Split wide open

RIDDHIMA SEAL / TNN / Nov 10, 2006, 17:41 IST

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Shi'ite women will soon have the right to approach religious leadership to seek divorce. We lift the veil off Shia jurisprudence.

Shi'ite women will soon have the right to approach religious leadership to seek divorce. We lift the veil off Shia jurisprudence.
Islam might have been one of the first religions in the world to empower women and give them equal legal status along with their male counterparts. But the ground realities have been very different for most Muslim women.
But the new 'model nikanamah' drafted by Shia clerics where the All India Shia Personal Law Board (AISPLB) has proposed to widen the scope of divorce of Shi'ite women to give them a chance to break away from a marriage, might really help empower women.
As of now, a Muslim woman can seek divorce through a process called khulla but only if her husband agrees to invoke the provision which means she usually has to agree to forego the mehar (alimony fixed at the time of nikah).

The new nikanamah says the groom would also have to sign a set of conditions before the nikah, the first condition being that the girl would have an equal right to talaq.
The boy would also have to specify his income, social status and qualifications in writing before marriage. Besides, the prospective groom would also have to give an undertaking that in the case of divorce, he would be liable to give maintenance till the woman remarries or has an alternative source of income.

"We have decided to go beyond the khulla and have included in the marriage contract the woman's right to say talaq. The issue is more of a social one, than a religious one. Our women have been facing repression for ages now despite what the Qu'ran says.
Though it cannot be forced upon people, I'm sure that people will be ready to accept it," says All India Shia Personal Law Board President Maulana Mirza Mohammad Athar.
Social analyst and author of Sexual and Gender Relations, Dr Syed Mubin Zehra, though a little sceptical of its political implications, feels it could act as a tool for the empowerment of Muslim women. "It's a bold step. The responsibility to make this a success depends entirely on the people now," she says.
Dr Akhtarul Wase, head of the Islamic Studies Department at the Jamia Milia Islamia University, sounds enthusiastic when he says, "Islamic laws have always been pro-women, but traditional interpretations of the same by the Imams in pre-modern feudal society has brought about this kind of a plight for women in society.
It could act as a revolutionary step. Every community should realise that till one learns to respect its women it cannot make progress," he says.
However, even as the intelligentsia seem upbeat, veteran maulanas have expressed concern over how much of a revolution this new nikanamah can actually bring about. Says Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, a well-known Shia scholar and vice president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, "I appreciate the move.
But the majority of our women are hardly educated enough to understand the benefits of such laws." Another 87-year-old maulana, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, agrees saying, "The grass root levels is plagued by backwardness, with high fears of social stigma. People need to be educated first and only then can we expect the success of such moves."
As this new nikanamah awaits approval at AISPLB's second annual session in Mumbai on November 26, despite all odds, we can only hope that at least a section of the community makes use of it to get their voices heard.

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