12/07/2004
stampa
invia
It was 1978. Shah Bano was 62 years old and had five daughters. She lived in
Indore, in Madya Pradesh, Central India.
“We can’t abolish the triple talaq, but we can do something to discourage its
use and to encourage the custom of a separation which should not be instantaneous
and unilateral but, on the contrary, a procedure mediated by a judge which guarantees
the rights of both partners”, explained Mr Zeenat Shaukat Ali,a member of the
Aimplb. “We must help people understand that the custom of triple talaq is not
a part of the Koranic law, which considers it only a very extreme measure, and
obliges the husband, in any case, to have the proper consideration for the needs
if his ex wife. We must understand that that law was distorted by the rigid patriarchal
culture of Indian society, and the time has come now to reevaluate women’s rights”.
stampainvia
Indian Islamic women obtain the official condemnation of the institution of the “triple talaq”
It was 1978. Shah Bano was 62 years old and had five daughters. She lived in
Indore, in Madya Pradesh, Central India.One day, after 40 years of marriage, her husband, a rich Muslim lawyer, decided
to divorce her, and repudiated her by using the Islamic so-called “triple talaq”.
According to this custom, it is enough for the man to say the word “talaq”, divorce,
three times to his wife, to be considered divorced from her by law, and the woman
has no right to reply and no guarantee of alimony. So, suddenly, Shah found herself
alone, with her five daughters, with no money, no house, condemned to misery and
to being a social outcast, like millions of Indian Muslim women. But Shah rebelled,
appealing to the Indian Supreme Court and obtaining, after seven years, the acknowledgement
of her right to alimony from her husband.
Her case caused an uproar.
The leaders of the Islamic community rose up against her. But for Indian Muslim
women she became a heroine. Her victory was seen as a precedent which would finally
overthrow the anachronistic custom of the triple talaq, long abolished in many
Muslim countries, from Pakistan to Tunisia, from Indonesia to Turkey, but still
existing in India for political reasons: the government in New Delhi didn’t want
to upset the conservative leaders of the Indian Islamic community in order not
to lose their precious electoral support. And for this reason, the Bano sentence
disappeared like a drop in the ocean, just an exception which proved the rule.
A rule which, one week ago, was questioned by the very Indian Muslim legal authority,
the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (Aimplb), which had stubbornly defended
it for years.
The Islamic scholars, appointed to interpret the Sharia, the Koranic law, made
a historic decision, announcing a campaign to discourage the custom of the triple
talaq and to promote, in its place, the model of nikahnama, a matrimonial contract
which prescribes an appeal to a darul quza, a religious judge, for the solution
of matrimonial disputes.
“We can’t abolish the triple talaq, but we can do something to discourage its
use and to encourage the custom of a separation which should not be instantaneous
and unilateral but, on the contrary, a procedure mediated by a judge which guarantees
the rights of both partners”, explained Mr Zeenat Shaukat Ali,a member of the
Aimplb. “We must help people understand that the custom of triple talaq is not
a part of the Koranic law, which considers it only a very extreme measure, and
obliges the husband, in any case, to have the proper consideration for the needs
if his ex wife. We must understand that that law was distorted by the rigid patriarchal
culture of Indian society, and the time has come now to reevaluate women’s rights”.This change is truly revolutionary for millions of Indian women and for the entire
Islamic community in India (more than 150 million people), particularly if we
consider that the Islamic scholars of the Aimplb, together with the decision on
divorce, also abolished the laws which, up to now, forbade women to inherit family
landed property: a very important measure in an agricultural, poor society like
that of the northern Indian regions inhabited by Muslims.
Shah Bano died twelve years ago: today, many people in India should beg her pardon.
Enrico Piovesana
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