Egyptians might be obliged to say a big loud 'NO' to the draft constitution, which seems to be cooked up to serve the vision of extremist Islamists (who form the majority of the Constituent Assembly members) pertaining to Islam. Since the start of debating different articles of the new constitution, shocking suggestions have been made by the Islamist members of the Constituent Assembly to impose their vision on the Egyptian society. These not only concern the enforcement of rules of the Islamic Shari'a (religious law) but also in rejecting whatever rules are not included in the Holy Book or the Sunna (Prophet Mohammed's sayings and deeds). One of these shocking suggestions is to cancel the minimum marriage age of 18. Instead, they seek allowing marriage for girls once they reach the age of puberty. Their grounds are: first, the non-existence of a religious ruling defining a specific age for girls to be married and for the example of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) being married to a young girl, A'isha, while she was still nine years old, as many history books have indicated. Those Islamists, mainly the Salafists, seek full denial of any legislation to organise the life of Egyptians on a modern base with the excuse that they are fighting the invasion of Western culture into Muslim societies. That is why they reject having the word democracy in the constitution, when referring to the ruling system, and seek replacing it with the word Shura, that is consultation rather than rotation of rule, as being mentioned in the Qur'an. Those Salafists, who seek to be firmly restricted to all practices carried out by the early Muslims, ignore the fact that after expansion of Islam to some other countries outside the Arab Peninsula, more fatwas (religious edicts) were added to the Islamic law (Shari'a) by the noted religious men. These were issued to organise the life of the Muslims in such a way as to cope with the changing conditions in the new societies. Some of these societies such as those in Iraq, Syria or Egypt were influenced by the Persian and Roman culture governing these countries before Islam reached them. At the time the Muslim rulers had not erased all the legislation and cultures of these countries. Instead, they enforced rules of the Islamic Shari'a in compliance with the culture of these nations that entered Islam, for which reason one can find a cultural variety among Muslim countries. However, the Salafists insist on the Egyptians adopting the Saudi Bedouin culture with the claim of being the sole truthful version of Islam. By doing this they are ignoring many important facts, including the case in hand. First, that there is no specific article in the Islamic Shari'a specifying the marriage age for young women or men means leaving it to the people or, more precisely, the then legislators and rulers to decide according to the conditions of place and time in which the Muslims are living. In addition, the Islamic Shari'a allows the ruler the right to issue legislation or suspend some, even if included in the Holy Qur'an, if he felt the need to do so for the welfare of his subjects. And this is what happened during rule of the second Caliph Omar ben Al-Khattab when he suspended the penalty of cutting off the hand of a thief in the year of starvation. Today, in Egypt a major problem lies in the early marriage of young girls in rural and poor areas. Parents try to either get rid of the financial burden of raising their daughters or to gain some money from a rich bridegroom, who is sometimes an elderly rich Gulf Arab. To prevent the many troubles caused by such early marriage of young girls, the legislators issued a law defining the marriage age for girls as 18, so as to prevent the many social and health problems young women and infants suffer because of early marriage, including giving birth prematurely. However, there are still violations to this law and innumerable manoeuvres to marry off young girls in violation of this law. Instead of enhancing public awareness of the seriousness of this problem and finding ways to encourage poor families to educate their daughters, the Salafists seek to legalise marriage of young girls as long as they reached the menstrual age. They employ the pretext of protecting the girl's honour and that of her family. Actually this narrow vision of women reminds one of the way the infidels treated their girls before Islam in Mecca, when some buried their female infants alive to get rid of them instead of suffering possible shame if their females were enslaved by any tribe that might invade their homes. Today, they seek to get rid of the girls by marriage, at a time when Islam praises the fathers who devote their life to cherishing and well raising their daughters. Is it not enough that Prophet Mohammed has a hadith (saying and tradition) promising the father of two or three daughters that if he worked well at bringing up and educating them he would be rewarded by heaven?! Do they not ever read how Prophet Mohammed continued turning down requests of many of his close friends and companions, who asked for the hand in marriage of his daughter Fatema, until his cousin Ali ben Abu Taleb, one of the poorest companions of the Prophet, proposed. Although Fatema was much older than her peers at the time, the Prophet (PBUH) by agreeing was selecting the right person for his beloved daughter. Hopefully, the Salafists and other Islamists that insist on blindly enforcing the Bedouin version of Islam on Egypt via its new constitution will be resisted by all those Egyptians who seek to create a civil democratic state of Egypt after their great Revolution of January 25, 2011.
