Saudi cleric: okay to marry 10 year old girls

It's an injustice to NOT marry girls aged 10, says Saudi cleric By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:32 PM on 14th January 2009

Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric has told followers it is permissible for ten-year-old girls to marry and anyone who think they are too young are doing the youngsters 'an injustice'.

Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Shaikh, the country's grand mufti, said: 'It is wrong to say it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger.

'A female who is ten or 12 is marriageable and those who think she's too young are wrong and are being unfair to her,' he said during a Monday lecture.

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, prays during the funeral of the Saudi woman and her daughter last February

In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.

Though the mufti's pronouncements are respected and provide guidance, the government is not legally bound by them.

On Sunday, the government-run Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an 'inhumane violation' and rob children of their rights.

The commission's statement followed a ruling by a court in Oneiza in central Saudi Arabia last month that dismissed a divorce petition by the mother of an eight-year-old girl whose father married her off to a man in his 50s.

Newspaper reports said the court argued that the mother did not have the right to file such a case on behalf of her daughter and said that the petition should be filed by the girl when she reaches puberty.

Responding to a question about parents who force their underage daughters to marry, 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 newpaper.

There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia every year.

It is also not clear whether these unions are on the rise or whether people are hearing about them more now because of the prevalence of media outlets and easy access to the Internet.

Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty dowries or as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.

The Mormons…. lol.

That's not the UK tough.

Second, those people always get prosecuted for things like this. In Saudi Arabia its tolerated by law. 

There's a difference between how the West deals with it, and how Arab/Muslim countries allow and glorify it. Don't make me laugh.

Is Texas in Uk ? who did mention the Mormons is in Uk anyway?

and oh come on you the one who do not make me laught here . I remember how did the west dealt with that man who killed and chopped his freind into pieces … You know how did they deal with it??

They threw him in the jail for only 5 years !! What a glorification for the humanity is this ! 

Actually reread your own article. My analysis was correct.

Some British Bangladeshi girl was married off to some guy in Dhaka. The girl was most likely a Muslim Bangladeshi with British nationality.

Its another case of Muslims in the UK trying to continue their customs in the UK and not adapt to the British laws and way of life.

Well, when someone have the nationality she/he called according to her passport. Even if she was from Marc she still called according to what is the passport tells she from. By the way, The Mormons have proved that there is a lot of people who still doing this and they are from everywhere !! So the blotch here is from people not religion !

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However, I believe my point is clear now , so I'm done in here.

I don't consider people like them British, and it definitely isn't an example of what goes on in England, if that person's family chooses to break the law in a different country.

What point? You only just gave another example of Muslims marrying off their children before they've reached puberty.

No one of the goverments will care about what do you consider ~ this is fact no one can denile it. And if as you mentioned they picked to break the rules outside England then why did the Uk unit has saved her? Do you think maybe because they considered her British!~ Who knows maybe : < )

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And how do you know she is Muslim? I guess your Jewish brain guessed that … ~

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Finally, the Mormons have showed us that in everywhere there is a kind of people marrying off their children before they've attained puberty … So, as I mentioned the blotch here is from people themselves.

Because the UK feels it should protect its underage citizens from harm, even if the parents are behind it. Is that a surprise?

NO no. She is British, by nationality, but thats it. This has nothing to do with British culture , but Bangladeshi culture.

I know some Mormons, and none of them did this.

Oh and by the way, maybe concentrate on answering my points rather than going after me personally. Unless, of course, you have nothing intelligent to say. So far, my brain seems to be working better than yours.

"And how do you know she is Muslim?"

A. because they were marrying off 11 year olds.

B. Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim country.

Bangladesh has Christians also..

Oh thanks to Allah my brain is fine too.