Deoband counsels Muslims: one marriage is enough

The Muslim seminary Deoband gets a lot of bad press – and with justifiable reason. For instance, when writer Salman Rushdie was to visit the Jaipur Literary Festival earlier this year, it was a Deobandi cleric who first kicked up a shindig and called for Rushdie to be barred from coming to India for having slighted Muslim sentiments in The Satanic Verses. [caption id=“attachment_274540” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Deoband ruled that although Islam did permit a man to take on two wives at the same time, “Indian traditions do not allow it.” Reuters”]  [/caption] But every once in a while, the influential seminary issues forward-looking fatwas that contribute actively to influencing the lay Muslim mind in a progressive way. In 2008, for instance, the Deoband famously denounced terrorism as a sin against Islam. At a time when jihadis around the world and in India were carrying out vile terror acts claiming to act on behalf of Islam, the Deoband’s challenge of this notion was exemplary. Now, according to media accounts, the Deoband school has issued another such progressive fatwa directing Muslims in India to avoid polygamy. The Telegraph reports that the seminary made its pronouncement in response to a lay person who sought counsel on the wisdom of marrying a second time while his first wife was still alive. The Deoband ruled that although Islam did permit a man to take on two wives at the same time, “Indian traditions do not allow it.” It would be hard to provide equal justice to two wives in the Indian context, the Deoband fatwa said. One may, of course, ask the legitimate question whether it needs a fatwa to denounce terrorism or to discourage polygamy. But given the social constructs in India, and the hold of religious doctrine on the everyday lives of people across faiths, just the mere fact that an influential religious school is pointing its flock in the right direction is worthy of acknowledgement. The latest fatwa is being welcomed as an important contribution towards social reform in the Muslim community. The newspaper reports that the head of the Islamic Council of India welcomed it, particularly since it viewed the institution of marriage through the prism of justice and equality. He added that the verdict would also clear prevailing myths about the polygamous ways of Muslims. (Indicatively, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had, in 2002, made an infamous speech in which he mocked the ‘Hum Paanch, Hamare Pachees’ mindset’ – which was seen as a veiled remark suggesting that every Muslim takes on four wives and begets 25 children.) Read the original report in The Telegraph here.