Activists flay verbal 'talaq', seek ban
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2004 04:06:56 AM ]
PUNE: Muslim activists from across the state came together in
the city on Saturday to condemn the practice of unilateral
verbal talaq (divorce), and demanded a legal ban on it.
Addressing a state conference of nearly 200 delegates, organised
by the Progressive Muslim Front and the Muslim Satyashodhak
Samaj, noted film lyricist Hasan Kamal argued, "The Holy
Koran does not sanction triple talaq. No wonder, it is not
followed even in Islamic republics like Egypt, Turkey, Iran,
Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia."
"Triple talaq was included in the Muslim Personal Law by the
British way back in 1926 at the behest of Muslim landlords, who
were basically seeking sanction for their loose ways with women.
Similarly, to prevent division of their property, the landlords
had the succession rights of women revoked. This, too, was
against the tenets of the Koran."
"All we are asking the All-India Muslim Personal law board (AIMPLB)
and the priests (mullahs and moulvis) to do is to delete these
un-Koranic and un-Islamic parts from the British-formulated
personal law. It is spoiling the image of the community."
Activist Rajiya Patel, however, thundered, "Why should we
request the exclusion of triple talaq, we demand it. It is
inhuman, unfair and false. No religion would support it. Those
who support it, know it fully well. They cannot be trusted to
abolish it. Only the courts or the government can. The AIMPLB
has agreed to decide talaqs before shariat courts, but Muslim
women will settle for nothing less than the courts, as far as
talaq is concerned."
"Triple talaq is a poison, it's a black label," lamented
Ghulam Peshimam,
a Mumbai-based member of Muslims for Secular Democracy,
just like Kamal.
"It's sad that 1,400 years since the faith was founded, this
simple thing has to be debated. It just shows that though we
have enshrined the Koran as a Holy Book, we have not tried to
imbibe it like a Constitution and live by it. We have left the
interpretation part to a select few," lamented Peshimam.
Out of the 200 delegates present, nearly 50 were women divorced
through verbal talaq, and 50 others had been abandoned
illegally.
Mumbai girl Shabana Syed, who was recently divorced over the
telephone, was present with her one
month-old
child. She was seven-months pregnant with her second daughter,
when the tragedy befell.
"I want my husband to be punished by law," she pleaded.
Two sisters, who were married to two brothers in Pune, also
narrated their travails. They were continuously harassed over
dowry.
The elder sister was brutalised while she was pregnant. The
foetus had to be aborted and both sisters were given talaq
because they went to the police.
"The percentage of talaq is a staggering 30 per cent. The cause
in most cases is dowry, which has no sanction in Islam,"
explained Patel, adding, "How can the conservatives insist on
talaq, when it is used for an un-Islamic concept like dowry.
Nothing short of a court sanction will do for talaq. Women from
all religions come to us for legal counsel. If we can get
compensation for a divorced Hindu woman, why can't we get it for
a Muslim woman? It is also a question of conscience, not
religion. We live in a secular democracy and our women are
demanding a compulsory nikahnama (contract)."
"When we have a Seerat committee to decide the sighting of the
Moon, why can't we have a talaq committee in every Muslim
neighbourhood? Why should it all be so one-sided," asked another
activist.
‘Triple talaq,
a misinterpretation of Quran’
Express News Service
Posted online:
Monday, September 13, 2004 at 1003 hours IST
Updated:
Monday, September 13, 2004 at 1042 hours IST
Pune, September 13:
Activists at All-India Progressive Muslim Front meeting point
out that personal law was drafted in British Raj by vested
interests.
The
practise of instantaneous, triple talaq is the foremost
dent in the fabric of Muslim family life in India. A weapon used
irresponsibly by Muslim men with lethal consequences for all.
Not only is it a violation of human rights, it is also a gross
misinterpretation of the Quran by the All-India Muslim Personal
Board.’’
Speaking at the platform provided by the All-India Progressive
Muslim Forum on Saturday at Hamal Bhavan, Market Yard, social
activists from various strata sought to point out that divorce
as enshrined in the Holy Quran is a systematic, three-fold,
time-bound process. One that advocates extensive rational
thinking and discussion between husband and wife. One that seeks
a dignified exit for the former wife, complete with financial
security.
Expressed poet-activist Hasan Kamal: ‘‘The so-called
inviolable Muslim personal law — encoded way back during the
British Raj — was dictated by the vested interests of feudal
lords, who sought to subjugate women in order to maintain a
patriarchal status quo. It is in no way a dictate of the Quran.’’
He cited instances of women being divorced over phone and
through telegrams, ‘‘a heinously irresponsible act which cannot
be challenged in court because our personal law says it is fine.
Would you believe, some men have actually divorced their wives
because they were displeased with the meal prepared by them!’’
Other speakers, including activists Razia Patel, Hussain Jamadar
and Ghulam Peshimam referred to the Kanpur conference
conducted by the All-India Muslim Personal Board. ‘‘It was
stated at the conference that the Quran does not forbid women
from inheriting ancestral property. May we point out that the
Quran actually orders women to be given a share in ancestral
property? Anyway, despite the condescending tone, it is a
welcome progression. However, if the Muslim board does not amend
the divorce laws, we’ll have no choice but to go to the
government.’’
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040912/asp/opinion/story_3747293.asp
The great divide- ‘The hardliners are getting
marginalised by the day’
Lyricist Javed Akhtar decries the
Beslan massacre. Journalist Sajid Rashid is attacked for
his views on hardliners in his community. Satish Nandgaonkar
reports on the war waged by Muslim moderates against Muslim
radicals
It’s not often that poet Javed Akhtar picks
up his well-honed quill to pen something as prosaic as a letter
to the editor. Earlier this week, however, the massacre in a
Russian school in Beslan prompted the lyricist to voice his
anguish in a public letter. But the words were not those of
Akhtar, the poet. It was, instead, the pen of Akhtar, the
president of the Mumbai-based Movement for Secular Democracy (MSD).
As the world marks the third anniversary of
the 9/11 attacks in the United States, Mumbai is going through
its own state of churning. A movement is slowly building up in
the city to tackle not just Hindu fundamentalism, but Muslim
bigotry as well. And as the Muslim moderates resist attacks —
physical and verbal — from the Islamic radicals, the MSD
is gaining ground in a city where Muslims are still a besieged
people.
The MSD was in the news recently when its
vice-president, journalist Sajid Rashid, was stabbed by two
unknown men (see box). Rashid believes that the attack by
the armed men was an attempt by Muslim hardliners — often
severely criticised in the paper he edits — to stifle the
moderate Muslim voice which is being heard more than ever
before. “The hardliners are getting marginalised by the day,”
agrees Javed Akhtar. “The average Muslim wants change.”
That the MSD, set up in October 2003, has
been growing in stature in Mumbai is not surprising for this is
the city where Muslims have a prominent and popular face. Some
of the leading lights of the Hindi film industry, for instance —
from the top actors and directors to musicians — are Muslims.
But this is also the city where Muslims have
been cornered or targetted, both by the Hindu and Islamic
fundamentalists. The 1992-93 riots that followed in the
aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition hit out at the
community, just as the March, 1993, bomb blasts — masterminded
by Muslim criminals — further pushed the community into a
defensive corner. And then came 9/11, the riots in Gujarat and
the US-led attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. Attacks on Muslims
across the world went hand-in-hand with a perception of the
Muslim as an aggressor.
It was against this backdrop that the MSD was
set up. “It was formed because we were concerned about the
growing perception about Muslims,” says Javed Anand, an
editor of the Mumbai-based journal, Communalism Combat,
and one of the founders of the MSD. “Hardliners would
make outrageous statements claiming to be representatives of the
Muslims. Syed Ahmed Bukhari’s statement that Osama Bin Laden
should be born in every household is anti-national,” adds
Rashid.
One of the issues that the MSD has taken up
in recent times is that of the triple talaq. A debate has
been snowballing on whether Muslims should continue with the
currently practised form of divorce where a Muslim man can
divorce his wife by pronouncing talaq thrice at one go.
The moderates and intellectuals in the
community, as well as a large section of women, have been
demanding the adoption of a Quranic practice of divorce spread
over three months or over a period of three menstrual cycles.
But a section of Muslim clerics and hardliners believes that the
triple talaq is an integral part of the Shariat and
changing or abolishing it would mean violating the Islamic
jurisprudence.
The liberals have been using different
platforms to make their voice heard. Just before the July 4
meeting of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on
issues such as the triple talaq, the MSD addressed a
press conference urging the Board to abolish the practice. To
reach out directly to the ordinary Muslim on the street, the MSD
has also been touring the country, visiting Lucknow, New Delhi,
Allahabad, Kanpur and Aligarh to advocate moderate stands on
contentious issues such as the Haj subsidy, purdah, triple
talaq, population control, gender discrimination and the
uniform civil code.
The MSD is also for reform in Muslim personal
and family laws because it believes that the laws are often
unfair to women. “MSD also stands for the right to freedom of
expression,” says Javed Anand.
To get their stand across to the people, MSD
is forming study circles in different parts of India. “We have
also consciously taken a decision that MSD should not become a
club of intellectuals,” says Javed Akhtar. “So, we try to
address a cross-section of people which includes educated and
illiterate people from various strata of Muslim society. The
overwhelming popular reaction is that we are belling the cat,”
he says.
To begin with, however, the liberals were not
sure of the response they would get. “But we were pleasantly
surprised to find that 95 per cent of the audience in these
cities agreed with our views and were eager to join in,” says
Sajid Rashid.
But there is, at the same time, a sense of
disquiet among the Muslims about the MSD, for the organisation
takes on the hardliners on several issues that the Hindutva
Brigade has also been highlighting. “The MSD seems to have a
hidden agenda,” says Mohammed Saeed Noori, general secretary of
Mumbai’s Raza Academy. “It is not clear exactly what they want.
If they support anti-Islamic things, then it will not be
tolerated. I believe that they are against the purdah which is
central to Islamic tenets.”
By attacking the position of the hardliners —
supported by some of the leading Urdu dailies — the MSD knows
that it has been courting trouble. The first to come under
attack was Javed Akhtar. Articles in Urdu dailies have described
Akhtar as anti-Muslim. “Javed saheb,” one of the papers
warned, “the day is not far when you too will be counted among
the infamous blasphemers such as Salman Rushdie and Taslima
Nasreen.” A series of articles called the MSD members “munifiqeen”
(infidels) and accused them of working against the tenets of the
Shariat.
Says Maulana Athar Ali, spokesperson of the
Ulema Council and vice-president of the Samajwadi Party’s Mumbai
unit: “Javed Akhtar and the so-called reformists have no moral
right to speak. Did Akhtar marry according to the Muslim
Personal Law? He did a registered marriage in court. If he
doesn’t follow the Muslim Personal Law, what right does he have
to talk about reforms in the Muslim Personal Law?”
With the growing bitterness fomenting
trouble, the MSD had submitted a memorandum to Mumbai police
commissioner Anami Roy exactly a month before Rashid was
attacked, saying that his life was in danger. In the memorandum,
signed by Marathi writer-playright Vijay Tendulkar, Javed Akhtar,
Javed Anand and editor Nikhil Wagle, it demanded that the police
take legal action against Urdu Times — one of the papers
most virulent in its attack on the MSD.
The hardliners are not sitting back either.
Recently, 32-year-old Urdu writer Rehman Abbas lost his teaching
job at the Anjuman Islam school after radical groups threatened
a protest over his maiden novel, Naklistan Ki Talash.
They termed as “obscene” portions of the novel on an affair
between a Mumbai University student and his lover. The novel is
the story of an educated Muslim youth whose increasing
alienation in a post-1992 Mumbai leads him to a Kashmiri
terrorist outfit.
“They thought the novel was obscene because
the two lovers exchange kisses and decide to stay away from
matrimony,” Rehman Abbas stresses. “They accused me of being a
kafir,” says Abbas, who, spurred by personal experiences,
is now penning a new novel on hypocrisy among a section of
Muslim leaders.
But like many others, Abbas views the attack
on moderates as a positive sign, convinced that it would lead to
reforms within the Muslim community. “The attack on Rashid shows
an increasing sense of insecurity among Muslims who do not like
a mirror being held up to them,” he says.
And Akhtar believes that the time has come
for the moderate Muslims to step out of their homes. “The
educated Muslims have been liberated long ago, but it remained
an individual exercise. Today, especially after the Gujarat
riots, they have realised that their destiny is linked with that
of their community,” he says. “That’s why they have realised
that it is no longer enough to be educated and liberated
themselves. They should share their education with the
community.”
As for Rashid, the journalist believes that a
battle is on. “The attack has actually reduced my fear,” he
says. “I will fight on.”
Box
night of the long knives
Journalist Sajid Rashid’s eyes dart
intermittently at every shadow that passes the wide open door of
his fourth floor flat in Dongri. There is reason for that, for a
fortnight ago, Rashid was stabbed by two unidentified Muslims
near his office. Living in a densely populated, Muslim-dominated
locality like Dongri can give a sense of security to most
Muslims in a deeply-polarised, post-riot Mumbai. But, for
Rashid, the threat comes from within. Trouble has been brewing
ever since Mumbai’s second largest Urdu daily accused him of
insulting the Quran this summer. And then, on August 24, Rashid
was stabbed near his office. Rashid, 48, had just stepped out of
his office in Mahim for a cup of tea when a man asked him:
“Sajid tumhara naam hain? Tu Quran ki tauheen karta hain?” The
men stabbed him twice in the back and then disappeared in the
dark lanes of Mahim. Profusely bleeding and terrified, Rashid
walked back to his office and was rushed to a city hospital by
his colleagues.
“They did not want to kill me. They wanted to scare me and
frighten what I represent,” says Rashid.
