If we had this discussion about Ayesha, a century ago it would be non-relevant and not many people would have a problem with it. Islam does not arbitrarily set an age limit because it can ignore the fact that there are girls who may not be physically ready even at eighteen. (Rare, but not impossible). This doesn’t mean Islam allows you to consummate a marriage with a child. What would you say about someone who married or had sexual intercourse with an eighteen year old girl who had not yet reached maturity/puberty? Just because Ayesha married at an age, that is considered today, quite young, doesn’t indicate how civilised someone is. By that token, you imply Tunisia is ‘more civilised’ than the U.K. by setting its age of consent higher at 20 or that
our past generations and ancestries are supposedly filled with paedophiles! Try to be more objective. We as a society now have been taught to look at things from a specific number, we judge it all on a number even we ironically also judge it by the opposite; judging the maturity and physical development of an individual. This is mainly because of the crisis of child molestation and abuse in recent times which is nothing to do with Mohammed.
The moral standard is not marry at nine years old. Classical scholars have identified, two objectives- physical maturity and mental maturity- both of which Ayesha fulfilled, had you closely examined
the hadith appropriately. Don’t start pulling various hadiths out of the blue either because no real individual who wants to study Islam goes to look at an entire corpus of material from anti-Islam websites, where narratives are made by decisively putting together Islamic literature into self-styled evil genres supposedly advocated by the religion.
Of course, Mohammed is said to be a role model for the world to follow. However, as Muslims we realise, this ultimately played in a personal part of his life than a directive to be followed to the letter. Had we truly shared your line of thinking of nine being the moral standard, where do we stop? It would suggest the impossible, that a Muslim man should equally strive to marry every wife Mohammed had at the same age, location, religion, similar time interval, and depending on their status, whether they were widowed or remained unmarried. Obviously, this wasn’t the message Mohammed or any scholars have made at all. Looking at his companions during his time and their relationships, this backs up that this wasn’t the message either.
The actual message that was conveyed through the marriage of Ayesha was the delay of three years ensuring she was ready for marriage and most importantly, the motives that led to this in the first place- securing Mohammed’s friendship to Ayesha’s father, Abu Bakr who later became the first Caliph of Islam. At present, there is a balancing of attitudes in that there is an acceptance of the Prophet's marriage being a norm, but norms have changed and thus we are not obliged to follow the same traditions of cultures as they progress.
Most, if not all sane Muslims and Non-Muslims know the absolute basic values we stand on alcohol, drugs and committing sex outside marriage- they’re prohibited. Marriage is a solemn covenant in Islam (Qur’an: Surah An- Nisa [4:21]) and does not allow anyone to take advantage of anyone and
we crucify, behead and hang rapists and paedophiles. You don’t require books to study grooming gangs. The older you become, it’s expected there’s more resistance to sexual advances, hence why they preyed on younger and vulnerable girls particularly from care homes coupled with racist sentiment to justify their attitude towards rape. A practising Muslim wouldn’t be hanging around with them. At night, they’d be praying the night prayer, Isha worrying whether they wake up before sunset to pray Fajr and not trafficking and raping girls. It’s unthinkable and explicitly haram. We are not allowed to even handshake with unrelated women for goodness sake in accordance to Islamic principles.
You're right, Allah does say not very nice things about disbeliever and some verses do say not very nice things towards believers too (Allah descending war against them if they follow unbelief). What's important here is this doesn't necessitate or instigate a campaign for war against Non-Muslims. [See Qur’an Al Mumtahinah 60:8]. It's simply a case for Muslims to remind Non-Muslims towards Islam's way of life and in addition, it also clearly stated, for a Muslim not to interfere any further if they choose to decline. That is all. If you interpret the Qur'an the way the Qur'an itself intended, there is no contradiction. Yes, Muslims essentially believe they are living a morally superior life than everyone else and to transform that into an idea that you are better than that person would be contradictory to one of the key aspirations of religion; to inspire others. You can’t do that by rape.