Marriage and Consummation with Girls at Age Nine — Jurisprudential Answers — Miscellaneous Issues, Vol. 4
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Question and answer [link]
Question 123
Al-Shara'i states in the chapter on marriage that consummation with a girl before she reaches nine years of age is forbidden. I understood from this that consummation becomes permissible from age nine. Through my work and surroundings, I have encountered many cases in which girls suffer serious bodily harm because their bodies are not yet able to bear sexual relations with a husband. In our present society, a girl of this age is still regarded as a child and lacks sufficient mental and physical maturity to bear the duties and responsibilities of such an important contract. Why did God permit a girl's marriage at such an early age? Is it also true that a girl may be married from birth?
Ahmed al-Hasan Response:
The permissibility in Islamic law of a girl's marriage at the age of nine is a statement of the outer boundary of the legal rule; it is not necessarily the civil law that a divine government would apply if God's caliph were able to govern and enact a personal-status law. If authority were in the hands of God's caliph, he could place restrictions preventing the marriage of a girl below an age at which the female reproductive organs are ordinarily sufficiently developed—for example, requiring a genuine necessity for such a marriage and requiring an official medical examination to establish that the girl's physical condition is suitable for marriage, and so forth. In general, the legislation of the permissibility of this type of marriage in Islamic law does not mean that it is the normal situation. As explained, it is merely the extreme legal limit that might be used when necessity exists. For example, if a catastrophe occurred on earth and only a few human beings or believers remained, early marriage and early reproduction—with appropriate safety precautions—could become necessary to preserve the human race or the believers; otherwise the probability of extinction would increase. Whoever understands evolutionary theory and how the genetic system operates in nature can understand what I am saying: if readiness of the human female for fertilization at an early age had not had importance for preservation of the human species at an earlier stage of Homo evolution, the female body would not have evolved in such a way that it is biologically ready for fertilization at an early age. As for Muslims who apply this legislation on their own without safeguards and thereby cause physical harm to girls, that is their error, not an error of the law. Neither they nor their jurists are qualified to apply the law or know all of its limits; this is why God assigned its application to His caliph on earth.
published translation. Source [1]
Source: الأجوبة الفقهية (مسائل متفرقة - ج4); Question 123; Page Not available; FIQH-MISC-V4-Q123. View Arabic source · Open the original Arabic source ↗
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References
- ↑ السيد أحمد الحسن. الأجوبة الفقهية (مسائل متفرقة - ج4). Question 123; Page Not available. FIQH-MISC-V4-Q123. View Arabic source
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الأجوبة الفقهية (مسائل متفرقة - ج4) — السيد أحمد الحسن. Question: 123. Page: Not available. FIQH-MISC-V4-Q123. https://ahmedalhasan.org/ar/Library/BookContent/100
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"book_title_ar": "الأجوبة الفقهية (مسائل متفرقة - ج4)",
"author": "السيد أحمد الحسن",
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