The prophet Mohammed famously married a six- or seven-year-old, Aisha, and consummated the marriage when the girl was nine or ten.

Even Muslim theocracies can’t get away with that kind of child rape anymore, so they’ve made concessions to modernity and raised the marriageable age of girls. In Pakistan, it’s officially 16 — but many of the nation’s top clerics now say that’s an un-Islamic innovation that ought to be reversed.

They want no marriageable age set by law. None.

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) on Tuesday ruled that Pakistani laws prohibiting marriage of underage children are un-Islamic. At the end of its two-day session on Tuesday, the CII said there is no minimum age of marriage according to Islam. Islam does not forbid marriage of young children, the council said. However, the Rukhsati (consummation of marriage) is only allowed in the case that both husband and wife have reached puberty…. The CII is a constitutional recommendatory body that advises parliament in the law-making process, but cannot enact laws on its own.

It’ll be up to the non-fundamentalists in Pakistan’s government to reject the sexual exploitation of young girls demanded by the Muslim clerics.

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