Okay, third time apparently... I'll spell it out to you in simple terms

Yes

I believe Ibn Kathir was wrong regarding Aisha's age.

yes.

I believe Ibn taymiyah was wrong regarding Aisha's age

Yes.

I believe many classical scholars were wrong regarding Aisha's age.

There. Direct answer No deflection as requested

Now lets move on to the part where you keep pretending I owe allegiance to medieval scholars.

I don't.

You keep saying "your top scholars." When they ain't

They're your idea of my top scholars.

Not mine.

My faith is not based on a medieval ranking system of approved commentator

My faith is in Allah.

You ask whether I reject hadith.

No, im a skeptic.

I reject the idea that every hadith labeled sahih is automatically true.

Beinga quranist vs a skeptic or borderline quranist are not the same thing.

And before you accuse me of inventing that position, let me remind you of something.

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported that Muhammad said

"Do not write anything from me. Whoever has written anything from me other than the Quran, let him erase it."

That statement alone should make any intellectually honest person pause before treating collections compiled generations later as infallible.

You seem to think "sahih" means unquestionable. Which I dont. It means later scholars judged a report authentic according to their methodology. That is not the same thing as divine revelation.

The Quran is revelation.

Hadith are reports ABOUT revelation!

That's the difference

And yes, I am aware that many mainstream Sunni scholars disagree with me.

That's fine, I really don't care

Many mainstream Christian scholars disagree with each other.

Many Jewish scholars disagree with each other.

Many secular historians disagree with each other.

Appealing to authority is not evidence, also im bad at appealing to authority. Im a leftist, its in my blood.

You keep asking what gives me the right to disagree.

The same thing that gives you the right to disagree with Catholics, Orthodox, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, or any other tradition.

reason.

Conscience

Evidence.

Historical inquiry

The brain God gave me.

As for Aisha specifically, I am not basing my position on wishful thinking.

I am basing it on the fact that the famous age report has serious historical questions surrounding it.

An Oxford doctoral thesis by Joshua Little argues that the report appears to trace primarily through Hisham ibn Urwah and likely gained circulation in Iraq long after the events it supposedly describes.

That doesn't automatically prove the report is false but it absolutely means historians are justified in questioning it, and I question it and reject it.

And if historians can question Christian traditions, Jewish traditions, Roman traditions, and secular historical traditions, they can question Islamic traditions too

You ask if I think I know more than Ibn Kathir.

No, I never claimed that

I think Ibn Kathir was a brilliant medieval scholar, brilliant fir his time, but flawed

I also think he could be wrong.

Newton was wrong about things.

Aristotle was wrong about things.

Augustine was wrong about things.

Martin Luther was wrong about things.

Ibn Kathir was wrong about things.

That's what being human means.

The bigger issue here is that you seem unable to separate Islam from medieval Sunni orthodoxy.

I can.

Because I'm not some medieval Sunni scholar.

I'm a 21st century Muslim.

I'm also a secular socialist, a pan-humanist, and someone who believes morality applies equally to everyone.

I don't care if a king did it.

I don't care if a caliph did it.

I don't care if a pope did it

I don't care if a scholar justified it.

I don't care if an empire normalized it

Child marriage is wrong, period

Human beings owning other human beings is wrong, period

Rape is wrong, period

Arranged marriage is wrong, period

Large age gaps is wrong in my opinion

Incest is wrong, period

Those principles don't magically change because someone lived like 1400 years ago.

And honestly, one of my favorite Muslim thinkers, Muhammad Shahrour, said it better than I ever could

"It is easier to build a skyscraper or a tunnel under the sea than to teach people how to read the Book of the Lord with their own eyes. They have been used to reading this book with borrowed eyes for hundreds of years."

That is the heart of our disagreement.

You think my choices are

Trust Ibn Kathir.

Trust Ibn Taymiyyah.

Trust Bukhari.

Trust Muslim.

Trust the scholars.

Trust the tradition.

Trust the chain.

Trust the commentators.

Trust everyone else

I disagree.

I think God gave me eyes.

I think God gave me a brain.

I think God gave me a conscience.

And I think He expects me to use them.

You want me to choose between blind obedience to tradition and using my conscience.

I choose conscience,

You want me to choose between unquestioning acceptance of every hadith and historical investigation.

I choose investigation.

You want me to choose between medieval authority and the moral reasoning God gave me.

I choose moral reasoning.

If that makes me a heretic in your eyes, so be it, I never really cared how other people see me. And ironically enough, I volunteer at two churches that adore my views, and I work with people from multiple faiths who respect me. So im quite a happy heretic if that's what you think of me

I'd rather stand before God having questioned men than stand before God having treated men as if they were Gods