Ali Dawah is an Islamic proselytizer “spreading the message of Islam and answering misconceptions.” He has close to 20k followers on Twitter, and almost 205k subscribers on YouTube. Last week Dawah explained the ethics behind child marriage:
You asked me, would I allow my daughter to get married at nine. The analogy is wrong. Our teachings say the woman has to be sexually, mentally, and physically ready.
If my daughter reaches the age of menstruation at nine years old, I would say, you are ready to get married, however, if she says, ‘Dad, I don’t want to get married,’ OK. If she wants to get married, if she said she’s ready to get married, I would have to check that she may be ready sexually and physically. If she is mentally ready and she has found somebody… if a 40 year old man came to me and my daughter said, ‘I want to get married,’ I’d look at her mental age.
Are you sure that you want to marry this man? Yes. Why? Because – whatever. Islamically she can, as a father I have a right to say no. But, if she wants to at that age… In Islam we don’t have an age, we don’t say nine, eight, four, five – [but] mentally, sexually, physically.
