It's an injustice to NOT marry girls aged 10, says Saudi cleric

clipped from www.dailymail.co.uk

Ten-year-old girls are ready for marriage, according to Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric.

Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, the country's grand mufti, told Al Hayat newspaper that those saying ten or 12-year-old girls are too young to marry are being 'unfair' to them.

Al Sheikh's comments come at a time when Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for marriage.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Kingdom's grand mufti

the mufti said: 'We hear a lot about the marriage of underage girls in the media, and we should know that Islamic law has not brought injustice to women.'

The mufti said a good upbringing will make a girl capable of carrying out her duties as a wife and that those who say women should not marry before the age of 25 are following a 'bad path'.

'Our mothers and before them, our grandmothers, married when they were barely 12,' said Al Sheikh, according to the Al-Hayat newspaper.

Würde- und verantwortungslos, dieses Verständnis von Sexualität und diese Missachtung der Menschenrechte junger Mädchen! Man muss deutlich sagen, worum es sich handelt: um die moraltheologisch verbrämte Erniedrigung von Kindern zum Sexualvieh. Ob die Überlieferungen der Worte und Handlungsweisen des islamischen Propheten nach al-Bukhari nun authentisch sind oder nicht, ist völlig belanglos in Anbetracht der Tatsache, dass das Islam- und Mohammedverständnis des Überlieferers das mitprägt, was sich heute in muslimischen, ja islamgelehrt-geistlichen Köpfen befindet.