A Moroccan Islamic theologian, Mohamed Ben Sheikh Abderrahman Al Maghraoui, has caused a great stir by stating "A nine-year-old girl has the same sexual capacities as a woman of 20 and over".He issued a fatwa (Islamic edict) where he "legalizes" the union between a child and an adult male.
"We found that girls of that age give better benefits than adult women," he says.
"Consequently they are so trained to marry as young of 20 years."
In the Islamic world, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, marriage between girls and adult males is relatively common, but Muslim theologians have not gone so far in justifying the practice.
Al Maghraoui, a well-known Salafist sheikh, and the author of half a dozen books of theology, posted the fatwa on the website of his association Preaching in the Koran and Sunna. His critics argue that he probably has done it to defend, from a religious point of view, the marriage contracted in secret by one of his friends.
His pronouncement has caused a major scandal in Morocco, but so far there has been no reaction from the authorities. The radical theologian bases his edict in the example of the prophet Muhammad. “Aicha, recalls, had only six years when she became her fiancée but was not married until she turned nine”.
There are "vicious theologians who are capable of putting religion in the service of paedophilia" writes the socialist daily Al Ittihad al Ichtiraki. "The era of our Prophet is completely different from ours. These days a marriage of the kind would be a true injustice towards the girl. A true aberration” says Naji Adib, who heads the association No ones touch my Children, who campaigns in Morocco against this scourge.
"This type of people look at Islam from the point of view which is convenient for them. It is a restrictive vision of Islam. And it is bad. Fatwas like these show the lack of reasoning from those who issue them. I cannot understand via what intellectual road or for what mental construction they come to such aberrations" she added.
Faced with the passivity of the authorities, a lawyer from Rabat, Mourad Bakouri, has taken the initiative to denounce Al Maghraoui for "violation of the Family Code and violation of children's rights."
The new Moroccan law, which came into force in 2005, stipulates that the minimum age for marriage is 18 years.
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(Source: RI)