grateful: So the Australian legal age of 16 for consent is a universal standard for all societies (tribal & modern) and all circumstances?

Sounds like a good idea, makes sense.

No-one would agree with you other than those who share your own obsession of demonising Muslims.

No-one demonizes moslems. They do it themselves. We just point it out the stupidity in their beliefs. Jinn's, flat Earth, Sun goes around the Earth. Women aren't human, Seeing a woman without here Birka will cause men to rape them & it'll the woman's fault for leading the man astray. So stone her to death. Screw goats & little boys & sell the goat to your neighbour. Women can't handle; Carrots, Cucumbers, etc, because it drives them sexually wild. (Fatwa)

It certainly is a great religion. eh. If you are in-bred or kinky, that's Islam for ya.

Jayb,

I think domestic violence, child abuse and sexual harassment in the workplace are serious issues. They have profound effects on the lives of the victims.

Islam offers a way of preventing these from occurring but perhaps people have other ideas.

This is an opportunity to share ideas and have them discussed and debated sensibly.

Yes, grateful, I read it.

<<You obviously didn’t read the link I gave.>>

But it didn't answer my question.

You said that my claim, that Muhammad’s (torment be upon him) marriage to Ayesha was child sex abuse, was not based on evidence. So I asked if you were denying that Ayesha was nine when Muhammad (torment be upon him) consummated the marriage. Now you say that I obviously haven’t read the link you provided, when that link doesn’t deny Ayesha’s age, it only attempts to justify Muhammad’s (torment be upon him) marriage to her (and fails miserably too, I might add).

I haven’t ignored any evidence.

<<Are you arguing that because Ayesha was under-age in terms of Australian legal standards then she was raped?>>

Yes. That and the fact that she was not even old enough to fall pregnant (despite some freak incidences that are occurring nowadays because we’re fatter).

<<Are you arguing that all societies … that have permitted the marriage of a girl under the age of 16 as condoning rape even if that girl is able to be bear children?>>

Not so much if they were capable of bearing child, if only for the reason that women often died during child birth and the life expectancy was much lower. Then there’s the fact that our laws are superior because they are more evidence-based and less arbitrary.

<<How do you make the case that Ayesha was not "emotionally mature"? Because she was 9 years of age?>>

Yes. What is the evidence that nine-year-olds were significantly more emotionally mature than nine-year-olds today? Let alone mature enough to understand the emotional and physical ramifications of being sexually active.

<<… what about in the very different social and historical conditions of the pre-modern world?

Even if this argument were valid, what would that say for an all-knowing god who realised that little girls would eventually lose their maturity over time?

<<What basis do you have for saying she had Stockholm Syndrome?>>

I didn’t say she had it. I simply raised the question.

Continued…

…Continued

<<You’re the accuser, so where is your evidence of Ayesha being intermittently harassed, beaten, threatened, abused or intimidated?>>

Well, she certainly would have felt intimidated being forced to be with a significantly older man who was not her father. Let me guess, little girls weren’t intimidated by older men back then?

<<In summary, you have no evidence to support the accusation of rape: no evidence of a lack of consent, no evidence of trauma and no evidence of Ayesha's feelings towards the Prophet as being anything other than sincere love.>>

No, you’ve simply assumed that children back then were more mature. This is the same flawed ‘context’ argument that Christians pull when defending slavery in the Bible. It doesn’t work.

<<As for the accusation of paedophilia if you are going to make it in the case of Ayesha then you will need to level it against the lady who first proposed the marriage to the Prophet …>>

Not necessarily. It’s not as obvious that she was sexually attracted to children under 12.

<<AJ, have you ever raised concerns about paedophilia among the Anglo-Celtic or European population which is clearly the highest risk group?>>

Yes.

<<And isn't it time you did so given your pre-occupation with the issue in this thread?>>

“Pre-occupation”, as if it were unwarranted and obsessive.

<<Or do the children have to be victims of a Muslim before they receive your "empathy and sincere concern"?>>

I’m used to being accused of disproportionately attacking Christianity. This is a nice change.

<<The Western lifestyle is failing to protect women and children.>>

Again, secularism has done far more for the protection, freedoms, and rights of women and children than the Abrahamic religions every have. I've already explained this.

<<It is because they do not have the set of norms and values, and etiquette between men, women and children, that would prevent sexual violence …>>

Actually, it does. Secularism also comes with the added benefit of depriving religious nuts the claim to divine endorsement.

AJ: <<As for the virtues of Islam that you mention, you and moderate Muslims like you only interpret Islamic doctrine in a way that is more civilised because of secular values that have superseded religious dogma since the Enlightenment. Had you lived before the Enlightenment, you would more than likely be beheading infidels and throwing acid on the faces of the women in your life, just as Christians were torturing people to death using all sorts of creative methods.>>

AJ, you've completely discredited yourself with this paragraph. Your profound ignorance of a topic you profess deep knowledge is demonstrated with the following two accounts of how Islam shaped the European knowledge, thought and institutions.

From BBC's "ISLAM's contribution to Europe and Influence to European Renaissance"

"The great Italian theologian, Thomas Aquinas, used the writings of the Muslim philosopher Averroes to justify the clear separation of faith and reason ; a Muslim ideal that formed the basis of all scientific inquiry."

"At a time when Europeans were praying to the bones of their saints to cure their illnesses Muslim physicians developed an innovative theory: that disease was transmitted through tiny airborne organisms, a precursor to the study of germs."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nznATCvo5Y&list=RD2nznATCvo5Y#t=2719

continue....

continue...

From the inaugural lecture of the Legatum Institutes History of Capitalism series, Benedikt Koehler's "Early Islam and the Birth of Capitalism",

"So we have Islamic antecedents for a host of institutional innovations: establishing a company, advancing business studies, founding colleges and trusts, and launching a gold currency. This prompts a question. The mere fact that Europeans took longer to make certain discoveries does not prove that they depended on Islamic models to make them. How can we claim that Islamic templates provided the inspiration for these innovations? To answer that question, let us look at who the innovators were. A pattern emerges: Leonardo Fibonacci, the Knights Templar, and the Franciscan Friars—all had exposure to Islamic approaches to managing institutions. Next, consider the centres where innovation occurred. The vanguard of commercial progress was not in political power centres—not in Rome or Paris; but in cities with the best trade relations with Islamic countries—in Venice and Genoa. The agents of change in Europe were innovators who had insight into Islamic practices. Venice and Genoa had a competitive advantage because they had close trade links with the realm of Islam. This pattern of commercial innovation—one that is kick-started by entrepreneurs who take the risk of investing, and then spreads to promote advances in law and economics—not only replicates the pattern we saw in the early Islamic empire; it also conforms to what Hayek would lead us to expect: that social progress originates in markets, not in government actions."
Lecture: Early Islam and the Birth of Capitalism - with Benedikt Koehler
PDF: https://lif.blob.core.windows.net/lif/docs/default-source/publications/an-introduction-to-the-history-of-capitalism-600-1900-ad.pdf?sfvrsn=4