...there is nothing in the Quran that says that permissible age of marriage or sex with kids increases as time goes on.

There is also nothing in the Qur’an about the Prophet’s sex life. What you have presented has come from other sources making it unclear as to whether it is true or not. However, Islamophobes often will use it, conveniently, to try to degrade Islam.

btw…what was the age of menarche 1500 years ago?

Krista:

Ditto! :D

So I guess my feeling, as a non-Muslim, is that it’s just short-sighted to assume what a woman is thinking or dealing with based on her choice to wear or not wear a veil. People are complex. It’s possible for a person to be unable to break with a patriarchal tradition in some areas of their life, but to think quite critically and freely in others, and the former does not automatically invalidate the latter.

What do you mean by that?

Of course, we know not to modify the Qur’an. However, given that it was revealed at a specific time and place, we do have to understand it in relation to the context in which specific verses were revealed. This doesn’t mean that we can take out verses because they’re no longer relevant, but it does mean that we can ask questions about whether the verse is to be understood literally, word-for-word, and applied indiscriminately across the board, or whether we should instead be looking into it for other meanings. Faith’s description of business transactions is a good example.

We also have to read things in light of the Qur’an’s message as a whole. Those of us reading it as Muslims are reading it with the belief that the message is unified and that the Qur’an does not contradict itself. The Qur’an says in several cases that women deserve to be respected, that oppression is wrong, that women and men are equal, and that the only way anyone can be better than another is through their piety, not because of their sex, race, class, etc. Given this overarching context, if we see something that seems to contradict this and to permit (or even advocate) actions that are oppressive to women, then we have to seriously question our interpretations, and try to figure out what the real message is supposed to be.

There’s a good article explaining some of this stuff (way better than I could) at http://www.soundvision.com/Info/gender/.

So things like 2 women’s testimony equals 1 man’s, the children belong to the father, a woman’s voice is not to be heard in song, and women are not to dance for anyone but their hubbies are a matter of interpretation?

This traditionally was applied to business transactions (for instance, a case involving a shoddy business transaction) because during the time the Qur’an was revealed, women were overwhelming in the private sphere and most were assumed to have little knowledge about business. Muhammad Asad, a famous translator of the Qur’an, takes this view in the commentary on the Qur’anic verse that stipulates two female witnesses (2:282). Here is his note on that translation: ” The stipulation that two women may be substituted for one male witness does not imply any reflection on woman’s moral or intellectual capabilities: it is obviously due to the fact that, as a rule. women are less familiar with business procedures than men and, therefore, more liable to commit mistakes in this respect (see `Abduh in Manar 111, 124 f.).” In fact, if you read the verse, you see that it is only referring to business transactions. The two witness rule never applied in, say, a rape case. Scholars are conflicted to whether the two witness rule still applies since women have much more presence in the public sphere and since a lot of women deal with business transactions on a daily basis. Some scholars do not think that this rule still applies for the reason just mentioned. So it’s not a black and white issue.