Marriage Contracts with Minor Girls as a Legal Device — Jurisprudential Answers — Miscellaneous Issues, Vol. 3

Ahmed al-Hasan Response:

A marriage contract with a woman is for marriage, not for play. Contracting a marriage with a minor girl merely as a pretext to enter her mother's house, look at her mother, or the like is frivolity and play and has nothing to do with religion or morals. When Islam legislated marriage with a minor, what is meant is someone approaching puberty, not an infant or a small child. Even marriage with a young minor or a young woman who has reached puberty was legislated for a necessity that people might face, such as a situation in which only a small number of human beings remain and there is fear that humanity or the believers will die out, in which case marriage at a young age may be used to produce the greatest possible number of children and preserve the human race or the believers. Religious laws are not frivolous, may God grant you success. Marriage with a minor has no meaning apart from this; it was legislated for a situation of necessity, not for frivolity and play.