With all respect to your opinion, maybe Muhammad did nothing objectionable in his days, but look what the little girls of today are paying because of his teachings (Title: 450 child brides ages 6-9 married by Hamas in Gaza, in organized mass wedding):
MY ANSWER:
Like you, I was disturbed when I first saw this video. We hear about child brides, so we think the worst when we see a video like this. However, I have lived in the Middle East for 13 years, so I knew something is wrong with this video. In thirteen years, I have never known of anyone taking a child bride. This is something that is blown out of proportion in the Western media, as a way of propagandizing against Islam. When I asked my Arab friends, we looked up the event on the internet in Arabic, not in English, and learned the true story. To begin with, the "sheikh" you saw in that video is not a respected scholar -- he's just dressed up to look like one. As a matter of fact, he is wrong on basic issues. For example, Aisha was married at the age of 9, and the marriage was consummated when she was 12. However, by all reports, Aisha was an unusual woman, and she was a fully grown woman at the time her marriage was consummated. Twelve, in her day and age, was adulthood.
Now, about the video. The men you see are NOT marrying the girls you see. The girls are proxy brides. In Islam, the bride does not come out in public in front of men, because men and women do not mix. Brides have their own, private celebration, attended only by other women. I am not familiar with the customs in Palestine, but the Arab brothers here tell me that in this video, because it is a mass wedding with many men around, the woman cannot come out in public, so the bridegroom escorts a proxy bride (the little girl, who is basically a stand-in for her older sister, the real bride. Because of her young age, the child has no restrictions upon her modesty, and she is allowed to be seen in public). What you don't see is that the same thing happens in the women's celebration, in that the women have proxy bridegrooms, in the form of young boys who "stand-in" for the real bridegroom. Because of their young age and immaturity, they are allowed in the presence of the women in the women's celebration. At the end of the celebration, another thing you don't see is the young boys and girls going home as the real bridegroom takes his real (mature) bride to their new home. The children are analogous to the little boy and girl who attend the bride and groom in a Western wedding. In fact, that might be where the tradition comes from, because Europe took much of its language, science and cultural traditions from the Arabs back when the Muslims occupied Europe. The problem here is not just that what is presented in this video is misrepresented to be something it is not, but that this video does not show the whole picture. No doubt, this was done on purpose to make Islam look bad to the viewing audience.
Go to minute 2:15 of this video to see the proxy boys and girls together, with the real bridegrooms in the background (as I said, the brides do not come out in public, so they are not in the picture): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAjqaP8F6b4
Like you, I was disturbed when I first saw this video. We hear about child brides, so we think the worst when we see a video like this. However, I have lived in the Middle East for 13 years, so I knew something is wrong with this video. In thirteen years, I have never known of anyone taking a child bride. This is something that is blown out of proportion in the Western media, as a way of propagandizing against Islam. When I asked my Arab friends, we looked up the event on the internet in Arabic, not in English, and learned the true story. To begin with, the "sheikh" you saw in that video is not a respected scholar -- he's just dressed up to look like one. As a matter of fact, he is wrong on basic issues. For example, Aisha was married at the age of 9, and the marriage was consummated when she was 12. However, by all reports, Aisha was an unusual woman, and she was a fully grown woman at the time her marriage was consummated. Twelve, in her day and age, was adulthood.
Now, about the video. The men you see are NOT marrying the girls you see. The girls are proxy brides. In Islam, the bride does not come out in public in front of men, because men and women do not mix. Brides have their own, private celebration, attended only by other women. I am not familiar with the customs in Palestine, but the Arab brothers here tell me that in this video, because it is a mass wedding with many men around, the woman cannot come out in public, so the bridegroom escorts a proxy bride (the little girl, who is basically a stand-in for her older sister, the real bride. Because of her young age, the child has no restrictions upon her modesty, and she is allowed to be seen in public). What you don't see is that the same thing happens in the women's celebration, in that the women have proxy bridegrooms, in the form of young boys who "stand-in" for the real bridegroom. Because of their young age and immaturity, they are allowed in the presence of the women in the women's celebration. At the end of the celebration, another thing you don't see is the young boys and girls going home as the real bridegroom takes his real (mature) bride to their new home. The children are analogous to the little boy and girl who attend the bride and groom in a Western wedding. In fact, that might be where the tradition comes from, because Europe took much of its language, science and cultural traditions from the Arabs back when the Muslims occupied Europe. The problem here is not just that what is presented in this video is misrepresented to be something it is not, but that this video does not show the whole picture. No doubt, this was done on purpose to make Islam look bad to the viewing audience.
Go to minute 2:15 of this video to see the proxy boys and girls together, with the real bridegrooms in the background (as I said, the brides do not come out in public, so they are not in the picture): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAjqaP8F6b4
This is the worst form of propaganda, because it is an unadulterated lie. People buy it, however, because the Western media is biased in this direction, and the audience is programmed to believe every slander fed to them about Islam.
Now, please stop trying to justify your refusal of Islam. This doesn't wash in front of me, and I doubt very much that it will wash in front of Allah. As Allah teaches us in the Holy Qur'an, most people follow nothing but their desires, and that is what you are doing here. You are looking for the things that satisfy your opinions, and justifying your viewpoint with lies. It would be far better to seek the truth, submit to it, and follow.
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