According to traditional sources, Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad,[94][95][96][97] with the marriage being consummated when she reached the age of nine or ten years old whilst she still played with dolls.[98][b] In the commentary of the Sahih Bukhari it is written that, "Playing with dolls is forbidden in Islam, but it was allowed for Aisha at that time, as she did not yet reach the age of puberty."[106] Beginning in the early twentieth century, Christian polemicists and orientalists attacked what they deemed to be Muhammad's deviant sexuality, for having married an underage[c] girl; acute condemnations came from the likes of Harvey Newcomb and David Samuel Margoliouth while others were mild, choosing to explain how the "heat of tropics" made "girls of Arabia" mature at an early age.[108][114] While most Muslims defended the traditionally accepted age of Aisha with vigor emphasizing on cultural relativism, the political dimensions of the marriage, Aisha's "exceptional qualities" etc., some — Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad in Egypt and others[d] — chose to re-calculate the age and fix it at late adolescence as a tool of social reform in their homelands or even, mere pandering to different audiences.[108][115][e]
In the late-twentieth century and early twenty-first century, opponents of Islam have used Aisha's age to accuse Muhammad of pedophilia, as well as explain a reported higher prevalence of child marriage in Muslim societies.