Historical analysis of Mullah Nasreddin's discourse and approach to the matter of Child Marriage

 
In the last decades, child marriage as an issue in Muslim societies has received phenomenal attention among scholars and critics. A historical attitude reveals that, due to the Western modernity's impacts, there have been many transformations in the Muslim nations, especially regarding genders and gender roles. One of the fruits of such alterations is the gradual eradication of wrong norms such as forced marriage, which can be seen in many discourses among social and cultural activists and critics. The present research examines Mullah Nasreddin's perspectives. As a result, with a descriptive-analytic method, this study depicts a historical portrait of the problem of child marriage that portrays a form of violence against children. According to Mullah Nasreddin, the social, cultural, and religious traditions and economic matters promoted such a wrong phenomenon that results in the deprivation of human rights, education, violence, and familial structure decline. As the study reveals, Mullah Nasreddin periodical condemns marriages of girls at an early age. It legitimizes the :union:s, which were merely on mutual consent and appropriate age (19-20 years or older). Therefore, it had a significant impact on the feminist movements of the Middle East and the transformation of views on child marriage.