Turks up in arms over religious green light for 9-year-old brides
- Lorraine Anne Spataro
- Jan 11, 2018
- 1 min read
January 11, 2018
Religious Affairs Directorate (DIB) — the country's highest Islamic authority — triggered uproar earlier this month by endorsing the view that girls can marry at age 9 and boys at age 12.
The controversy erupted after media scrutiny of a Glossary of Religious Terms, which the DIB ran on its website. For “puberty,” the glossary offered the following explanation:
“Experts of Islamic law have determined the threshold for puberty age as 12 for boys and 9 for girls. Having reached that age, boys enter the stage of progeneration … and girls reach fecundity age, [that is] they become pubescent. … Puberty is the period in which individuals become accountable religiously and obtain the status of adults. Able-minded individuals who reach that stage obtain full conduct capacity. As such, they become answerable to religious precepts such as worship, halal and haram, and [are] liable to punitive, financial and legal obligations.”
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