Progressive Muslims salute Muslim Women / By refusing to honour talaq verdict, India’s most influential Islamic body is harming Muslims
Press release: Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy:
Applauds SC verdict: in favour of Islam, against the
patriarchal ulema
Salutes Muslim women for their gritty long march from Shah Bano to Shayara
Bano.
Felicitates Muslim women for breaching the dam of Male
Supremacism
Accuses Maulana Mehmood Madni of inviting contempt of Supreme Court and
fuelling Hindutva
Calls upon the ulema to realize that change will no longer remain in
chains. Invites them to be partners in reform, not obstacles
in the way.
Warns citizens against any attempt to communalise and/or politicize a
secular verdict
IMSD applauds the
majority 3:2 judgment of the Supreme Court, “setting aside” the practice of
instant triple talaq among Indian Muslims. Two of the judges have held the
practice to be “un-Constitutional” while a third has deemed it “un-Quranic”.
We welcome the fact
that each one of the three separate judgments reflecting the views of all the 5
members on the constitutional bench have made it clear that the verdicts are
concerned only with the practice of instant triple talaq (“talaq,
talaq, talaq”).
By resting heavily on religious texts, triple talaq verdict sets a troubling precedent
By resting heavily on religious texts, triple talaq verdict sets a troubling precedent
Javed
Anand: Islam’s reform: Can passages of the Quran be cherry-picked - to embrace
what is appealing and to skirt around what is not?
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Abhiruchi Ranjan and Chitra Adkar - Phobia of 'Islamophobia': Politics of offence in JNU
The verdict does not
in any way interfere with other forms of talaq – talaq ahsan and
talaq hasan -- which are based on reasonable grounds for
separation, provide for a 3-month “cooling period” and stipulate genuine
attempts at reconciliation. Clearly, therefore,
the apex court’s verdict is not against Islam or the Quranic principle of
divorce. It’s against the ulema who are perpetuating patriarchy in the name of
Islam.
Given this context, we
are alarmed by the virtual instigation of Indian Muslims to continue with the
practice of instant triple talaq by Maulana Mehmood Madni of the Jamiat
ulema-e-Hind. Not only does this amount to contempt of the Supreme Court it
also adds fuel to the Islamophobic propaganda that Muslims don’t respect the laws
of the land.
IMSD salutes the
individual Muslim women survivors of triple talaq and also the Muslim women’s
organizations who petitioned the Supreme Court and have emerged
victorious.
Equally, IMSD
acknowledges the role of numerous Muslim women who individually and
collectively have battled in and outside the courts in the past few decades in
their difficult journey from Shah Bano to Shayara Bano.
IMSD calls upon the
All India Muslim Personal Law Board and other Muslim religious bodies to at
least now read the writing on the wall. Muslim women have at last breached the
dam of Male Supremacism and the tide of time can no longer be halted.
Last year the
Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan won for women the constitutional right to equal
access to sacred space in the Haji Ali Dargah case in the Bombay High Court and
the Supreme Court. Now, instant triple talaq stands abolished.
The yes-but-more
demands of Muslim women and men for change can no longer be denied. We call
upon the ulema to be partners in progress, not obstacles in the way.
In their judgment,
Justices Rohinton F Nariman and UU Lalit have observed that “there is
something astonishingly modern” about the over 14-century-old marriage
system in Islam. We call upon the ulema to introspect on how and why things
have come to such a sorry pass that the courts of secular India have to quote
the letter and the spirit of the Quran to those who are meant to be Islam
experts.
IMSD condemns all
communal and majoritarian forces who are already, or planning to give an
anti-Islam and/or anti-Muslim twist to a secular verdict. To that extent, we
applaud the judgments of Justices JS Khehar, S Abdul Nazeer and Joseph Kurian
for emphatically reaffirming that other than being subject to restraints under
Article 25 and 26, the right to freedom of religion is “absolute.”
However, we
are also seriously concerned over the way freedom of religion has been
interpreted by them. IMSD is concerned that
following the SC verdict, there is considerable confusion in the mind of
Muslims and others over the exact status of cases where an instant divorce was
pronounced in the recent period or does get pronounced in the coming months. An
unofficial advisory suggests that for now Muslim women victims of instant triple
talaq should take recourse to the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence
Act, 2005. We hope the situation is clarified at the earliest in this regard.
While striking a
defiant note, Maulana Madni has stated that if Muslims accepted the decision of
the Supreme Court on instant triple talaq, the next to go would be nikaah
halala and polygamy.
Since inception, IMSD
has campaigned for the declaration of instant triple talaq, nikaah halala and
polygamy as unconstitutional and for the codification of Muslim Personal Law.
While welcoming the verdict of the apex court, we reiterate our commitment to
promoting gender justice and gender parity in all spheres of life.
Besides IMSD
spokespersons, the press conference was also addressed by representatives of Bhartiya
Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), Bebaak Collective and Awaaz-e-Niswan.
Mumbai; August 24,
2017
For further details
contact:
Javed Anand
(+919870402556; javedanand@gmail.com)
Feroze Mithiborwala
(+919029277751; feroze.moses777@gmail.com)
The last time Muslim
clerics refused to accept a Supreme Court verdict – in Shah
Bano, 1985 – and successfully campaigned to get it repudiated, they
unwittingly helped a defeated Bharatiya Janata Party bounce back with a
movement that culminated in the demolition of the
Babri Masjid. Imagine what such a refusal by clerics could do today to the
triumphal BJP. One wonders whether this thought crossed Maulana Mahmood
Madani’s mind before he declared that his organisation, the Jamiat
Ulema-e-Hind, would not accept last week’s Supreme Court’s judgement striking
down triple talaq, that the practice would continue, that the wife against whom
it is pronounced would be deemed instantly divorced. Another Jamiat leader
Siddiqullah Chowdhury, a minister in Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal
government, declared the verdict “unconstitutional”. The Jamiat is
considered to be the country’s largest Muslim religious organisation, and has a
significant influence on the operations of the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary...
