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Triple talaq: Controversy continues

Only a few were mystified last year by the sudden frontloading of the triple talaq controversy in national consciousness for weeks on end.

Triple talaq: Controversy continues

Praying for a better future: This book on triple talaq, nikah halala, nikah mut'ah etc. hands out some bold prescriptions to leaders of the Muslim community as well as to the government of the day. Photo: PTI



Sandeep Dikshit

Only a few were mystified last year by the sudden frontloading of the triple talaq controversy in national consciousness for weeks on end. Politicians have usually tiptoed around the Muslim Personal Law, fearful of the unanimity generating ability of the mullahs and its consequent impact on their votebanks. The Hindutva Parivar had no such compulsions, having cheerfully forsaken the Muslim vote for the larger pot of pan-Hindu consolidation.

When the case arrived in the Supreme Court, the gingerness surrounding the issue’s was palpable: five judges of different faiths heard the case. But there was a hollow unanimity. The government backed the petitioners and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board did not hold back its censure, describing the practice of triple talaq as “horrendous”, “sinful” and “undesirable”. The matter should have ended at that. And if it had, this book would have been a racy narrative of court room drama and the forces outside that shaped it.

But picture abhi baaki hai. It did not end on August 21 when the Supreme Court scratched out Triple Talaq, for the court also resolved to hear the invalidation of nikah halala and polygamy at a future date. The government was also directed to frame a law in this respect. This is where Ziya Us Salam’s book will continue to act as a useful, well rounded and trustworthy account of a broad consensus in the Indian Muslim community about the future trajectory of their societal persuasions and practices.

Ziya wields a light scalpel while dissecting the community’s underbelly but he dives deep, aided by the rich tapestry of Muslim theology in the authoritative Hadiths (Bukhari, Daud and Sahi Muslim), preachers (Israr Ahmed, Tariq Jameel, Bilala Philips) and the current crop of the well-versed, including Faizan Mustafa, who writes a succinct foreword.

Local maulanas fall woefully short of the expected benchmarks in literacy compounded by their complete ignorance of the Koran, a practice not uncommon in other religions and regions. This breeds patriarchal and even misogynist mindsets fostered by domination of mosques as a male domain, except those maintained by Ahl-e Hadith and a few by the Jamat-e-Islami. It is not that the Muslim society’s cultural-religious architecture is devoid of foundations. But in North India, the reason-based arbitration of the seminaries at Deoband and Lucknow are beyond the reach of the poor.

Can a judicial order have an impact where illiteracy is widespread and the community leaders of a largely impoverished and ghettoised community are drunk on notions of male hegemony? Reform is possible if the real intention is not to blackball a community or extract further concessions from a defensive mindset.

But a necessary precondition is to lend a close ear to the community’s intellectuals and forge a common understanding based on appreciation of their perceptions and surmises. Ziya helpfully swings the story back and forth — from the Prophet’s time to the present and the many fierce arguments on theological interpretation that have raged within the community in between. It provides continuity and enables him to hand out some bold prescriptions. Halala, currently a rage among Indian Islamophobists on the social media, is cast in the atmosphere prevailing at that time in Arabia and, therefore, scratched out as incongruous for the present day and age. Nikah mut'ah like nikah halala is evaluated at length and, it too, receives thumbs down.

Saving polygamy, the most controversial for the last, the assessment is premised on two verses in Surah an-Nisa that give it sanction. These, he says, are contextual verses, revealed by the Prophet for a specific purpose. These were among the many verses in the Koran to tackle a particular situation existing at that time.

The Muslim is prepared to stand up and debate; correct himself if in the wrong. But he is bound to resist even well-meaning ministrations if triple talaq is framed as a political project to corner the community that began taking shape a couple of years before the 2014 elections when Project Modi had entered the post-embryonic stage.

Post-2001 has seen a fierce debate in the Muslim community over the appropriateness of indiscriminate violence as a political means to achieve power and settle inter-state relations. It sadly overshadowed the ferment within the Muslim community where the dominant sentiment is not rage but dispassionate self-examination and reassessment of the society’s moorings and the requirement to shift some of the customary goalposts. Ziya’s book will be an important handbook to the global discourse in this respect.

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