There is one word that many Muslim women dread the most-‘talaq’. That single word, repeated thrice by their husbands can destroy their marriages, turn their lives upside down and in many cases, leave them stranded to fend for themselves under mighty poor circumstances.
“All Muslim women are haunted by this word,” said 35-year- old Nooran Nisa in an interview with The Guardian. “During fights, I used to argue, but if it got too heated, I stopped because I was frightened my husband might say talaq.”
Nisa, was never to hear those words, but four months after she got married, her husband kicked her out of the house, and then sent her a letter with talaq written in it, three times, she claims.
In India, Muslim men have sent triple talaq by text, email, Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp. The reasons vary from not liking the wife’s dyed hair to her cooking.
An all-India survey by the Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, reported by The Indian Express, reveals that 92.1 per cent of the surveyed Muslim women were opposed to oral talaq and 91.2 per cent were against polygamy. The survey also reveals that 55.3 per cent of the respondents married before the age of 18, and 53.2 per cent had faced domestic abuse.
But today these women are slowly fighting back. Several women’s groups have been demanding that the Muslim Personal Law be codified so that it is not open to interpretations. Recently they have even received a boost from a surprising quarter: a government committee set up in 2013 to look into women’s status has recommended that the government should outlaw it.
In its report, released last month, it says, the custom “makes wives extremely vulnerable and insecure regarding their marital status”.
The recommendation has been sent to the ministry of women and child development, which will hold consultations with civic and religious groups before a final decision is taken.
A government-proposed ban on triple talaq is already seeing the beginnings of opposition by clerics and conservative organisations, such as the powerful All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Although this Board is currently toying with the idea of imposing heavy fines on men who use the triple talaq and also make reconciliation efforts mandatory, its spokesman Mohammed Abdul Rahim Qureshi told The Guardian that the board could not support a government ban.
“For one, we don’t want the government to interfere in matters of Muslim personal law and for another, triple talaq is permitted under the hadith [the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings],” he said.
Although the community and it’s clerics remain rigid in their beliefs, it isn’t only women who are advocating against the triple talaq system.
Muslim scholars such as Professor Tahir Mahmood, an internationally recognised expert on Sharia law, will also support a ban. He recently told Scroll, an Indian news website that “ignorance, obstinacy, blind belief in religion and morbid religiosity are undoubtedly the factors” responsible for triple talaq being allowed in India.
Image Courtesy: BCCL
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