From the beginning of history and the establishment of laws and regulations, marriage has always been the union of a man and a woman. This union has always been based on love and affection and it was established so that a man and a woman can be joined in matrimony in order to have children and raise healthy families. Only in Islam this union is between one man and multiple women.

Koran 4:3 states "And if you fear that you cannot act equitably towards orphans, then marry such women as seem good to you, two, three and four; but if you fear that you will not do justice (between them), then (marry) only one or what your right hands possess; this is more proper, that you may not deviate from the right course."

This verse says that if one cannot be equitable toward orphans then one should marry as many as four of them. However, if one feels that he cannot be equitable then he must only marry one or what one's right hand possesses. The clause "what your right hand possesses," in Koran means "your slaves", or the women you have captured in wars.

In addition it is not clear in this verse whether Allah is telling Mohammed to be equitable toward the orphans or is it Mohammed who is telling the believers. If it is Allah who is speaking to Mohammed then it means that the prophet was not able to be equitable towards the orphans and since there were many of them, Allah told him to marry as many as he wanted. This could be in line with what many Muslims claim that Allah only told the prophet to marry more than one woman in order to take care of the orphans and the needy.

However, many of the prophets wives were neither orphans or needy. Aiesha was the only child of Abu Baker and many Muslims claim that this marriage was made in heaven between a 54 years old man and a six years old child in order to use Abu Baker's wealth in promoting Islam. But Abu Baker is the number one man who became Muslim many years before his daughter was even born. He also became the first Khalifa (caliph) after the prophet. Therefore, there was no need for the prophet to marry this child. In addition Zeynab was married to Zeid who was asked by his father, the prophet, to divorce Zeynab so he could marry her.

Hafzeh, the Prophets fourth wife, even though a widow was the daughter of Omar, who was by all means a wealthy man. There was no financial need for her to marry the Prophet.

But what about the orphan boys? The verse just says be equitable to orphans and if you cannot be equitable to them then marry them. We cannot accept that all the orphans at that time were female. There must have been male orphans around. And surely Allah did not believe in homosexuality and bisexuality. So what happens to the male orphans? There are no explanations.

Now we know that the prophet married more than one woman. And let's assume that he was equitable toward them. If he was equitable to them, why did the women complain? What was the reason behind the revelation Al Tahrim 5, or 36:5?

Why did Allah state that "May be his Lord, if he divorces you, will give him in your place wives better than you, submissive, faithful, obedient, penitent, adorers, fasters, widows and virgin."

The only reason for this revelation is that the prophet could not be equitable to all his wives. In addition why would Allah refer to himself as "his lord?" Was Allah only the Lord of the prophet Mohammed or was he the lord of all the Muslims? Why would Allah refer to himself in third person? And why the word "May be?" If Allah is a powerful being, why would he use the phrase "May be?" Isn't He sure of himself? I believe this is Mohammed talking and has nothing to do with his god or Allah. First of all, God or Allah did not need a middle man to put these women (prophet's wives) in their place. If it was Allah saying all
these, he would have stated the revelation in this manner:

"O You wives of my Messenger, Listen to me carefully. If you do not stop harassing my messenger I will tell him to divorce you all and marry…"

So this revelation is not from Allah. This is Mohammed speaking. He is just unable to handle his wives complaints and then he comes up with such a statement.

The last part of the Koran 4:3 states that "this is more proper, that you may not deviate from the right course." It is not clear what is the proper or the right course. Is the right course marrying one woman or marrying the ones captured in wars, or marrying, two, three, or four women?

This is left for the reader to decide. Why would Allah the knowledgeable, benevolent and merciful leave this up to his subjects to decide? The reason is because it is not Allah but Mohammed who is talking. Therefore we can conclude that Koran is a book written by man and not a super natural.

Now lets think about the purpose of the institution of marriage in Islam as stated above. In Islam, marriage is not considered a union of love, affection, respect, support and sharing between a man and a woman. In addition love, respect, affection, support and sharing can only happen between men and women of comparable age, and not between a child and a grown man. The marriage of a grown man to a child can only be contributed to a mental disorder of the man. Such a marriage can be regarded as a relation of master and slave. Other Muslims claim that their prophet married so many women to spread Islam and that is why men can marry up to four wives at any given time. But none of Mohammed's wives ever bore him any children, except his first wife Khadijeh and Marieh the slave girl given to him by king of Egypt. They each gave birth to a male child and both of them died in infancy. He had four daughters with his first wife. The reason that Marieh got pregnant was because he spent an entire month with her alone. This could have resulted in sufficient supply of sperm to make a child. He married so many women and was not able to leave behind a single male heir to his throne. What a pity!

Many Muslims believe that with one man being able to marry multitude of women, Islam can spread around the globe like wild flowers. Since marriage in Islam is only for procreation and the younger the woman the healthier the child.

How can love of one man be divided equitably between so many women? Even the prophet himself was unable to do so. He cherished and worshipped his youngest wife Aiesha (his six-year old bride) more than the others. The institution of marriage of one man and multiple women is what was described by Ayatollah Ghomi, "A rooster satisfies several hens, an stallion several mares. A woman is unavailable during certain periods where as a man is always active....", LE MONDE, January 20, 1979. Therefore in Islam a man is nothing more than an animal slaved to his sexual needs. His function is to impregnate a multitude of women in order to expand the faith of Islam. No wonder Islam is so proud of men such as Mullah Omar, Khomeini, Usama Bin Laden and so on.

I have come to the conclusion that the institution of marriage in Islam is nothing but a whorehouse for the man and a jailhouse for the woman.

Parvin Darabi