@Nyarl

You said: “If you look closely, you'll realize that Royism is suggesting using the moral principles in the Quran to interpret the moral principles in the Quran. That is a new one for me: recursive morality!

Let’s say the quran says, “The blood of your brother is sacred.” One imam says, brother means only ‘Muslims’ and hence one should not kill Muslims alone. And another Imam says, brother means brother in humanity, meaning all humans. This is an interpretive issue. So, then what do you do. You analyze other verses of the quran that sheds more light on this maxim. And then you find the verse, “Saving one life is as though you have saved the whole of humanity.” That makes it clear that human life in general is considered sacred, and it doesn’t refer only to Muslims.

That’s one answer. However, Cyber’s initial question was about the application of a rule in a given context. And since we are on the topic of ‘age of consent’, I gathered that the premise of her question was about how a ruling that allowed the marriage of a young girl, become null in our times (as I was arguing in this thread).

And that’s when I said, it’s based on aligning the context to the principles of the scripture. For example, here is a ruling that ‘allows’ marriage of young girls, but DOES NOT stipulate a fixed age. So, firstly, it’s clear that it’s not necessary that one must get girls married young.

And then when you look at the other principles we find things like ‘Seeking knowledge is a fundamental duty of every Muslim male and Muslim female.”

When you compare the ruling (permitting early marriage but not insisting) and the principle (knowledge), and apply it to our current situation, it becomes clear that early marriage jeopardizes education, and therefore not advisable.

NOTE: this is not comprehensive. There is more to it. But for now, I think this would suffice.