The real cost of the lies about Aysha's age

One of the most stubborn lie in Islam and about Islam has to be the age of Aysha at the time of her marriage. The lie in a way is emblematic of what is wrong with the Muslim world and the world in general. Never mind the fact that the origin of this lie is based on a third party single narrator, just like 99% of all Hadith reports. Many of these narrators were astonishingly mere kids. Historical inaccuracies aside, this particular flawed report stands out as the other side of the spectrum. It is a product of a failing mind in the body of an attention seeking old man, living in a land far removed from the events in question. Woefully low on the veracity scale, hence, predictably high on the apologetic babble. The Age of Aysha and similar lies have not only put Islam on the defensive but the control of what is Islam in the hands of an illegal cabal, the so-called “scholars”.

The crude attempts to smooth over the factual difficulties inherent in these narrations is obviously not agenda (s) free. The stamina of these institutionally backed lies is rooted in the structure of the Hadith literature itself. The Chinese Whispering nature of these reports necessitated assigning it a truth hiding label. The word Sahih. (Essentially, true beyond reproach) is used to draw attention away from the more important and descriptive Ahad and Mutawatir labels, a single narrator based or mass reported respectively. Needless to say, these reports fall short of both the Quranic criteria of accepting claims and any half decent historical method.

Coming back to the age of Ayesha, the objectives of the perverted minds aside, when all the relevant reports that were classified as Sahih are taken together, it becomes chronologically impossible to maintain the nine-year version of Aysha's age. And never mind that right next to the age of Aysha one can also find an identically labeled "true" report of a mere mortal splitting the Moon with his finger and half of it falling in the backyard of a companion of the Prophet. Along with a host of other impossible to digest claims.

The lie of Aysha’s age has had a devastating effect on Muslim cultures. The obvious criminal practice of forced child marriages is a big one by itself. When you add to it the illiteracy of most mothers as a result of getting married off while still in middle school, and those are the lucky few, the cumulative damaging effect of the overall illiteracy of children raising children is incalculable. Given that the Muslim population is fast approaching two Billion and most of them are trapped in the girl shy education practices, this is a waste of epic proportion not just for Muslims but the whole of humanity.

The resolution of this stubborn issue is further complicated by the over the top zeal with which these Ahad reports were fortified. In a desperate attempt to give them legitimacy, every narrator in the chain was effectively declared infallible. So now, if even a single report is removed from the list of Sahih, all reports where the same narrators are featured must also be removed, a problem of seismic proportion and this is what the fight is all about. Hence the gridlock.

On the other hand, the internally verifiable Quran is disruptive by its nature, as were all the earlier revelations. The internal verification of the Quran of late has ventured out of the subjective literary brilliance into other domains including mathematics, albeit with a wobbly start. What the Quran does best is to infuse powerful theological juices into the meek and the downtrodden. The word of God puts individuals first. It gives unprecedented rights to the common man, It protects their freedom, privacy, property, speech and above all their right to choose their leaders and that is seriously disruptive. The only way for the power grabbers to counter this game changer has been to forge a new narration, often running parallel to the word of God. Since the unwieldy structure of the Hadith compilations cannot be amended or upgraded anymore, it forces the sectarians to defend the indefensible tooth and nail. They have to, their very relevance depends on it.

In all this ruckus, the original objectives of the Persian collectors are lost on the rank and file of the sect scene. Right after the defeat of the Persian Empire, a host of the so called collectors appear on the scene and what could not be achieved on the battlefield was attempted with the mighty pen. The rest is history. The Prophet of God is painted as a pedophile, war monger, a depiction gleefully lapped up by the Islam Haters under the blanket phrase “Islamic Sources”. This focus on the messenger heavy narration, as opposed to the message itself, keeps both camps happy. The hope of the Islam critics is that the highlighting these fabricated and damaging reports will diminish the impact of the actual message. At the same time, the self-appointed custodians of Islam believe they can continue to wield power by limiting the conversation to mainly the Hadith and away from the Quran.

Since the ultimate objective of all oppressors is the same, subjugation, it all comes down to the details of chalking out suitable territories among them. Whenever the notion of the 1% and 99% is raised, many understand it to be a local issue or at best an issue confined to a particular nation-state. In reality, there is only one 1%, spread across all nations and territories. They all behave as a single cabal, helping and propping each other up, regardless of political and religious affiliations of individual members. It is in this context that the chalking takes place. Previously it was more brazen as is evident from the straight-lined borders of the African continent. Nowadays the doling out of the areas of influence is more nuanced but just as butcher like.

The tragedy of the 99%. and the power of unity of the 1% in a nutshell, the 1% (the actual number is far less) stands united across the globe around wealth and power irrespective of their political and religious affiliations. While the 99% have allowed the 1% to divide them exactly along those lines. There can only be one winner.

Once done, it is in this context that the dominant powers allow the royals and dictators in bed with the sectarians of the Muslim world to control the interpretation of Islam. The rise of the petro-Islam has ensured that the message of the Quran remains sidelined and the lies of the Sharia comes to define it. Hence, in dealing with the Islam problem, the dominant world powers are able to focus on the mostly Muslim origin lies and limit Islam's mass appeal outside the Muslim world. The current state of the world stands as a testament, the bonus is a ready-made justification for a perpetual war to keep oiling, pun intended, the financial-military-security-industrial complex of the usual suspects.

The solution in the information age and by now clichéd is education and education of the right kind. The current narration based on these recycled and thoroughly refuted lies cannot be wished away nor defeated by a few scattered individual warriors. The pied pipers of old have morphed into mega corporations with armies at their disposal to manufactured lies and alternative facts. The pushback must come from well educated and well-informed masses alive to the seductively packaged tunes. The Universal message of peace of the Quran in itself is powerful enough to change the world as a whole into a better place. Both for the Muslim masses and the non-Muslim masses.

To the Islam haters, the thrust of the questions should be: Do you believe that Mohammad split the Moon with his finger? If not then why not because it says so right next to where it says he married a 6 and 9 and 12 and 14 and 15 and 19 and .................... 42-year-old Aisha? To the "scholars" of Islam, the main thrust of the questions should be: You are without any sanction whatsoever.

In the end, it is no surprise then that the two main beneficiaries of the lie of Aysha's age along with a host of similar lies are the mind-messing pros who control these illegal Arabized for-profit sects on one hand and the Islam haters read people haters of this world on the other. In a way, both these seemingly opposing groups belong to the same cadre, the oppressors of this world, driven by the greed to acquire more wealth and more power. The writing is on the walls of the netizen.

A word of caution. Although with the easy dissipation of information it is becoming relatively easier to spot these lies, the reality is not lost on the oppressors of the world that the battle is moving fast to the very tool that runs the information age. It is no secret that enormous resources are allocated by both the groups in question to ensure the perpetuation of these lies. Obviously, there is a great cost involved in selling blatant lies. The Royal families of the Gulf region on one hand and the Hate Islam industry on the other fork out hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars every year to keep the masses at bay with these lies. A large portion of those millions is spent online. Spot them and refute them if you want to be on the right side of history.