this topic has been a quite controversial for some time now. I know not to judge a historical figure by todays standards but I would like to ask this sub what was the age of Aisha when she married Mohammed. Were she 6, 9, 10, 12, 17 etc...?
I would prefer it if experts on that period reply but anyone is welcome to join in.
What prompted me to post this is a discussion on /badhistory
As the general accepted view is 9-10 (I think?) I would like to provide a source that argues for 17 years old.
Arabic http://www.alsoal.com/2642/
English http://www.muslim.org/islam/aisha-age.htm
Now I am not a historian and I don't know the validity of the claims presented in the above links.
The age of Aisha has not "been controversial for some time now" (from a historical view of time, anyway). The controversy is very recent, really only from the late 19th century. For the bulk of history, the age was never controversial since it was an unremarkable age for marriage.
There are really only two academically sound positions. Either we accept the sources are valid and that she was 6 at marriage and 9 at consummation, or we reject them and say that we can not know how old she was but definitely a younger person. There's really no way you can arrive at an exact number like 17. You would be taking vague statements over explicit ones, you would be taking narrations of dubious authenticity over ones that are more likely to be true, and you would be selectively taking narrations from the same author (i.e., trying to do calculate Aisha's age based on her sister Asma's age as reported by Tabari but ignoring that Tabari himself puts the age of Aisha at 9.)
I believe I've discussed this in some depth on this subreddit and will try to dig up my last comment but if you want a TL;DR: She was at the typical age for a first marriage during her time period and that would have been below 15 for sure, most likely 8-12.