Muslims' irrational behaviour against Blasphemous writings

Question:
Do you think that Hazrat Ayesha was really all that young at the time of her marriage? In Ayat 6 of Surah Nisa the handing over of assets to the orphans are equated to the age of marriage when a person is supposed to be of sound mind to sign a civil contract.

There will be this book out soon about the child bride of our Prophet written by this American woman. Some people have already burnt down the publishing house in UK albeit the book is not in the market yet. I am dreading the consequences when it will be.
There are two sides to this incident the irrational behaviour of Muslims and the deliberate use of our revered personalities by the Jews and the Christians which instigate negativism especially in these troubled times.

Please give your comments!

Response:
I think I mentioned in one of my answers in the site that Hazrat Ayesha was 18 yrs old at the time of Hijrah. When we claim that she was seven or nine, we are inviting trouble. Don’t expect others to give respect to such information. Unfortunately, we Muslims, generally speaking, don’t have open minds and therefore don’t allow new, convincing research to replace the age-old understandings, no matter how absurd they might be.

We have no control over the non-Muslims. They don’t turn to us for advice. We can only talk to fellow Muslims on issues concerning our faith. And talk we must to them. We should do two things in the wake of such literature: completely ignore the blasphemous part of it and respond in a scholarly manner if there were any allegations that were false, like the age of Hazrat Ayesha in the case of this particular novel.

I say we must ignore the blasphemous part of the literature for two reasons: If we react sharply, as we have done in the past, we do it at the expense of our cause. Non-Muslims make fun of us and, what is even worse, they, and even some Muslims, are inclined to read such books in a far greater number than the quality of such books otherwise deserved. The other reason why I believe we should shun the policy of sharply reacting to such blasphemous material is that such material is so enormous in volume that we can’t react consistently to the whole lot unless we have decided to do nothing else in life.

The novel of Sherry Jones ‘The Jewel of Medina’ would have been soon forgotten had it been left at its own mercy. Alas it’s now destined to become another best seller like ‘Satanic Verses’. Both are second-rate pieces fiction; one has already met with huge success in the market and the other is on its way to repeat the same feat, thanks to the naivety of us Muslims.

May the Almighty guide us all to the right path!

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