India's top court rules against instant divorce
bbc.com
bbc.com
- Indian constitution directly does not have any instant divorce.
- The Indian constitution provides for freedom of religion, and freedom of practice of religious traditions.
- The Muslim personal law board's interpretation was the traditional practice of divorce is inherent to Islam, and thus, via freedom of religion, something that muslim men could do with constitutional guarantee.
- This was challenged by Shayara Banu, who was thus divorced. The court was asked to rule if this practice was indeed valid.
- The court declared 3/2 against this being a core part of Islam, and that the practice itself is cruel, and unconstitutional.
For most, this is a victory of simple decency. There are worries that this should have been legislatively dealt with rather than judicially, but on-the-ground truth is that politics of appeasement would mean this option is potentially long and arduous. Right now, muslim women no longer have to worry about instant divorce thanks to this ruling.
> For most, this is a victory of simple decency. There are worries that this should have been legislatively dealt with rather than judicially, but on-the-ground truth is that politics of appeasement would mean this option is potentially long and arduous. Right now, muslim women no longer have to worry about instant divorce thanks to this ruling.
I just wanted to add a fact so we have some perspective: a quick Google search shows that just under 15% of India identifies as Muslim.
Apropos this, the 1978 Shah Bano case [1] is relevant.
Though the supreme court (in 1978) had ruled the practice illegal, the ruling majority at that time reversed the court's judgement. The political dispensation since then has changed, with the current government advocating against the practice.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohd._Ahmed_Khan_v._Shah_Bano_...
My understand as it was explained in detail by a muslim here in Tanzania is that if a Muslim man divorces his wife once or twice,he can get her back with little effort since they are still semi-married. Its called "talaka" in swahili and its a simple note a man gives a woman as he sends her to her family and she is to use it as proof that he no longer wants her.
But if he divorces her three times,she will have to first be married to somebody else and then divorced before he can get her back and he will have to start from zero and go through all the process of marrying her as if they were never married.
Therefore, a muslim man who has never divorced his wife will issue the 3 divorces at the same time ONLY if he is 100% sure he will never,ever,ever want her back and he does not want to be talked out of it.
The above is my understanding of the 3 divorces as its practiced here in Tanzania.
Living Together -> Talaq -> Living Together -> Talaq -> Living Together -> Talaq: Permanent Divorce.
But some modern idiots came up with this concept of Triple Talaq which lets the Husband tells his wife 'Talaq, Talaq, Talaq' and hence done their permanent divorce. Triple Talaq isn't Islamic and when I mean Islamic, I refer back to Quran and Hadith/Sunnah (Life of Prophet Muhammad). But Indian Muslims even clerics being dumb and ignorant not referring to Quran/Hadith, has approved this idiotic Instant Triple Talaq.
I wish some Indian Media had explained this difference better rather than calling ignorant Clerics words as Islamic.
Not every interpretation of Islam is toward the dogmatic Salafism where one can say what is and isn't Islam with showboating authority. All of this is Islamic, otherwise we're playing "no true Scotsman".
Just the same way that Westbro Baptist Church ARE Christian whether the Pope likes it or not.
The title is a bit misleading. The instant divorce was not a part of the Constitution, but only the Muslim Personal Law.
This refers to Indian law allowing muslims to live under sharia for family matters.
The rule itself is referred to as "triple talaq" and is part of sharia. In Sunni islam, basically men can abandon women, without any (any) limit immediately and without consequences (they get to take possession of everything the woman owns as well). They can take the kids if they want, including kids that have been conceived but not born yet (technically they should take the kids, but that's not what happens in practice).
Women face progressively harsher physical punishments for abandoning a man. If they remarry without his permission, they face (extra cruel) execution (stoning, often with the kids and family forced to watch).
Edit: links
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/05/tripple-ta...
The problem with wikipedia articles is that they try to bury the message in detail. Read it through 5 times and you'll slowly realize what the rule is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_in_Islam#Talaq_al-bid....
TLDR: in mainstream Sunni islam what I said is true. Allowing women contractual divorce is a Shi'a practice, and not practiced by >85% of muslims worldwide (what is it ?Essentially a prenup allowing for divorce under stated circumstances, which cannot be initiated directly by the woman). Once you look up the numbers, you'll see that the worst kind (the pure triple talaq) is followed by some ~80% of muslims worldwide, and the contractual thing is an exception for Shi'a only (and is one of the main stated reasons of recent Sunni genocides against Shi'a in the middle east). You'll see that the text does in fact say the overwhelming majority follows the worst practice, but not on your first read.
These statements in wikipedia are true, but they're true like saying "your phone company cannot just terminate your service", which is true. And then give the entire contract and details on how this contract is affected by 5 different jurisdictions, which is of course the entire rule. But all it serves is to cloud the issue.
Of course, in all realistic circumstances, your phone company can in fact just tell you to fuck off without so much as giving a reason.
For example there are countries (Egypt and Jordan) in the Middle-East where over 80% of the population supports murdering anyone raised Muslim who decides as an adult that the Koran is wrong. See http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi... for a source on that.
It's worth noting that there is no consensus on the validity or meaning of triple talaq within Sunni Islam.
> they get to take possession of everything the woman owns as well
This is not true, I guess you are confusing it with a khula divorce in which the woman requests that the man divorce her. In this case, she has to give back the mahr (bride price).
> They can take the kids if they want, including kids that have been conceived but not born yet (technically they should take the kids, but that's not what happens in practice).
In Islam kids stay with the woman if they are below a certain age, and men take kids above a certain age.
> Women face progressively harsher physical punishments for abandoning a man. If they remarry without his permission, they face (extra cruel) execution (stoning, often with the kids and family forced to watch).
I'm not sure what you mean, a woman does not need to seek permission to remarry from her ex-husband. Her current husband does need to give permission for a khula divorce, there are other kinds of divorce e.g. by a court in cases of mistreatment or abandonment. Yes, in general only men are given the right to divorce for no reason.
Stoning is the hadd punishment for adultery, i.e. sex with someone one is not married to.
> It's worth noting that there is no consensus on the validity or meaning of triple talaq within Sunni Islam.
True (as I pointed out. The biggest divide is the Sunni-Shi'a divide). Now why don't you answer: what does 85%+ of muslims think/follow (with the large majority of the remainder being the Shi'a) ?
> This is not true, I guess you are confusing it with a khula divorce
We are not talking about khula divorce. Obviously, we are talking about a talaq divorce, which has exactly the properties I said:
1) initiated by the man, no defense possible on the woman's part. Anytime, anywhere, mostly immediate or VERY short term, women just gets thrown into the street
2) there are NO financial obligations per se (it is ADVISED to provide money if the man forces the woman to take care of the children, but this cannot be enforced)
3) oh and feel free to point out that islam "advises against" divorcing this way. That's like islam's advice about slaves.
> In Islam kids stay with the woman if they are below a certain age, and men take kids above a certain age.
True. At that age they are taken away and delivered to the man if he wants that to happen.
> I'm not sure what you mean, a woman does not need to seek permission to remarry from her ex-husband.
Obviously she does. She needs the divorce to happen. The man does not. Given the punishments I cited that was obvious.