Eminent Muslim Scholar Welcomes Guj HC On Polygamy
07 November ,Bhopal
Former National Minority Commission Chairman Tahir Mahmood Saturday welcomed Gujrat High Court observations on polygamy, saying that the court has made an effort to elucidate the true position of polygamy in Islamic law.
In a strongly-worded observation in the case of a man who took a second wife, the Gujarat High Court has said that the Quran “does not say that a Muslim can treat his wife cruelly” and marry again without legally dissolving his first marriage.
The Quran was being “misinterpreted by some Muslim men” to get away with more than one marriage, the court said on Thursday.
“When the Quran allowed polygamy, it was for a fair reason. When men use that provision today, they do it for a selfish reason,” said Justice JB Pardiwala, taking a tough view on the petition of Jafar Abbas Merchant, a resident of Bhavnagar, who was sued by his wife after he married another woman.
“The true Quranic law is certainly being misinterpreted by the Muslims and based on theirinterpretation, unscrupulously misused by non-Muslims,” Dr Mahmood said, adding that they think that by conversion to Islam, even though fake, they get instantly empowered to unconditionally indulge in polygamy.
“What he (the judge) has said is, in legal language, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth,” said Dr Mahmood, who is professor of Eminence and Honorary Chairman, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Amity University.
He said, “the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, to great annoyance of Muslim theologians, that a married non-Muslim cannot contract a bigamous marriage despite his conversion to Islam unless his marriage is legally dissolved; but the practice of resorting to a sham conversion to Islam in search of a new wife is still continuing in the society.”
“In my opinion, instead of embarking on the hazardous journey of citing the Holy Quran and its exegeses, the learned judge should have made his point by referring to the modern legislation in many Muslim countries under which polygamy has been abolished or severely restricted,” Dr Mahmood said.
He said it must be clearly understood that Muslim law does not enjoy any special protection under the Constitution of India and is fully on par with all other personal laws. Being part and parcel of the system of Indian family law, it is very much within the respective powers and functions of the legislature and the judiciary.