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Turkey: “Banning Early Marriages is
Fighting Against Allah”
BY UZAY BULUTJihad Watch
A Muslim group in Turkey has set up a platform called “Turkey’s Platform of Family Assembly for Young Marriages” to defend child marriages and expressed their opposition to women’s rights advocates and international conventions, accusing them of “increasing prostitution and violence.”
In a written statement, the President of the Platform, Adem Çevik, said that “to prohibit early marriages is to fight against Allah” and added: “One who is smart does not fight against sunnetullah [Allah’s order].”
Referring to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet Mohammed, whom Turks call “the Conqueror” and who invaded Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, Çevik said:
“The Conqueror Sultan Mehmet, one of the founders of our country, is always shown as an example and we have been raised with statements such as ‘My daughter, you are old enough to give birth to a Conqueror’ or “My son, you are the same age when the Sultan Conqueror ascended the throne.'”
He continued: “When our grandfathers were at around the age of 14, they protected our homeland, sacrificing their lives and got martyred in order to protect their families during the occupation of our country, during the [1915-16] war in Dardanelles, in the war of liberation and during the occupation of our country on July 15 [2016 coup attempt]. Our state has the Ministry of Youth, and our nation has a youth festival [on May 19], but there is no concept of youth in our laws. Those under the age of 18 are seen as ‘children’. Isn’t it an eclipse of conscience to expect responsibility for our families and for our state from our young people to whom we do not give responsibility by marrying them off young?”
Çevik went on to say that “young marriages were banned in 2002 by violating the laws of Allah.” He continued:
“The punishment of [early marriages] and the treatment of young fathers as ‘rapists’ as of June 28, 2014 is just an eclipse of reason. To punish young marriages is to fight against fitra [an Islamic concept which means the original state in which humans are created by Allah] and against Allah. One who is smart does not fight against Sunnatullah [Allah’s order]. Those who prohibit young marriages by launching a war against fitra threaten our national security and future by serving the immoral and sexless community projects with no families supported by global evil forces. They also contribute to an increase of sexual perverts. Our president [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] complains of late marriage, but does not encourage young marriage; instead, he punishes them.”
Çevik targeted women’s rights advocates struggling for gender equality.
“The operation under the guise of gender equality is an operation to turn [our nation] into homosexuals. The fight launched under the mask of protecting children from abuse, and women from violence and discrimination increases prostitution and violence.”
Cevik also opposed international women’s and children’s rights conventions such as the Council of Europe Convention on Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, also known as “the Lanzarote Convention”, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, monitored by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention. He claimed that such conventions “promote prostitution”:
“Slandering those who marry young and those who set up a family at the age of 14 is the biggest persecution against our children and young mothers and fathers by the state,” he said.
“While young marriage is prohibited with the Istanbul Convention, CEDAW and the Lanzarote Convention and so on, prostitution is encouraged. Honorable people should be just as brave as the dishonorable. These actions constitute the heaviest violence against our women and children.”
Professor Muttalip Kutluk Özgüven of Istanbul Aydın University made a similar statement in defense of child pregnancies in May. Özgüven argued in a television program that girls between the ages of 12 and 17 “have excellent bodies” and “are in the ideal time to give birth.”
Scientists and sane human rights advocates, however, are in full agreement that child marriage has devastating consequences on girls’ health, and those who are victims of child marriage are deprived of their fundamental rights to health, education and safety. According to the organization “Girls, Not Brides”:
Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age. Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18. That is 23 girls every minute. Nearly 1 every 3 seconds.
Child brides are neither physically nor emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. They face more risks of experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, contracting HIV/AIDS and suffering domestic violence. With little access to education and economic opportunities, they and their families are more likely to live in poverty.
According to the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
The legal age of marriage in Turkey is 18 and children can marry at the age of 17 with the consent of their parents or legal guardians. Children at the age of 16 can also marry, with special permission from the courts ‘under exceptional circumstances and on vital grounds.’
Despite the rising average age of marriage, child marriage remains an on-going challenge in Turkey and reflects a pattern of gender inequality that reinforces stereotypical roles for girls and curtails their education, compromises their health, and exposes them to the risk of violence and poverty.
Ankara, Turkey
Child marriage and child pregnancies are still major problems across Turkey. According to the 2018 data by Turkey’s Statistics Institute (TUIK), 167 children below the age of 15 gave birth and 11,636 children in the 15-17 age group became mothers.
Then why does the newly established “Family Platform” in Turkey so passionately advocate for child marriages and see its prohibition as “a war against Allah”?
Islamic tradition records that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, married Aisha when she was six and consummated his marriage with her when she was nine. At the time of the “consummation,” he was 54 years old.
Similarly, Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, married Umm Kulthum bint Ali, granddaughter of Muhammad and the daughter of Caliph Ali, when she was between 10 and 12 years old and he was around 47.
Islamic scriptures also clearly advocate the practice, which has become a long-lasting tradition in many Muslim communities.
As the “Girls, Not Brides” organization states, “child brides can be found in every region in the world, from the Middle East to Latin America, South Asia to Europe.” However, trying to put an end to child marriages is doubly difficult in Muslim communities, because Islamic theology and law openly encourage the practice.
That’s why a political system or culture shaped by Islamic theology systematically makes children and women suffer by sanctioning child marriages, abuse and violence. Those in the West who are so clueless as to call critics of Islam “Islamophobes” would thus be well-advised to try thinking about what kind of a culture Islamic sharia law universally creates for young girls and women.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara.
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