was pedophilia really normal in Muhammad's time? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

You seem to be confusing pedophilia with child marriage here. Pedophilia is a psychiatric condition where someone is primarily or exclusively sexually attracted to prepubescent children. There is no indication Muhammad was a pedophile in the modern medical sense. In addition to Aisha, Muhammad married several other women. All of those women were older than Aisha, and some were well into middle age when Muhammed married them. His first wife Khadijah was 40 years old when he married her. Khadijah is notable not only because she was his fist wife, but also because he stayed married to only to her while they were married, and is considered to be his most beloved wife. A pedophile would lose sexual interest in a child once they start puberty and start to mature, yet there is no indication that Muhammad's interest in Aisha dissipated as she matured. In fact she stayed his favorite wife until his death.

Islamic sources also differ on Aisha's exact age. The most widely cited ages come from hadith, but some biographers of the Prophet sometimes put the age of marriage and consummation forward by a couple years. 7th century Arabs didn't really keep strict track of people's ages like we do now. The onset of puberty was considered the passage into adulthood. In Islam, a Muslim is supposed to start praying five times a day, fasting for Ramadan, etc. once they reach puberty. Aisha's age was recorded in hadith not because Aisha's age was notable in and of itself, but because it was important for Muslim politics after Muhammad's death. Since many of Muhammad's wives had been previously married and had children, confusion arose as to which children were actually Muhammad's, and who were children from his wives previous marriages. As I said earlier, Aisha was Muhammad's only “young” wife, and his only wife that was a virgin when they married.

Child marriage has been very common throughout history, with many cultures practicing it. The concept of "child marriage" is relatively recent, only coming about in the last century or so. In general, age of marriage was historically defined as being around puberty, usually after a girl's menarche. It certainly wouldn't have been seen as odd amongst Muslims or Arabs at the time, especially since Muhammad was a man of prominence and Aisha's father was a political ally of Muhammad. Islam actually restricted the marriageable age of people to puberty because Pagan Arabs would sometimes marry girls well before they were even 9 years old. Cultures that practiced child marriage would also sometimes differentiate between when a marriage was performed and when a marriage was to be consummated, as we can see here, with the marriage happening earlier and the consummation happening later.