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Wikipedia: Aisha bint Abu Bakr (d. 678) was the second wife of Muhammad. She is quoted as source for many hadith, sacred traditions about the prophet Muhammad’s life, with Muhammad’s personal life being the topic of most narrations. She has narrated 2210 Hadiths out of which 316 hadiths are mentioned in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad. She stayed in her parents’ home until the age of nine, when the marriage was consummated.

Bukhari (6:298): The Prophet and I [Aisha] used to take a bath from a single pot while we were Junub. During the menses, he used to order me to put on an Izar (dress worn below the waist) and used to fondle me.

Ayatollah Khomeini: “A man can marry a girl younger than nine years of age, even if the girl is still a baby being breastfed. A man, however is prohibited from having intercourse with a girl younger than nine, other sexual act such as forplay, rubbing, kissing and sodomy is allowed. A man having intercourse with a girl younger than nine years of age has not comitted a crime, but only an infraction, if the girl is not permanently damaged. If the girl, however, is permanently damaged, the man must provide for her all her life.”

David Barrett, Nine-year-old Midlands girl rescued from forced marriage: British children as young as nine are being forced into marriage by their families, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. The disclosure comes as official figures show that nearly 60 children aged 15 or under have been rescued by the Government’s Forced Marriage Unit in the past four years. [...] A charity which runs a national helpline on forced marriage and “honour”-based crimes, Karma Nirvana, revealed that in one incident a nine-year-old girl from a Pakistani family in the east Midlands was taken into council care after her parents told her she was to wed. [Note: is there any question about the superstition of choice among Pakistani families? Are any of my readers going to suggest they are Buddhists, or Quakers, or Asatru Folk Assembly? - Trevor Blake]

Wikipedia: The Jewel of Medina is a historical novel by Sherry Jones. It was scheduled for publication by Random House in 2008, but subsequently canceled; it was subsequently announced that it would be published by Beaufort Books in the United States and by Gibson Square in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. The novel tells a fictionalized version of the life of Aisha, one of the wives of the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad, and the person who reportedly accompanied him as he received most of his revelations. The novel tells Aisha’s story from the age of six, when she was betrothed to Muhammad, to his death.

Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend, Firebomb attack on book publisher: The London home of the publisher of a controversial new novel that gives a fictionalised account of the Prophet Muhammad’s relationship with his child bride, Aisha, was firebombed yesterday [27 September 2008], hours after police had warned the man that he could be a target for fanatics. A petrol bomb is believed to have been thrown through the door of Martin Rynja’s 2.5m UKP town house in Islington’s Lonsdale Square, which also doubles as the headquarters of his publishing company, Gibson Square. Three men have been arrested on terrorism charges. The Observer has learned that police told Rynja late on Friday night to leave his property. His company recently made headlines when it announced it was to publish The Jewel of Medina.

[Articles continue at link. I wonder what will be happening next. Will there be peaceful protests by Muslims to make a stand against bombing the homes of book publishers? Or will there be rioting and murders by Muslims to make a stand against publishing books? I wonder, but I don't wonder for very long. A visit to The Religion of Peace might make your time of wondering brief as well. Then, like me, you'll wonder what it is that you should do. The choice is being made between accommodating infant rapists, bombers and censors on the one hand and saying LAN ASTASLEM on the other. I keep myself informed about Islam and speak out against it. What do you do? - Trevor Blake]