{"id":173,"date":"2008-12-29T12:39:47","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T12:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/child-brides-in-saudi-arabia.html"},"modified":"2008-12-29T12:39:47","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T12:39:47","slug":"child-brides-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/child-brides-in-saudi-arabia.html","title":{"rendered":"Child Brides in Saudi Arabia?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Usually, nothing coming out of Saudi Arabia surprises me. Yet, this story shocked me to the core. According to a report by CNN<\/a><\/font>, a Saudi judge recently refused to annul the marriage of an “eight-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.” The annulment petition was brought by the girl’s mother, and the judge dismissed it because, she “is not the legal guardian of the girl,” according to the mother’s lawyer Abdullah al-Jutaili.<\/font><\/p>\n

The girl’s father arranged the marriage in order to settle his debts with the man. Bu–let us all breathe a sigh of relief here–the judge asked for a pledge from the husband that he would not consummate the marriage until after she reached puberty. After she reaches puberty, the judge ruled, the girl will have the right to request a divorce. But until then, it seems, she
is property of a man almost six times her age.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nAs a father of an eight-year-old daughter, this story boggles the mind and shocks the conscience. There are many things that are not clear from the article: One of these is the question of whether the father was compelled to “sell” his daughter because of his debt. If so, this is perhaps the most heinous forms of “riba,” or usury, I have ever seen. The 47-year old man should have followed the Qu’ranic injunction of being kind to debtors when they can’t pay off their debts.<\/p>\n

When I read stories like these, it makes me wonder whether female infanticide will once again rear its ugly head. Islam came to liberate us from the ugliness of human character, but, sadly it seems, old habits die hard.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Usually, nothing coming out of Saudi Arabia surprises me. Yet, this story shocked me to the core. According to a report by CNN, a Saudi judge recently refused to annul the marriage of an “eight-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.” The annulment petition was brought by the girl’s mother, and the judge dismissed it because,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[188,24,27,67,163],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dour-mullah","tag-daughter","tag-islam","tag-muslim","tag-quran","tag-saudi-arabia"],"yoast_head":"\nChild Brides in Saudi Arabia? - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Child Brides in Saudi Arabia? - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Usually, nothing coming out of Saudi Arabia surprises me. Yet, this story shocked me to the core. According to a report by CNN, a Saudi judge recently refused to annul the marriage of an “eight-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.” The annulment petition was brought by the girl’s mother, and the judge dismissed it because,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/child-brides-in-saudi-arabia.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-29T12:39:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hesham A. Hassaballa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@GodFaithPen\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Child Brides in Saudi Arabia? - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Child Brides in Saudi Arabia? - City of Brass","og_description":"Usually, nothing coming out of Saudi Arabia surprises me. Yet, this story shocked me to the core. According to a report by CNN, a Saudi judge recently refused to annul the marriage of an “eight-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man.” The annulment petition was brought by the girl’s mother, and the judge dismissed it because,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2008\/12\/child-brides-in-saudi-arabia.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2008-12-29T12:39:47+00:00","author":"Hesham A. 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Hassaballa","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b40\/b40d6f8e0c3aa244ec260418ea44558fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b40\/b40d6f8e0c3aa244ec260418ea44558fx96.jpg","caption":"Hesham A. Hassaballa"},"description":"Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Chicago doctor and writer. He has written extensively on a freelance basis, being published in newspapers across the country and around the world. He has been a Beliefnet columnist since 2001, and has written for the Religion News Service. He is also a columnist for Patheos. His articles have been distributed worldwide by Agence Global, and he was also a guest blogger for The Chicago Tribune and has blogged on ChicagoNow\" . In addition, Dr. Hassaballa has appeared as a guest on WTTW (Channel 11) in Chicago, CNN, Fox News, BBC, and National Public Radio. Dr. Hassaballa is co-author of The Beliefnet Guide to Islam (Doubleday), and his essay, \u201cWhy I Love the Ten Commandments,\u201d was published in the award-winning book Taking Back Islam (Rodale). His latest book, Noble Brother, is the story of the Prophet Muhammad told entirely in poetry, and it is now published in its second edition. In 2007, his blog \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" was nominated for a Brass Crescent Award for a blog that is \u201cthe most stimulating, insightful, and philosophical, providing the best rebuttals to extremist ideology and making an impact whenever they post.\u201d \"God, Faith, and a Pen\" has also received an award for being one of the \"Top Muslim Blogs for 2010\" by Awarding The Web. In addition to writing, Dr. Hassaballa helped found the Chicago Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and currently serves on their board of directors. He also co-founded the Bayan H. Hassaballa Charitable Foundation and now serves as its Treasurer.","sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/GodFaithPen"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}