As per the Bureau report, The Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Shiekh, the most powerful and senior cleric of Saudi Arabia said, the marriage of 10 year old girls is justified by the Islamic Sharia Law. He said this in a speech last Monday reported by the local media.

He was reacting to the news in the media against the marriage of the minors, but he said Islamic Sharia is not against the women and is not unjust for them. The law allows pre-teen marriages and the critics who are protesting against it are doing an injustice to the girls.

He justified the law saying that it was said that it was not wrong to get girls married below the age of 15, even the girls of 10 or 12 years can be married, they are not too young. He was speaking in view of the outcry made by media upon some well publicised marriages of young girls married to men old enough to be their great grand fathers.

On Monday, a courageous mother who had petitioned against the marriage of her 11 year old daughter to a 75 year old man, managed to get her daughter divorced by a court in Taif. Her husband had married her off in exchange for dowry.

But in December a Saudi Court in Unayzah 220km north of Riyadh had refused to grant divorce to a 8 year old girl married to a 58 year old man in exchange of dowry saying the case should wait till the girl reaches puberty.

Human rights groups are fighting against this tradition of marrying girls at such a young age to old men and fighting to establish a certain minimum legal age for women to be married.