issue with that. Number one, he’s called the Academy and that he’s a mercy to mankind, Muhammad, for all times and places. So if he is a prophet of God, it should be suitable for all times.

00:03:55:00 – 00:04:18:17
Number two, it said that she was playing with dolls. And in Islam, dolls are prohibited because they look like idols at the time, and which there was an exception for her because of her age. It says in the hadith, and it also says in the hadith that Aisha, being the daughter of the spending of a bucket of water, was not happy with the marriage.

00:04:18:19 – 00:04:20:19
This is. This is Aisha’s father. Yeah.

00:04:20:20 – 00:04:44:07
Okay. He was not happy with it. Another one was one of his companions. Like one of Muhammad’s companions, wanted to marry his daughter Fatima, who was 12, and he said she’s too young to be married. And I don’t have the historical records with me. But at the time, the Byzantine Empire, forbade any marriages for anyone under the age of 14.

00:04:44:10 – 00:04:53:14
So at the time, we have records that this was not acceptable even in the time period of sixth century, like Arabia, our Byzantine area, like it wasn’t acceptable.

00:04:53:16 – 00:04:57:24
To Muslims to spew what you’re saying right now. They will. Aisha being nine. And why are you.

00:04:57:27 – 00:05:19:09
No, no. They won’t dispute, I won’t. Most Muslims will say she was nine. Some will just straight up like say no. She was 18. But the Muslims who are like, legitimate will just say they’re lying. But it’s very clear. Like in the most authentic hadith, it says he consummated the marriage at nine. Wow. And the argument is not maybe she wasn’t nine.

00:05:19:11 – 00:05:25:17
The argument is they matured quicker at that time. To to our time.

00:05:25:19 – 00:05:26:19
To quicker.

00:05:26:21 – 00:06:04:00
They matured quicker. Like individuals who had quicker. Yeah. They matured quicker. So like yeah they’re physically like she had to have reached puberty. I see which basically falls apart completely because there’s a verse in the Koran that says that you can have marriage or you can have intercourse with someone who hasn’t reached puberty. It says that in the Koran, it says that if you it’s very hinted at okay, but basically explicit, not explicit, which says if you’re in doubt, if your wife, like from a previous marriage, is, pregnant, wait three months.

00:06:04:02 – 00:06:15:00
Even if she’s had menstruate, it can’t menstruate anymore. Our hasn’t menstruating yet. So this is the verse hasn’t menstruating yet?

00:06:15:01 – 00:06:16:02
This is in the Quran?

00:06:16:03 – 00:06:22:13
Yeah. Sura, which is chapter 65, verse four. It starts.

00:06:22:15 – 00:06:26:12
And this is in reference to a girl who’s already.

00:06:26:12 – 00:06:46:15
Been married, but and she has demonstrated menstruating. And if you’re afraid that she’s pregnant somehow, wait three months, even if she has demonstrated. So obviously this is a thing the Muslims are doing at the time. And obviously Muhammad married Aisha at nine years old, and that’s just a fact of life. I, I don’t know how Muslims get around that.

00:06:46:17 – 00:07:00:18
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00:07:00:18 – 00:07:02:14
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