BMMA Demonstration in Mumbai. Photo credit: DNA

Instant triple talaq, which is a Muslim man’s right to divorce his wife unilaterally in one sitting is now history. The highest court of the country has ruled it as unconstitutional and as violative of the right to equality. Understandably, there is a sense of jubilation among all those Muslim men and women who campaigned against the practice of instant triple Talaq.

Organizations like Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) and scores of other Muslim women must be congratulated for having a sustained campaign on the issue for such a long time and having faced numerous difficulties not just from different governments but also from the leaders of the Muslim community. From being called as agents of the Hindutva brigade to being dubbed as not Muslim enough, these women have bravely fought prejudices and acerbic taunts from members of their own community and stood steadfast in their belief that it is high time the Muslim personal law be reformed.

It is interesting to note that voices to reform the Muslim law on divorce has a much older genealogy than what is normally conceded. Way back in 1920s, the All India Muslim Ladies Conference, in one of its annual conferences had raised the issue of instant triple talaq. Their argument then was similar to the argument that Muslim women’s organizations are making today.

What has been declared illegal is just instant triple talaq, not the system of unilateral divorce as practiced by Muslims.

The All India Muslim Ladies Conference was the first women’s organization to campaign against oral triple talaq and laid down rules according to what they believed was the correct Quranic practice of divorce. They drew up a model nikahnama (marital contract) which laid down the rules of divorce. Men had to give a valid reason for divorcing their wives. There would be provisions for maintenance made in case the divorce became effective. Moreover, they argued that the nikahnama gave limitless power to women to dictate terms and conditions to the prospective groom. And only when the groom accepts in writing that he would be fulfilling those demands that the nikah would take place.

One clause in the nikahnama was that in case the husband takes another wife without the permission of the wife, then the earlier marriage will automatically get dissolved. Thus there were conditions to make polygamy difficult and exceptional within Muslim households.

The appeal of the Muslims Ladies Conference was extremely limited as it remained confined to the feudal and elite circles of the ‘enlightened’ Muslim gentry of Bhopal and Hyderabad. It never became a mass phenomenon. Partition gave a death blow to this initiative as most of the campaigners became Pakistanis in an instant and there was hardly any leadership left for Indian Muslim women.

It must be said to the credit of BMMA that for the first time it made the issue of reforming personal laws into a Muslim mass phenomenon.

Organizations like the BMMA draw upon such an older tradition of Muslim reform. But it must be said to the credit of BMMA that for the first time it made the issue of reforming personal laws into a Muslim mass phenomenon. Thus when the Supreme Court declared that instant triple talaq was invalid, it was responding to the demands raised by millions of Muslim women in India.

For the first time perhaps, we have a genuine mass movement among Muslim women which is desirous of change and making demands by virtue of being citizens of this country. The question is whether they will stop at instant triple talaq or will it just be one of the many campaigns that women’s group will take up. Already organizations like the BMMA are arguing that they next step is a campaign for comprehensive gender just law for Muslims in this country. They are perhaps right in calling this as a victory but a very small one at that.

They are right. It took seventy years for this country to outlaw a system of divorce which was manifestly anti-women and drove them to destitution. And what has been declared illegal is just instant triple talaq, not the system of unilateral divorce as practiced by Muslims. In divorce proceedings, Muslim men continue to have the right of unilateral divorce and there is a need to make it more gender just.

Similarly, there should be a campaign to make polygamy illegal as it is an abhorrence in today’s times. Will the BMMA and other such organizations be willing to take up the challenge? Only time will tell. But going by their commitment and enthusiasm it is reasonable to suggest that they will not stop at this victory.

It is rather unfortunate that despite the Supreme Court ruling there are sections within the Muslims who think it is a conspiracy to defame their religion and they confuse Muslim personal law with divine law. The statement of the Jamiat Ulema e Hind suggesting that they would not follow Supreme Court verdict only goes to show how much faith they have in the Indian judiciary.

For them, as for a majority of religious fundamentalists, the matter is very simple: if the courts rule in their favour then they would hail the verdict, but if the law goes against then, the judiciary becomes a pawn in the hands of ‘vested interests’. People like Mahmood Madani bring shame to the Muslim community and people like him are responsible for making the community a sitting target for the Hindu Right wing forces who quickly announce to the world that Muslims do not believe in the Indian nation, far less the judiciary.

Unfortunately people like Madani have disproportionate clout within the Muslim community. Reports coming in after the verdict suggest that the petitioners and those campaigning against instant triple talaq are facing social boycott from within their families and the larger community. This tells us about the pitiable state of the community which it seems wants to be in a perpetual state of backwardness and are alright to be members of a community which is accused of being warped on issues of gender justice.

It is astonishing to see the silence of the left and liberals on the issue of social reform amongst Muslims.

The fight must go on. Till the time organizations like All India Muslim Personal Law Board become redundant within the Muslim society. This fight has to be taken forward by all right thinking Muslim men and women. But it is also important to underline that Muslim women’s organizations like the BMMA must be at the forefront of such a struggle. It is heartening to note that a number of progressive Muslim men have supported the BMMA, but their efforts should be limited to supporting these movements and not becoming the leaders of the movement.

Last but not the least, it is astonishing to see the silence of the left and liberals on the issue of social reform amongst Muslims. At least they should have come out in open support of organizations like the BMMA. Their muted response goes a long way to suggest that their ideas about Islam and Muslims are completely hazy and warped. Silently, Muslim women have marched together to claim their just space as Indian citizens. Triple talaq is just one stop in their long march to demolish the many citadels of male privilege legitimated through a misogynistic reading of Islam.

Republished with permission from New Age Islam.
 

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Sometime ago, Vimochana, a Bengaluru-based forum for women’s rights organised an 'Aapa ki Adalat' with six Muslim women who had gruesome accounts to narrate about being tortured by their husbands. They had earlier been to various shariah courts in various mosques but were unable to tell their tale as these were shameful accounts of sexual torture which they found difficult to narrate before men.
 
Vimochana, headed by Ms. Donna Fernandes, Madhu Bhushan, Shakuni etc gathered some leading Muslim social activists and made a few Muslim men like us sit behind a curtain to listen to their woes. Vimochana encouraged the Muslim community to have their own organisation to listen to, counsel and rehabilitate Muslim women who have been driven out of their homes, are locked in marital disputes, have been victims of domestic violence, or at the hands of alcoholic husbands.
 
So we helped Sajida Aapa in Bangalore to set up 'Aasra Home for Women' where there is a facility for keeping such women for three months. We get cases of Muslim women from police stations who ask us to settle these disputes within the community rather than taking to courts, police and jails. Sometime such women call Sajida Aapa and Aasra from other states which we are not able to accommodate. 
 
Recently Parveen Taj, 42 who was released from Mysore jail after passing a 12-year sentence (she had murdered her husband due to constant torture from that rascal), went knocking at the Jail's door to take her back as society was not accepting her. She was turned away from her brother's house. Her daughter had been married and settled in life and two sons had been taken away by a cousin. Other members of the house had moved to another location in order to get away from the infamy in the small town of Srirangapatna. The kind jailer approached a Hindu community run Nari Niketan to accommodate her as she could not be taken back inside prison.

The world judges us by our social, economic, intellectual standing among communities, not by claims that are mostly bogus, fake, false and farcical. 
 
We never tire of proclaiming that Islam is a religion of peace, justice and equality. But do we Muslims ever think about the plight of such women? Aasra is in talks with Niketan to see that Parveen Taj is rehabilitated. I wonder if we have such a facility anywhere in the country. I wish the answer is a ‘yes’ from somewhere.  Our clerics are totally unaware and unconcerned about what happens to women in our society. They feel everything is, will be, hunky dory if they are women accept the subordination of their men. This of course suits men who happily follow the clerics.    
 
It is easy to state in the Supreme Court that men and women are equal in Islam but difficult to work in a society where women are totally subjugated due to their low education, no economic clout and social pressure not to speak up against their men. Speeches are capable of going global. But practical action is always local and hardly gets any limelight. 
 
We must drop all these pretences to being supreme among all religions, best among all communities and bearers of the pristine Divine message. The world judges us by our social, economic, intellectual standing among communities, not by claims that are mostly bogus, fake, false and farcical. 
 
MA Siraj is a Bengaluru based journalist and activist.

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Right? Perhaps you should think again.

There is something the ulema does not teach the faithful. What do you do when every edifice erected by some architect collapses in no time? What do you do with a doctor who kills more patients than he cures? And what do you do when the ulema tell you that the practice of triple talaaq “though socially repugnant, is theologically valid”?

Look elsewhere maybe? If you have the time and the inclination, the internationally acknowledged Islamic scholar and champion of gender equality, Aziza al-Hibri, would be a good person to learn your Islam from. If you are not the scholar type, her simple five-word mantra should suffice as moral compass: “If it’s unjust, it’s un-Islamic”.

So here we have it, as simple as that: because it is unjust, a male-centred society can never be Islamic, never mind what men with long beards and flowing robes preach. In his unguarded moment, even the maulvi sahib will concede that there is no priesthood in Islam. “To seek knowledge is the sacred duty of every Muslim and Muslimah (female),” said Prophet Mohammed. He also said: “Seek knowledge, even if you have to go as far as China.”

Taken together, two things are evident. First, all knowledge is sacred; Islam recognises not boundary between sacred and secular. Second, the pursuit of knowledge is a sacred duty that must not be sub-contracted or outsourced to the ulema; faith is too important a thing to be left to the “experts”. Perhaps the ulema should explain to the ummah why in direct violation of the Prophet’s message they compartmentalise knowledge and set themselves up as barriers, not facilitators, between Muslims and their sacred text.

Whether the explanation is forthcoming or not, one thing is certain: the mullah’s monopoly over “The Message” is increasingly under question in India and across the Muslim world. Those who have chosen to go directly to the source of Islam are astounded to discover the huge gulf between the gender parity message of the Quran and the male supremacy myth that the ulema have been peddling through the centuries.

The mullah’s monopoly over “The Message” is increasingly under question in India and across the Muslim world. Those who have chosen to go directly to the source of Islam are astounded to discover the huge gulf between the gender parity message of the Quran and the male supremacy myth that the ulema have been peddling through the centuries.

A good example of this was the two-day consultation on the theme “Codification of Muslim Personal Law” organised jointly by Islamic scholar Asghar Ali Engineer’s Institute of Islamic Studies and the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) in Delhi on February 4 and 5. Present at the consultation were a maulana, two (Muslim) judges (one serving, the other retired), Islamic scholars from Jamia Millia Islamia, two (Muslim) members of the Law Commission of India, a large number of women activists from all over the country and a few journalists.

The most remarkable thing about the consultation was the free and frank atmosphere that marked the discussions and debate. No one threatened another with the apostasy/blasphemy charge. The fact that the majority of the participants were confident, articulate Muslim women activists — a rarity at ummah gatherings — and each with a hundred horror tales to recount on the injustices and indignities that continue to be heaped on their sisters in the name of Islam certainly helped.

None may have heard of Ms Al-Hibri. But, ironically enough, they have heard the maulvi sahib assert on countless occasions that Islam is a religion of insaf (justice) and masavat (equality). Now, unfortunately for the ulema, having read the Quran on their own, they know how gender equality is but a logical and theological extension of the core Islamic principles of insaf and masavat. Looks like the maulvi sahebs will have much to account for in the coming years.

The first salvo has already been fired. For starters, the gathering of Muslim men and women punctured the hollow claim of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board that what goes in the name of Muslim Personal Law in India is “Allah’s law”. If anything, it’s a colonial legacy which until Independence was referred to as “Anglo-Mohammedan Law”.

Casting aside the colonial hangover while keeping the Quran, the teachings of the Prophet and reforms in many Muslim-majority societies as their sole reference points, the consultation arrived at a broad consensus on the essential elements of a codified Muslim Personal (Family) Law for India: The obnoxious unilateral practice of oral and instant divorce (triple talaaq) must be banished.

In case of marital conflict, divorce must compulsorily be preceded by attempts at reconciliation as enjoined in the Quran (talaaq-e-ahsan). Divorce by mutual consent (mubarah) should also be incorporated in the codified law. Following divorce, the husband must pay a fair amount towards maintenance of the wife and children.

As to who should have custody of children, it was agreed that the “best interest of the children” should be the paramount criteria. The minimum age for marriage must be 18 years for a woman and 21 years for boys and all marriages must be registered with state authorities. The mehr (bride price) should not be nominal as is the prevalent practice today but equal to a year’s income of the bridegroom. While there was near consensus on many issues, the polygamy question remained unresolved.

The majority of the participants took the view that the Quranic verses when read in the context of our times can only mean strict monogamy. For tactical reasons, others favoured putting in place such stringent conditions as to make a second marriage virtually impossible. The codification campaign is sure to be fiercely resisted by many among the ulema. For freeing Muslim women from the clutches of patriarchy, rescuing Islam from the stranglehold of its male supremacist clerics may be the only option. A long battle lies ahead but the battle lines have already been drawn. 

(This article was first published in The Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle; February 2012).
 

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