Wa alykum salaam wr wb Sister
some examples are given in that article i posted of how even the Sahabah [ra] married girls of similar ages; here they are:
- Abu Tughlub ibn Hamdan married the daughter of `Izz al-Dawla Bakhtyar when she was three and paid a dowry of 100,000 dinars. This took place in Safar 360 H. (Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil). [she was probably 'betrothed' at the age of 3 and sent to live with her husband at a much older age]
- Al-Shafi`i in al-Umm reported that he saw countless examples of nine-year old pubescent girls in Yemen. Al-Bayhaqi also narrates it from him in the Sunan al-Kubra as does al-Dhahabi in the Siyar.
- Al-Bayhaqi narrated with his chains in his Sunan al-Kubra no less than three examples of Muslim wives that gave birth at age nine or ten.
- Hisham ibn `Urwa himself (whom the objector claims to know enough to forward the most barefaced judgments on his reliability) married Fatima bint al-Mundhir when she was nine years old (al-Muntazam and Tarikh Baghdad).
- Our liege-lord `Umar married Umm Kulthum the daughter of `Ali and Fatima at a similar age per `Abd al-Razzaq, Ibn `Abd al-Barr and others.
- And our Mother `Aisha herself was first almost betrothed to Jubayr ibn Mut`im before her father dropped that option when he received word from the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless and greet him and be well-pleased with them.
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there is one even of Umar [ra] there
Ibn kathir mentions in his tafsir of Quranic verse:
Allah said,
[وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلاَّ تُقْسِطُواْ فِى الْيَتَـمَى فَانكِحُواْ مَا طَابَ لَكُمْ مِّنَ النِّسَآءِ مَثْنَى]
(And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan girls, then marry (other) women of your choice, two) Allah commands, when one of you is the caretaker of a female orphan and he fears that he might not give her a dowry that is suitable for women of her status, he should marry other women, who are plenty as Allah has not restricted him. Al-Bukhari recorded that `A'ishah said, "A man was taking care of a female orphan and he married her, although he did not desire to marry her. That girl's money was mixed with his, and he was keeping her portion from her. Afterwards, this Ayah was revealed about his case;
[وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلاَّ تُقْسِطُواْ]
(If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly)'' Al-Bukhari recorded that `Urwah bin Az-Zubayr said that he asked `A'ishah about the meaning of the statement of Allah,
[وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلاَّ تُقْسِطُواْ فِى الْيَتَـمَى]
(If you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan girls.) She said, "O my nephew! This is about the orphan girl who lives with her guardian and shares his property. Her wealth and beauty may tempt him to marry her without giving her an adequate dowry which might have been given by another suitor. So, such guardians were forbidden to marry such orphan girls unless they treated them justly and gave them the most suitable dowry; otherwise they were ordered to marry woman besides them.'' `A'ishah further said, "After that verse, the people again asked the Messenger of Allah (about marriage with orphan girls), so Allah revealed the Ayah,
[وَيَسْتَفْتُونَكَ فِى النِّسَآءِ]
(They ask your instruction concerning the women..) [4:127].'' She said, "Allah's statement in this Ayah,
[وَتَرْغَبُونَ أَن تَنكِحُوهُنَّ]
(yet whom you desire to marry) [4:127] refers to the guardian who does not desire to marry an orphan girl under his supervision because she is neither wealthy nor beautiful. The guardians were forbidden to marry their orphan girls possessing property and beauty without being just to them, as they generally refrain from marrying them (when they are neither beautiful nor wealthy).''
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so we can see Allah talks about marrying orphan GIRLS in the verse
And basically the overwhelming proof that Ayesha [ra] did get 'married' to the Prophet [saw] at the age of 9 will be the hadiths Sister rather than any other examples being needed, for as seen in the previous article, the hadiths confirming it are mutawatir, i.e mass transmitted from Ayesha [ra] and mass transmission is the highest form of proof of authenticity of hadiths, for they are hadiths reported by such a large number of people that it cannot be reasonable expected for all of them to have colluded to lie; the Qurans authenticity is based on mass-transmission.
hence we can be sure without a shred of doubt that Ayesha [ra] put her age at 9 at the time of consummation, and thus we have the word of a saintly woman here and no other proof should be required
This marriage was ordered by Allah Himself; the Prophet [saw] was instructed in a dream to marry Ayesha [ra], hence he did
most of the prophet [saw's] other marriages was in order to look after widows, forge better ties with 'enemies' etc,
One reason why ALlah may have ordered this marriage is because Ayesha [ra] became one of the greatest Scholars ever due to living with the Prophet [saw] and memmorising so many sayings of of him; it is said that all the Scholars of the world of today couldn't equall the knowledge of Ayesha [ra] hence she has been a source of vast amounts of islamic knlowledge for all generations to come, and being so young when the prophet [saw] died, she continued to convey this knowledge for many years after his death
As for such marriages happening now; well they are rare and restricted to only certain rural and remote communites
In Hanafi fiqh i have read that parents have the right to give their pre-pubecent girls in marriage and the girls can back out of the marriage if they want once they reach adulthood; also in Hanafi fiqh the law for age of marriage can be set at 18, thus we can see from this that Islamic jurisprudence is flexible to suit the times and culture
here is a great video on this topic from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf:
Hamza Yusuf - Prophet Muhammad marriage to Aisha‏ - YouTube
