Age of consent – what is taught or revealed
Just like the Quran the Bible doesn’t give an age of consent for marriage though both are in agreement that sex is for marriage only. But what both do are reveal what is acceptable behaviour in regard to this question according to Islam or Christianity. To be more precise, when we say The Quran, we are more likely refering to the Hadith. This despite Islam claiming that the Quran is the final revelation of Allah. Most of the teaching for Islam comes from the Hadith (or Sunnah which means the way which is referring to the way of the prophet). From these sources Islam has written the Sharia Law which is the real source of doctrine for Islam today. I have set some bench marks [1] to judge by and for Islam I have used the Quran, the Hadith, and regarding the Sharia I have used a hand book on that subject, The Reliance of the Traveller [2]
For the Christian, the Bible is the only source of doctrine for the Christian to live by.
Let us take a look at the bench marks [1] set by both religions. Lets start with the Islamic version.
Benchmark 1
Muhammad the founder and leader of Islam consummated his marriage to Aisha at the age of 9 after marrying her when she was 6 and he was 51. This is told in many different passages from the Hadith: Sahih al-Bukhari 5134, Sahih al-Bukhari 5133, Sahih Muslim, Book 008, Number 3309, (and 3310 and 3311), Sunan Abu Dawud, Number 2116 plus other references in other Hadiths.
Sahih Muslim book 008 number 3311 gets a special mention as it states “and she was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her” – she was still playing with dolls in other words.
Benchmark 2
Surah 65:4 says this;
As for your women past the age of menstruation, in case you do not know, their waiting period is three months, and those who have not menstruated as well. As for those who are pregnant, their waiting period ends with delivery. And whoever is mindful of Allah, He will make their matters easy for them.
This waiting period is to do with the time that has to pass between divorce and another new marriage. The time was three months so that it could be clear that the woman was not pregnant from her previous marriage.
This verse strongly implies that those who are too young to menstruate are still able to be married and thus divorced. This practically removes the existence of any age of consent. This also has the added unbelievable terrible situation that a very young child can not only be married off but then can be divorced. How does this set up a young child for life. This is pure evil.
Benchmark 3
From Reliance of the traveller I will quote just some of the verses on this for brevity but they are more examples. N9.2 says “A waiting period is obligatory for a woman divorced after intercourse, whether the
husband and wife are prepubescent, have reached puberty, or one has and the other has
not.”
We see in this that the prepubescent intercourse applies to the man as well – how PC. There are some very disturbing things in the Reliance of the Traveller.
Benchmark 4
This quote is also from The Reliance of the Traveller O12.2
A person is not considered to have the capacity to remain chaste if he
or she has only had intercourse in a marriage that is invalid, or is prepubescent at the
time of material intercourse, or is someone insane at the time of marital intercourse who
subsequently regains their sanity prior to committing adultery.
Comment on Islam’s position regarding the age of consent
We see from this evidence that there is not an age of consent for Islam and this is attested to by famous Islamic scholars, for example Ibn Kathir, Al-Tabari and Abu-Ala’ Maududi. When I discuss this with Muslims they fall into two camps. Those who deny the facts and those who take an approach of Allah says it so it is okay. It seems from the evidence that the latter are correct about the teachings of Islam while I think we can understand why the former would take the position of denial, but this in itself is revealing about Islam’s position.
What does the Bible say?
Firstly I need to challenge the often quoted myths by Muslims. We do not find anywhere any examples of men marrying someone of a child’s age. The story that Islam likes to tell about Rebekah, Isaac, Mary and Joseph and child marriage taking place are incorrect and can not be substantiated form the Bible. If you read the accounts you would see this. No Bible verse gives their ages. Rebekah watered the camels of Abraham’s servant. Remarkable for a child. Mary travelled on her own to her cousin Elizabeth in another town and spent 3 months there. Joseph is often claimed to be 90 when he became the father of Jesus (though he wasn’t the father of Jesus anyway) yet he walked from Nazareth to Jerusalem (145 km) when Jesus was 12 which makes him 102 years old. Then he walked back home (also having to turn back after walking for one day to find Jesus back in the temple).
Mary said to the Angel “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” Strange thing for a child to say.
Benchmark 1
The actions of any mothers that are shown to be mothers or mothers to be (i.e pregnant) are shown to be the actions of adults and not the actions of children. Apart from the examples above it appears that every mother mentioned is active in some activity that maybe an older child may do, but certainly not a young child. Going through the Bible I can not find any incidents where the mother or wife is demonstrated to be young. A surprising number of mothers in the Bible are defined as being elderly when they had there first child – not that, that tells us their age at marriage. Rachel the wife of Jacob was probably young when Jacob met her and fell in love with her, but the account in Genesis records that she was tending the sheep on her own and she is described as “but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful” which is not the way one would describe a child.
Benchmark 2
Both Greek and Hebrew have different words for woman and child. In all cases the word used for a woman at the time of marriage is a word for woman and not for a child. See for example Luke 1:42 where Elizabeth says “blessed are you amongst women” to Mary.
It is also interesting that in the Hebrew the word for wife and woman is the same word and are interchangeable. This word (ishshah) is never applied to girls. Isaac told Jacob to go and get a woman/wife from the daughters of his uncle.
Further comments
You probably notice there is not much comment from the Bible about the age of consent. Why this is I am not sure but cases for a particular argument can not be built on silence. It may be that our conscience plays a role in the rights and wrongs. For example even though in most countries the age is consent is sixteen, no one would consider a seventeen year old having intercourse with a fifteen year old as repulsive while a 54 year old with a 9 year old would be repulsive to most people. That is how the law works, they have to set legal limits regardless of circumstances.
The desire of Islam to try and justify the actions of its prophet and hence the laws in Islam by pointing to the Bible and falsely trying to claim infant marriage in the cases of Isaac and Rebekah and between Joseph and Mary are very revealing. Perhaps our God given conscience is telling Muslims something is wrong.
Notes:
[1] Bench mark, a level of quality that can be used as a standard when comparing other things:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/benchmark
Last accesses May 2025.
[2] Reliance of the Traveller is a handbook from the Shafi’i school of fiqh. Shafi'i is one of the four major schools of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) within Sunni Islam. Even though there are 4 schools, the other schools accept this work as being authoritative.
A CLASSIC MANUAL OF ISLAMIC SACRED LAW BY AHMAD IBN NAQIB AL-MISRI (Died 1368 CE)
Edited and Translated by Sheik Nuh Ha Mim Keller
https://archive.org/details/relianceofthetravellertheclassicmanualofislamicsacredlawindexed
or
https://dn790002.ca.archive.org/0/items/sharia-reliance-of-the-traveller/Sharia%20-%20Reliance%20Of%20The%20Traveller.pdf