 All right ladies and gentlemen excited for this next debate. In particular whether or not Muhammad's marriage to Aisha was immoral. Thanks so much for being with us. We're going to jump right into this one because we want to keep up on our schedule. So with that I'm going to hand it over to Amy who will be reading the format for this debate as well as getting our speakers started. Thanks so much. Thank you so very much James. Tonight's format is going to be 22 minute openings with 10 minute rebuttals back and forth about a 15 minute dialogue or conversation and then four minute closing statements that end with a 15 minute audience Q&A and with that I'm going to hand it over to Dr. David Wood for their opening statement. Thank you James and Amy and special thanks to Kenny for suggesting this topic. This isn't the sort of topic I would expect a Muslim debater to suggest so I have to say I am impressed. Before we get started are there any jihadis in the house tonight? I gave my location. Anyone want to take out the diesel before I start talking about Muhammad? No? It's not for a lot. Don't say I didn't give you the opportunity Yuki. Our topic is was Muhammad's marriage to Aisha immoral? Now if you're not familiar with this issue you may be wondering why would a marriage be immoral? And the answer is because when they were married Muhammad was 51 years old and Aisha was six years old. So the real question we're asking is whether it's immoral for a tiny little girl to be married off to a man who's old enough to be her great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. I know I just exaggerated a bit but if I've learned anything from my Muslim friends it's that we should always exaggerate how great Muhammad was. To be fair Muhammad's marriage to Aisha wasn't consummated until three years after they were married. So Muhammad had sex with Aisha when he was 54 years old and she was nine years old. Was that immoral? Keep in mind we're not talking about just any man. We're not asking whether some random old creepy guy's marriage to a nine-year-old girl was immoral. According to the Koran there are 33 verse 21 Muhammad is the pattern of conduct for Muslims. He's the pattern of conduct for billions of people down through history. So the heart of the issue is this. Is it immoral for a man who's the pattern of conduct for billions of people to marry a girl who's young enough to be his granddaughter and to have sex with her when she's only nine years old? I say yes it is immoral. It's shockingly immoral. It's really really really really really really immoral. The religion of Islam says no you're wrong David. It's not immoral at all. Not only is it perfectly acceptable it's an act fit for Islam's ideal pattern of conduct and only a racist Islamophobic hate-mongering bigot would have any problem with Muhammad's marriage to a child. Sheikh Yusuf Estes one of the most popular Muslim speakers in the world compares Muhammad and Aisha to Romeo and Juliet. Somehow I don't think that Romeo and Juliet would have been would have enjoyed such lasting popularity if Romeo had been 51 and Juliet had been six. Now why do I say that it's immoral for a man in his fifties to marry and have sex with a little girl whose age is still in single digits especially when that man in his fifties is the one who defines morality for billions of followers? The obvious reason is that having sex with a child is disgusting and perverted but this is a debate so I can't just say that it's disgusting and perverted. I need to prove my case. Fortunately I have a quotation from someone whose words will be accepted even by my opponent. Even Kenny will have to agree with this. Here's a quote from an expert in religious matters after the expert was asked about sex with nine-year-old girls. He said, I don't know about you but let's be honest with it. I'm a 50-year-old man and I've seen women that are far more attractive than nine-year-old girls. They're far more developed. I'm just trying to put things in perspective. A nine-year-old girl versus a woman. Men like women. There's perverts out there but usually those people have issues with their lack of performance or impotence or things of that nature. So those are perverts. Those are people who have issues. So according to this expert, grown men are attracted to grown women. A grown man who's attracted to a nine-year-old girl is a pervert, someone who has issues. I said that even my opponent will have to agree with these words because these words were spoken by Kenny. Now I could have just stated what our topic was, then pointed out that Muhammad had sex with a nine-year-old girl, then quoted Kenny saying that grown men who are attracted to little girls are perverts and then rested my airtight case. The debate would have been over. But after Kenny said that grown men who are attracted to nine-year-old girls are perverts, he went on to say, but that has nothing to do with Islam. Nothing to do with Islam. The man that your God describes as your pattern of conduct had sex with a nine-year-old girl. How can that have nothing to do with men having sex with nine-year-old girls? How can Muslims insist that there's no problem here? How can Muslims reconcile the Koran's claim that Muhammad is a wonderful pattern of conduct with the historical fact that Muhammad climbed on top of a nine-year-old girl when he was more than 50 years old? Well, there are three basic approaches that Muslims take. First, it's become quite common in recent years for Muslims to assert that Aisha was much older than nine when her prophet had sex with her. They say that Aisha was 16 or 18 or maybe even older when her pattern of conduct penetrated her. Unfortunately, for proponents of the Aisha was much older defense, this response only works in an atmosphere of total ignorance. If someone who's never read the Muslim sources hears that Aisha was much older than nine, he might believe it. But as soon as you start reading Islam's most trusted sources, you find Hadith after Hadith after Hadith saying that Aisha was nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her. You never find any of these sources saying that she was 16 or 18 or older. The only disagreement you find in these sources is whether she was six or seven when the marriage contract was written. Islam's most trusted sources agree that she was nine years old when the marriage was consummated. Let's read a few examples. Sahih al-Bukhari 51-58 narrated Erwah, the prophet wrote the marriage contract with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years, i.e. till his death. See also Sahih al-Bukhari 38-94, 38-96, 51-33 and 51-34 which all agree that Aisha was nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her. Sahih Muslim 33-11. Aisha reported that Allah's apostle married her when she was seven years old and she was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine and her dolls were with her. When he died she was 18 years old. See also Sahih Muslim 33-09 and 33-10 which agree that Aisha was nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her. Sunan Abu Da'ud 21-16 narrated Aisha, the messenger of Allah married me when I was seven years old or six years old. He had intercourse with me when I was nine years old. See also Sunan Abu Da'ud 49-15, 49-16, 49-17 and 49-18 which all agree that Aisha was, you guessed it, nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her. Sunan An-Nasai 33-80. It was narrated that Aisha said the messenger of Allah married me when I was six and consummated the marriage with me when I was nine and I used to play with dolls. See also Sunan An-Nasai 32-57, 32-58, 32-59, 32-60 and 33-81 which all agree that Aisha was once again nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her. Now, we could continue by going through Sunan Ibn Maja, the history of Abtabari and so on, which all agree that Aisha was nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her. But instead of continuing with even more sources that say that Aisha was nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her, let's take the time to go through all the Muslim sources that say that Aisha was sixteen or eighteen or older when Muhammad had sex with her. And we're done because there are none. We can sum up the testimony of the hadith and surah literature with a quote from Ibn Qathir, one of the most respected Islamic scholars of all time. In his four-volume biography of Muhammad, Ibn Qathir quotes Erwah ibn al-Zubair, Aisha's nephew, who says that Aisha was nine years old when Muhammad consummated his marriage with her. Then after quoting Erwah on the age of Aisha, Ibn Qathir says this. His statement, he contracted marriage with Aisha when she was six, thereafter consummating with her when she was nine, is not disputed by anyone and is well established in the Sahih collections of traditions and elsewhere. When scholars disagreed on an issue, Ibn Qathir would draw attention to the disagreement. But when it comes to Muhammad having sex with Aisha when she was nine years old, Ibn Qathir says that it's not disputed by anyone. Ibn Qathir would roll over in his grave if he heard modern Muslim scholars and apologists saying that Aisha was sixteen or eighteen all to make Muslims feel better about their profit. I think our Muslim friends should take the advice of Sheikh Yasser Qadi, who rebuked Muslims who lie about the age of Aisha. He said, oh Muslims, don't apologize for the truth and don't distort the truth. There are Muslims that tried to deny this. Oh, he didn't marry Aisha as a young girl. Yaqi, look, it's not the way forward. We don't lie for the sake of our religion, astaghfirullah. We have the truth. We're not going to cover up the truth if people find it embarrassing. This is the reality. Deal with it. Our prophet married a young girl and it was fine for the time. How old was she? Nine years old. Anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant or deceptive. Second, since the Aisha was much older, defense is doomed to failure. Other Muslim apologists acknowledged that Aisha was nine years old while insisting that she was an early bloomer and had reached puberty and was already very mature when Muhammad took her to his bed. This is the defense of people like Alidawa, who was caught on video saying that if his daughter started menstruating at the age of nine, he would tell her that she's ready to get married. We'll call this the old enough to bleed, old enough to breed defense. There are three main problems with the old enough to bleed, old enough to breed defense. One, getting your first period doesn't mean your body is ready to start having kids. Two, Aisha hadn't reached puberty when Muhammad had sex with her. And three, the Quran allows men to have sex with girls even before they've reached puberty. Let's go through these. Does a girl getting her first period mean that she's ready to start having kids? No, puberty is a process that takes time. It takes time for a girl's hips to widen. It takes time for a girl's birth canal to widen. It takes time for a girl's breasts to develop. It takes time for a girl to grow from a child into an adult. When a man gets a young girl pregnant, he's putting both the girl and her baby at risk. Rates of toxemia, sepsis, obstructed and prolonged labor, hemorrhaging and fistulas all increase significantly for very young mothers. The babies born to these young mothers have higher rates of infant mortality, premature birth and low birth weight. What's the solution? It's simple. Don't have sex with a girl until she becomes a fully grown woman. And yet we find popular Muslim apologists promoting child marriage even for their own daughters. Why? Because obstetricians think it's a good idea? No, because their prophet married a child. So just because a girl reaches puberty doesn't mean a grown man should pounce on her. But had Aisha actually reached puberty when Muhammad had sex with her? No, she hadn't. The English translation of Sahih al-Bukhari includes some parenthetical commentary from Ibn Hajr al-Asqalani. Listen to Sahih al-Bukhari 6130. Narrated Aisha, I used to play with dolls in the presence of the Prophet and my girlfriend's also used to play with me. When Allah's Messenger used to enter my dwelling place, they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. Playing with dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for Aisha at that time as she was a little girl not yet reached the age of puberty. Did you catch that? Not only did Muhammad like to watch his child bride Aisha play with her little friends, he also liked to watch her play with dolls. But dolls are considered images in Islam and images are forbidden. So why was Aisha allowed to play with dolls in the presence of Muhammad? The passage tells us she was a little girl who hadn't reached the age of puberty. Images were forbidden, but since prepubescent girls hadn't reached the age of moral accountability, the rule didn't apply to them. With this in mind, listen once again to Sahih Muslim 3311, which we read earlier. Aisha reported that Aisha reported that Allah's Apostle married her when she was seven years old and she was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine and her dolls were with her. When he died, she was 18 years old. She was still playing with dolls when she was taken to Muhammad's house so that he could consummate the marriage. But only prepubescent girls were allowed to play with dolls. Yes, the Prophet of Islam, Islam's pattern of conduct, had sex with a prepubescent girl. And why wouldn't he? Since the Quran itself allows men to have sex with prepubescent girls. According to the Quran, a Muslim man can marry, have sex with, and divorce a girl all before she's reached puberty. In Surah 65, verse 4 of the Quran, Allah gives rules for divorcing women and girls who don't have a monthly menstrual cycle. Earlier in the Quran, Allah had declared that if a man divorces a woman, there's a waiting period before the woman can get married again. The waiting period was three monthly menstrual cycles. The idea was that there should be a waiting period in between husbands so that if the woman had a child, there wouldn't be any confusion as to who the father was. But Muhammad's followers eventually asked him, what about women and girls who don't have a monthly menstrual cycle, either because they're too old or because they're too young or because they're pregnant? And Allah says in Surah 65, verse 4 of the Quran, that if a man divorces a girl who's too young for a monthly menstrual cycle because she hasn't reached puberty, the girl has to wait three months before she marries another man, not three menstrual cycles. The girl doesn't have a menstrual cycle yet. She waits three months instead. So according to the Quran, a man can marry a prepubescent girl, then have sex with her, then divorce her, then pass her on to the next man who can marry her, have sex with her, and divorce her all before the girl has ever reached puberty. If you think I'm wrong about what Surah 65, verse 4 of the Quran is saying, by all means read the commentaries, read Ibn Abbas, read Ibn Kathir, read Tafsir Jalalayn, read modern commentators like Maududi. Even popular Muslim speakers like Muhammad Hijab admit what this verse is saying. Muhammad Hijab says that if we didn't have the hadith, if we didn't know from the hadith that Muhammad waited until Aisha was nine years old to have sex with her, if all we had to go on was the Quran, we would assume that men can have sex with five-year-old girls because Surah 65 verse 4 allows sex with prepubescent girls. So the Quran allows sex with prepubescent girls and Muhammad had sex with a prepubescent girl. This means that as reprehensible as people like Alidawa are when they present the old enough to bleed, old enough to breathe defense, Muhammad and the Quran are actually much worse. As disgusting as it was to hear Alidawa say that if his daughter started menstruating at nine years old he would tell her that she's ready for marriage, Muhammad and the Quran are worse because they say why wait till she starts menstruating. That leaves us with the third Muslim defense which is to admit that Aisha was only nine years old when Muhammad climbed on top of her and to admit that she hadn't reached puberty but to maintain that there's nothing wrong with a grown man having sex with a prepubescent nine-year-old girl. That is the true position of Islam and it's the only defense that's consistent with Allah's commands in the Quran and Muhammad's example in the Hadith. The position of the Quran and the Hadith and a Muslim scholars and apologists who are honest about their religion is that there's simply nothing wrong with a grown man having sex with a prepubescent girl. But these Muslim scholars and apologists know how strange this sounds to non-Muslims so they offer various additional defenses. They'll say that Muhammad married Aisha because he was trying to solidify his relationship with her father, Abu Bakr. And this is just silly. One, Abu Bakr was already Muhammad's most faithful companion. Marrying his prepubescent daughter wouldn't help that in any way. Two, Abu Bakr had an older daughter, Asma. Muhammad had simply wanted to create some family ties. He could have married the older daughter who had already reached puberty. Three, if you read the sources you'll see that Muhammad had to actually weaken his relationship with Abu Bakr. Muhammad proposed the marriage and Abu Bakr objected. He said, but we're brothers. In other words, we're so close that marrying Aisha would be like marrying your own niece. Muhammad replied, we're only brothers in religion. Aisha is lawful for me. Far from showing Abu Bakr how close they were, Muhammad's marriage to Aisha pushed Abu Bakr further away. Not a good defense. Next, Muslim scholars and apologists claim that Muhammad had to marry Aisha because he needed someone who would pass on important stories about it. Aisha passed on lots of stories about Muhammad. She had a good memory. Maybe that's why Allah told Muhammad to marry her. So according to this claim, the best way that the creator of the universe could ensure that future generations would know as much as possible about Muhammad was to have Muhammad marry and have sex with a little girl. Now, since I can come up with way better ways to preserve information about Muhammad off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure the creator of the universe could come up with a better plan, one that didn't involve so much suffering for future generations of little girls. Next, Muslim scholars and apologists commit what's called the two-quokhi fallacy, but they have to combine this fallacy with some outright line. You commit the two-quokhi fallacy when instead of actually answering a criticism, you point a finger at the person who's presenting the criticism and say, but you've got the same problem too. It's a fallacy because even if the person has the same problem, this doesn't mean that there's no problem. It would only mean that you both have the same problem, very common fallacy. So in order to deflect criticism against Muhammad for marrying a child, Muslim scholars and apologists will claim that Christians have the same problem. But which pattern of conduct in the Bible had sex with a nine-year-old girl? None. This is where lying comes in. I go to people in the Bible whose ages aren't mentioned and just claim that they were super young. They'll make up ages and sometimes they'll be extremely deceptive when they do it. So it's a fallacy combined with deception. These Muslim scholars and apologists are basically saying, if you tell the truth about Muhammad, we'll lie about people in the Bible. Interesting tactic. Next, Muslim scholars and apologists commit the argumentum ad populum fallacy, which is also called the bandwagon fallacy. If you've ever caught your kids doing something they're not supposed to be doing, you've heard the bandwagon fallacy. But everyone's doing it. So Muslims will defend Muhammad by saying that lots of people down through history married young girls. This is another strange response because morality in Islam isn't decided by popular vote. Islam condemns drinking alcohol. Someone replies, well, lots of people down through history drank alcohol, so it can't be wrong. Will Muslims accept this as a refutation? Of course not. So why use the bandwagon fallacy here? Finally, if nothing else works, Muslim scholars and apologists will commit the ad hominem fallacy. If you say that it's wrong for a grown man to have sex with a little girl, they'll just call you an Islamophobe as if the only reason anyone could ever object to a grown man having sex with a little girl is some irrational fear of Islam. This is always a good time to remember the Andrew Cummins definition of Islamophobia. Andrew said, Islamophobia is a word created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons. Sorry, Muslim scholars and apologists of the world, but you're not going to convince us that having sex with children is okay by calling us names. So was Muhammad's marriage to Aisha immoral? Is it immoral for a man who's the pattern of conduct for billions of people to marry a girl who's young enough to be his granddaughter and to have sex with her when she's only nine years old? I obviously think it's immoral and I'm sure most of you do as well, but maybe we're wrong. Maybe we're wrong and it's okay after all. Maybe Kenny can show us that we've made a mistake. It'll be a terrifying day for the young girls of the world if Kenny makes a good case here, but let's hear him out anyway. Thank you so very much, Dr. Wood for your opening statement and with that we are going to hand it over to Kenny for your up to 22 minute opening statement. Thank you sir. I want to start by saying assalamu alaikum. I appreciate the organizers being so hospitable. They've done a great job with the the bacon 2022. So I look forward to more in the future. So before we get started what I want to do I would like to gift David Wood with a copy of a book titled American Child Bride, A History of Miners and Marriage in the United States, as well as give him a copy of my book considered Islam. I'll have to get a that's an author copy but I'll get that for you here shortly. Sheikh Uthman Ibn Farooq, he said that you had a reading assignment and some homework to do so maybe you can add that to your your list of stuff to study. And so let's get started with this. Let me start my time and as we get started I'd like to ask the audience and viewers to approach what I have to say is if you've walked into a courtroom of logic and reason. You know I ask you to clear your minds think for yourselves and to consider that you often find out more about the accuser than the one being accused if you're willing to open yourself up and listen. David Wood is misleading people on this topic by engaging what's called presentism and ethnocentrism and by attempting to misalign facts. He's only giving you part of the story that he wants you to hear. So in an article titled Don't Judge Our Ancestors' Actions by Today's Standards by Chip Hughes he defines presentism he says that it's a historical term meaning judging past actions by today's standards or uncritical adherence to present day attitudes especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts and he says we all too often color history with the lens of our own current prejudices. The historian David Hackett Fisher in his book Historians' Fallacies he says presentism is a logical fallacy in that people should at least try to be aware of their biases and view history in such a way that they do not create a distorted depiction of the past. Against presentism by Lynn Hunt she says presentism at its worst encourages a kind of moral complacency and a self-congratulation interpreting the past in terms of present day concerns usually leads us to think of ourselves as morally superior and it leads into ethnocentrism which is a belief that one's own culture is superior to others by judging the attributes of another culture often in disparaging terms she says that the term excuse me the term was invented in 1906 rather by sociologist William Sumner who conceptualized it as a means of promoting solidarity within the so-called in-group by antagonizing the so-called out-group and certainly knows that we can hear today David Wood is certainly guilty of antagonizing Muslims and by demonizing the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam what he's attempting to do inevitably he's trying to demonize all Muslims so what accusation is being made obviously you've heard it he's accusing the Prophet of being a pedophile a stuck for a while that's far from the truth so during this debate I will not be attempting to prove or disprove any hadith about Isha's age or I'm not trying to prove or disprove any scholar this debate is not about the reliability of hadith and I do not necessarily agree nor disagree with any Muslim or non-Muslim scholar that I mentioned my point is that there are different theories about the age of Isha when the marriage was consummated and so because there's disagreement there's therefore a reason for doubt Isha's age however what these Muslim and non-Muslim scholars do agree about is that there was absolutely no wrongdoing on the part of Muhammad Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam so let's be clear again I'm not here to debate hadith and what this scholar said versus that scholar that's not what we're looking at I'm arguing to establish reasonable doubt in this modern day so for 14 15 years or so David Wood has been accusing the Prophet peace be upon him of being a pedophile by looking through a very narrow minded and bigoted modern day lens while accusing the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam of something that he'll never be able to prove him guilty of so let's throw out the hypocrisy along with the baby Isha idea and all the bathwater and all that nonsense and let's demand consistency in modern times courts do not convict people based on hearsay hearsay automatically brings about reasonable doubt in the minds of honest and reasonable people and in modern times people are considered innocent to have proven guilty if people in modern times are going to accuse the Prophet peace be upon him of immorality regarding the marriage when in fact no one of his time made such accusations I repeat no one of his time made such accusations as hard as most fearsome enemies they didn't accuse him of that then let's be fair and consistent in modern times people are not found guilty in a court of law unless the evidence is proved beyond a reasonable doubt which is defined as the traditional standard of proof that must be exceeded to secure guilty verdict in the criminal case of law so this phrase beyond a reasonable doubt means that the evidence presented and the arguments put forward by the prosecution established the defendants guilt so clearly that it must be accepted as fact by any rational person of course it's hard to be reasonable with you know irrational and unreasonable people but whatever what evidence is David would hide and let's talk about it David Wood isn't telling you that Isha was very happily married to the Prophet peace be upon him and she was she was highly jealous of other wives now think about that she was highly jealous of other wives does that sound like someone who's been abused she never spoke about any type of abuse or unhappiness she defended the Prophet adamantly until the day that he died with his head in her lap David Wood might find that to be some sexually or sexually arousing I don't know but he died with his head in her lap peace be upon him she was a very well educated scholar of Islam and who could have easily spoken about abuse if in fact there was any if in fact there was any she was a strong triumpet Muslim woman who had the capacity of character and the means to lash out at anyone who might have abused her she had ample opportunity after the Prophet died peace be upon him but David wants you to David Wood wants you to envision her as a defenseless little child okay well she grew and she had she was a woman that could have spoken up if she had been abused we don't we don't hear about that David Wood is attempting to totally negate and dismiss various opinions by modern and contemporary scholars and historians on this issue as if their opinions are somehow less valid than you know those who hold the tradition of you David Wood wants you once but this is what it boils down David Wood wants to decide the debate for the Muslims themselves by picking the side that best fits yes indeed his Islamophobic agenda and you know what's his intention to demonize the Prophet and again thereby demonize all Muslims who want to emulate him peace be upon him David Wood is inevitably attacking the character of all Muslims and I'm not I'm not I'm not gonna sit by and allow it I'm not I'm not gonna put up with it so we're gonna we're gonna end this today David so as Muslims we do indeed have the right to disagree and in fact on this issue there are valid reasons to disagree and on this topic you know it's you know there's disagreement amongst Muslims so Allah gives guidance in the Quran about coming to common terms when there's disagreement amongst people and that Allah himself would eventually inform people about that which they used to differ on the day of judgment the common terms amongst Muslims on this matter as well as many decent unbiased non-Muslim scholars and historians is that there was absolutely no wrongdoing committed on on the part of the Prophet in regards to this marriage peace be upon him so that's what we should focus on because that's where the consensus of agreement lies David Wood you know we don't try to tell you how to figure out how a father can be his own son and a son can be his own father and you're not going to define for us for the Muslims which side of this issue that the Muslims debate is the correct one you don't get you don't get that opportunity it's not going to happen okay not maybe in your world of Islamophobes in the puppet show you put on but not over here so uh you know while it is true that many Muslim scholars have accepted the tradition that Aisha was nine years old when the marriage was consummated others believe that she was older and both sides have strong arguments based on various ideas to justify their theories the disagreement amongst Muslims and this ongoing debate proves Aisha's age cannot be confirmed either way no no crime can be proven without facts and people you know honest people sincere people unbiased people consider all the facts and you know speculation and theories and you know based on opinions traditions emotions conjecture none of that is uh doesn't anything but generate reasonable doubt in the minds of reasonable people so please excuse me what it boils down to is no one knows for sure no Muslim truly knows what her age was no non-Muslim knows what her age was let's face it we weren't there Muslims you weren't there uh David was wasn't there no one knows New World Encyclopedia addresses this marriage and this state think about what's being said they have no reason to you know they're not Muslims obviously so they state the age of Aisha at marriage is an extremely contentious one the age of Aisha at marriage is an extremely contentious one contentious amongst whom Muslims the Muslims debate about it on the other hand they say there are several hadiths that would state that uh that were narrated by Aisha herself would claim that she was nine or six or seven years old rather when that when uh engaged in nine when the marriage was consummated but they state on the other hand there's evidence from early Muslim chronicers like even a shack that indicates in and others they say that that Aisha may have been 12 to 14 years old just past the age of purity or perhaps even older they say some Muslim scholars point to other traditions they say the conflict with those attributed to hadith narrated by Aisha on this matter so let's look at some of those examples of these people so proof an article titled proof that Aisha was 15 years old when the marriage when married to the prophet peace be upon him published February 2019 by Dr. uh shake Dr. uh Ridwan Ibn Salim and he says and I quote although the widely cited hadith states that Aisha was nine years old when her marriage to the prophet peace be upon him was consummated this is contradicted by strong historical evidence reports of Aisha's age and works by such authorities as Nawawi, Askelani, Ibn Qathir all placed her in her late teens at the time when the marriage was consummated he has a footnote at the bottom of that article and he states this article is not an apologetic response but a sincerely held opinion after investigating the issue and ultimately he says this is my opinion based on reading of historical evidence and it's the job of the student of Islamic tradition to investigate to the best of his or her ability so a non-Muslim Leslie Hazelton in her books the first Muslim and after the prophet and I can give the page numbers if need be but she says Aisha maintained this is a quote Aisha maintained she was six years old when she was engaged and nine when the marriage was consummated and celebrated but more restrained reports have her age nine when she was betrothed and 12 when she was actually married which makes sense she says since custom dictated that girls be married at puberty Dr. Resid Halimes in Fountain Magazine says and I quote she was at least 17 or 18 when she married the prophet and Medina Jannah media pro in the book the life of Aisha mother of believers page eight says most likely she was most likely 10 when engaged and wed probably probably probably around 14 or 15 when consummated Muhammad a short introduction by Dr. Jonathan Brown on page 7677 says that she was between nine or 10 when consummated the life of Muhammad by Haikal a book that I've had since the day I took Shahad almost 30 years ago on page 139 says that she was 11 years old when the marriage was consummated and in a recent article Aisha was 19 not nine by Faisal Rahman published December 28th just last month December 2021 she says and I quote as all biographers of the prophet agree that he consummated his marriage with Aisha in the second year after Hydra it can be conclusively said that she was 19 at the time and not nine as alleged in the aforementioned hadiths and there are many other articles and books that I can mention as a matter of fact the reason I have these books on my table right here is because preparing for this debate I've gone through all 10 of these books and all 10 of these books have a different age I'm going to repeat these are Muslim books some Muslim and non-Muslim scholars and they all have her at a different age does a reasonable minded person draw a conclusion based on that type of evidence what I've just read here absolutely not if you're if you're true to yourself you're a decent unbiased person you cannot convict someone of a crime based on all these what do you what are you supposed to believe there are many articles and books that I can mention so what does a reasonable person do you know this conflicting evidence are these theories by these scholars and historians correct which ones are correct which ones are wrong so consider this fact when you compare the David Wood version of anything related to Islam with the opinions of non-Muslim scholars who have studied Islam in the life of the Prophet peace be upon him objectively a whole different narrative about his life and the teaching of Islam coming to focus by example in the book what the Qur'an meant why it matters I have it up here as a matter of fact by New York Times bestselling author Gary Wills a non-Muslim he addresses this marriage on page 189 of his book and he says and I quote Aisha's report had been nine when Muhammad married her which has led to a great deal of criticism of the Prophet but early marriages were common until recently and no one knows when this one was consummated that's non-Muslim no no dog in the fight he says no one knows when the marriage is consummated Gary Wills is saying that because there are differing opinions on the issue even amongst classical Muslim scholars there are people on both sides who have either attached their emotions opinions traditions false accusations like this man you know to one side or another without looking at all the evidence unbiased instead they engage in cherry picking information and confirmation anchoring bias and sometimes people don't realize that they're doing that unfortunately but these are logical fallacies fallacies in you know while other people have an agenda and obviously David Wood is the type of person who has an agenda but a person who looks at all this information about this topic you know you know and does not allow the opinions of other people to impede on their own logic and reason can only include that you know based on all the evidence on this topic no one knows for sure how she was and so that's the fact so when you know we can go back and forth between this hadith and that hadith and mention what this scholar says versus that scholar or we can be honest admit that the fact is there are no facts can actually be truly established regarding her age because there's much agreement on this disagreement on the issue the scholars disagree the Muslim scholars themselves disagree they have been debating the topic for decades and so David Wood doesn't mention you know that in Islamic law on this issue that a person cannot marry under the thick a person cannot marry until they've reached the age of puberty but they also have to be mentally and emotionally ready okay and so David Wood doesn't tell his followers uh you know that even if the marriage was consummated or nine or ten years old such practices were indeed common he's trying to belittle that but that's the fact of the matter he needs to read that book that I just gifted during his homework session and so consider this hypocrisy it's utter hypocrisy and again you often find out more about the accuser than the one being accused in an article titled Age of Consent a historical overview by Dr. Vern Bullo Dr. Bullo says that age of consent throughout history is usually coincided with the age of puberty also all the times it has been as early as seven seven years old and Dr. Bullo states that the roman tradition served as the base for christian europe as well as the christian church itself which generally and essentially based on biological development set the age at 12 or 14 but continued he says to set the absolute minimum at seven and surely David Wood knows this that as late as as 1965 he's been talking about this issue for over 10 years well over that in 1965 the age of consent here in the united states in the state of Delaware was seven I know he's heard this in 30 other states it was 10 years old I'm not justifying that I'm just demonstrating the hypocrisy of it all in his book opposing hate speech by professor of sociology Anthony Joseph Cortez he says that uh and I quote in 1962 the American Law Institute recommended that the legal age of consent to sex that is the age below which sex is defined as statutory rape be dropped in every state to age 10 in fact until the 1960s the the legal age of consent in Delaware what I just mentioned was seven so a 50 year old man could have had sex with a seven year old boy or girl end of quote so note again the hypocrisy the christian world set the age of consent at seven but David Wood is trying to condemn the prophet peace be upon him because of a hadith that say that Asia was nine but wait a minute ladies and gentlemen of the court of erotic and reason the Muslims disagree on the matter so how in the world is David Wood uh convinced that she was nine were you there David was anyone else there only two people were there the prophet peace be upon him and Aisha and only a lot of those when that marriage was consummated no Muslim knows let's face it so the truth about Muhammad and Aisha by Miriam Sarah she says and I quote some modern some modern Muslim scholars have more recently cast doubt on the veracity of the saying where hadith used to assert Aisha's young age and taking all known accounts and records of Aisha's age at marriage estimates of her age range from nine to 19 and what does she say because of this it's impossible to know with any certainty how old Aisha was almost some scholars believe again that you know the the Quran is infallible Miriam Sarah says in Islam the hadith literature the sayings of the prophet peace be upon him is certainly uh it's excuse me considered secondary to the Quran while the Quran is considered the to be the verbatim word of God the hadith were transmitted over time through rigorous but not infallible methodology and that doesn't mean that the hadith are unreliable but but it's intellectually dishonest not to admit that there are hadith that have that contradict themselves regarding this this marriage and that's why Muslim scholars have varying opinions about what David would claims to be fact but not consider this fact when there are hadith that that David would in his puppets of propaganda think that they can use to attack a law Islam the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam they talk about those hadith like they struck gold you know struck found gold and struck oil by saying that the sahi but note that you know and they're blatant indecency and hypocrisy they reject hadith out of the same collections they talk about the prophet peace be upon them making the night journey to Jerusalem into paradise into the prophet peace be upon them splitting the moon and so forth they reject all that its hypocrisy its intellectual dishonesty it's islamophobic dishonesty without question and again you often find out more about the accuser than one being accused in my book consider Islam just proving the patriot of propaganda I mentioned the misinformation effect which occurs when people are influenced by what they hear instead of having firsthand knowledge or facts about an event and the issue is even more problematic when people pass off information repeatedly by word of mouth and passing on information by word of mouth often results in loss of information distorted information various versions being reported about an event making the information partially or entirely unreliable so now let's look at the real facts about this issue the conclusions formed about the dates of a marriage to the prophet peace be upon them and consummation bear with me are based on three theories not what he said the most widely defined the defendant theory is that she was born in the fourth year after Muhammad peace be upon him began receiving revelation of the crown is 613 CE this is the most widely defended theory because it's the one that people like David use most to attack the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and other it would otherwise be you know unvolatile issue so if if this were true it would mean that that isha was five years old when Khadija died radiolahu anha it would mean that she was engaged at nine years old when married and 18 when the prophet died peace be upon him however it would also mean that if isha isha died in 672 CE then she was only 58 not 67 as most most authorities report so in my own studies I found theories about her her death and that range from 57 to 67 and this within itself places her birth and her age at marriage in question and this is all based on you know he's trying to latch on to a hadith a narration from one individual who was in his in in his late age and it was believed that his his memory was fading because he was in his old age that's what the scholars say so the second theory is that she was born four years before prophethood in 605 was 606 CE and that would mean that she would be four or five when prophethood began 14 or 15 when Khadija died 15 or 16 at marriage 19 or 18 or 19 or so when the when the marriage was consummated and 27 or 28 when the prophet peace be upon him died and that would place her at 67 when she died which is 67 is the most common age that states that she died in the hadith the third theory is that she was five years old five years younger than Fatima rather who said to have been born five years before the prophets called her prophethood peace be upon him and therefore making the year of Aisha's birth in the year of 6 6 10 CE and if that were true then she would have been nine when Khadija died 10 at marriage 12 in the year of hijrah and 14 when married 22 when the prophet peace be upon him died and 62 when she herself died and I recommend reading a work by Hazrat called Hazrat Aisha by Rukhaya, Waris, Maksud, Molana, Muhammad, Farooq Khan so which who say in their article they state and I quote unfortunately some traditionists and biographers hold their views by choosing to ignore several important pieces of information which contradict this opinion regarding her age at at nine years old when consummated so it says which indicate that at at the time of her marriage to the prophet Aisha was much older indeed is as much as 10 years older than generally claimed the basic problem is that he says the basic problem is that historians and traditionists seem to have chosen not to do a little elementary mathematics many have reported statements that are supposed to be factual which are in blatant contradiction to the notion that Aisha was uh was six uh in 6 20 CE so now now consider this in 2009 there was an article published on an anti-muslim very well known anti-muslim website by a very well known antagonist of Islam and uh how much time do I have left you standing for that okay good so yeah this is my final point here so this person says for the western mind perhaps the most disturbing fact about quote unquote fact about the founder of Islam is that he has had a sexual relationship with a nine-year-old girl and because of this it's become increasingly popular in some circles to refer to the prophet of Islam as a pedophile he says this is of course extremely offensive to Muslims who view Muhammad as the ideal servant of God and the greatest example of what a man should strive to be no no saying for this for the western mind is implying that the westerners are somehow more civilized than those in the east it's xenophobic islamophobic he's talking about Muslims and what fact is he talking about the one based on authentic adith that have varying sources and what circles this is my final words what circles call Muhammad a pedophile David Wood circles David Wood circles and who wrote that article David Wood wrote that article 2009 and surely he should know by now that the Muslims themselves and stop trying to disqualify the fact that the Muslims themselves disagree and you don't get to choose all right for anyone just tuning in we're debating whether it's immoral for a man who's the pattern of conduct for billions of people to marry a girl who's young enough to be his granddaughter and to have sex with her when she's only nine years old i'm arguing that Muhammad's marriage to aisha was immoral Kenny's arguing that Muhammad's marriage to aisha wasn't immoral in my opening statement i showed that aisha was indeed nine years old when Muhammad had sex with her i presented what's called an even if but in fact argument even if aisha had reached puberty when Muhammad had sex with her it was immoral because sex with young girls puts them at risk but in fact aisha hadn't reached puberty and so the relationship was especially heinous how did Kenny respond he says i'm guilty of presentism for applying modern standards to Muhammad and i agree it's not always a good idea to apply our standards to other people around the world or to people down through the centuries the problem here is that Muhammad is the pattern of conduct for Muslims in the present and so the present is relevant and he's the pattern of conduct for Muslims in the United States so it is all relevant for for discussion here he says i'm trying to demonize all Muslims i'm attacking all Muslims not at all most Muslims live far better lives than their prophet ever lived so hats off to them he says i didn't tell you that aisha was happily married and he says that aisha could have spoken up if she'd been abused yeah it was really safe to say what a horrible person Muhammad was in that culture where you'd be killed for saying such a thing and by the way aisha said that she wanted a monogamous relationship whereas Muhammad had nine wives and not counting as slave girls and so that was an ongoing source of distress for him he says that Muslim scholars agree that there was no wrongdoing why do they agree that there's no wrongdoing because you won't criticize Muhammad if you did have a problem with it you'd be ex Muslims and you'd you'd be endlessly ridiculed by Muslims i think Kenny said that we can't yeah we said that we can't prove her age how many references that i give now notice just notice that we'll talk about this more but Kenny quoted a variety of sources who is equal to gary wills or something like that who is i quoting Sahih al-Bukhari Sahih Muslims Sunan Abu Dawud Sunan An-Nasai Sunan ibn Maja the history of october ibn Qathir these are who i'm quoting who is he quoting gary wills who modern the the encyclopedia of what is this how islam works the islamophobes quote authentic muslim sources and then the opponents quote none the defenders of islam quote the encyclopedia of such and such interesting interesting methodology going on here well so he quotes the new world encyclopedia and other sources saying that she may have been 12 to 14 or older he quotes someone who says that ibn Asaq and ibn Qathir and others say that she was in her late teens this is very easy it's very easy to show how this works ibn Asaq page such and such says she was 14 give the reference give the reference ibn Qathir on page such and such says she was 14 or 16 or 18 what did ibn Qathir say i i literally read the reference ibn Qathir says there's no dispute zero no dispute at all on Muhammad having sex with Aisha when she was nine years old somehow we get a mystery we get these mystery references where Aisha was much older and it's very simple ibn Qathir volume what page what it's very simple very simple methodology uh who else did he quote Leslie Hazelton saying she was 19 uh he said he read all 10 books on the table and they all gave a different age for Aisha so we just don't know how old she is you can't convict someone of a crime when there's conflicting evidence well if the conflicting evidence doesn't come until 14 centuries later right you you wouldn't get off on a crime because 14 centuries later everyone started arguing about something because they were embarrassed by it right the the muslims did not disagree on this in the second century the third century the fourth century all the way down to the time of ibn Qathir centuries later no disagreement until then the disagreements come from modern muslims who are ashamed of their profit because of what he did um he said muslim scholars disagree on their ages yeah they again they disagree now they didn't disagree in the second century uh after muhammad or the third century or so on they disagree now because it's so embarrassing for them um then kenny said that a person in islam can't marry until they've reached the age of puberty did we entirely miss the discussion of sura 65 verse four sura 65 verse four which gives divorce proceedings for divorcing a girl who's too young to have reached puberty after you've had sex with her so let me go and read this sura 65 verse four read the beginning and those of your women as have past the past the age of monthly courses for them the iddah that's the waiting period after you divorce them so in case they get married again if you have doubts about their periods their periods is three months and for those who have no courses no monthly period for those who have no courses i.e. they are still immature their prescribed period is three months likewise so girls who don't have a monthly menstrual cycle because they're immature and in case you you think i'm misinterpreting this tafsir of ibn kathir says this refers to the young who have not reached the years of menstruation tafsir jalalain one of the most popular commentaries of all time says this means and al also for those who have not yet menstruated because of their young age their period shall also be three months tafsir ibn abbas ibn abbas one of muhammad's companions he says that he gives the historical background here muhammad's giving these rules for divorce upon which another man asked oh messenger of Allah what about the waiting period of those who do not have menstruation because they are too young and then we have the answer in sura 65 verse four tafsir of maududi modern muslim scholar he says therefore after discussing the issue he says therefore making mention of the waiting period for the girls who have not yet menstruated clearly proves that it is not only permissible to give away the girl in marriage at this age but it is also permissible for the husband to consummate marriage with her now obviously no muslim has the right to forbid a thing which the quran has held permissible so not only does he say yeah that's the rule he says no muslim can can forbid marrying and having sex with a prepubescent girl because you'd be contradicting Allah we're standing in the presence i mean we're sitting in the presence of greatness here this is someone who gets to overrule Allah in the quran and who knows what these verses mean greater than the greatest islamic scholars of all time the greatest islamic commentators of all time ibn abbas ibn kathir the two jilals they all agree and yet well we've got gary wilson and the encyclopedia new world encyclopedia all right so what else do we have he said throughout history puberty has been considered the age for marriage well if puberty's considered the age for marriage you can't use the bandwagon fallacy here because that would just condemn islam because muhammad had sex with aisha when she was nine years old and i i quoted i quoted bukhari i quoted bukhari on aisha not reaching puberty we can we can go through more she was allowed to continue playing with dolls why dolls were forbidden dolls were images dolls were forbidden she was still playing with dolls when she was taken to muhammad's house to consummate the marriage why was she allowed to play with dolls we're told she hadn't reached puberty she hadn't reached the age of accountability so she was allowed to go ahead and continue playing with dolls so if puberty is the age for marriage then Allah and muhammad stand condemned kenny said lots of people down through history of married young girls yes and we can look back and and say well maybe they didn't know any better muhammad is the pattern of conduct for all time the Quran which says you can marry prepubescent girls is the word of Allah and so this is quite relevant today right we can look back at earlier generations and say okay they didn't know any better i would expect a lot to know better and if it's wrong to have sex with a prepubescent girl then i would expect a lot to pick a better pattern of conduct and uh finally kenny uh said uh this story is narrated by only one guy with a bad memory and this is just this is this is common and and this happens from people recycling the the same articles which are all filled with lies and fortunately we have muslim scholars themselves who look at these horrible articles filled with misinformation and we have muslim scholars themselves who just say this this is this is complete nonsense these are lies so uh jabriel fawad hadad responded to the same ridiculous story about this only coming from one narrator he said try more than 11 authorities from among the tabiyin that reported it directly from aisha not counting the other major companions that reported the same nor other major successors that reported it from other than aisha so what do we have up just one guy reported it and you can't trust him what do we have from muslims themselves no 11 different people who reported it directly from aisha and that's not counting the other companions who reported it from themselves so 11 people reported directly from aisha that she was nine years old when muhammad consummated the marriage with her and other people said it as well and what do we got i'm still looking for a reference aisha was 18 which which which verse i mean which passage in in bukhari which passage in muslim where in where who says she was 16 or 18 nowhere people just make these things up and then they pass them all around dr wood for your rebuttal and we're now going to hand it over to kenny for your 10 minute thank you so david wood just proved my case for me because he admitted that there's disagreement amongst the muslims on this topic my objective to come here was to to establish reasonable doubt the muslims themselves disagree with one another on the matter and yes and do they get heated sometimes and they do refute one another in videos and write articles about this and about that thank you david wood so if the muslims themselves are in disagreement about it thank you david wood case closed you've established reasonable doubt in the minds of honest and reasonable people thank you very much but let's let's let's let's take it a step further in regards to in regards to win a young lady gets her period okay so i'm not saying that this i'm not arguing for the nine-year-old position or i'm not arguing for any age because you know what i look at it unbiasedly and for one i didn't only quote uh leslie hazelton and all that these books are written by muslims right here it's not only gary wills the reason i i read muslim and non-muslim sources is because i want to see what everybody's saying i'm not going i'm not gonna look at it you know through a bias window a narrow islamophobic window like he wants to look look through once everyone to look through that window no i want to know what the muslims say the non-muslims say what this person says that way i i personally can draw a conclusion because that's what we should do as human beings and not allow anyone to impede on what we think and what we're supposed to think no when i look at all these different dates if if if you imagine you sat and you read all these different books about this issue right and you see all these different dates what what date could you what are you going to just choose one right why why would we do that he wants to choose one because he has an agenda he wants to to choose one because he's built a big name for for himself and generated a huge income by attacking islam that's that's what he's all about that's what he does and if if you know for the decent christians out there james why and these but these guys that refute him and reject everything that he says because of the antagonism it's constant he never talks about the bible on his on his channel so let's take it a step further what do what in an article titled at what at what age do most girls get their first period i'm going to read this for a purpose a reason um by stefanie beringer matter of fact it was just published september 29 2021 they state that puberty often begins around 11 years old although anywhere between 8 and 14 is considered within the typical range and in the united states a child may get their first period or at the when they're 12 but it's not entirely unusually safe for the period to happen as young as eight years old or as old as 16 factors such as family family history race diet environment and weight all are determined when a first period might occur and so defining the word child what do they what what do they define the word child is a person between birth and puberty or a person who has not attained maturity or the age of legal majority so in that some people like the verses of the he's of the crime that he's trying to suggest that uh are telling people they can have a sex with a a prepubescent child no it doesn't say that matter of fact these verses are in sra anisa and this is the the women it doesn't say the jaria it says the nisa the women that you can divorce and you know also all those things so again uh he he is distorting the facts and distorting the truth because he has an agenda and let's take it a step further because again you often find out more about the accuser than the one being accused and if someone's going to talk so adamantly we need to know about you know let's look at the big picture and not just through a narrow window john gill's expose let me go to a bing done uh old testament commentaries on the ezekiel the book of ezekiel by nancy bowen now i'm going here for a reason and so he can try to disqualify it but he knows that what he the reason he even brings that up because he knows that he's wrong with the issue but they state um that uh that the the issue in the book of ezekiel means that a baby girl at uh arrived at full full blown womanhood at her sexual maturity as her breast developed in her pubic hair sprouted she was ripe for marriage in addition to numerous bible commentaries there are many scholarly opinions on the passage that refer to uh this issue a work title of marriage as a covenant a biblical law and ethics by developed by malachi by gordon uh hoogenberger he says that uh that the age of sexual love in ezekiel 16 18 may suggest that women generally married soon after puberty and the song of songs by a continual commentary by oath mark keel says that the names that the development of the breast and the growth of pubic hair as signs of puberty regarding that verse when the girl became eligible for marriage so another one but uh the hebron narrative and poetry uh by dan burgant and david codder says that uh the mention of developed breast and uh and appearance of pubic hair were signs of puberty signaled the woman's physical preparedness for marriage now someone could could look at this information based on what the doctors say doctor stefanie beringer in that article and and say okay well they're saying that here in the united states a young lady could reach the age of puberty at at at eight years old and that also the environment has something to do with it he's trying to disqualify all that because he's bent on trying to demonize the prophet and thereby demonize all muslims who want to emulate the prophet okay so uh but the thing is again we go back to the the truth of the matter and that the muslim scholar the muslims themselves are disputing on the issue again they're disputing on the issue and david wood doesn't get to decide for the muslims which side is correct the fact is no one knows no one knows they weren't there none of us were there david wood wasn't there but he wants to insist that and talk about it as though he knows for sure you know mentioning this hadith and that hadith look we can go back and forth the scholars do that the muslim scholars themselves do that and they come up to different conclusions i mentioned that in my opening statement now but let's take it a step further uh in in uh in the uh a work titled the american academic scholar of Judaism in the uh jakem nesser in the comparative hermeneutics of rabbinic uh rabbinic Judaism states that based on numbers 31 3 that a girl three and one day years old is betrothed by intercourse now i can mention numerous numerous uh authorities on this issue matter of fact let me mention another one so a history of the messianic law of purities the girl three and one day old is deemed the capable of sexual relations i don't agree with it but that's what the bible was saying okay now david he doesn't talk about the bible very often at all if never matter of fact but he believes jesus peace be upon him is god the same god of the old testament the father's son and son is the father and all that and so with that being said jesus said in in uh the book of mark i believe it is mark 517 whatever it is he says he says think not that i've come to abolish the law i've come to confirm the law so your own bible let i mean we got to look at the big picture here the the great the the fact of the matter is if you believe the old the new covenant was written by the same god then inevitably jesus peace be upon him is confirming what was revealed previously in the old covenant which stated the girl three years old in one day could could have sexual intercourse and you know uh be married at three three three years old now look at the hypocrisy man look at look at the deviancy and you can't just disqualify and say oh you know you're just saying it you know it what's good for the goose is good for the gander and you know pot call the kettle black and all that nonsense but listen we have to look at the source of what this information is coming from and the fact of the matter is again the muslims themselves disagree and david wood does not get to decide simply because he has an agenda in his puppet show to demonize the prophet of islam and thereby demonize all muslims it's not going to work you're not going to get away with it even even professor respected scholar jesus uh jesus vermes he says in regards to uh numbers 31 uh he says that that we must remember that in the intertestinal intertestamental and early rabbinic age pre-puberty marriage was generally permitted in fact rabbis seriously debated whether blood stains found after the wedding night in the nuptial nuptial bread of a bed of a minor marked her first period or the consummation of the marriage and so it's just the other hypocrisy and again let me let me let in this court of logic and reason let me introduce case number 2022 the people of the world versus joseph okay and this is the made up uh case obviously but consider this mary and joseph uh they were they were traveling together they were married they were traveling living together uh before jesus peace be upon him was born and we all believe muslims and christians alike believe that the that mary may love you please with her was certainly a virgin okay we believe this so that means that mary and joseph were traveling around for for however long they were married before jesus was born and they were married they were traveling together living together but the marriage hadn't been consummated but he wants you to think that just because he wants to latch on to a hadith that uh you know hadith that state that she was nine years old that other muslims you know muslims debate about um you know and and insist that the prophet peace be upon him you know consummated the marriage when aisha was nine but is it not possible for the the prophet peace be upon him to live with aisha and haven't haven't you know not consummate the marriage mary and joseph did it why couldn't the prophet of islam have done it how can you how do you know you aren't there but you keep repeating this nonsense over and over and over again tell us about you know the jesus preached the gospel we don't hear that what we hear is hate mongering we hear hate speech we hear division we hear a demonizing of the prophet sallallahu sallam and thereby trying to demonize all muslim men and victimize make the muslim women look like they're oppressed that's what the agenda is that she's defenseless she's a great scholar of islam she could have said all kinds of things if she had been abused we don't see signs of that anywhere so i'll leave it at that kenny for your rebuttal and with that we are going to go into 15 minutes of open conversation and dialogue gentlemen before is yours uh yes kenny uh you keep saying that i'm the one saying that the marriage was consented uh consummated when isha was done and yet source after source after source that i quoted to you so for instance sunan anasai 3380 it was narrated that isha said the messenger of Allah married me when i was six and consummated the marriage with me when i was nine and i used to play with dolls uh you keep attributing this to me and i'm the one quoting isha now my question for you is if isha was this wrong why do you keep saying she's a great scholar if i can't trust her on when muhammad had intercourse with her and oh i could i can't tell the difference between when i'm 19 and when i'm nine why should we believe her about anything you see you see what he's done again so david wood what he's done again he's gone to right back to the same isha to the same the same issue right to isha so so right back to please don't interrupt me but going right back to the same issue now trying to disqualify the fact that what i've the reason i put these books up here is to demonstrate that they all say a different age all these modern these these these look they all say a different age they've studied the issue they've written books on the issue where did i say a different age where did isha say they all say a different age based on what they've studied of the hadith where did any of muhammad's companions give a different age david wood you're not a muslim scholar right but i mean that's why you haven't studied that's why you haven't studied muslim scholars ibn kathir jalalain but in this book by example it says that she was 11 years old so when a reasonable person gets this book and gets another book and another book and another book and they all have different ages what's the reference what's the reference they're giving sources what's the reference read the books sahih abukari read the books where okay you can just again so sahih abukari so do you agree in sahih abukari let's let's okay great so okay great so sahih abukari so you do you agree that uh that the prophet peace people on them based on the sahih collection that he made the night journey to Jerusalem to Jerusalem and to paradise and that he split the moon do you believe that no okay why i believe that he claimed it and i believe that's what they believe and that's why they recorded it it doesn't it doesn't with the sahih with the sahih you're no right no are the sahih or not look you're but no but let's see the isha says i'm nine years old and you're saying well if i believe isha saying that she was nine years old when muhammad had sex with her therefore i had to believe that muhammad took a night journey to jerusalem it doesn't work okay so isha says she was nine isha says she was nine that doesn't believe that doesn't mean i have to believe every ridiculous story that muhammad came up with okay so again do you see you see the unbalanced skill here right so in the same sahih collection in the same sahih collection he wants to reject anything good about the prophet of islam no i believe those i believe those stories i believe those stories go back but i believe muhammad was a liar and making things up okay so there we go are you saying i was making things up i should made up i'm not saying anything i'm saying that these is a great scholar why would muhammad marry her yeah so what i'm saying is that when i read on this issue okay i'm reading muslim and non-muslim scholars and historians on the issue and the reason they're drawing their conclusions is because based on what they have seen and based on what this person says and that person says and breaking down the the hadith mathematically what the historical facts are on the issue they've come to different conclusions which tells anyone with a reasonable mind that there's reasonable doubt about being able to if we were in a little a little court based on this information we couldn't convict someone today but in modern times he wants to convict the prophet of something that he wasn't there about he doesn't he doesn't really know is it really no one reasonable for asking for one reference i mean i gave like 20 am i unreasonable for asking for one if you're if isha says over and over and over again and 11 of the tabin report this directly from isha herself and other muhammad other companions of muhammad state it from their own from their own observations that she was nine if this is what we have saying that isha was nine and you're saying well maybe she was 11 maybe she was 13 maybe she was 18 maybe she was 19 is it too much to say give me one single reference in anything remotely resembling an authentic muslim source to show that okay instead it's no we'll go to the encyclopedia we know that people disagree today why muslim scholars and apologists keep circulating these articles filled with lies and then someone like gary wills will come along and say oh muslims don't know okay muslims don't know how old she was there must be all this disagreement okay no zero disagreement so for the second time he's proved my case he just said that muslim scholars they today they go in circles and they say this he's called on the liars but they have legitimate reasons for what they say uh and not references apparently sure i've already mentioned what the what these people say in these articles and in these books i've already mentioned that now now again he's proving my case for me because he's now admitting again for the second time that the muslims have disagreement now he wants to latch on to one side and not consider the other side because it doesn't fit his agenda and so what a logical person has to look at all this information and you cannot pick up 10 books and read through 10 books and get 10 different ages and say this one's the one i'm going to go with you can't do that you cannot do that i mean not if you not if you're a sincere person unbiased with no reason to you know uh you know to to draw a illogical conclusion obviously it'd be illogical to say all right i've looked at these 10 books and i'm just gonna any mini mining moment i go with that one now the the hadiths that he's talking about they were from what the scholars state that they were narrated by someone by the name of his sham in when he migrated from medina to iraq that's a lot i'm telling you what that's a lot and by the way he called me a lot he called the scholars a lot i'm saying i'm saying you read an article no but but you heard i read i read the article right yeah and i quoted and i showed this comes from 11 11 different multiple other companions so the muslim scholars you know who his sham was the muslim scholars are stating okay that now i'm not arguing keep in mind i'm not arguing for one side or the other you don't know what i actually believe on the issue because the point is i don't know what to believe on the issue that's what i believe who is i don't know what to hold on i don't know what to believe on the issue because there's conflicting evidence okay and i'm not gonna allow any muslim to impede on my judgment i'm not gonna allow an islamophobe to impede on my judgment a person who approaches this unbiasedly has to say i don't know what to believe because obviously none of these people are talking about it no historian no scholar muslim or non muslim alike people from encyclopedia hazelton uh you know none of these people were there matter of fact the people narrating it in the same hadith that he's talking about they weren't there they're saying what someone else said the hashim is is narrating from what his father told him and again let me make the point about the fact hold on i want to make the point about okay yeah i don't need so the point being is that hashim is known historically to have had a compromised memory now this is what this is what i've read in multiple works he had a compromised memory he was in his 70s and uh that that caused the hadith to be in question on top of that it only came from iraqi sources it only came from iraqi sources and the scholars have a problem with that because it says they said it doesn't make sense okay go ahead uh yeah who was who was the sham do you know do you know who he was tell us all about it who was he yeah i know he's the one that narrated those hadith yeah yeah but but who was he yeah go ahead you don't know yeah i know he was yeah i do know who was he i mean he was the grandson of someone right he was the son of zubair okay and the grandson of who he was that you what what does that matter abu bhakar okay okay great so what does that matter zubair is aisha's nephew his sham is his son he gets the he gets the hadith um from his father who is aisha's nephew who got everything from aisha um and that's just one sort that's just one of 11 that's just one of 11 sources who recorded it from aisha so you've got aisha guys if you have 11 different people all reporting the same story from aisha and it's confirmed by multiple companions of muhammad if you don't know that if you don't know that if you if you can't say if that's in dispute if you say i've got 11 people all reporting the same exact story from the same exact girl and that's that's just no evidence because you know you've got the the encyclopedia new world encyclopedia or something on your side then fine don't tell me we know anything about these people okay don't tell me we know anything if i can't trust 11 witnesses plus a bunch of companions we can't trust them don't tell me we know anything about your profit all we conclude is that there were there was mass lying and your sources are completely unreliable uh i'm fine with that but if we actually take your sources remotely seriously aisha was nine aisha was nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine and we get down to the modern period muslims are embarrassed because this is a source of great criticism some make things up and notice that's what he's he's quoting he's quoting someone who says this all comes from one source is sham it's a total lie someone made that up put it in an article it's a lie it's been exposed repeatedly it's been exposed for years okay he's repeating it you don't even know who sham was so someone made it up and put it in are they like they're making up a lies and put it in an article yes that's a total lie so so everything about islam the muslims are all lying and no they're all they're all making this is the amazing thing i believe the sources more than you do right so there are more confidence they're all manufacturing i have more respect for aisha and muhammad's companions and i have more respect for aisha and muhammad's companions and ibn kathir and islam's greatest scholars i have more respect for them that muslims are all and all and all you you you bump in your lip like that's not not doing anything so yeah okay so thank you and and so again uh i mentioned an article by example but i mentioned an article i didn't write the article published february 2019 by shake dr ridwan ibn salim i'm gonna read it again although widely cited hadith states that aisha was nine years old when the marriage to the prophet was consummated this is contradicted by strong historical evidence reports of aisha's age and works such as authority such as noawi oscalani ibn kathir all placed her in her late teens at the time the marriage was consummated just give me one of those hold on you remember me saying that okay so also uh do you remember me saying that uh an article posted um last month december 28 2021 by fiza rakman what does he say as all biographers of the prophet degree that he consummated his marriage with aisha at the at the year second hydra uh it can be conclusively said that she was 19 at the time and not nine is alleged in the aforementioned hadith so when you look at this evidence now he wants to insist because he's you know he's been saying this lie over and over and over again for all this time but the fact of the matter and wants to demonize anything that muslims say that they're lying they're they're they're they're manufacturing these different stories and these different theories to try to make up for this and make up for that no the muslims debate with themselves on the matter and i'm repeated again listen closely the muslims debate with themselves on the matter okay and if they're bait debating with themselves on the matter that means that there's no agreement on the issue and what are we supposed to do with that i'm not the scholar right i'm not the hadith scholar i'm not i'm not the one that came up with those issues or those studies yeah other muslims have done that yeah you know and they've come to different conclusions you know who the greatest hadith scholar of all time is ibn hajr al-askalani and guess what greatest hadith scholar and guess what i just mentioned that he mentions that askelani has has something that's what's the what's the reference because you know what askelani actually said askelani's the one who said since she was still playing with doll she hadn't reached puberty when when the marriage was consummated let me repeat this one sentence let me repeat one sentence yeah you're gonna repeat what someone else said give us a reference that's fine but what but who did he mention he mentioned askelani he mentioned mentions askelani and doesn't give a single reference hey look i didn't do his study and he's i didn't do his study and he said ibn kathir ibn kathir the muslim scholar who says there is no one who disputes Muhammad consummating the marriage with aisha when she was nine years old let me ask you i can give you the page number let me let me the volume number right let me ask you a question they who indisputably says this the same ibn kathir who says that surah nine i mean surah 65 verse four let me ask you a question david is referring to prepubescent girls the same ibn kathir there's a mystery reference all right let me let me ask you a question it's all mystery references in nawawi and al-askalani right and ibn kathir we can't give any actual reference but they're there okay great so it is okay so in my opening statement i said i'm not here to debate this hadith versus that hadith what that scholar says versus that scholar i want to ask you a question david be honest be honest do the muslims disagree on the matter muslims today yes muslims back then no okay so the muslims today so you're saying he's not he's not giving you right information he's not giving you right information the muslims today they also mentioned that the muslims back then and i'm not i'm not talking about the sahaba i'm not talking about the companions of the prophet it wasn't an issue then but but scholars after that they did indeed disagree and he's proved my case for the third time there's reason to doubt what he's saying because the muslims themselves they disagree on the matter so you cannot ever you cannot everyone take note if you have the unanimous testimony just let me i'll just finish that i'll just finish that little two sentences okay okay so the methodology is if the Quran the hadith all the major collections all the companions aisha herself if everyone agrees you can dismiss it and throw it all out the door if modern muslims who are embarrassed about their prophet dispute good methodology gotta love is love closing statements before we jump into the q and a and thus i'm giving it right back over to you dr david wood all right i just want to say uh at the end here that i know this is a sensitive subject and so uh whatever else happens i do respect kenny for agreeing to debate this topic and for being the one who suggested which is why it's kind of weird when he keeps telling me to talk about you know why don't you weren't your priest in gospel you suggested this topic so i'm happy to address it um with that said i haven't seen anything that would suggest that aisha was anything other than nine years old because i have dozens of sources saying that she was nine years old uh i have zero saying that she was 14 or 18 or 19 uh all that we have in the world is a bunch of modern people saying it after a bunch of articles filled with just outright lies saying completely ridiculous things oh this is only from one it's all lies and then it gets circulated and people don't know any better and they think it's better it's better to lie about muhammad in order to make muslims feel better about their prophet in order to block the criticisms of the islamophob then to tell the truth and be really embarrassed well you can do that if you want but to suggest that that we then can just throw out all the muslim sources when they give this unanimous consensus uh is i would say just shameful uh surah 65 verse four again of the quran allows sex with prepubescent girls that's what it says ibn kathir says that's what it means the two jalals say that's what it means ibn abbas says that's what it means modern muslim scholars like maldudi say that's what that's what it means even muhammad had a job he said if you didn't know that muhammad waited until aisha was nine from the hadith you would think that surah 65 verse four is allowing sex with five-year-olds that's not me are these guys islamophob who's ibn kathir an islamophobe was ibn abbas muhammad's companion an islamophobe is muhammad hadjab and ali dawa are they islamophobes are they bigots because when when i say the exact same thing that aisha says i'm a bigot when i say the exact same thing that islam's greatest scholar said i'm a i'm an islamophobe very very interesting stuff where if you simply repeat what islam's greatest hadith collectors and so on have said that makes you some sort of a horrible horrible horrible person now kenny did commit a variety of fallacies and i can't tell if he was just making mistakes or if he was being deliberate but he would he would quote the talmud for instance then he would say you see the bible says three years old plus one day where's the bible say that we've got a lot of people read the bible here you remember you remember the bible saying three years old plus one day and you can have sex with a girl anyone remember that right it's not in there why are you attributing it why are you saying it's the bible why why are you saying things like that um and so then apart from that he gave some defenses of different people down through history saying that yeah you could have sex with a girl after she reaches puberty once again that is not the safest thing but we can look back and say people didn't know that it's better to wait a little longer than puberty it's better to wait a little longer because you still have a lot of danger associated um because right when you reach puberty it still takes a while for you to grow and so on maybe they didn't know better but even granting that you've condemned Allah and you've condemned Muhammad Muhammad had sex with aisha when she was pre-pubescent that's not according to me that's not according to me that's according to Islam's most trusted sources the Quran itself surah 65 verse 4 and not to mention not to mention all of the uh not to mention all the commentaries agree that you can have sex with a pre-pubescent girl and let me let me just close out with this this is the title this is the title of the chapter in Sahih al-Bukhari that includes Sahih al-Bukhari 51 33 the title of the chapter in Sahih al-Bukhari considered Islam's most trusted source on stories about Muhammad the title of the chapter is giving one's young children in marriage is permissible giving one's young children in marriage is permissible and look look at what he says says giving one's young children in marriage is permissible by virtue of the statement of Allah and for those who have no monthly courses i.e. they are still immature that's surah 65 verse 4 the iddah for the girl before puberty is three months he then quotes Sahih al-Bukhari 51 33 which says that Muhammad consummated the marriage with Aisha when she was nine years old this is Bukhari quoting the Quran to justify sex with a pre-pubescent girl he specifically says before puberty i'm a bigot for saying this and even though we don't have a single reference for anything that that Kenny is saying we can reject all of this and we're left with this awkward situation where D. Wood the Islamophobe respects Aisha and Muhammad's companions far more than modern Muslim apologists and debaters. So when I began I asked you to approach what I had to say is if we walked into a courtroom of logic and reason we're in modern times trying to convict a man from the Prophet peace be upon him you know from the seventh century about something that the Muslims themselves indeed do debate about it's a fact of the matter three times now David Wood has admitted that the Muslims themselves disagree on the matter now he tried to belittle it by saying that the Muslims are lying well that's typical David Wood nonsense the fact of the matter is there's disagreement amongst the Muslims the Muslims disagree and a person who approaches this logically and unbiasedly if you're listening to all this you're you're left not knowing what to believe because again I mentioned numerous articles as well as these books that I've mentioned authors and historians Muslim and non-Muslim who all come to the same conclusion different conclusions about the age but they all come to the same conclusion about the fact that the Prophet peace be upon him didn't commit no indecency that's a fact okay but the difference that we have here is difference among you know with the age so when I mentioned Hazelton and Gary Wills and these people I'm mentioning because they they're not Muslims they're looking at where they're getting their conclusions from they're getting their conclusions from the fact that the Muslims have various opinions on the issue and their conclusion based on that with no dog in the fight is that they don't know what to believe no one can it can't be confirmed either way because they they're they're in disagreement about it and let's face it the only way for any human being on this planet from the time of the Prophet peace be upon them until today the only way they would know for sure when that marriage was consummated is if they were there as an eyewitness seeing it happen the stuck for law of course that didn't happen so it doesn't matter who spoke about it in what period of time when they weren't there they don't know when the Prophet engaged in sexual interactions with his wives now he wants you to again envision the greatest scholar of Islam Aisha as some little baby girl that was getting abused but guess what there's nothing in the hadith that mentioned any signs of her you know being sexually assaulted and and and so forth matter of fact she fought adamantly for the Prophet she loved the Prophet she was indeed jealous of other wives and he admitted that by saying that she did she want to be monogamous I don't see anywhere where she want to be the monogamous but the fact is she was indeed jealous of other wives primarily Khadija Radhi Lahohanha so the fact of the matter is she didn't have signs within her her character we don't see any of that in the hadith where she's saying anything about any type of sexual abuse or that saying anything negative about the Prophet oh no on the contrary she is an adamant defender of the Prophet peace be upon him giving us details about his life now if she had been abused does a person who's sexually abused go about the rest of their life years and years after the their abuser molested them and never mentioned it to anyone and and not only that but go and defend the character of the Prophet himself a logical person can only come to the conclusion that there was no impropriety done a logical person can only conclude that no one knows when this marriage was consummated he's admitted it and you know that's what I set out to establish the fact that no one knows the date everyone's guessing given their best theories no one was there and that's reasonable doubt in the court of logic and reason and so be it he proved my case thank you thank you very much I don't have to go the hadith to to establish that fact you did it for me thank you from interlocutors and now if you guys have any questions for one or both of them if you could line up here and our only request is that a question ends in a question mark but we love all of it Kenny yes sir how do you know that Muhammad split the moon were you there and um is that give us reason to doubt because we weren't there so yeah thank you for your question no I wasn't there and but I have no reason to doubt the statement and the fact of the matter is I'm not a hadith scholar so I haven't studied the hadith in detail and uh so you know if to me that's such a question to be honest is it's irrelevant because it has no bearing on my my belief in Islam it has no belief in my my belief about the prophet himself peace be upon him but again that comes from the sahi collections and hey look uh are we gonna put these things on on the proper scales and say okay well this came from the sahi this come from the sahi what you know it's it's picking and choosing no I wasn't there just like David Wood wasn't there when when the marriage was consummated and so uh you know all I can do is say and be honest and say I don't know just like I'm saying in regards to the age of Aisha at the consummation radiolahu anha I don't know I'm not afraid to tell any Muslims that or any non-Muslims that I don't know that's what an honest person says and uh with a person with no agenda I don't know and Alhamdulillah that's the truth I have no problem with that speaking if you were presented with convincing evidence that Aisha was nine and it was enough to to convince you that that was the case would you at that point it would you at that point see the prophet as doing something awful or would you change your view on statutory rape no that's that's that's a great question and I appreciate that question and it's an honest you know it's an honest question now I mentioned an article that was published just last month uh Stephanie Beringer wrote it and they mentioned that here in the United States by example that it's not uncommon for a girl to reach puberty at the age of eight years old but there's a stipulation in Islam that they have to have reached the age of puberty that's one thing they have to also be mentally and emotionally uh capable of engaging in the act they have to be mature enough and emotionally you know stable enough before any type of interaction like that can take place so based on that I believe that the prophet peace people on him at whatever age she was and I'm not conceiving and saying I believe she was any particular age I don't know but the fact of the matter is I believe that the character of the prophet um based on historians and you know what what what uh people who've studied his life unbiasedly um you know um you know I have no reason to think that he would have uh done anything you know um anything wrong in regards to that issue I think he would have waited until she reached the proper age mentally emotionally and physically as well so um so okay is this isn't good okay audience good um questions for Kenny um so you uh talked uh you talked a lot about a um some kind of epistemological questions here today about about who knows what and how can we know for sure about different matters and and you know you were you were saying that like you know uh we don't know and you were saying that even um Hashem you know he he was failing in memory so we don't know you know he might not have remembered right but that was it like within a generation that was in the generation of the Tabi'in you know like right after uh the prophet so um the thing is is that like if they didn't know for sure then then what to say of the scholars that you know about 1400 years later yeah but but um so what I'm gonna what my question was is um I actually had kind of two kind of a dual question um are you saying that those books you have sitting there on the table have the same authority as the Sahaba and the Tabi'in and my perception of Islam has always been that uh there is a strong chain of narrations sorry um there's always been a strong chain of narration and when there is a strong multiple strong chains of narration then then muslim scholars kind of consensus about that and muslims can be confident about what to believe on religious matters so are you saying that even when there's multiple strong chains of narration we can't really know anything about religious matters in Islam no no i'm not saying that at all I haven't studied those chains of narration what I've done is I've gone to sources other scholars historians and read their opinions on these issues and they've concluded that um the the ones who who argue that I don't know I don't know what how she was again but the ones who argue that she was older they their reason for it is that Hashem uh they have a problem in the fact that none of those sources come from Medina they all come from Iraq and um you know that's that's the conclusion that they draw and they and they they usually go into they have to go into multiple hadith to to break it all down we don't have time to go through all that today and but but I do have that information but it's too much to go into it's too complicated and because you have to do you have to do math and you have to look at this date and that date um and you know the the fact of the matter is when you're when you're doing all that speculating and you're um you know uh when you look at all the information what I'm trying to tell the Muslims and the non-Muslims alike is that you know how can we say for sure this doesn't mean to deny the reliability of the of the hadith but Allah says in the Quran not to go to extremes in your religion and so we don't have to necessarily pick the side just because out of your tradition that's what you've been you've believed the fact of the matter is they have different opinions and they they're building strong cases on each side for this age and that age and multiple ages in between that leaves a person like me that wants to look at it unbiasedly I just want to know I want to find the truth well the truth that I've concluded is that I can't draw a conclusion because they can't they they haven't drawn the conclusion so it's it's unfair to try to insist that she was this particular age when it's like disqualifying everyone who says no well let me let me give you my reasoning for this when it boils down to it they're all giving their different theories they're all speculating and it leaves the person who's unbiased just trying to seek knowledge on the issue to say based on what I've read I can't I can't say one way or another and that's all I was trying to establish with this debate that's why I'm not afraid of this debate I don't I'm not trying to impress any Muslims or non-Muslims I'm trying to come and say look I'm not going to let you allow you to impede on my my thoughts and my thoughts tell me that based on this information I couldn't draw a logical conclusion none of us were there so um okay so this is this is this is a question for David and also really I mean both but um I remember you mentioned a really good point right like the bible does have the bible does have a lot of immoral things in it right like it does there are some verses in the bible that justifies pedophilia or like yeah all that right um and what are you talking about 31 I mentioned that there's nothing about pedophilia in there I just mentioned I mentioned three four you mentioned you mentioned what someone said and there's nothing in fact whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa in fact the passage says the exact opposite those are scholars that they've all drawn the same conclusion those are scholars but I was about to say also like I was with a prepubescent girl or even a minor is not mentioned at all in numbers 31 so just to be clear all right go ahead I also agree with you too that like um it is I do believe that the whole relationship with Mohammed and the little girl was immoral but why can't y'all just both of y'all admit that yeah the bible has said a lot of immoral things the Quran has said a lot of immoral things and um that's just the things that happened in the past it was different culture back then um like do you think you'll be better to like approach it that way instead of saying like oh yeah like my religion is not immoral and my religion is moral and your religion is immoral um if this were some random guy right this are some random guy from the past right like like how many Christians do you know are using some twisted passage from scripture to say that right now we need to allow sex with prepubescent girls I've never met one unless it's like a maybe a cult leader or something like that how many Muslim scholars and apologists are saying that there's nothing wrong with having sex with a nine-year-old girl a lot let me tell you a lot a lot and so this isn't some hey you know we have a dissu you know some guy in the past I wouldn't care a lot if it was some some random guy in the past the guy that is the pattern of conduct for Muslims in the world today even though there plenty of Muslims who live far better lives than this and would never even think of doing this the pattern of conduct the pattern of conduct in Islam had sex with a nine-year-old girl and because of that because of that modern Muslim scholars and apologists are defending it but you have people like Ali Dawah again I mean this is one of the most popular Muslim dais on the planet very very popular hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube he's on video saying that if his daughter were to get her her first menstrual cycle when she's nine he's tell her he's he'd tell her she's ready for marriage right so this is relevant to today if you actually believe that it's wrong for grown men to have sex with nine-year-old girls then this isn't something to ignore and say well let you know let's just say hey you know let's agree to say that this is in the past this is the present this is the present because Muhammad is the pattern of conduct in the present this is relevant if you have a problem with it you gotta can I respond to this briefly just maybe a minute or so I can I can I can respect that you're trying to take some intellectual humility and saying you don't know and saying you can only share your thoughts you've said you have no agenda no bias so given that you're sharing your thoughts what do you think at what age would it have been immoral for the marriage to have been consummated for you if not nine where do you draw the line and and I know you've called David Wood Islamophobic that he's a puppet master with followers nonsense but you've repeatedly said that when these accusations are lodged it tells us more about the accuser than the accused so what are your accusations about David tell us about you okay well great so the consistency of a man defines who he is now now I say that in a person like David Wood is going to try to define the prophet of Islam as a you know a war monger and all the things that he says about him he does this consistently but however people who have studied his life unbiasedly that have no agenda that you know look at the look at the information that's provided and you know have no no agenda on the issue they come to a totally different conclusion and I can matter of fact I can bring up a list right now that aren't that I have and I could go through and read about 30 different scholars and historians well-known figures that have studied the life of the prophet peace people on them and they have totally different conclusions than a person like David Wood so again a lie often repeated is a lie that becomes the truth in the minds of some people but the truth is the truth even if no one believes that a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it rather vice versa truth is the truth even if no one believes that a lie is a lie even if no one believes so he's convinced himself for one reason that the prophet peace people on him was was a person that was not worthy of emulating but uh so yeah so so yeah so you mentioned that the crown doesn't talk about allowing child marriage but david would read the verse and explain in the top seer can you please that's my question can you please go through the first yeah we can explain why it doesn't I don't know the verse but the the verse is basically saying that uh in regards to it's it's addressing divorce okay and saying when you can divorce a woman now it's talking about women in particular the word jaria and you know words for little girls and babies and so forth are not in there it's addressing women in those verses and who have not menstruated but women hold on but women don't menstruate for many different reasons now with that being said remember the article that I read earlier I read article early that said that was just published in november that said that here in the united states that it's common for someone to help to reach their uh menstrual cycle at 12 or 14 but it could be anywhere from eight years old to 16 years old it could be it could be anywhere in between so it can so so overall in summarizing in summarizing this in that if a person who is of an age where most people are are usually menstruating uh you know it's still stipulation that she has to menstruate but keep in mind this verse is being mentioned as it as as a means to protect the women from being divorced while they're pregnant being divorced while uh she could be potentially pregnant you don't know who the the father is it's every though those verses are specifically telling the muslims don't just divorce these women and just put them out on the street even those ones who have not yet menstruated for whatever reason it might just because they you know the biological clock is is is off there's those multiple reasons he's trying to draw one one conclusion and it doesn't apply uh ibn isham he married aisha in mecca when she was a child of seven and lived in lived with her in medina when she was nine or ten this is from syratu rasulullah um this is ibn isham you said 14 year old but it actually says um nine or ten so my question is you know like you quoted that from the uh the books that you have like from the 21st century so if should we like uh first of all you know are you had this rejector if not why should we follow the 21st century books that you have instead of the the tabian and the sahabas who actually reported the true message thank you there's people who have studied these these hadith and they've come to a different conclusion and so i'm not reject like i said i'm not here to dispute any hadith uh or any scholar or historian my point is one thing to establish reasonable doubt because when they're when they're giving a different you know alternative a different possibility than a person with a logical mind an unbiased mind an honest mind will say well that makes sense as well and so the only conclusion that we can draw is that they're guessing their theories are just guesses and so we cannot draw a conclusion say and try to establish a fact but when when people are you know have different theories on the issue and that's the fact of the matter they do have different different issues i encourage you to look up just nine to nineteen i each of nine to nineteen and watch what all comes up okay uh you'll see clearly that what i've established here is the fact the muslims themselves disagree and uh i'm left in the middle saying i don't know who to believe but uh it seems to me that no one knows and that's how that's how i view it is question for david um so we i'm pretty much the question today was is it immoral if she was underage i don't really blame the people at the time because they kind of were going with the norm i do blame a law for allowing it i wanted without checking through a unbiased lens using that same uh perspective could we not say the same about the bible that god is immoral for sanctioning uh let's say sanctioning sanctioning slavery and stuff like that we could turn that same argument we use against him to say to you that your god as well is immoral thank you um well if if you have a practice in the bible and god said i don't recall god saying this is uh it seems to me the bible takes these things as realities and then limits them and limits them and and eventually you get to honor all people do unto others as you would have them do unto you right and that ultimately undermines slavery but but as your question if you find if you find something in the bible of course why wouldn't you want to talk about it it's one thing if it's if it's something that is like limited if it's something god did at some point right and it's something in the past you still you still raise the question why did god do that why did god do that we have to we have to have that discussion if it's something where it's sound it was if it was something immoral something bad and it's something that's commanded to people and and and advocated in general so that here we are in the 21st century and christians are going around doing something immoral of course you'd object to it and what do we do we would we would have we would have a we would have a debate about it right um so yes whether it's the bible or it's the koran if you think there's something going on that is spreading dangerous practices uh of course get get get someone who wants to defend it and someone who wants to expose it and get them together and i have i have no problem with that i don't think i mean i don't think the that's that's why we're having debates like this so uh yeah and so uh yeah the situation is mohammed had sex with a nine-year-old girl according to all of the sources matter of fact book over you got a book over there by by by uh jonathan jonathan brown and uh he had an awesome clip where he was in a room full of muslims and they said what about the sources that say she was older than nine and he just looks and goes what sources so a quick change of pace here i was a completely different person before i came to christ as a my savior and according if i'm not mistaken please correct me if i'm wrong you do not need a change of heart in order to receive or you don't even need to have any salvation in order to uh be a convert to uh islam so my question to you is why is that not necessary for a person to have a change of heart in order to have a divine connection with the creator of the universe i'm not sure where you got that information from uh a law says in the chron that he does not change the condition of a people until they choose to change the condition within themselves right so so yeah so you have to okay well i think the bible says faith without work is dead right so you have to you have to make effort and you have to put forth yeah so yeah so that's after you say but you still have to put forth effort you have to decide it you know to make that decision to believe what it is that you believe so for muslims the decision is and we're forgiven instantly when we say ilaha ilallah which is i bear witness there's no god other than law and Muhammad is his final messenger and so you have to you know eventually someone came to that conclusion based on you know what they've studied what they've read and you know the influence uh you know that uh um you know for me personally is when i just simply reading the Quran i didn't grow up around a bunch of muslims and i don't know and matter of fact only my partner that was in the music business back then he was a he was a member of the nation of islam he wasn't even true orthodox muslim but so just simply by reading the Quran i made the decision that when it says this is the book of which there's no doubt for those who are mindful of their lord who stay steadfast in prayer and who spend out of what we provided for them and on and on this book was speaking to me and uh i made the decision that i believe with what i'm reading and i've been a muslim for over 30 years thank you one last question for the night and i want to thank mike wellman who has been a big sponsor tonight he's asking the question kenny you've mentioned that you are not sure what age iisha was but if she was actually nine or younger would you agree that that was wrong so uh i'm not going to answer a question that is is a it's uh what's the there's a term for this in the world of debate i can't sleep on my mind right now but i'm not going to answer answer a question like that because it's unnecessary it has you know my opinion on the matter uh i haven't really given my opinion one way or another my objective was to come here and to establish the fact that david has has admitted that the muslims disagree on the matter now he's trying to belittle them even further by saying they're lying and they're trying to conjure up this and you know dr jonathan brown said this and said that you know no disrespect to dr jonathan brown or anyone else but the fact of the matter is there are i just mentioned some other muslims that have written articles on the issue they have difference of opinion they don't agree with dr jonathan brown i'm not saying that i don't agree with dr jonathan brown but other muslims do they have written and studied extensively about the issue and so when a person like me reads it i'm not the scholar of hadith when i when i hear what they're saying about it the only conclusion that i can draw is that i don't know i don't know and uh i have no problem with that personally that's that's honesty uh and uh we weren't there the people writing articles and david wasn't there he's trying to convince people that she was nine years old he wasn't there he doesn't really know let's be let's be real according to her i think that is the last question so we do have to wrap up