Whatever turns out to be the real story of the shootings at the Islamic Center of San Diego, one thing is certain: the leftist media and advocacy groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will invoke it incessantly in order to try to silence those of us who oppose the violence, intolerance, aggression, and supremacism that Islam sanctions and sanctifies.
For years, the left and Islamic groups have used violence against innocent Muslims, real and imagined, to claim that honest discussion of the motivating ideology behind jihad terror was what led to such violence. The left’s false claim that speech it opposes leads inexorably to violence has been weaponized to prevent the truth about the violent and oppressive aspects of Islam from reaching the public. Over the years, the establishment media has internalized the idea that one of its most important jobs is to ensure that no one thinks ill about Islam. This was clear anew in a story about the Taliban’s new law allowing child marriage.
The news item was straightforward. The UK’s GB News reported Friday that “the Taliban have formally recognised child marriage under their Islamic system.” It added that “almost a third of Afghan girls are married before they are 18-years-old.”
This is all based strictly upon the Qur’an and Islamic tradition, which records that Muhammad, whose example is to be followed in all things, consummated his marriage with (i.e., raped) his child bride Aisha when she was nine: “The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).
As a result, child marriage and the sexualization of children are taken for granted in wide swaths of the Islamic world. In Jan. 2025, the Associated Press reported that Iraq’s parliament “passed three divisive laws Tuesday, including amendments to the country’s personal status law that opponents say would in effect legalize child marriage.” Some “Shiite lawmakers” said this would “align” the personal status law with “Islamic principles.”
Turkey’s directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) said in Jan. 2018 that under Islamic law, girls as young as nine can marry. In Saudi Arabia, Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent Muslim cleric and member of the country’s highest religious council, has said that there is no minimum age for marriage, and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.” Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology agrees, stating flatly: “Islam does not forbid marriage of young children.”
The GB News report on the Taliban, however, mentions none of this. Instead, it gives the impression that the Taliban are simply implementing laws based on their own eccentric, “extremist” interpretation of Islam, and trots out an Islamic spokesperson to prove it. Fahima Mahomed, who is identified only as a “political commentator,” is quoted as saying: “As a Muslim, I would also strongly reject the idea that this reflects Islam as a whole. The Qur’an itself speaks against compulsion and mistreatment of women, so the Taliban’s position should not be presented as ‘Islamic law’ in a broad sense. It is their political and extremist interpretation, enforced through power and fear.”
Related: A Cautionary Tale That No One Will Heed
That’s terrific, but it’s also highly misleading, particular in this age when debate over Sharia rages so heatedly on both sides of the Atlantic. The Taliban are popular among Afghans precisely because they implement Islamic law, including even the aspects of it that Westerners find unpalatable. GB News has left its readers with a decidedly false impression by ignoring all the Islamic spokesman who say that child marriage is just fine, and core Islamic sources that back this up, and quoting instead one lone “political commentator” who assumes the role of pope of Islam and pronounces child marriage un-Islamic. Fahima Mahomed even invokes the Qur’an against “compulsion and mistreatment of women,” although she doesn’t mention that the Qur’an counsels the beating of women “from whom you fear disobedience” (4:34).
Like all establishment media outlets, GB News feels compelled to ensure that none of its readers go away from any story that may reflect poorly on Islam with the idea that there is any problem with the Religion of Peace. Mahomed also ignores the fact that there is abundant justification for child marriage in Islamic law, as it is in accord with Muhammad’s example. As The Tragedy of Islam: Failure and Excuses shows, there is also apparently a never-ending supply of non-Muslims in the West who make excuses for the crimes done in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings.
Those who wave away attempts to call attention to the threat of Sharia as “bigotry” and “racism” never seem to care about its victims, such as the untold numbers of young girls who have been victimized by having to become brides. With its report on the Taliban’s new law, GB News did its part to ensure that Westerners would remain ignorant and complacent about this issue, and that there would therefore be many more young victims.
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy PJ Media's conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member