Like pre-Islamic burying of girls alive: Arif on triple talaq

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 12

Likening triple talaq to the pre-Islamic practice of burying infant girls alive, former Union Minister Arif Mohammad Khan today requested the Supreme Court to abolish the practice, saying it was against the mandate of the Holy Quran.

“In pre-Islamic Arab society, infant girls were buried alive. The practice was abolished after the advent of Islam… Triple talaq is the modern version of the pre-Islamic practice,” Arif Khan told a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, which is hearing petitions challenging the validity of triple talaq.

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On Thursday, senior counsel Indira Jaising had contended that triple talaq amounted to civil death for Muslim women.

Khan, who quit the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986 following differences over the passage of a law to overturn the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Shah Bano case on maintenance for divorced Muslim women, attacked the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) for “distorting” the Islamic law. 

“The Shariat has been distorted beyond recognition… They (AIMPLB) have taken the law to ridiculous levels,” Arif Khan said, adding it has gone much beyond the limits set by Allah in the Quran.

Appearing on behalf of the All Indian Muslim Women Personal Law Board, Khan sought to emphasise that the Quran alone should be considered as the source of Islamic law; and Sunna and Hadith should be taken into account only if the Quran was silent on a particular issue.

Advocate Farah Faiz, too, attacked the AIMPLB for distorting Shariat and demanded that a parallel judicial system of Islamic courts (Darul-Kaza) be banned as they prevented Muslims from approaching the mainstream judicial system. The Bench sought to know if something sinful and abhorrent could be part of law (Shariat).

“Can something which is considered abhorrent by religion be validated by law?” Justice Kurian Joseph asked after senior counsel Salman Khurshid — who is assisting the court in his personal capacity — said that triple talaq was forbidden and sinful but still valid under the Islamic law.

Interestingly, both Khan and Khurshid did not address the Constitution Bench on the fundamental rights of Muslim women and chose to restrict their arguments to the Quran and Shariat. As Khurshid went on and on explaining the practice of talaq under various Islamic schools, Jaising told the Bench, “Me lord! Your Bible is the Constitution.”

However, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani — who represented the Forum for Awareness for National Security (FANS) and three victims of triple talaq — based his arguments mainly on the fundamental rights of Muslim women.

Terming the practice of triple talaq as violative of the right to equality and right against non-discrimination, Jethmalani said the practice was bad in law as it discriminated against Muslim women on the basis of sex and didn’t give them an equal right to divorce.

The hearing would resume on Monday when the Centre is likely to present its case against triple talaq.