Abu Suhayl Anwar Wright (hafidhahullah Ta'ala) recently delivered the following lecture at Masjid Ad Da'wah Ilat Tawheed, based upon a book that he (hafidhahullah Ta'ala) recently wrote:
"The marriage of legal children, in fact, has been relatively common throughout U.S. history. The U.S. Census Bureau did not link age with marital status till 1880, which makes national figures unavailable before that time. But in that year, 11.7 percent of fifteen-to-nineteen-year-old girls were wives
"Before the eighteenth century, children as young as eight or nine married in America, and children in their teenage years have been marrying in the United States since then..." [American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States.]
In America, to the present day, minors can and do legally marry at the minimum age of consent, and sometimes below that. But this book is not to advocate for nor encourage child marriage; its goal is to demonstrate that throughout history, older men taking younger brides was not at all strange in the United States, "native" whites not excluded.
It touches on some of the parallels between these marriages and the marriage of Prophet Muhammad to his young wife 'A'isha, and then repel the lies and misconceptions directed at the Prophet of Islam because of it. These facts will allow the just, intelligent person to accept what is undeniable in history, while they will only increase the stubborn one in their stubbornness, hate, and misery.
The audio has been digitally edited, before being posted below, walhamdulillah.
Abu Hurairah (رضي الله عنه) narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said: "Whoever invites to guidance will be rewarded like those who follow him in the guidance are rewarded, and that will not decrease the reward of those who have followed him." [Collected by Imām Muslim]
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