Using candid camera, the sting operation has videographic evidence of several molvis speaking to undercover India Today correspondents offering their one-night “service” to a victim of triple talaq for a “fee” ranging from Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 1.5 lakh.

It is said that during the time of the Prophet some men used to keep women on tenterhooks through the humiliating practice of divorcing their wives and remarrying them again and again. To put a check on this practice, the Quran stipulated that if a husband divorces his wife three times (marriage-divorce, remarriage-divorce, remarriage-divorce), she then becomes haraam (prohibited, illegal) for him. He can no longer remarry her yet again except under certain circumstances which are as follows: the divorced wife marries someone else, the marriage is consummated, the second marriage happens to end in a divorce or the husband happens to die. Only in such a situation does it become halal (permitted) for the original husband and wife who already have three divorces between them to remarry (nikaah). Thus, nikaah halala.

What was meant to be a check on the humiliation and exploitation of women has been turned on its head and women are the victims once again.

For some clerics, in India and elsewhere too, nikaah halala has come to simply mean that a husband can remarry his wife after triple talaq, provided she were to marry some other male, the marriage is consummated, followed by instant divorce. Bluntly stated, it means that a divorced wife must have sex with another man, even if only once, before she becomes halal once again to her husband.

It is for this consummation of the marriage for which several molvis from north India have been caught on candid camera offering to themselves sleep with the estranged wife for a night or even a few hours to complete the supposed procedure for nikaah halala.  

To understand the Islamic position on this shameful practice, Sabrang India spoke to two senior maulanas from Varanasi. Both maulanas issued a written fatwa is response to a written query and also spoke on camera denouncing the practice as un-Islamic, inhuman, anti-women, shameful, disgraceful.

Here below are the English translations of the operative parts of the two fatwas issued in Urdu:

Summary: Fatwa of Maulana Abdul Batin, Chief Mufti of Darul Ifta Ibrahimi, Varanasi

Summary: Fatwa of Maulana Mohammed Haroon Rashid Naqshbandi, Mufti and Imam Usmania Jama Masjid, Varanasi.  

If the allegations against the molvis are found to be true and correct, if for a fees (irrespective of the amount charged) and as a matter of business they are engaging in relations with an estranged wife in order to make her halal (legitimate) for the husband, then from an Islamic point of view such people are guilty of committing a very grave sin. Their conduct is totally haram and they are worthy of the most stringent punishment. It is the duty of Muslims to socially boycott such molvis for Allah has clearly directed believers not to associate with people who indulge in sinful acts.

Here are the copies of the original fatwa:

 

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In 1985, when the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Shah Bano case granted divorced Muslim women the right to alimony, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a non-governmental organisation that professes to represent Indian Muslims in all matters of their faith, shouted “Islam is under threat”.

In response, Muslim women rallied to fight for their rights, especially in matters of marriage and divorce, and several women’s groups emerged from the community over the next three decades. Bebaak Collective, Awaz-e-Niswaan, Sahiyar, Muslim Mahila Manch, Pehchan, Muhim, Parvaaz Sangathan, and, more recently, Bebaak Collective Sahiyar articulated a radical politics, at one with secular and feminist causes.

So, when, in 2016, Shayara Bano petitioned the Supreme Court to challenge the constitutionality of the practices of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy, these groups joined in the cause. It was a demonstration of the support system created by the women’s movement over the past three decades, something that was not available to Shah Bano.

A reminder that our struggle was far from over came when the Muslim Personal Law Board challenged Shayara Bano’s petition. They have also launched a signature campaign to canvass support. They contend that the rights of Muslim women must be claimed “within the community” and accuse women’s groups of being handmaidens of majoritarian politics.

The argument is disingenuous. While the threat of majoritarian politics is indeed real – witness the ruling establishment’s incessant rhetoric on triple talaq at the exclusion of all other issues facing women in this country – the relationship between gender justice and minority rights is too complex to be reduced to “for or against the community” dichotomy.
 

Bebaak Collective, Aawaz-e-Niswaan, Muhim, Pehchan and other such groups working with the community across states raise women’s issues without regard to their religious affiliation, whether it is violence inflicted on them during communal riots or discrimination in everyday life while accessing their basic rights to education, livelihood, shelter and healthcare.

Today, however, even progressive forces want us to lie low lest our cause, especially the abolition of triple talaq, halala and polygamy, is appropriated by the Hindutva forces in power. “Ab yeh mahol nahin hai, jab right-wing sarkar satta mein hai,” we are advised. We are seen as rallying with the BJP government to secure the rights of Muslim women.

This trivialises our three-decade-long struggle for equality and justice and generates fierce opposition to even rudimentary reforms. It also provides an excuse for the ruling dispensation to beat the women’s movement with the old whip of the Uniform Civil Code.
The code is unjustly presented as a response to Muslim women’s demand for gender equality although for this government it is just a dog whistle for communal polarisation. We not only oppose appropriation of the cause of Muslim women but also seek the accountability of the state.

Let me state our position in no uncertain terms: when we demand that triple talaq be declared unconstitutional, we do not seek criminalisation of individual Muslim men who exercise the prerogative of unilateral decision-making in the process of ending a matrimonial relationship, or delegitimisation of any marriage. As petitioners supporting Shayara Bano’s appeal, we propose that the apex court frame guidelines (as was done with Vishaka Guidelines to prevent sexual harassment) to ensure, essentially, that a divorce is not unilaterally decided by the man. Also, mechanisms must be developed to enforce such guidelines so that every affected woman does not have to run to the higher judiciary in every case. A support system for such women is also called for.

Systems of injustice

A community’s relationship with the state poses several challenges for the assertion of gender justice. For example, Khap Panchayat and Sharia Court are community institutions that are strengthened by state patronage. They establish systems of oppression – ban on inter-caste, inter-faith marriages; atrocities against Dalits, including sexual violence against Dalit women; fatwas to control women’s mobility and sexuality – yet they routinely enjoy state impunity.

The Muslim women’s movement has challenged both the oppression of the Indian state and the conservative forces within the community. Often, the state has refused to engage with them on the pretext that their matters are “internal to the community”, thereby strengthening the very forces in the community that are responsible for their situation.

To these people, the self-styled arbiters of the community’s interests, the issue of women’s rights is always marginal, as we have found from years of interacting with them. They are concerned more about controlling what we wear, what we read and who we live with. Indeed, even some Muslim women’s rights activists have told us that livelihood concerns – roti, kapda, makan – should take precedence over all others. In effect, they invisiblise concerns of mobility, sexuality rights, multiple family visions and diverse living practices of Muslim women.

The women’s movement is one of solidarity, and, indeed, various women’s groups are working together on many causes. Sadly, though, there is a division on the question of religion, which has come to be the definitive marker of the Muslim community.

Can we not accommodate multiple identities within the community, even those that do not practise religion in normative ways? Can the question of women’s rights not be imagined outside religion?

As petitioners supporting Shayara Bano’s appeal, we do not believe that abolishing triple talaq will resolve all issues faced by Muslim women. But we must claim this opportunity to raise the concerns of matrimonial and inheritance rights, as well as the right to property. If the court does declare triple talaq unconstitutional, then it falls to the state to ensure equal citizenship of Muslim women beyond the realm of Personal Law. It is self-evident that in a country as vast and diverse as India, neither Muslim women’s identity nor their living reality is homogenous. It will, thus, be futile to rest all hopes of their emancipation on a legal remedy.

Hasina Khan is a feminist activist based in Mumbai. Her women’s rights organisation Bebaak Collective is one of the petitioners in Shayara Bano’s triple talaq case. Geeta Thatra and Roshni Rina helped write this article.

This article was first published on Scroll.in

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Heightened media coverage on the issue of triple talaq along with the statement of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Chief Minister of UP Yogi Adityanath is causing harm to the struggle for gender justice within the Muslim community. Media coverage is making a public spectacle of victims of triple talaq and encouraging voyeurism for TRPs. Media manages to get a “maulvi” of dubious repute for giving sound entertaining sound bites that make buffoon of the community.

Gender justice within the Muslim community will be achieved primarily by the struggle of Muslim women, of course with the support of democratic institutions. Politicization of the issue to score brownie political points will harm the cause of Muslim women. What Muslim women need is solidarity and support from the feminist movement in particular and liberal democratic forces in general.

Pronouncing the word ‘talaq’ (I divorce thee) thrice in one sitting and instantly snapping matrimonial ties unilaterally by the husband is once again in news as the Supreme Court is going to hear Shayara Bano’s petition on the issue and the PM has chosen to speak on the issue. This form of divorce is called talaq-e-bidat (bad in theology but valid divorce) and popularly it is called as triple talaq.

The ulema (learned religious leaders of the community) have validated triple talaq pronounced orally, even if in a fit of rage, in a state of inebriation, or conveyed on phone, through sms, or through post. The wife so divorced is instantly evicted from her matrimonial home or if not in the house at the time of divorce, she is prevented from accessing her matrimonial home and children.

The practice is abominable and indefensible. Yet the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has claimed in their affidavit that triple talaq is part of shari’a law which is divine and it is their Constitutional right to practice their religion. Elsewhere, we have elaborately argued that triple talaq in one sitting is unconstitutional as well as contrary to the Quranic method of divorce and prayed that Hon’ble Supreme Court read down the provision (Engineer, 2016).

Protectors of Muslim Women

The PM chose to speak on the issue of triple talaq at the BJP’s National Executive meeting in Bhubaneshwar on 16^th April 2017. He said, “Our Muslim sisters should also get justice. Injustice should not be done with them… [I]f there are social evils, the society should be woken up and efforts made to provide justice to the victims.”

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on 17^th April 2017 that those maintaining silence on the “burning issue” of triple talaq were as “guilty” as those practising it. Yogi compared the triple talaq to the disrobing of ‘Draupadi’ in the Mahabharata. He also called for a uniform civil code in the country.

Both, the PM and the CM of UP, are trying to project themselves as protectors of Muslim women from the evil and inhuman Muslim Personal Law. However both have a lot to answer for, given their past.

Under the watch of Modi, when he was the CM of Gujarat, in 2002, during the riots, Muslim women’s bodies were the site on which sexual assaults were mounted and they were subjected to worst inhuman atrocities. Neither of them then had any feeling of remorse nor an urge to fight the injustice. Modi, then the CM of Gujarat had to be reminded of his raj dharm by the then PM – Atal Behari Vajpayee of their party. Gujarat government refused to organize any relief work for the 150,000 survivors of the violence huddled in inhuman conditions in various relief camps.

The UP CM in a video on youtube says that if one Hindu woman was married to a Muslim and converted, 100 Muslim women would be married to Hindu men and converted into Hindu fold!

Of destruction of wombs and liberation of Muslim women

In 2002 during communal riots in Gujarat, the Hindu supremacists who mounted sexual assaults and heinous crimes on Muslim women’s bodies did so to pollute or destroy the wombs of Muslim women that gave birth to children of Muslim community (International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat, 2003, pp. 40-41). Now they are posing as liberators of Muslim women from the oppression of their men.

Modi then had sort of provided justification of the riots by terming it as a reaction to burning of Sabarmati Express in Godhra. Thereafter he never expressed his remorse that under his watch the scale of violence had reached its peak. Those who were accused of rapes and involvement in riots had little to fear the judicial process and were being acquitted until the Supreme Court stepped in and set up SIT to prosecute the accused. Bilkis Bano’s rape case trial was transferred to sessions court in Mumbai which resulted in conviction of some of the accused.

Behind the facade of getting justice for the Muslim women in general and victims of triple talaq in particular, the BJP has political motives. When the PM and the CM of UP were not on the posts they are presently holding, they stigmatized the Muslim community in harsher words using cruder language.

In the year 2002, after the riots Narendra Modi took out Gujarat gaurav yatra (pride journey). In the yatra he would address public meeting during and accuse that relief camps for riot survivors to be breeding camps where the survivors were breeding like rabbits. In the next Gujarat state Assembly elections, the target of the Modi’s speeches was “Mian Musharraf (the then President of Pakistan) mentality”! The subtle message was that Muslims were loyal to Pakistan and needed to be taught a lesson.

Posing as protectors of Muslim women, Modi and Yogi are achieving the same objective with more sophisticated means – stigmatising the Muslim community as one having unjust traditions and women in the Muslim community are being disrobed. General Secretary of Hindu Mahasabha – Pooja Shakun Pandey went a step ahead and asked all victims of triple talaq to convert to Hinduism and she would organise their marriage and do their kanyadaan (ritual of father gifting his daughter to the bridegroom). 

The Hindu supremacists then want to convert Muslim women and gift (marry) them off to Hindu men to improve their demographic figures and reduce those of Muslim community. Rescue Muslim women only to gift them off and be property of Hindu men. Hindu supremacists opposed the Hindu Code Bill in 1950s so painstakingly drafted by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar to ensure gender justice to Hindu women. Hindu supremacists organized militant protests and denounced Dr. Ambedkar as an untouchable drafting laws for Hindus.

The Hindu supremacists do not problematise dowry, child marriage, female feoticide etc. Given caste hierarchies, Hindu supremacists defend the parental control over their daughters in matrimonial matters. They have never raised any voice against honour killings when daughters dare to chose their own life partners. “Anti-Romeo” squads and “love jihad” campaigns are precisely to ensure that Hindu women do not choose their life partners and do not have freedom to wear the clothes they like.

Ministers in the present government have advised women to wear appropriate (traditional) dresses to be secure from sexual assaults instead of ensuring safe space for women and inclusion in every field. BJP MP – Sakshi Maharaj and RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat called upon Hindu women to produce 4 children reducing the women to child producing machines for their husbands and their community.

Hindu supremacists are not very different from the religious and political leaders of Muslim community with regard to their attitude towards worth and role of women in family and community – chattels or property of the males within the family and under their complete control; slave labourers for the family confined to home for unpaid domestic work, rearing children for men; labouring outside home if men need their incomes; confine them to religious spaces so that they are indoctrinated to serve the men in the family and accept being reduced to chattels and slaves.

Triple talaq is one such weapon in hands of Muslim men to keep control over “deviant” wives. Khap Panchayats, domestic violence and misogynist culture are weapons of Hindu men. Strategies and instruments of control may differ slightly but nevertheless their objective is to control and reduce women to chattels and slave labourers and objects of sexual pleasure for men. Hindu supremacist talk of “liberating” Muslim women, but only to enslave them to new masters – Hindu men. The feminist movement and awareness and resistance of women – both – Hindu and Muslim have changed the situation slightly and progressively.

Media and stigmatization of Muslim community

Media has been presented with an opportunity to increase their TRPs whenever issues that stigmatise Muslim community are handy. TV channels a few years ago ran extensive coverage of a fatwa which declared that Imrana who was raped by her father-in-law is now forbidden to her husband. It seemed that was the only problem faced by the nation – otherwise everything was hunky dory.

One TV channel made a public spectacle of Gudiya’s problems and coverage went on for hours. Gudiya, a Muslim, married another man after her soldier husband’s whereabouts were not known for some years and presumed dead in war with Pakistan. However, her former husband returned after he was released from Pakistan jail. “Gudiya kiski?” went the title of the programme. All relatives, maulvis, the second husband and former soldier husband and few others were assembled in the studio and public spectacle was made of her life encouraging voyeurism.

Almost all TV channels have similarly conducted talk shows on triple talaq – they got some victims to depose their tragedies, one or two maulvis to entertain their viewers with their ridiculous and provocative views supporting triple talaq and a few gentlemen around. The Islamic scholars who did not support triple talaq were obviously not favoured by invitation.

The stage was then set for a match between the victims and the maulvis with some generous support from ‘nationalist’ anchors. The lung match between Muslim women and maulvis would be good spectacle attracting eyeballs of male voyeurs into a problem of Muslims and beam them various advertisements persuading them to buy various corporate products.

The louder and angrier the fight between the victims and maulvis, more would be the entertainment and fun for the voyeurs. The BJP spokespersons would be there on the panel to represent the PM and Yogi as heroes of the nation liberating Muslim women. Perhaps that is why the media loves the PM and Yogi as they keep giving them such opportunities targeting left and liberal “anti-nationals”, cow slaughterers, terrorists, Kashmir separatist and Paki agents, religious converters.

Democracy and humanist values be damned so long as the voyeuristic media had their TRPs, they would support whatever politics! Is this the responsible fourth pillar of the state?

If stigmatising the Muslim community is one objective of Modi and Yogi, subtly establishing the superiority of Hindu community, the other political objective is to divide the Muslim community along gender lines. They have also tried to win over a section of Shias and Sufis. The political objective as spelled out by Subramanian Swamy once is to divide the Muslim community and unite the Hindus to achieve the objective of Hindu Rashtra – antithesis of democracy.

The Muslim Personal Law Board

Cornered by the media barrage and becoming a laughing stock for defending triple talaq and claiming it to inseparable part of divine Shari’a law, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has come up with a new subterfuge. On 16^th April it issued a code of conduct and warned that those who give talaq (divorce) without ‘Sharia’ reasons will face social boycott.

The ruse of social boycott is more for media consumption than a sincere campaign to curb the menace of triple talaq. Had the Board been sincere, it would not have filed atrocious affidavit in Supreme Court completely against the spirit of Quran which gives dignity and rights to women. Board’s affidavit reduces women to a status of chattel and a slave, unintelligent being.

This ploy of social boycott has occurred to them after 70 years of resisting any change in the Muslim Personal Law and ignoring the plight of victims of triple talaq. The Board has clout and power enough to silence the women suffering oppression and scaring them with curse of Allah. However, they do not have clout or sincerity to enforce social boycott against powerful men.

Declaring, announcing and enforcing social boycott is also an offence in Maharashtra. Social boycott of the husband who has pronounced triple talaq is not going to give any relief to the woman thrown out of her matrimonial home. If a man has divorced by pronouncing the dreaded words in a fit of anger or under inebriation and repents the morning after, will be doubly punished by social boycott if enforced or enforceable without offering any relief to either.

Way ahead

The only remedy in the circumstances seems to be to educate the women and men that any number of pronouncement of the word talaq can be considered as single pronouncement followed by arbitration and efforts for reconciliation. This is the procedure prescribed by the Holy Qur’an.

The Board should agree to codify Muslim Personal Law within the framework of Quran and the spirit of gender equality mandated by Quran and drawing the best from all Islamic schools of jurisprudence. The codified law should be presented to the Parliament for being legislated.

Until the codification, Indian courts have a constitutional duty to ensure justice and equality to Muslim women and read down the provisions of various Islamic schools of jurisprudence like Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi, Maliki, Ahle-Hadith and Shia schools of jurisprudence that are against the constitutional mandate.

Political parties will do great disservice to the country and the Muslim community by politicisation of the issue either in the name of national integration or demography or on any other ground. Peace and justice are more noble goals than winning an election or benefiting from communal polarisation.

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It may be recalled that petitions filed in the Supreme Court by three individual women victims of instant the divorce practice and backed by three Muslim women’s organizations is to be heard by a Constitution bench from May 11. The petitioners have asked for triple talaq along with nikaah halala and polygamy as practiced in India to be declared un-Quranic and un-Constitutional.

Outside the court, a significant number of Muslim men and women, including the recently launched forum, Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD), have supported the women petitioners.   

The method of divorce enjoined in the Quran asks requires a man to wait for a period of three months after pronouncing divorce before the marital bond is broken. The Quran also calls for reconciliation attempts during the intervening period, where one person each from the husband and the wife’s side try to explore the possibility of saving the marriage.

However, the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board and most religious bodies of Sunni Muslims continue to maintain that though bad in theology triple talaq or instant divorce is good in law.

The Narendra Modi-led NDA government has filed an affidavit in the apex court supporting the Muslim women petitioners’ plea for an end to triple talaq, halala nikaah and polygamy.

While the communist parties too have spoken out against triple talaq, the Congress has taken an ambivalent position while parties such as the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Trinamool Congress have talked of “non-interference” in Muslim Personal Law.

The BJP party had made the issue of triple talaq a part of its campaign during the recently concluded Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. A number of BJP leaders have claimed part of the reason for their spectacular performance was Muslim women voting for the BJP in appreciation of the party’s stand on the issue.
 

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In the absence of a clergy within Islamic social order, it becomes difficult to identify representative voices within Muslim society. Questions will be asked about multiple voices speaking in the name of the community and representing themselves in ways that they think are Islamic. For some, it can be argued that such a state of affairs has made the question of legitimacy and authority within Muslim societies confusing. The absence of a clear cut hierarchy and an apex body of decision makers has not only produced a crisis of legitimacy but has also made the process of religious reform difficult. It is argued that it would have been much better for the state to deal with a body of Muslims rather than different maslaks and faith orientations within Muslims who have never ending arguments with each other. The problem is that if such an arrangement of power is made within Muslim society, then only the orthodox Ulema will find space within it.

The reading of Quran as is being done by Muslim feminists is as valid as those done by the Ulema

The recent debate in India on the question of retention or abolition of triple is an important example in this regard. Simply put there are two different positions on this debate. Muslim feminists, progressives of all hues including some Ulema favour the abrogation of triple Talaq due to different reasons ranging from religious to secular. They are arraigned against a belligerent body of Muslim orthodoxy (a silently supported by other religious orthodoxies) who are dead against any change in the existing mode of Muslim divorce and argue that it will amount to interference in the Muslim personal law, an Anglo-Muḥammadan law which they think is akin to a sacred canon.

An acerbic attack has been launched by the orthodox on those who want change within the personal law of Muslims, particularly revocation of triple Talaq, Nikah Halala and polygamy. Since the movement for the revocation of these practices has been led primarily by Muslim women, they are at the centre of these attacks. Apart from calling them stooges of RSS and the government, some very personal remarks have been passed which only goes on to show that the orthodox would go to any extent to discredit those championing the cause of change within Islamic law. The orthodox has not even spared the government of the day accusing it of trying to subvert the ‘age old’ personal law of Muslims. The fine print in all this is that the orthodox Ulema are convinced that only they are the custodians of Islam in India and consequently only they can opine on what constitutes proper Muslim law and whether any change is possible within it or not.

But this position is absurd to say the least. Islam consciously eschewed the institution of clergy. Any Muslim can lead the prayer as Islam proclaims a direct relationship between Allah and the individual believer. A man or a woman has equal right to offer supplication to the Almighty. Moreover, the very fact that Islam places an obligation on all believers to acquire knowledge can only mean that it does not expect that some Muslims should be more knowledgeable than others. Quran, like most other religious scriptures, has been an open book. Multiple readings of the text have spawned a plurality of denominations within Islam and each of them has their own valid interpretation of Islam. This can only mean that the reading of Quran as is being done by Muslim feminists is as valid as those done by the Ulema. From an Islamic point of view then it is not correct to say that someone’s interpretation of Islam is not valid or untrue. It seems that the Ulema, in their attempt to become the champions’ defenders of Islam have forgotten the simple fact there has never been a singular reading of the Quran which has been acceptable to all Muslims.

This can mean only one thing: that what sections of the Ulema are arguing is patently anti-Islamic. They are innovating against the established traditions which hold that multiple readings of the Quran are possible and are valid. There is a reason why Islam did not establish a clergy in the first place. The Ulema in trying to usurp the role of the clergy are therefore doing a great disservice to the spirit of Islam. Islam’s wisdom and its beauty lies in its plurality and diversity of views. Sadly it is the so called custodians of Islam who are hell bent on destroying this historical and theological heritage.

Arshad Alam is a NewAgeIslam.com columnist.

Courtesy: New Age Islam.
 

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A 3-judge bench headed by chief justice JS Khehar on Thursday decided to move the batch of petitions filed by several Muslim women and supported by a number of Muslim women’s organisations relating to the impugned practice of triple talaq, nikaah halala and polygamy among Muslims to a 5-judge Constitutional bench.

Responding to the four legal issues framed by the Union government, the bench ruled that since they involve Constitutional issues they should be decided by a larger bench with.

“The issues are very important. These issues cannot be scuttled,” the judges observed. The questions for consideration of the constitution bench would be decided on March 30. The bench made it clear to the parties concerned that the apex court would not deal with the factual aspects of the particular case and would rather decide the constitutional issue.

In its submission to the court, the Centre has called for an authoritative ruling on whether personal laws covered under freedom of religion would be circumscribed by the citizen’s fundamental right to equality and the right to life and liberty.

The constitution bench is also expected to examine the question of whether the practices of triple talaq, nikaah halala and polygamy are “integral” to and part of the “essential practices” in Islam.

The Centre has place four questions before the apex court and urged a decisive ruling on the same:

• Whether the practices of triple talaq (instant divorce), nikaah halala and polygamy are protected under Article 25(1) of the Constitution of India? [Article 25(1) deals with the right to freedom of religion. Nikah halala means a man cannot remarry a woman after triple talaq unless she has already consummated her marriage with another man and then her new husband dies or divorces her].
• Whether Article 25(1) is subject to part III of the Constitution and in particular Articles 14 and 21? [Article 14 ensures right to equality while Article 21 guarantees right to life and liberty]
• Whether personal law is law under Article 13 of the Constitution? [Article 13 stipulates that all laws must conform to the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution].
• Whether the impugned practices of triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) nikaah halala and polygamy are compatible with India’s obligations under international treaties and covenants to which India is a signatory?

The bench asked the parties concerned to file their respective written submissions, running not beyond 15 pages, by the next date of hearing, besides the common paper book of case laws to be relied upon by them during the hearing to avoid duplicity.

As an indicator of the urgency with which the apex court views the issues raised in the clutch of petitions before it, the bench made it clear that it is willing to sit on Saturdays and Sundays to decide on the issue as it was “very important”.

 “You (lawyers for parties) sit together and finalise the issues to be deliberated upon by us,” the bench said.

The apex court has also said that the question whether divorce under Muslim Personal Law needed to be supervised by either courts or by a court-supervised institutional arbitration fell under the legislative domain.

It may be recalled that separate petitions filed in the apex court by individual Muslim women in the apex court for declaration of the practices of triple talaq, nikaah halala and polygamy as un-Constitutional and “un-Islamic”, have been backed by a number of Muslim women’s organisations, as also the recently formed forum, Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD).

On the other hand, the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board and the Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Hind have intervened to argue that these practices are part of the constitutional right to freedom of religion.  

Also Read

How the Degrading-to-Women 'Halala Marriage' Practice Does Violence to the Quranic Injunction
 

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