On Marriage, the Islamic Republic and a 112-year old groom
From a Guardian news-item dt. 29th Oct ’09, Somali man aged 112 marries girl of 117:
He is old enough to be her great-great-grandfather. But Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, a Somalian who claims he is 112 years old, said he had realised a “dream” by marrying a 17-year-old bride.
Dhore – who says he was born in 1897, the year that Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee – already has 13 children by five wives, but said he would like more with his newest, Safiya Abdulle.
…”Today God helped me realise my dream,” Dore said. He and his new wife, who is almost a century his junior, are from the same village in Somalia, he said, adding that he had waited for her to grow up to propose. He says his children and two other wives agreed to the marriage, as did Abdulle’s parents.
“I didn’t force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry,” the groom said.
Dhore has 114 children and grandchildren. His oldest son is 80 and three of his wives have died.
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I was reminded of the news-item when I stumbled upon this excerpt from Establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran & The Present Situation For Women by Parvin Darabi*:
Marriage
Under the Islamic Rules, the family protection law has been abrogated. The Islamic Republic resolutely supports the practice of polygamy.Under the Islamic Republic, provisional marriage was sanctioned. Consequently, a man may marry “four Permanent” and as many “Provisional” wives as he desires.
The marriage age for girls was reduced to 13 and with the father’s consent, a girl may marry at the age of nine. No restriction on the age of the man. In recent years the marriage age for women has been reduced to 9 years of age.
“The most suitable time for a girl to get married is the time when the girl can have her first menstrual period in her husband’s house rather than her father’s.” Ayatollah Khomeini.
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* Hat Tip: View from the Right
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http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=9558&SKIN=B
What do you expect, the Hadith has the Prophet taking a 6-year girl as his wife – as the religious leader goes, so does his flock.
Pity the women in Islam – you have to really feel for them.
Oh to be a muslim man!! Ah well, maybe in my next life.
As far as pitying women in Islam, that is really somewhat tough to do. Even in the West, more and more muslim women prefer the traditional dress of covering all the body and head; many in fact publically defend the restrictions placed on them. They defend the lesser status of women in Islam by trying to retrofit some biological explanation to coincide with their beliefs. Recently heard a woman talk about the right and left hemispheres of the brain corresponding to the way women respond (i.e. intuitively) and therefore lacking in judgement.
I remember an incident in Jordan when talking with a Palestinian man who occasionally went to India for business. He told me Indian women had too many rights and that the men were wimps. I asked him why he said that, to which he replied that when he tried to rent the top portion of a house, the houseowner said he would get back to the palestinian after consulting with his wife. According to the Palestinian man, the home and the wife belonged to the man, therefore no consultation was necessary.
There is obviously a fundamental difference in the value system Islam possesses from the rest of the world.
Brief excerpt from link provided by Sanjay in an earlier comment:
Chapter 6 entitled “Women and Shariah” is an exhaustive study of the man- woman or the husband and wife equation; and redundant to add that “the husband is always the master”. A woman is wickedest thing. And “when excited, she is a hundred times more passionate than man… A woman is “mom ki naak” (white hot tip of the candle), “balki raal ki pudiya” (a tight little packet of resin), “balki barood ki dibiya” (in fact a packet of explosives). If she is brought near a spark (of temptation) it will explode. She is defective in reason as well as in faith. And by nature she is crooked. (p.289) Which is why the husband has the power the absolute, unconditional power to exercise talaq for which he is not accountable to anyone on earth – to throw the wife out by just uttering the word talaq. (p.292). The chapter is replete with hundreds of examples of talaq, and every time the husband stands victor and superior.
From “The World of Fatwa’s” by: Arun Shourie, Publisher: ASA Publication, Reviewed by: Harindra Srivastava