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Some Advance This
The adoption of ‘Model Nikahnama’ by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board at the recently held Bhopal conclave should signal some advance towards initiating reform from within the community. Being a voluntary option, it is far from providing a firm bulwark of legal protection of women. But given the protracted debate it generated, its adoption is expected to act as a stepping stone for further reforms.
The Muslim Personal Law Board is an unwieldy combine of diverse sects, jamaats, groups and parties. Just as the common objective of unity fosters solidarity, the diverse interests and prejudices foment dissonance and discordance. The fact that it has held together so long is in itself a major feat. It is in this context that adoption of Nikahnama should be deemed as some advance. Its efficacy is however doubtful as it is most likely to be an instrument to be proposed by the bride prior to nikah rather than the bridegroom. With the dice loaded against the weaker sex, a marriage coming with strings, is less likely to be acceptable to the bridegroom. Its success would depend on adequate awareness of rights of spouses enshrined in the shariah and general willingness to abide by them. Nikahnama is not the end all and be all of issues pertaining to Muslim family code. Issues will keep propping up as the time and technology advance. The community will be called upon to grapple with them with creative and progressive interpretation of scriptural guidance and with reference to key values such as wisdom (hikmah), justice (adl), mercy (rahmah), beneficence (ehsan), which are the cornerstone of Islam.
The road to further reforms calls for new thinking and dispassionate discussion on issues like divorce by utterance of talaq thrice in a single sitting, minimum age for marriage, halalah, status of men as qawwamun etc. What others think of Islamic law and how media projects the community need to be disregarded. But how the shariah is used, misused or abused, key indicators of women’s social status in Muslim society, and how the technology has transformed the society, need to be taken into account. Today we are face to face with grotesque anomalies such as males asserting their right to utter divorce by e-mail, fax and SMS while case of divorced women’s demand of mehr (dower) and return of dowry and gifted properties remaining unheard. The community is yet to evolve an apparatus whereby these exchanges could be brought to account, monitored and enforced. Some mercantile communities have perfected mechanism and institutions to do all that. It looks absurd to insist upon validity of three talaq while the Quran itself is unambiguous about the proper way the man and woman should separate from each other. Sadly enough, there seems to be too much of discussion on divorce and marital discord. Much of it could be averted if the community develops mechanism for pre-marital counseling and reconciliation and strives to remove socio-economic factors such as illiteracy, poverty, unemployment and immodesty. Mere insistence on reform in law does not result in a disciplined society.
Similarly, there is a need for conforming to national minimum age of marriage, be it for boys or girls. We can reconsider looking for shariah prescription in this regard. It could not have been imaginable 1400 years ago amid general atmosphere of insecurity where marriage offered the best protection. New researches have brought forth strong evidences to the fact that the holy Prophet, peace be upon him, married Hazrat Ayesha at the age of 19 rather than nine as conventionally held.
The verse regarding men being qawwamun (ch. 4, v. 34) over women is generally interpreted as superior status of men and subordination of women. Could it be that Quran prescribes men to ‘stand up’ for women rather than stand above them. Or alternatively that ‘Men will take full care of women’, or ‘Men are to provide for women’. This basic course correction will lead to ironing out several anomalies in the thought process.
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