Aisha's revenge

“Aisha” is becoming the go-to pseudonym for concealing the identity of a vulnerable Muslim woman alleging rape by a powerful, manipulative Muslim man.

Ikram Hawramani, in his review of Tariq Ramadan’s 2007 In the Footsteps of the Prophet, says:

Sufficient evidence is not presented to show why the relationship between Aisha and the Prophet was special and exemplary, a claim that the book makes in multiple places. The issue of Aisha’s age is not addressed.

The subtitle of Ramadan’s book is Lessons from the Life of Muhammad, and therein lies the answer to why “The issue of Aisha’s age is not addressed”. Muhammad is acknowledged as the Law-giver, and according to the law that the Law-giver gave, any who slanders, insults or belittles him, Muslim or kafir, shall be put to death. According to Al Hanbali’s summary of Ibn Taymiyyah’s, The Unsheathed Sword:

Whoever insults the Prophet it is to be killed, whether they are Muslim or a disbeliever. It is not permissible to imprison or show favour to him or to ransom him, and repentance is not sought from him.

According to Abu Salih Eesa Gibbs’s “Translator’s Introduction” to The Unsheathed Sword:

The purpose of this book is not to elucidate the excellence and unparalleled status of the Prophet, nor to refute the distortions and fabrications of the enemies of Islam concerning him.

To this he then immediately adds the following 500+ word footnote:

Consider, though, how there are even non-Muslim scholars who have spoken very highly of him. For example: LaMartine said in 1854: “If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad? The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislations, empires, peoples and dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then inhabitants of the world; and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and souls... the forbearance in victory, his ambition, which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death; all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold, the unit of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with words. Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?” Lamartine, Histoire de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol II, pp. 276-77.

Reverend Bosworth Smith said in 1874: “He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope's pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar: without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue; if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammed, for he had al the power without its instruments and without its supports,” Mohammed and Mohammadanism, London 1874, pg92.

George Bernard Shaw said: “I believe that if a man like him were to assume dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving the problems in a way that would bring the much needed peace and happiness. Europe is beginning to be enamoured of the creed of Muhammad. In the next century, it may go further in recognising the utility of that creed in solving its problems,” (A Collection of Writings of Some of the Eminent Scholars, 1935).

Montgomery Watt said in 1953: “His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement – all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad", Mohammad at Mecca, Oxford, 1953, page 52.

Thus does he, apart from not insulting Muhammad, comply with four other of the Law-giver’s laws: deception, in this case, promising not to do something and then doing it; praising Muhammad; deferring to authority; and never questioning. We’re off to a good, Muslim start.

So, why would Tariq Ramadan exhort his readers to follow “in the footsteps of Muhammad,” yet sidestep that which the hadith proclaim with such pride, the age of his bride, Aisha? For centuries, it has been an affirmation of robust masculinity to Muslims everywhere that their prophet, the example to be emulated by all, had married a six-year-old girl (still “playing with dolls”) and had sex with her when she was nine. And to prove that this was not simply an idle boast, they have several authentic hadiths to prove it, some of which narrated by Aisha herself. This one is as solid as it gets and good for all time.

Except that Muslims, complying with another of the Law-giver’s laws, jihad, continually assailed Western civilisation, even after that civilisation had evolved enlightened mores. Despite their scholars’ best efforts, these mores would find their way into the hearts of increasing numbers of Muslims, especially amongst those who had invaded the West under the guise of immigration or seeking refuge, and more recently, those in Islamic lands who have access to the Internet. Even if they did not embrace these mores, it was enough that they did not reject them with contempt, as they ought to. Even Tariq Ramadan himself could only call for a moratorium on stoning women to death, rather than openly defend the practise. Sex with a child, perfectly legal under Shari’a, similarly, has evolved from something proudly proclaimed, to something Muslims in the West, such as Tariq Ramadan, prefer not to speak about. To mention it is to risk slandering their prophet and every Muslim having sex with children.

Yet, this did not stop Ramadan, grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan el-Banna, from emulating the special excellent example of Muhammad. He abused his position to rape Henda Ayari and several other women in his thrall. His sexual predation on the patterns of Muhammad is far from unique, breaking from time to time as scandals involving powerful Muslim men manipulating, threatening and raping vulnerable Muslim women.

It was none other than Tariq Ramadan himself who in 2021 complained on French television, “We must accept that in France today, names such as Aisha, Mohammad and Abbas are French names. Why? Because Islam is a French religion.” Not because Arabs live in France, but because Islam is a French religion. This was an unfortunate argument for the smug, then-Oxford Professor. The names Aisha and Muhammad, Islamic rather than Arabic, together came to be associated in the Western mind with religiously-sanctioned paedophilia and extreme misogyny. It is why Ramadan avoided mentioning the age of Aisha already in his 2007 extolling of the virtues of Muhammad. This prophet also struck his wife, deceived her and forbad her from remarrying after his death, when she was but eighteen, according to the same hitherto impeccable hadith that Muslims are now contorting themselves to prove unreliable.

The Western cultural repertoire, however, is accreting to its famous couples, Abelard and Eloise, Romeo and Juliet and Tristan und Isolde, also Aisha and Muhammad. The first three are about the power of love; the last is about the love of power. Increasingly, Aisha and Muhammad, as a Muslim couple, is becoming the symbol and embodiment of the corruption of love under Islam, and illustrative of the kind of defective Muslim male personality that thrives under Shari’a.

Ramadan’s victim who broke the scandal in France, Henda Ayari, protected her identity behind the pseudonym “Nathalie,” and the media respected that. In subsequent high-profile scandals of this kind, that around prominent London da’i, Mohamed Hijab, and in the currently-developing scandal around ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan, the media now protect the identity of the (alleged) victim behind the name Aisha. Mohamed Hijabs “hotel wife”—oh yes, Shari’a finds a way—whom he coerced into sex by taking advantage of his high standing in the da’wah scene and her vulnerability as a Muslim single mother, most of the world still knows only as “Aisha”. The woman in the unfolding Karim Khan scandal, being both new in her dream job at the top of the human rights pyramid and needing to financially support her sick mother, speaks of how her boss, Karim Khan, used his power to coerce her into doing as he wanted. In the media, she goes by the name “Aisha”.

Thus has the fate of Muhammad’s child-bride, whom Muslims love to eulogise as “the mother of the faithful,” come to encapsulate all that is rotten at the heart of their evil religion. Finally, Aisha’s name is becoming a shield for women taking their fight to the powerful Muslim men who use the leeway afforded them by the barbaric Shari’a system to abuse the vulnerable women in thrall to them.

The tragedy is that Muslims will always defend Muhammad and always make excuses for the men who behave as Muhammad did. If they cannot make such excuses, they will deny that Muhammad behaved in that way. If they simply can no longer defend Muhammad, they leave Islam. They are simply no longer evil enough or blind enough to qualify as Muslims. The deeper tragedy within this tragedy is that Muslim women will continue to come to the defence of such men by casting aspersions on the victims for “bringing scandal on the family”, “putting Muslims in a bad light”, “not guarding herself” or for “taking it outside the community”. There is none so isolated and alone as a Muslim woman shunned by Muslims. One cannot be certain that when such women are stoned to death, that they have not resigned themselves to their fate as the better alternative. May Aisha’s name become the shield behind which Muslim women finally escape the horror that is Shari’a.

Picture credit:

Screenshot from Henda Ayari, ex-salafiste française, porte plainte contre Tariq Ramadan pour viol