Very interesting!
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Yes! I was listening to a podcast on the Tudors and I was surprised that in that time period common people actually discouraged young marriage for most people, the exception being royals who basically bartered their kids for alliances. I found this to be so validating, because I really dislike the narrative that kids just grew up faster back in the day. No? Kids are still kids, like, developmentally speaking? Just because they centered their learning on specific practical skills doesn’t mean they were adults.
That’s a great point. It’s not a good stat in that sense. Thank you for pointing that out!
What I find fascinating is that Sunnis actually created it to BOLSTER themselves, which shows to me the rampant disregard for women in medieval times. Like, you’d literally make up lies about the prophet sleeping with a child to compete for power against the Shiite? And then use that as proof of female purity? 
Fun fact, Aisha led a war against Ali. I am sure she was not suffering fools.
I also follow unchained at last! MrM did some work like 5 years or so ago looking at trafficking of minors and it was really a gut punch to see how common it is in the US. Of course, as Americans we always look outward at places like Thailand and the UAE, but this happens right in our backyard.
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Wow that’s bonkers! Barf face, indeed.
Haha, love it.
I think this is true in other senses? Like not so much in marriage but in terms of work, for sure. But again it’s more economic than anything, just like today. The only places with a huge child workforce are also being crushed by poverty. So like, that makes sense. I was just listening to Dressed (fashion history podcast) and they were noting how many now-famous people started work at 13 which is wild. My grandpa started at 15 though, that’s not long ago, really. But also, they didn’t have the same full freedom as adults? Like so often they were living with their employer and had lots of adults around them, except the poorest of the poor street kids and stuff.
Rough life, though. I feel like that’s still true today in some ways: how early you grow up has a lot to do with how early you have to grow up. Like I found a big difference class-wise after I moved as a kid. Socially and intellectually the more upper class kids seemed much more mature, but in real life kinds of ways they were very young compared to my previous classmates. Maybe the real question is how fast do we want kids to grow up and in which areas of life?
I always come back to the human desire for a single origin solution/explainer when none ever exists. 
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Does he have opinions on THORN? I’d love to know if he thinks it’s worthwhile to contribute to what they’re doing.
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Thanks for the bat signal. I don’t have the duty cycle for the article just now, but I’ll read it in a bit. Sounds very intriguing.
Initial thought is that Afghans aren’t selling their girl children just because it’s religion. It’s economic desperation, and selling the child is an allied path.
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Thank you. Very insightful. I am really glad that Scholars are questioning Hadiths objectively.
I’ve had the argument about Hadiths being only HUMAN accounts of history thus subject to bias several times with MG. They were recounted by males in a male dominated culture so I have chosen to not believe all the ones I find misogynistic or sexist. People distort story for their own gain (maintaining women under their domination, and in this case, using a distorted image of purity to convey their propaganda).
I think a lot of cultural practices that existed pre Islam are maintained / legitimized using Islam. In my culture, it is still the case for FMG, for child mariage and even for polygamy. While they were all rooted in economic reasons or really just a patriarchal society that mutilate girls to ‘dampen’ their ‘urges’ (thus making them mere objects to satisfy men’s urges). The child marriages are not even for direct economic gains, it is just that everyone believes that girls are to be married so the earlier the better. The culture is in a way that it seems more useful to have boys because they stay (of course they are not disposed of), work harder (untrue, the task distribution gives them ‘visible’ tasks such as building homes, they are free to pursue lucrative business while women are to take care of the children and homes, they don’t know how hard a work it is because they have never done it), can help expand the family (by marrying several women WHO will bear children and make homes).
The ‘Scholars’ helped maintain those practices by citing Hadiths outlining Mohammed’ blessing of them (either directly or by doing it himself). My mum used to tell me ‘What was OK for Aisha is not OK for you??’ talking about polygamy or the fact that a woman should respect and honor their husband. Like, how do you know that Aisha was OK with polygamy, just because she finds herself in it and loved her husband doesn’t mean that she cautioned it. There are a lot of stories about her being independent and treating Mohammed or his followers as her equals but nobody talked about that to young Muslim girls.
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I find it fascinating, I have previously read documents about historical jesus vs “faith jesus” but it was mostly stuff I came across at my grandmas rather than looked up myself (because my family isn’t religious). Really appreciate this interesting read on Muslim texts!
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Thanks for sharing context from your experience. I didn’t realize that economy wasn’t a driving force in most child marriages. In our media it’s usually presented that way (just like with child slavery) but it’s interesting to know that in your experience it had more to do with the way girls and women are seen culturally and then upholding that using religious ideology.
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For sure they were forced into the practical roles more aligned with adult behavior, but my larger point was that I personally believe that the creation of concepts like adolescence are good things that highlight our understanding of human brain development. I don’t think just because a 15 year old was working 10 hours a day back in [Random Date] means they were equipped to make the same decisions an adult should.
This is only an opinion, I don’t proffer it to die on a hill, since it is based on nothing but my beliefs and experiences. More just sharing where I’m coming from LOL.
No idea but looking at it now is really cool. Our local Y has an entire course freely offered on identifying child sexual exploitation and abuse. I am way too neurotic and anxious as a parent to take that (somewhat amusingly, in a dark way), but I think it’s cool that there are people trying their best to normalize and bring to light something that most people don’t want to talk about and would rather hide than address.
Oof, rough. The intersections of culture and religion are so fraught. I had a lot of exposure to specifically women who highlighted the common stories in hadith of disputes amongst the various wives and the specific political and economic reasons for polygamy occurring in the time.
[Random aside: Honestly, I don’t have an issue with polygamy as a concept, but the way it’s been used and abused is as a tool for men to have access to and control women. I personally think rather than going the route of forcing people into the strict format of monogamy, we could instead open it up to any believing person choosing the format of marriage that works for them, man or woman. LOL. Laughable.]
Interestingly, in another way that culture can impact the interpretation of religion, FGM was always heavily advocated against in my religious upbringing for the simple fact that the belief was that sexual satisfaction was a right that BOTH parties in a marriage owed each other. I remember a female teacher at religious school in my teens who was sharing a hadith about a female companion of the prophet who complained to him that her husband was denying her in bed, and him determining in her favor in the dispute. I don’t have the hadith memorized because I failed that part of religious school (along with, say, the correct way to recite the Quran OOPS), but just using it as an example!
I don’t have a point except to offer examples of the way the hadith are used depending on the one wielding them. Culture guided the way it was brandished.
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Oh I also wanted to highlight a part that may be helpful to liberal folks who consider themselves allies to Muslims, especially those that are uncomfortable with religion:
My experience is that the lack of exposure to religion makes folks very tentative to offer opinions, and I think that is very smart and good, more questions should be asked to ensure understanding of the context. That said, I think it’s really okay to call out specific things in a religious practice or argumentation that don’t really hold water. For example,
Jonathan Brown, a Muslim academic at Georgetown University … is a notable dissenter against this consensus. He argues "that Common Links [a technical term for the originators of hadith] are much earlier than previously thought, dating some to the time of the Companions in the second half of the seventh century.” Little disagrees with this assessment, suggesting that “Brown’s claims about the redating of [Common Links] back to the time of the Companions seem like exaggerations.” [LMAO FUK U JON BROWN]
Yet Brown’s dissent seems based more on a critique of the historical-critical method in general and so is actually — at least in some sense — a critique from outside the Western tradition. After all, Brown questions the very applicability of the historical-critical method, which he sees as a distinctly Western construct and a cultural imposition on Muslims.
I know we have to be wary of colonialism discrediting non-Christian white cultures. But the idea that a METHOD of analysis is off limits simply because originated outside of a specific culture is completely bonkers and the height of intellectual cowardice. In fact, Muslim scholarship and historical heavyweights interacted deeply with intellectual traditions in forming their opinions see: Aristotle.
The deep irony is that Jon Brown is a white dude who converted to Islam, so how is he, a [mediocre] white guy raised in that context his entire adult life who just happened to embrace a faith allowed to extrapolate and contribute to the shaping of the hadith studies able to opine freely?? But an objective method created to assess religious historical texts not? It’s dumb.
You see this a lot in the Muslim community, this idea that only Muslim generated ideas are allowed, and I am here to let everyone know that is absolutely insane.
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I agree completely. I grew up hearing the whole “adolescence is a made up idea to excuse disrespectful behavior” thing a lot. It’s pretty common in certain Christian circles. I was taught that any form of rebellion (and that could be like, wearing lipgloss if your parents say not to, rolling your eyes, etc.) is just a social convention of decadent consumerist/capitalist culture, and that in the past young people didn’t do that because there was no “in between” stage transitioning them from childhood to adulthood. It’s completely ridiculous.
That’s amazing! I’ve hard some incredible stories about flight attendants getting training of some kind and actively stopping kidnappings in progress.
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Also thank you for pointing that out, lol. I didn’t want to seem overly critical. Intellectual cowardice is an excellent way of putting it. I’m going to be recalling that word combo in the future when I come across similar things, because I feel like it’s becoming common in various groups.
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Right, like, for sure the method can be critiqued. But “It came from white people” is not a critique in and of itself.
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Nods head in a “white lady who is also Middle Eastern” way bc like, the ME is super diverse?
Funny aside but a college friend of mine who is 100% Iraqi, with blonde hair and blue eyes, got so tired of explaining how that was possible that she started telling people her accent was from Ireland 
and people believed her! Like those accents are not the same, lmao.
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Interesting read! I do apologize, though, for sharing something personal finance related. I know that’s not really our thing.
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Wants me to subscribe.
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Oh, sorry! Huh…I have it on my phone without paywall but I’m now getting blocked on my laptop.
Gist is: US Census shows that nearly half of 19-29 year olds are living at home, highest rate since the depression. They are driving a boom in the luxury goods market (i.e. chanel, gucci, lv, etc.) by spending disposable income that would otherwise go towards rent on consumer goods. All based on a Morgan Stanley study- they predict Gen Z will account for 40% of the global luxury goods market by 2035.
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Ahah! Its not the avo toast, its the gucci handbag!
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This is one of the most depressing things I’ve read today.
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