Based Camp - Its Islamophobic to Ban Child Marriage! (Says Muslim High Court)

00:00:00.000 hello simone today we are gonna have a spicy conversation because pakistan did the unsinkable 1.00

00:00:08.320 or rather something that should be non-controversial which is banning child marriages

00:00:16.320 the country's primary like religious authority called the council of islamic theology

00:00:22.640 i'm picturing like a rounded table with a big globe icon oh no what what really happened was this

00:00:30.960 this is all wrong how dare you you have stolen my dreams people are suffering and greta thornburg

00:00:42.600 of course famous anti-semite would go on great with these people but they basically came back

00:00:47.660 and they said this is islamophobic is is the term that has been used it is it is against the

00:00:54.700 principles of islam wait hmm does islam actually condone well yeah so i was like i know there's

00:01:02.800 a whole like if you're on the internet and you're around like the anti-islamic circle like oh well

00:01:08.600 he did you know get engaged to a girl when she was six and consummate the marriage when she was nine

00:01:13.640 this is aisha no and i and i'd heard this and and then i'd heard muslims say oh no that's not true

00:01:19.260 like look at the actual but whatever and so i just assumed you know angry internet atheists being nerds

00:01:25.480 right like i was like yeah i'm right like come on that's not real or i'm sure that there's like

00:01:31.120 nuance if you really dig into it then well maybe it's one of those things where like people just kind

00:01:37.620 of forget their ages so then you ask them how old they are and they're like i don't know nine

00:01:41.320 well so we are going to get into the evidence for both sides of this okay i will say what i didn't

00:01:48.000 know is that in the conservative muslim world like if you're not in the west almost everyone believes

00:01:54.480 the nine age this islamic council most certainly would believe the nine age almost every major

00:01:59.640 conservative islamic council or i say every major conservative islamic council particularly the sunni

00:02:05.540 ones would go with the nine age does this mean that in turn it is considered normative or

00:02:11.060 possibly even recommended that girls as young as nine get married yes puberty is seen as the age

00:02:17.800 puberty is getting earlier and earlier these days so that's i guess nine let's go into the data here

00:02:22.640 because there's a lot to go over with this case and i think it's really really interesting we're also

00:02:26.900 going to go into some unique practices in pakistan where they trade young girls to end blood feuds with 0.80

00:02:33.380 other families so they will take you know like their nine-year-old daughter or whatever and basically

00:02:37.480 give them to another family for marriage for for one of their family with which they have a blood feud

00:02:43.020 yes so this kind of reminds me of you know how alexander the great was raised in a in an antagonistic

00:02:49.700 court right as like i don't i don't think that that i i assume that in a lot of these cases they

00:02:54.260 are pretty severely abused but we will get into this oh yeah actually i've listened to some very very

00:02:59.040 long interviews with women who've been in situations like these so i'm not super ready for this but

00:03:03.700 let's go we won't get into too many horrific specifics just generalities and things that

00:03:09.200 have been caught by the public and stuff by that okay so in may 2025 pakistan's national assembly and

00:03:15.500 senate passed the islamabad capital territory child marriage restraint bill a landmark legislation aimed

00:03:22.000 at curbing child marriages by setting the minimum legal age for marriage to 18 for both males and

00:03:27.540 females in islamabad the bill criminalized cohabitation with minors as statutory grape 0.75

00:03:33.300 with penalties of up to seven years in prison and fines of at least one million pakistani rupees

00:03:38.360 or around 2600 pounds however the council of islamic ideology cii a constitutional body so again this

00:03:47.160 isn't like some weirdo council this is part of the constitutional body that advises the pakistani

00:03:52.760 government on the compatibility of its laws with islamic principles declared the bill quote unquote

00:03:58.280 un-islamic on may 27th 2025 the cii argued that provisions defining marriage under 18 as child abuse

00:04:07.520 and describing punishments were not within islamic jurisdictions they also noted that the bill was

00:04:13.760 not sent to them for review before its passage i find that very interesting that they assumed that

00:04:19.300 it would have been and apparently they had killed similar bills multiple times in the past

00:04:23.420 so they big mad about this they argue with them the nerve yeah they argue that islamic law does not

00:04:31.760 set a specific minimum age for marriage with some clerics suggesting that puberty which can occur as early

00:04:37.680 as nine and with obviously the prophet as precedent you know literally nine is considered okay for them

00:04:43.660 is sufficient for marriage eligibility and i did ask ai and ai said that your average pakistani

00:04:49.860 by far would believe that isha was nine it's just sort of the the western ones who would think

00:04:55.100 something different or the ones who are involved in like online arguing with atheists historical

00:04:59.520 context this is not the first time the cii has opposed child marriage bans in 2014 and 2016 similar

00:05:06.280 bills were deemed quote unquote un-islamic and quote unquote blasphemous blasphemous mind you not just 0.80

00:05:11.640 islamophobic leading to their withdrawal the cii has also made controversial rulings such as suggesting

00:05:17.980 dei evidence is inadmissible in grape cases why do you just want grape to happen like

00:05:25.780 i just don't think it's really seen as such i mean i just in a lot of these i mean okay and i'm pulling

00:05:35.120 from interviews from pakistani women who on youtube have done like a long-term interviews of their experience

00:05:41.760 growing up as child brides essentially like in houses of their in-laws they're not really

00:05:50.820 they're not they're treated this ah they're treated like the level of worse than than your average

00:05:59.000 american would treat a pet dog um in terms of like and so like this idea that like you could

00:06:05.720 because i think even most people and we you know bring it back sexual relationship with with with

00:06:11.700 a dog like i think most people we're not pro that she's we're not pro that what i'm saying is that 0.56

00:06:17.100 even most americans who do gross things with dogs by our standards do so with consensual dogs but even 0.64

00:06:25.120 the the pakistani young girls in these households are not given that standard which is really screwed up 1.00

00:06:30.560 so sorry i should note that what simone is talking about here 70 of people in the united states who engage

00:06:36.800 in bestiality believe that the animal is consenting whether or not animals can consent it's one of 0.98

00:06:42.120 those things that i actually find to be pretty stupid like obviously like a dog i feel like if 0.99

00:06:46.740 the dog's running away yeah like the dog if you have to if you have to physically restrain an animal or 0.99

00:06:51.920 if the animal's running away or if you are drugging the animal there is probably not consent i can't

00:06:57.020 believe that we're arguing for i'm just trying to point out like to me it seems ridiculous to be like

00:07:02.980 dogs i guess in the way that like a child can't consent because a child could say that they want

00:07:07.300 something that they don't actually want so i think we need to put consent in multiple categories here 0.79

00:07:12.800 right like yeah like if you put peanut butter on your junk is it consent or was just like they

00:07:18.540 couldn't say no is is you could say the same about children right um so i i would sorry but you could 0.95

00:07:25.560 say the same thing about the grooming gangs as well like those women were love bombed like they got into 1.00

00:07:30.240 all of that a lot of them get into it technically with consent but totally the point i'm making here

00:07:34.700 simone is is if you consider dogs like children but i don't think you should because the reason why

00:07:42.400 a child cannot meaningfully consent is because at a future time they will be at a higher intellectual

00:07:48.200 development level that's true where they might you can't expect that of a something they made in

00:07:52.460 the past it's not that a child can't actively say i want something right um this this makes us look so

00:07:59.560 bad and later in this i'm actually arguing that i don't know if you should ban child brides

00:08:04.400 damn it malcolm that we're just gonna look so bad in this episode and and i would note here to for 0.84

00:08:11.500 anyone who wants to like take us out of context or something like we are absolutely against bestiality 0.93

00:08:18.080 i think it is really not a good thing but i i tried to add a context there just to be like

00:08:26.100 intellectually consistent in the way we're approaching we're trying to have an intellectual

00:08:29.460 conversation here which is unmoored from our personal proclivities and morality we're just

00:08:34.440 trying to be like weighing the calculus if if either of us was actually into that we would not be we'd

00:08:41.320 probably not be openly talking about it no i'd be too scared that it would get out you know

00:08:46.160 god and again i want to be clear we find this personally revolting and culturally revolting 0.54

00:08:56.280 but i have to call out the moral inconsistency of saying that an animal can't consent to this

00:09:03.480 but then we forcibly breed animals with other animals as a matter of due course and nobody cares

00:09:09.260 or we forcibly kill animals for their food and obviously we don't care when they consent to that

00:09:14.940 the other thing that the council had registered before is that men do not need their wives

00:09:19.920 permission for a second marriage that is hyper abusive no but that's also hyper normalized and

00:09:26.880 we get was in islamic that happens all the time are you kidding me like this is not surprised this 1.00

00:09:31.960 shouldn't be surprising to people i i i well again we've got to well at the end of this we'll analyze

00:09:37.680 this was in the cultural context of islam but let's keep going yeah yeah some religious also though i i just

00:09:43.680 want to say though like whoa it's actually really big that they're doing this considering how

00:09:49.460 normalized these things are like well i see a form of western cultural imperialism that's what i'm

00:09:56.360 assuming the urban monoculture has taken over the political no the u.n basically threatened them and

00:10:01.080 said you have to do this okay okay very okay because i'm like wait a second yeah like this doesn't

00:10:07.120 seem like politically representative of the voting population so no it's not okay so even mainstream

00:10:13.840 parties like the juif the jihad islam fuzzy has opposed the bill with leader mullen falazar raham

00:10:22.880 announcing protests claiming the law quote makes fornication easier in quote here basically he's saying 0.83

00:10:30.020 look we plan to have sex with these people anyway who are below x age you know it's just 0.99

00:10:37.100 you know they they now won't be our wives right we're still gonna force you know like we're still 0.99

00:10:43.100 now now you're basically you're forcing us to break islamic law when before we were totally fine

00:10:49.340 what are you doing yeah you're making sinners of us and within their cultural context it is true i mean

00:10:55.880 i think the way islam treats women is abhorrent and when i say islam i don't mean all islam i mean 1.00

00:11:01.820 the majority of islam wisdom regions yeah no there's there's farms of islam that are like 0.93

00:11:07.540 totally yeah whatever and unobjectionable um but i think that what you know in the west is is glossed

00:11:14.820 over is those forms of islam are not what is practiced in in countries like pakistan normatively

00:11:21.220 right like the more slave with the government body saying oh you can just marry a second wife doesn't 1.00

00:11:26.520 matter what the first wife said oh you know on grape kits dna doesn't count which just normalizes

00:11:32.060 like you should be able to do this that the the you know the the oh well i mean now you're forcing us

00:11:38.540 you're forcing us to have sex outside of marriage it's like no we're not forcing maybe stop doing it

00:11:44.160 with children my bro that's a great idea right thanks for thinking of that one okay a 2018 demographic

00:11:54.420 survey found that 29 of girls in pakistan are married before the age of 18 equating to nearly

00:12:00.540 30 million women approximately 30 of the female population 25 that's crazy could you imagine if

00:12:08.900 that many women got married under the age of 18 in the u.s hold on hold on it gets worse

00:12:13.660 4 of girls and 5 of boys married before the age of 15

00:12:18.080 15 what percent hold on hold on did i hear that right 4 of girls are marrying before the age of 15 1.00

00:12:26.340 that is pakistan ranks among the top 10 countries globally for the absolute number of women married 0.95

00:12:34.300 before 18 unicef's 2018 report indicates 18 of women 20 to 24 were married before 18 4 before 15

00:12:43.920 and in 1993 this is a big decline because it used to be nearly double that so it used to be nearly 40

00:12:49.780 what is interesting is pakistan has the lowest prevalence of child marriage in south asia after

00:12:55.500 sri lanka but it remains widespread particularly in rural areas so these numbers are low compared to

00:13:00.060 other muslim countries in this region and then it talked about practices like sohari or vani the

00:13:06.340 marrying off of girls to settle disputes which are common within some regions the girls involved in this

00:13:11.340 are as young as five to nine um so and keep in mind i wanted you know exactly what what we what is

00:13:18.600 this i want to i want to know what what are these practices and keep in mind these families like blood

00:13:23.160 blood that means that like these families have a fight where like somebody was like murdered and

00:13:28.700 they're looking so they're mad at these girls right and these girls are typically the daughters or 1.00

00:13:33.700 the sisters of the person that instigated the blood dispute right of the murderer theoretically yeah

00:13:40.080 yeah the murderers so they are not going to be treated well by their mother-in-laws or the

00:13:44.100 families they're moving into or these family networks this is basically an s slave that that's what's 0.99

00:13:50.020 happening here a child and what do they get it what does the originally aggressing family get in

00:13:56.200 exchange for giving away one of their daughters they probably don't value that much anyway

00:13:59.720 settlement of the the the blood so just like okay now you're not allowed to kill us back yeah

00:14:05.500 okay okay so to go into these practices in more detail swara pashton term meaning writing or on the

00:14:16.580 back of a practice where a girl often a minor is given to a rival family to settle a blood feud

00:14:22.000 typically involving murder or honor disputes this could be like they had engaged one girl to the

00:14:28.520 family and the first girl ran away because she didn't want to be forced to marry them that would 1.00

00:14:32.160 probably count within this category this girl is married to a man from the aggrieved family to

00:14:37.960 restore peace symbolically quote-unquote carrying the burden of reconciliation so they put the burden

00:14:43.620 of reconciliation for the entire family on a minor like a literal scapegoat yeah just put the sin on

00:14:50.140 the goat send the goat off kid wow vani punjabi term meaning voice or speech similar to swara vani

00:14:59.460 involves giving a girl in marriage to settle disputes but it's more common in the punjab

00:15:03.480 it can also be used to resolve financial debts or other conflicts such as land disputes or perceived

00:15:10.080 dishonor decision making disputes are often mediated by a jigra a tribal council of male elders

00:15:17.020 or community leaders the jigra determines the number and age of the girls given so sometimes you have

00:15:23.060 multiple girls being given from one family to another sometimes as young as five to nine years old

00:15:28.140 though marriage may be consummated later often at puberty so and keep in mind the great prophet did

00:15:35.760 this he married aisha at somebody waited because he had a lot of restraint until she was nine at least

00:15:42.980 by this one interpretation which we'll get into i remember i was talking to someone about this and i was

00:15:47.380 like man that that jesus he you know at least at least our prophet was not doing it was minors like 0.89

00:15:55.920 uh apparently and you're like that doesn't seem to be a high bar and i'm like well you know we've got

00:16:01.520 muhammad and joseph smith there you know like apparently it's a bar that you know when you get

00:16:07.140 into the prophet territory a lot of people were like rules that no you know you got you got even 0.93

00:16:12.020 freaking gandhi sleeping in the same bed with they just keep throwing themselves at these men what can

00:16:18.400 we say they they just want it yeah oh so bad so bad ah ah selection of girls girls are typically

00:16:29.600 chosen from the offending family or clan often daughters sisters or cousins of the person

00:16:35.640 responsible for the dispute in some cases multiple girls are given to strengthen the reconciliation 0.83

00:16:41.120 marriage arrangement the girl is forcibly married to a man from the rival family often without her

00:16:45.800 consent or with the consent of her immediate family so this is like basically determined by

00:16:50.580 a local court and a girl is is taken from the family often these marriages are legally registered

00:16:55.920 in some cases but frequently bypass age verification exploiting weak enforcement of marriage laws

00:17:00.620 social context the practice is driven by poverty illiteracy and rigid gender norms families in debt

00:17:07.620 or embroiled in feuds may see sohari advani as a way to avoid violence or financial ruin

00:17:13.400 i mean it's it just like the the level dehumanization that's taking place here is

00:17:18.440 extremely disturbing oh yeah even in 2023 a seven-year-old girl in swat was given to settle

00:17:26.540 a murder dispute sparking protests by local activists the marriage was delayed until she reached 15

00:17:32.400 but the case highlighted so and this is happening and then people found out about it right but this

00:17:36.560 is for a murder case too like what did she have to do with that what did what did 1.00

00:17:41.720 immoral religious system that would allow this now note here again not all muslims this is

00:17:47.760 one cultural system and i believe that cultures have the right to self-governance but i think that

00:17:52.840 we need to be aware when we are importing people from these cultures how culturally distant they are from

00:17:58.380 us and understand that they are likely not going to understand like the grooming gang phenomenon from

00:18:05.840 their cultural perspective is a completely normal thing like they if anything they're being extra

00:18:11.700 respectful i mean they're waiting until these girls are like 16 you know no that's that's basically

00:18:16.880 had maxing you know that's that's that that is that is what they're doing from their perspective

00:18:22.300 they're like why are you guys mad at this let her walk around the house without chains some days 0.79

00:18:27.400 you know anyway in rajanapur district 2024 jigar ordered three girls aged 9 to 13 as vani to resolve

00:18:38.640 a land dispute returned after intervention by a local ngo and media coverage but this is what was

00:18:45.140 normal until it's like caught but three girls for land is well and that's i mean it also makes i mean 0.98

00:18:53.240 you have to question what their home life is like anyway i mean basically i i'm getting this

00:18:57.480 impression that parents are just kind of disappointed when they have daughters and this

00:19:00.300 is something that's reflected in the interviews i've seen with women who've been through this process 0.74

00:19:03.680 where their home life wasn't great either like their parents did not value them and you know they

00:19:10.880 i mean it was obviously worse at their in-laws but um you know like from day one they've not been

00:19:17.460 valued as humans which is also deeply disturbing well it's something that from my cultural background i'm just

00:19:22.380 never going to be able to emulate what it's like to think like that you know yeah i really i so my

00:19:29.900 problem is that i in turn deeply dehumanize anyone who would do that to any class of people i don't

00:19:35.400 care if it's men or women or slaves or a certain group a religious group or an ethnic group like

00:19:41.080 whatever like i i see them and i'm like okay we're don't come close to me to be clear here she is not

00:19:50.120 talking about muslims because not all muslims treat women this way she is talking specifically

00:19:54.680 about groups regardless of their religion that treat women in this way well and i hear about

00:19:59.760 atrocities happening in these regions and i'm like yeah but aren't those the ones who like trade little

00:20:03.800 girls and and treat women like slaves like i don't mind so much and this is this is one of these

00:20:09.880 things where people are like man that's a problem right because like i don't i don't think it is a

00:20:14.960 problem i don't know i mean dehumanization just leads to increasingly bad stuff i know i i think

00:20:20.200 what it allows is for us to not meddle in their business you know like i don't i don't this is

00:20:26.660 their culture it's been their culture for a thousand years i know i know like the the general place where

00:20:32.240 i settle in with all this is like all right i have to flourish i have to win i have to create such

00:20:38.660 an amazing legacy culture and civilization going forward that anyone who doesn't convert into it

00:20:45.080 and become like convert away from these bad practices would be insane because this is just

00:20:51.200 so the obvious right choice but the problem is is is what we're seeing it because the urban monoculture is

00:20:57.280 like oh that's what we're doing but they're not doing that right like you're showing that when people

00:21:00.640 deconvert from these these groups they stop having kids right that's the problem yeah yeah you know if

00:21:05.380 your system isn't working and people can be like oh so you're a cultural relativist i'm not at all a

00:21:09.360 cultural relativist i i believe my culture is superior but i also believe that the superiority

00:21:14.080 of my culture is shown through time it's shown through higher birth rates and through long-term

00:21:20.040 human flourishing the problem with the urban monoculture is it puts an end to a lot of we'll

00:21:24.660 say human atrocities but then it subsequently what's the word sterilizes and kills off everyone who 0.99

00:21:32.300 converts in so it's like oh you have it good until we like shoot you in the head no i think it actually 0.88

00:21:37.840 creates a secondary problem which is it creates the perception that if you try to put the the rules

00:21:45.200 and social norms of our country into this region that it you know that these people are just going to

00:21:52.180 follow them in the way that people from from our cultural background follow them and i and that's why

00:21:57.160 they have this belief of they can just import immigrants from these regions and and all of this is just going to 1.00

00:22:02.140 poof go away they believe that they're going to just completely eradicate their cultural background 0.91

00:22:07.240 and and and one that's a psychotic thing to believe because you're you're you know demanding basically

00:22:12.680 cultural genocide of these various genders and sexual norms but but but two it it just functionally

00:22:18.820 doesn't happen you know these people have have lived alongside this for centuries and you know this

00:22:24.800 was something we saw with with soldiers in iraq and and the common practice there of sleeping with

00:22:29.280 these boys and they kept trying to stop it and people were like what are you doing like this is

00:22:34.240 normal here right like just let us have our fun man like why are you being such a stick in the mud 1.00

00:22:39.480 about it and and the same way that you know the soldiers may have seen the iraqis looking at them

00:22:44.460 for drinking right like you know i know from your cultural perspective this is bad but it happened

00:22:49.980 to me when i was a young boy and i'm totally fine now so let's continue the cycle but again i think

00:22:56.380 that you you know you the problem with you know having these like absolute cultural norms is

00:23:03.420 because we live in the age of the urban monoculture now which means that the urban monoculture can

00:23:07.860 define whatever it wants as abuse or an atrocity it can define making pictures of beautiful women an

00:23:13.840 atrocity you know oh we got the u.n's claimed to ban anime right it can it can traditional gender roles

00:23:19.860 as an atrocity you know even within like a western context it can say the idea that a person is born a

00:23:25.280 gender is an atrocity right like this used to work when when sane culture was the dominant culture but 1.00

00:23:30.780 we don't live in that world anymore so we can't rely on these systems which is why it makes more sense

00:23:35.620 to fight for cultural sovereignty and people can be like what about kids and this is why i'm like not

00:23:41.340 okay with child brides actually at least within a western context is because it breaks one part of

00:23:47.020 cultural sovereignty which is to say that you can leave a cultural tradition when you're fully

00:23:52.140 myelinated and mature right and if you are married when you hit 18 and you should be able to have a

00:23:57.420 bunch of kids when you're 15 right anymore you're not free you're not really free you can't really

00:24:02.500 leave at 18 you can't really make a decision at 18 whereas with other things like say circumcision

00:24:07.780 i think that this is good or or corporal punishment or you know raising your kids outside of this public

00:24:13.980 school system to believe that certain things about like sexual norms are deviant that mainstream

00:24:18.480 society doesn't see all that i think is fine right because none of that prevents them from leaving

00:24:22.960 at 18 i also have a would have a strict rule against any culture that threatens to kill somebody who

00:24:27.980 leaves which a number of islamic countries it's very normalized but first we're going to argue go 1.00

00:24:33.840 into why they argue that child marriage was part of islamic culture or religion okay

00:24:39.760 quranic silence on minimum age the quran does not explicitly set forth a minimum age of marriage

00:24:44.820 verses like surah on nisa 5 6 discusses guardianship of orphans until they are mature

00:24:51.000 enough for financial responsibility which some scholars interpret as implying readiness for

00:24:55.580 marriage at puberty the cii and conservative scholars argue that since the quran does not

00:25:00.660 prohibit child marriage it is permissive under sharia provided the girl has reached puberty often

00:25:05.840 defined as menche around 9 to 15 years a prophetic example a key reference is a marriage of the prophet

00:25:14.380 muhammad to aisha reported in hadith i'm not even going to try to say those words as occurring when

00:25:21.660 aisha was six and consummated at nine conservative scholars including the cii cite this as a precedence

00:25:29.140 allowing marriage at or before puberty they argue that the prophet's actions are a model for muslims

00:25:35.560 and since seventh century arabia accepted such marriages they remain valid today puberty is readiness 0.55

00:25:42.500 islamic jurisprudence fic across multiple schools hanif makif sharifa and hanabali traditionally links

00:25:51.020 marriage eligibility to puberty not a fixed age for girls puberty is often marked by menstruation and

00:25:56.280 for boys by physical maturity e.g ejaculation the cii argues that setting minimum wage of 18 as islamabad

00:26:04.480 child marriage bill would contradicts its flexibility imposing a western standard that ignores

00:26:10.500 biological and cultural differences which i would agree are there and we do need to recognize

00:26:15.740 parental authority sharia grants parents or guardians wali a significant authority to arrange

00:26:23.080 marriages for minors especially girls to protect family honor and economic stability some scholars

00:26:28.920 claim this ensures girls are married into stable families before they face risks like premarital

00:26:34.500 relationships the cii has suggested that child marriage when arranged by parents aligns with

00:26:40.820 islamic values of chastity and family cohesion cultural context in pakistan conservative scholars

00:26:47.220 argue the child marriage is a cultural norm in rural areas the islamic law should accommodate local

00:26:53.560 practices rather than impose universal age limits they claim laws like an alana bob will disrupt social

00:27:00.340 harmony and criminalize traditional families just some notes on why this is so bad of the girls who 1.00

00:27:06.080 do this according to who in 2020 30 percent die in in often childbirths that in 70 percent are

00:27:13.600 illiterate and abuse rates are really common so now let's go specifically to the case of aisha because 0.75

00:27:18.740 i was like wait what like so first who believes like what categories of muslims believe aisha was 12 to 19

00:27:25.720 okay again not okay but in what categories believe she was six to nine um okay uh so progressive muslims

00:27:32.580 doctors like reza aslan and dr john s brown in nuanced discussions in organizations like muslims for

00:27:39.500 progressive values often argue for the older age westernized muslims some traditional scholars certain

00:27:46.420 traditionalists especially in south asia except older estimates based on alternative sources though this is

00:27:51.860 extremely uncommon she scholars some she sources suggest isa was older 10 to 14 that's not that much

00:28:00.100 older although views vary de-emphasize her role compared to sunni narratives now for the younger age

00:28:05.880 conservative sunni oh so shia you mean what you said she uh she is she it's not or it might be she

00:28:15.240 oh she is sorry i was reading that wrong she okay okay she is some she is scholars um so it's not all

00:28:20.040 shia scholars but there are like almost all conservative sunnis go as a six to nine age

00:28:24.060 and you'll understand why in a second it's like basically part of their religion it's upheld in

00:28:27.940 most traditional conservative sunni institutions including al-azar egypt dara al-moon damon india

00:28:34.320 and many saudi scholars based on the shia hadith most conservative courts and institutions

00:28:39.780 and general public and conservative regions in rural pakistan where literacy is low and traditional

00:28:44.940 scholarship dominates the six to nine age is rarely questioned now oh my gosh this is so like

00:28:50.800 overwhelmingly most people are like yeah she was a kid and they're like yeah and he's a prophet

00:28:58.180 this is normal but if you could they have a completely different view of women in these cultures right 0.97

00:29:02.060 and i think you need to understand that that you can say okay now do things my way but that doesn't

00:29:08.080 mean that it's going to happen you know yeah i mean it's kind of like when people have they raise

00:29:13.580 dogs as like show dogs and they're like well when is she old enough to you know start breeding pure 0.80

00:29:19.920 breads like it's a very different like is she functionally able to okay good to go like i'm seeing 0.93

00:29:24.960 that kind of level of logic i always found that to be a very interesting thing about consent is they

00:29:29.080 don't ask about dogs and consent when you're breeding them yeah they don't hear about dogs and

00:29:33.880 consent when you know some cultures kill to eat them yeah like sorry this is like i just keep

00:29:40.620 bringing it back bringing it back because i have literally zero horse in this race and this can only

00:29:45.960 serve to hurt me i am just trying to be logically well i'm just i mean we're what we're discussing

00:29:51.140 though is the dehumanization of a class of human or a class of being and so we're looking at other

00:29:57.860 examples in which people manage someone else's life an intelligent being's life and the most

00:30:03.580 common scenario in which humans are pervasively managing other intelligent beings lives

00:30:08.700 are through pet relationships especially dog relationships interestingly i think a lot of

00:30:13.480 things that are done to women in these countries would be illegal to be done to pets oh no 100 0.98

00:30:18.220 100 yeah so authoritarian hadith and this is this is the arguments for so now we're going to try to go

00:30:25.160 through ourselves and see if we can determine what was aisha's age because i always try to give 0.54

00:30:29.220 religions a benefit it's time for investigation i had just jumped on the more progressive western

00:30:34.880 thing i was like oh i usually hear it from people with like an axe to grind you know so whatever right

00:30:40.200 um so who knows if it was like normalized back then you know how like your mother was like what 39 for

00:30:45.960 many years like a decade you know maybe girls are like you know six for like 16 years i don't know

00:30:52.820 so the most compelling evidence comes from the hadith in sahih al-bakari and sahih muslim considered

00:31:00.620 the most authentic collections in sunni islam these explicitly state aisha's age providing direct and 0.96

00:31:07.580 widely accepted textual basis exact quote sahih al-bakari the prophet married aisha when she was

00:31:14.060 six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old and they remained together for

00:31:20.360 nine years until his death shahis muslim then for another quote ashits reported allah's apostate

00:31:26.860 married him when i was six years old and i was admitted into his house when i was nine years old

00:31:32.420 the strengths these hadiths are classified as shahahi authentic with strong chains of narration

00:31:37.860 in sad making them nearly indisputable from the perspective of traditional sunni scholarship

00:31:43.240 they are cited by major scholars like imam now we and iban hasar al-kahari as reliable in context like

00:31:50.940 cii's rulings such hadiths are foundational for arguing child marriage is permissible as they reflect 0.83

00:31:56.700 the prophet's practice sunnah consistency across multiple sources beyond bakari and muslims other

00:32:03.020 hadith collections and biographies of color abhorate the six to nine age reinforcing its reliability

00:32:08.740 reliability through multiple narrators and texts sunni abadwa ashith said the messenger of allah

00:32:15.320 married me when i was six years old and consummated marriage when i was nine years old iban hassan the

00:32:19.460 life of muhammad while not explicitly stating aisha's age it confirms her to be young age noting she was a

00:32:24.960 young girl at the time of marriage strengths the repetition of ashith's age across multiple sources

00:32:30.260 like abidwar timad and ilbar with similar narrations from ashie herself suggests consensus among early

00:32:37.920 narrators conservative scholars like those from pakistani hanif tradition argue such consistency

00:32:42.800 outweighs speculative revisions as the narrators were close to ashie's time cultural memory early

00:32:50.200 muslim values precise memorization especially of prophetic traditions scholars underwent rigorous

00:32:55.920 training to preserve reports and narrations like hashish ibn urar and were trusted for their proximity

00:33:02.140 to aisha what you're saying is you looked at the evidence hoping to find like oh it was fuzzy

00:33:07.900 we don't remember it really well this is like a game of telephone and it kept getting and you're

00:33:13.100 like actually no everyone's like no no no we're like really really really careful we're like really

00:33:17.740 so so no it came so one of these traditions is directly from her own mouth it is her account of

00:33:24.900 the prophet's life but what i'm noting here is these traditions they they practice a strict chain of

00:33:30.620 passing down information where you were supposed to remember like as a religious order word per word

00:33:37.720 and and this has been studied in cultures that have oral traditions how exactly are they passed down

00:33:43.840 and you actually see a really high degree of fidelity within oral traditions that have this value set and

00:33:50.160 you can see this fidelity respected uh and sorry and reflected in the fact that multiple of these

00:33:55.860 hadiths that are used by different schools all have this exact same age the the speculation that she was

00:34:02.460 older did not come until modern times but then there's the other big issue here which is early

00:34:08.660 marriage was standard practice in pre-islamic and early islamic arabia and the need to reproduce

00:34:14.900 her age aligns with those cultural norms which is which is true right like this would not have been 0.99

00:34:21.540 a weird thing it's more that it's a problem because of a modern context and understanding of this stuff

00:34:26.800 not because of the context at the time again if it was super normalized at the time that makes it even

00:34:32.040 harder to argue against like this is just how it was done right it would be weird if yeah it'd be

00:34:37.840 weird if he didn't do it because that's what you just did then yeah and i mean it so to keep going here

00:34:44.920 i she herself was the primary narrator of the hadiths stating her age leading credibility to the account

00:34:51.840 as a firsthand report her lack of objection and her later prominence as a scholar suggests the

00:34:57.480 marriage was socially accepted so she also became an important muslim in the early days of islam

00:35:02.560 and was very open about this apparently i'd also note that we don't have a single islamic scholar

00:35:10.400 on record anywhere before the 19th century arguing that she was older than the six to nine age this is a

00:35:16.900 completely modern argument and phenomenon oh so how do people argue against this

00:35:24.340 okay so first argument historical records suggest aisha was born before the prophets of first

00:35:31.360 revelation 610 ce making her older than six at the time of betrothal 619 to 622 her sister ashi's age

00:35:40.580 provides a key reference point so tabara's history 9th century volume 39 ashma the daughter of abu akra

00:35:49.480 was 10 years older than her sister ashi yeah except this is coming from the nice century bro like that's

00:35:54.940 way later ibar and kastir and and and way later than the other sources that they're saying are too late

00:36:00.360 to use the sources asmar died in 73 the 692 ce at the age of 100 meaning that she was 27 to 28

00:36:10.100 during the hijra this implies ashir was 17 to 18 at the time strengths if asma was 27 to 28 in 622

00:36:20.400 ashia being 10 years younger would be 17 to 18 aligning with the marriage age of 15 to 19 betrothal 0.95

00:36:27.860 at 12 to 15 scholars like malalan muhammad ali use this to argue that ashia was likely 15 at betrothal

00:36:36.240 18 to 19 at consummation the problem with this is you're arguing against a consensus in tons of

00:36:44.000 religious oral traditions and written traditions based on oral traditions and like single oral and

00:36:51.560 religious traditions that are shakier than them and relying on two chains of evidence being correct 1.00

00:36:56.300 one the age difference between her and her sister and two her her sister's age of birth

00:37:02.780 which to me seems like way weaker than the other argument chain next ashir's participation in

00:37:10.380 battles like bardar 624 or adu 625 suggests that she was physically and intellectually mature

00:37:18.860 likely in her mid-teens as young children are not typically involved in such roles yes we've never

00:37:25.240 seen islamic child soldiers that is not a phenomenon that exists i'm joking there because it's incredibly 1.00

00:37:31.220 common he al-baqar ashi accompanied the prophet during the battle of udda carrying water for the

00:37:37.440 fighters and tending to the wounded ibn hasar surah notes ashi's presence in military campaigns implying

00:37:42.700 a level of responsibility inconsistent with a nine-year-old that is not at all inconsistent with

00:37:46.880 a nine-year-old from these regions it's not saying she was a warrior it said she carried water to the

00:37:52.500 warriors and helped him to the wounded that's exactly the type of thing a nine-year-old would do in one of

00:37:57.920 regions during a war like yeah you're applying a modern cultural context onto the past like this

00:38:04.120 isn't even a piece of evidence if anything it further suggests her her age being around nine 0.96

00:38:10.780 totally they're saying this suggests that she must earn 14 to 16 during this which is what they need

00:38:16.220 her to be for the kind of like water water fetching errands is total nine-year-old work like six to 1.00

00:38:22.120 six to ten year old work yeah okay so terrible argument there okay health reliability and

00:38:29.460 narrative discrepancies the hadith states ashith's age rely on a single narrator hishran bahim

00:38:35.320 aram who reports from later in life in iraq are questioned for inconsistencies alternative sources

00:38:41.320 lack specific ages allowing for older estimates no direct quote disputes hisham's narration but dr jonathan

00:38:48.120 brown um in muhammad's legacy page 147 notes hishram abba iran's reports on ashith's age were

00:38:56.080 transition transcribed late in his life and some scholars like malik questioned their accuracy due

00:39:02.200 to memory and old age so you're basically saying your core religious texts are inaccurate and none of

00:39:08.940 the people around him noticed that he he went from a 15 year old age for one of the prophet's wives

00:39:13.660 to a six-year-old age or a nine-year-old concept that seems like a big detail that other people

00:39:20.440 be like oh yeah i've been hearing this guy talk about this my whole life this nine-year-old thing

00:39:24.920 and the six-year-old thing there's like a big let's take that out you know no nobody thought this was

00:39:30.600 wrong at the time when it was being recorded and there would have been a wide cultural memory was in

00:39:35.440 this region if it of it was long after the prophet's death because it was a popular religion it's not like

00:39:40.860 with jesus where you had such a small community and in the regions in which it really started to

00:39:45.940 grow were not the regions where jesus was preaching the most this is this is like way stronger direct

00:39:52.060 evidence and so i don't i don't buy that either i'd also note here i find it really disingenuous that

00:39:57.220 they're acting like this is just one guy who might have like a misremembered stuff this was an entire

00:40:02.700 religious tradition that was dominant in that city it wasn't one guy the probability that they messed up

00:40:10.560 that monumentally when making these transcriptions it's totally unrealistic and then they there's the

00:40:16.880 ethical and contextual reinterpretation that it was just unethical but it wasn't unethical within

00:40:21.320 the context we know from quran saran al-nisa test the orphans until they reach the age of marriage

00:40:27.140 if you find them to be mature in understanding release their property to them so it's basically saying

00:40:32.500 as soon as they basically have an idea what this stuff is you know have them start engaging in it

00:40:37.860 that doesn't require in an early islamic or saudi arabian context that they be significantly older

00:40:44.380 well i would say like what what this makes me think of too is similar language that we hear around

00:40:49.380 various protestant traditions in the united states decisions around when people can be baptized like

00:40:55.100 when you're old enough to understand like your commitment to your faith and there are many

00:41:01.980 arguments that then deconverts later have being like oh you weren't like is that eight year old you

00:41:06.520 weren't old enough to consent to be baptized and to commit this much to the church but like

00:41:10.360 this is something that happens not just with regard to marriage but like i think there are many

00:41:14.480 religions who are like trying to make decision decisions around when kids are old enough to 0.99

00:41:21.820 take responsibility for their commitments in life does that make sense i think of a great example of

00:41:28.100 this you know when when they are arguing look we're like biologically and culturally different

00:41:33.200 from you and people could be like oh my god like people of different groups can't be biologically

00:41:36.720 different and and and that's why one culture can apply to everyone the urban monoculture can apply

00:41:40.400 to everyone and a great example of where this is really hurting people in the united states is black 0.87

00:41:45.720 families so you are not told this because this is an offensive thing to mention but black people are

00:41:52.460 biologically different from white people in a number of ways and one that is really important 1.00

00:41:57.240 to age of first birth that you may want and the spacing of your birth is black people have specifically

00:42:04.160 black women have a way higher infertility rate than white women um and a slightly smaller fertility window 1.00

00:42:11.460 than white women and so a lot of black women they put off having kids into like their their mid-30s 1.00

00:42:18.620 because they see their white friends getting away with this and they're just completely boned at that

00:42:22.220 point um and doctors are like oh nobody told you you know because how can you like i'm not a couple

00:42:26.960 racists for saying this but it's like a a studied phenomenon but you're like well then how does that

00:42:31.720 work with black people how do they have the same number of kids you know in an evolutionary context

00:42:35.320 and the answer is they have a shorter fertility window you mean they have a shorter gestation window 0.64

00:42:39.980 yeah they have a shorter gestation window by about a week and and so they can they can space their kids

00:42:45.600 closer together and so this is why it makes sense to have different cultural norms for one group like

00:42:51.160 if you actually care about that group have different cultural norms and this creates an interesting

00:42:55.820 phenomenon that i was reading on which is so offensive to talk about but but it is like a

00:43:00.560 measurable phenomenon which is you get developmental problems in interracial white black marriages where 0.55

00:43:08.060 the mother is black and the father is white but you don't get these when the father is black and the

00:43:14.520 mother is white if they have shorter gestational windows does that mean like the baby is born 0.78

00:43:18.160 earlier but then we're likely to have complications yeah the baby is born earlier but because of the

00:43:23.100 white dad part of the baby's genes expect this extra week a longer gestation so that's interesting

00:43:28.400 like they're born premature um but then the the longer gestational window where you have the white

00:43:33.820 mom and the black dad you don't run into these problems i don't know if you get advantages you

00:43:38.420 probably do get some but yeah that's what that's what this is why like there's all sorts of harms

00:43:44.720 caused to like everyone around by this fantasy of the urban monoculture that there are no differences

00:43:51.320 in human populations and and like these are people actual like i i literally like i've talked with black

00:43:58.100 women and they were like furious that nobody told them about this they're like wait black women have 1.00

00:44:03.280 literally twice the rate of pregnancy complications like yes literally twice the rate nobody told you 0.68

00:44:08.800 this you know like this is a thing that harms the black population that this is hidden from them 0.96

00:44:14.340 like actively wow yeah i mean it's interesting there is this double standard because there are

00:44:21.420 arguments that i've heard arguments made by many progressive outlets and it's you know really messed

00:44:25.980 up that so much of medical science modern medical science is based on research and and foundational

00:44:33.020 theories that were based on researching young men yeah and then they freak out when we try to

00:44:38.660 research different populations like yeah the biobanks have like been intentionally purging dna data from

00:44:43.960 ethnic minority populations and native populations at the request of wokies you're the reason you and 0.98

00:44:50.600 then they complain about the fact that like you know health care is not sufficiently customized to

00:44:56.020 different groups it's very frustrating yeah well i mean they used to do experimentation on these

00:45:01.040 groups in very unethical ways well okay leo let's not go let's not do that go back to that let's not

00:45:05.340 go back to tuskegee experiment let's just go back to very very open you know what wide open samples where

00:45:11.840 we get as much variety as possible but keep track of the varieties that we understand how there are

00:45:16.240 differences that need to be accommodated yeah well i love you to death did your mind change about

00:45:22.120 anything from this i really struggle with the drive toward cultural imperialism with the understanding

00:45:31.500 of like allowing cultural imperialism like you know like just actively stealing young ladies for 1.00

00:45:39.500 example that we think are abused right like i just want to rescue them right but then i don't want

00:45:45.140 other cultures to steal our children from us and we know for a fact that there are lots of people on 1.00

00:45:50.040 the internet all the time like i wish i could like i want to get these like the collins's kids taken

00:45:55.020 away from them so like i know what it's like to be on the other end of it and to vehemently believe

00:46:00.780 that we're doing what's best for our children and then at the same time here i am sitting on the other

00:46:05.340 side of the equation being like i want to take these kids away they're you know being abused so like

00:46:09.420 i really struggle with this right and i think that the only way to to reconcile and the only way i am

00:46:14.240 reconciling with it now which may not be ideal is just like well we just have to provide

00:46:19.580 something a culture that's so compelling that you'd be crazy not to convert into it and that's

00:46:26.400 high fertility and that leads to longer being flourishing and it grows cultures are not going

00:46:31.500 to technologically advance and and therefore that unless they make changes like they could make

00:46:36.380 changes and then but but if we look at current trends it does not look as if you know they are

00:46:43.220 outputting the latest ai systems for example yeah and so you know as technology drives a wider and

00:46:50.660 wider wedge between the capabilities of cultures that are able to produce high-tech devices and 0.62

00:46:57.540 cultures that are not um you know they're these groups unless some wokey put some on a spaceship 0.99

00:47:03.460 are not going to you know take humanity's manifest destiny among the stars like we're not going to have

00:47:09.960 a dei program for who gets on the spaceship you know we're choosing the best and the brightest of

00:47:16.040 cultures that work the best and the brightest with other cultures because this urban monocultural mind

00:47:21.720 virus of of oh everyone is exactly the same and and and can easily cohabitate like that's just not true

00:47:28.520 like some cultures like if you put them next to another culture they're just going to kill them 1.00

00:47:32.920 right like that that's a thing there there are cultures that i could put in this region and these people

00:47:37.640 it'd be a terribly stupid thing to do it would be like leaving a kitten around a herd of lions right

00:47:44.880 like i'm responsible for that i'm the one who put the kitten there it reminds me of the girl who wanted 0.86

00:47:50.640 to do this big bike thing to show you know oh for for peace and that you know there's no difference

00:47:56.640 between different countries and different people and everything like that so she goes on this bike

00:47:59.760 tour through europe she goes into a muscle majority country and within 10 miles of the border 0.95

00:48:04.440 they found her body graped to death trying to bike through one of these countries as a white woman 0.99

00:48:09.940 um and it was just incredibly stupid because she believed this lie that these cultures aren't different 0.99

00:48:14.280 and they they are right like their norms are different the way they relate to morality is different 0.98

00:48:19.440 and i'm not a relativist but i i do believe that sort of within the conservative movement we all have

00:48:24.640 to fight for cultural sovereignty being the highest value because we none of us have a dominant culture

00:48:28.240 right now in the urban monoculture we'll use that to to peel our kids from us and to restrict 1.00

00:48:32.800 the ways in which we parent and so we just have to hope that over the long run that we can be

00:48:37.300 successful that we can have lots of kids and that we can stay engaged with technology

00:48:41.200 yeah it's dark dark yeah love you to death simone have a great day i love you too

00:48:51.540 i got the fetus package handled at least so that's done thank you and we're going to try sushi correctly

00:48:58.040 this time i will come down and help you the last time she made sushi rolls that were like 0.96

00:49:04.680 larger than a silver dollar like this big she's like this is what it showed in the thing i was like

00:49:10.180 and it was california i never made sushi before i don't look at sushi because

00:49:15.140 didn't know crazy when i look at it being brown meant that it had gone bad i never use avocados in

00:49:20.940 anything i know i appreciate that you're trying you are trying something new and that is amazing

00:49:27.020 simone i mean you're doing it for me sometimes it just ain't good enough yeah sometimes but now

00:49:33.220 we are going to learn how to do this better with the the avocados and the well and we're going to use

00:49:38.280 the tiny little molt that that we also very yes cleverly got ahead of time very small sushi rolls

00:49:45.240 there's literally no way it can you have an unnaturally large mouth malcolm it shouldn't be 0.99

00:49:50.540 a problem okay that's actually us having large mouths is one of the things i noticed when we're 0.76

00:49:57.240 around other groups i'm like it's an ethnic thing about like our people is that we have just like

00:50:01.420 giant mouths instead of around other people i'm like god your mouth is so tiny which is not

00:50:07.320 something i've ever seen before and now i i need to look look for it in people look at your look at

00:50:13.500 your face on the screen right now yeah yeah do you not see how enormous that is average human

00:50:21.300 average human face is that what you're googling out i don't know what else do i you know look at here

00:50:28.060 okay

00:50:31.700 hmm okay i mean we're slightly above average we're not like

00:50:38.980 aerosmith we're not we're not like yeah there's some other really impressive people

00:50:46.780 no baby's head in their mouth you know that's that's really how you know if you have a

00:50:51.660 who was it who ate all the the babies it wasn't zeus was one of the babies who was not eaten

00:50:59.440 chronos chronos yeah chronos mouth yeah i would say you know it's big i'm sorry i'm bad with names

00:51:06.020 it doesn't it doesn't matter who it is malcolm all right it's just difficult

00:51:10.920 where are my undercrested eggs get me all my eggs

00:51:14.360 i'll get all my eggs i can all my eggs

00:51:18.440 i'll get all my eggs

00:51:20.240 what's inside person

00:51:23.720 there's candy inside

00:51:26.560 oh the eggs

00:51:28.140 what's inside the green one

00:51:30.760 mommy do you want the eggs 0.85

00:51:34.180 yeah are you going to open them up titan

00:51:36.760 yeah i'll open all my eggs i'm holding

00:51:40.180 wow what was that person

00:51:42.180 it's candy

00:51:43.680 you're giving it to your brother

00:51:45.340 mommy i want to eat candy

00:51:46.680 trustee do you want to eat the candy

00:51:48.260 i want to eat candy

00:51:50.340 i want to eat candy

00:51:52.260 okay titan wants candy too torsion

00:51:54.520 i want to eat this candy

00:51:56.760 jelly beans

00:51:58.760 jelly beans

00:52:00.760 jelly beans

00:52:02.760 jelly beans

00:52:04.760 jelly beans

00:52:06.760 jelly beans

00:52:08.760 jelly beans

00:52:10.760 jelly beans

00:52:12.760 i opened it

00:52:14.760 yeah you did what was inside

00:52:16.760 and look jelly beans i found

00:52:18.760 wow

00:52:20.760 and here's jelly beans

00:52:22.760 so

Based Camp - June 10, 2025

Its Islamophobic to Ban Child Marriage! (Says Muslim High Court)

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