Temporary Marriage in Islam

HP:
We can live with our different points of view. I don`t have any problem with that. I accept that I am no expert on prostitution and have very little first hand knowledge about prostitutes. Nonetheless, they are part of our society and don`t deserve the degradation that we tend to pile on them.
I agree with your bottom line, ``All men and women were not living in sin before religions desceneded on the mankind.`` Sin is a concept created by religions. All religions are hypocritical and have enough in them for exploitation every which way. If an act is wrong on social grounds, one cannot make it right by invoking religious ``conveniences`` selectively. I also recognize that these are complex issues amenable of no easy and quick fixes.
Incidently, was there a period of time in human history when there was no religion? Religion is creation of human mind and is probably as old as humankind. Probably, the religions in the remote past were not as restrictive and stifling as they have become now.
Be well,
MohammadGill

#128 by ZahraJ
“And I thought you were the guru on Chowk on all matters of life. What a disappointing question!”

Zahra, Don’t get in my hair :) Verbal agreement to live together can be compared with Mutah.
Now watch/read this clinic for Gill Sahib’s benefit.

#125 by freethinker
“There may be a fine difference between prostitution and muta`h (temporary marriage) but there isn`t a whole lot. I had mentioned in the article that the prostitutes (at least the Muslim ones) identify themselves with Shiah Islam and consider (wrongly, though) their engagement with the customers as muta`h.”

Gill Sahib,

Please don’t continue to repeat something that is factually wrong. First Prostitutes in Lahore, Karachi, and Hyderabad (three major red-light areas in Pakistan) are not Shia. They are not taught any religion as part of the curriculum. They follow some Shai rituals because it gives them 40 days so they can atone for their perceived sins. Some of them visit shrines pretty regularly too.
They have sex for money and nobody thinks of Mutah when a customer is paying.

The Mutah issue is really under 1% of tawaifs mostly Singers and Dancers that are solicited by bigra hua raiszada for Rakhail or keep. They know that the arrangement is not going to last long. Either the Raiszada would be tired of them or would be under tremendous family pressure to dump them after a few months or in a few years. They claim Mutah. But the numbers of tawaif as keep are so insignificant that generalization that muttah is invoked in every sexual encounter is inaccurate. 90% percent of them are poor and have no education. They don’t invoke religion before every paid sex.

Most of them can’t even spell mutah in Urdu or any language, your one reluctant/hesitant encounter notwithstanding. I think you would like to hear from a woman what she says before sex…and here is how it goes… “jaldi karo na bhai aur log bahar hain”

Now your “fine difference” between Mutah and Prostitution.

I think you are guided by some religious logic that says all sex outside of Marriage is SIN. Hence you equate temp Marriage with sin or prostitution. I tried to explain it in my previous post and now let me go a step further. I want you to go and tell your neighbor that his mother, wife, sister, and daughters are prostitute because they have had or are still having sex or are/were in relationships before marriage. Sex before marriage in this society is now acceptable and your neighbor will not appreciate your calling his family members prostitutes. Mutah was and perhaps still is acceptable in Iran or in some Shias outside of Iran. They accept that as a part of their culture and customs. It may be wrong or we can oppose such customs but I think we should be careful in calling that Prostitution or close to it. Mutah does not make a woman prostitute. She does not become a public property for everyone to have sex with her for money. She is in relationship with only one man. She is not prostituting. When you call mutah prostitution, you accuse women of prostitution for relationships that might have been forced on them.

A word about Marriage. There is nothing permanent in marriage. It is not a blood relationship that cannot be changed, altered, forgotten, or revoked. Permanency of marriage is pure garbage that is preached by some in medieval societies or by some pervert religious leaders. (Catholics are the worst. They are against sex before marriage but have nothing against sex with boys despite the vows of celibacy.) Only pagan rites turned into religion or Catholics insist on one marriage for life.

All men and women were not living in sin before religions descendant on the mankind.

Re: # 139
You are drawing an inappropriate conclusion. Both Sunnis and Shias can practice ridiculous practices anywhere on this planet. You don`t need to be under any umbrella to pick the habits of people from the 14th century.

# 138
I think you left the reader wondering about your age. Could you please state that? You can be a 23-year old marrying a 21-year old damsel.

If the Shia muslims wish to preserve the Mutah as a viable practice for current times and prevent its abuse they just need to make a few modifications in its implementation.

Ban mutah between minors and non-minors.
Ban mutah for the married, except by permission of spouse.
Ban dowry(mahr) or reduce it to a token.
Impose iddat requirement on men too.

Re #132, 133,

I think it is only fair to point out that the shameful exploitation of young girls by rich Arabs is mostly a Sunni phenomenon and takes place without resort to the institution of Mutah.

The regular nikah can be abused just as easily by those who are willing.

mr gill

i married a 21 year old girl there was an uproar in my biraderi, yet hollywood actors and popstars do it all the time and people idolise them.

re: kaptain # 135

Why would anyone? Why would anyone despise a child born to a prostitute (let`s keep mutah aside since it is for Muslims to decide whether that is legalized prostitution or anything else)?

Interactors:
Muta`h was the focal point of my article but it appears that misyar is its Sunni version with some minor differences. Misyar was mentioned en passant in the article; I think it`s appropriate to provide some details of this temporary marriage practised by Arab Muslims. The following piece appropriated from Internet gives necessary information. This is sheer exploitation of some loopholes that exist(ed) in the prcatice of Islam. But exploitation is the name of the game particulary when religious sanction is invoked in its support.
Mohammad Gill


Misyar Marriage or ``travellers` marriage`` (Arabic نكاح المسيار) is a marriage without the couple living together in the same house, the husband not being financially responsible for his wife. There is an implication that a divorce is intended in the future. It is therefore in some sense a temporary marriage.

Misyar was observed among Sunni Muslims in Egypt as early as 1825. In modern times, it was officially legalized in Saudi Arabia by a Salafi, Ibn Baz and later in Egypt.

Since no marriage with that name or form existed during Muhammad`s time, many Muslims object to the practice, calling it a bid`ah (a forbidden innovation).

It is an exclusively Sunni practice; Shia use the Nikah Mut`ah form which they conclude has proper legitimacy.

Definition of a Misyar Marriage

The difference between a Misyar marriage and a normal Nikah is:

1. The couple do not live in one household, but visit each other.
2. The husband is not financially responsible for supporting his wife .
3. It is intended to be a temporary arrangement.

But unlike the Nikah Mut`ah, which ends on the expiration date of the contract, the Misyar has no certain date for divorce. The intent of divorce is assumed in this type of marriage, but the time of divorce may not be revealed to the wife prior to the wedding. It may be decided at any point after the wedding by the husband, with or without the wife`s knowledge or agreement. If a fixed date were included before the wedding, it would constitute a Nikah Mut`ah, and that would invalidate the marriage in Sunni Fiqh.

The usual practice is for the wife to live with her parents, meaning that marital relations are likely to occur there. The Misyar wife`s husband is free to travel and leave her and her children for as long as he wishes. Having contracted such a marriage, she cannot ask for divorce on these grounds. The husband may marry another woman in another country without informing his Misyar wife. Misyar wives and children lose all their rights in the case of a divorce.

The Sunni Imam, Abu Hanifa was against Muta (temporary marriage) but in his Fiqh, when a student posed the question to him whether it was acceptable for a man to marry with the intention of divorcing his wife the next day, he said it is permissible.
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Reasons for a Misyar Marriage

The need for this type of marriage is, in part, the result of economic reality. In Egypt, most young men cannot afford to get married and support a wife and so long engagements are common. A Misyar marriage allows men to marry girls who then stay with their parents. The bride`s parents feed and maintain her, and the couple meets occasionally for the purpose of having sexual relations. Misyar marriages are often done by the poor who hope that someday their marriage will be a normal one where the wife and husband live together.

In Saudi Arabia the Misyar marriage has been subverted by young progressive Saudis who use the paperwork as a ``license`` to commit adultery or have sex outside of marriage without bringing down the wrath of the establishment upon their heads. Thus a tool of the religious establishment has been turned against them.
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Islam and Misyar Marriage

Misyar marriage has been practiced in Saudi Arabia and Egypt for many years. It was legalized in Saudi Arabia by a fatwa issued by Sheikh Abdul `Azeez ibn Abdullaah ibn Baaz and was officially legalized in Egypt by the Egyptian Sunni Imam Sheikh Muhammad Sayid Tantawy in 1999. The Mufti of Egypt is a staunch defender of Misyar marriage.
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Misyar Marriage in practice

The practice of Misyar marriage is often different from the original intent for creating this institution. Wealthy Kuwaiti and Saudi men sometimes enter into a Misyar marriage while on vacation. This allows them to have sexual relations with another woman without committing the sin of zina.

They travel to poor countries, such as Egypt or Syria, and meet middlemen who arrange a marriage for them. Some men arrange Misyar marriages online. The middleman brings some girls and they pick the one that they like most. These men pay the girl`s family some money.

Some Egyptian men working in the Gulf countries prefer to engage in the misyar marriage rather than live alone for years. Many of them are actually already married with wives and children in their home country, but they cannot bring them.

A reporter in Jeddah has reported that some marriage officials say seven of 10 marriage contracts they conduct are misyar, and in some cases are asked to recommend prospective misyar partners. Most of the women opting for misyar either are divorced, widowed or beyond the customary marriage age. The majority of men who take part in such marital arrangements are already married.

``All the misyar marriage contracts I conduct are between men and women remarrying,`` said Abu Fawaz, who’s been a marriage official for four years. ``For a misyar marriage all you need is witnesses, her dowry and the acceptance of both parties. Usually the woman either has her own place or lives with her family. Most of the time the woman’s family knows while the man’s family is in the dark about it, be it his first wife or any other family members.``

Arab News surveyed 30 Saudi men and women aged 20-40 regarding misyar marriage. Over 60 percent of the men surveyed would consider misyar marriage for themselves with the majority of the respondents in their 20s. Those who would not consider it for themselves would not allow it for kin, be it sisters, brothers, sons or daughters. However, among the men who would consider it themselves, only two would find such a marriage acceptable for a female relative.

“If I allowed myself to marry another man’s sister or daughter ‘misyarically’ then it would only be fair to accept the same for my own female kin,” said Mohammad H. “It’s a double standard for men to accept it for themselves and other men but not the females. After all, if we all took up the same policy then who would we marry — each other?”

Families agree to the arrangement because of the money and the hope that their girl will have some fun and visit places that she can only dream about (i.e. luxury hotels and restaurants). They also hope for some gifts and at the end of the vacation that the rich ``husband`` will give her some money and divorce her (although divorce was not a part of the fatwa which created Misyar marriage). Sometimes the husband keeps the wife for his next vacation and sends her some money now and then. Many Misyar wives hope to win the love of their husbands so that they may live with them permanently. Since the wife knows that she will most likely be divorced, but she does not know when, most Misyar wives take care to prevent pregnancy.
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Opposition to Misyar Marriage

Misyar marriage is opposed by some Islamic scholars inside and outside of Egypt, especially scholars at the al-Azhar University in Cairo. Those who defend Misyar marriage claim that it is in accordance with Islam. They also say that it gives protection to many women who cannot find husbands through traditional marriage.
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Re: # 129
Wont you despise the product of Mut`ah..

Kabuli,

Thank you for those articles.

-ylh

Yet another article for those who say this article is irrelevant

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1219601,curpg-5.cms

One minor girl, many Arabs
Mohammed Wajihuddin
[ Sunday, September 04, 2005 11:41:50 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
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They are old predators with new vigour. Often bearded, invariably in flowing robes and expensive turbans. The rich, middle-aged Arabs increasingly stalk the deprived streets of Hyderabad like medieval monarchs would stalk their harems in days that we wrongly think are history. These Viagra enabled Arabs are perpetrating a blatant crime under the veneer of nikaah, the Islamic rules of marriage. Misusing the sanctioned provision which allows a Muslim man to have four wives at a time, many old Arabs are not just marrying minors in Hyderabad, but marrying more than one minor in a single sitting.

``The Arabs prefer teenage, virgin brides,`` says Jameela Nishat, who counsels and sensitises young women against the malaise. Two of her volunteers, Shahida Yasmeen and Tasneem Sultana, in their early twenties experienced the trauma of being scanned by an old Arab. A few months ago, they accompanied an undercover television reporter who was following these sham marriages. They reached a home where half a dozen other prospective brides were gathered. ``It resembled a brothel. The girls were paraded before the Arab who would lift the girls’ burqa, run his fingers through their hair, gaze at their figures and converse through an interpreter,`` says Yasmeen recalling the day.

Most girls inspected by the Arab were minors, and forced by a complex union of their parents and Islamic clerics to yield to the preliminary probes of the Arab.

Curiously, the high priests of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and the fatwa brigade of Darul Uloom Deoband, who are gearing up to defend the legality of Islamic Courts in the Supreme Court, seem to have shut their eyes to this phenomenon that is aided and abetted by Hyderabad`s Qazis or clerics.

Many Qazis prepare both marriage and divorce formalities together. While marriages require the grooms to be present, divorces are a bit different. A talaaq can be given verbally, through a letter, an email, telegraph, phone or even sms. ``Many talaaqs are coming through sms these days,`` confirms Mufti Abdul Ahad Falahi, a Qazi at a Darul Qaza in Mumbai. ``If a woman who has received an intimation of talaaq doubts its veracity, she can check with her husband. If he accepts he has sent the message, the talaaq will be valid.``

Most Qazis solemnise these sham marriages in complete violation of Islamic principles of nikaah and talaaq. A woman cannot be married off to another man unless her first husband gives her a divorce, or she has sought khula (separation) and has completed idat (a period of three menstrual cycles from the day of the talaaq).

Maulana Hameeduddin Aqil, head of a prominent Muslim body Millat-e-Islamia, dismisses such marriages as sinful. ``They are committing a sin. It`s not nikaah, it`s prostitution by another name,`` says the frail, seventy five year old.

Impoverished and easily lured by the promise of a better future, many Muslim parents are increasingly pushing their daughters into this flesh trade that has a convenient respectability of an Islamic marriage. The Arabs, in collusion with the greedy Qazis, marry girls for a short period. In some cases, for a night.

On the first of August, forty five year old Al Rahman Ismail Mirza Abdul Jabbar, a Sheikh from the UAE, approached a broker in these matters, seventy year old Zainab Bi in the walled city, near the historic Char Minar. The broker procured Farheen Sultana and Hina Sultana, aged between thirteen and fifteen, for twenty thousand rupees. Then he hired Qazi Mohammed Abdul Waheed Qureshi to solemnise the marriage. The Qazi, taking advantage of an Islamic provision, married the girls off to the Arab. After the wedding night with the girls, the Arab left at dawn.

The girls’ parents were promised their share of the booty by the broker but when it didn’t, they went to the media. The girls are not too disturbed by the whole episode. ``The Arab would have given us money. We can’t marry an Indian because our parents are too poor to pay dowry,`` the girls told Noorjahan Sidddiqui, a co-ordinator with Confederation of Voluntary Association, a Hyderabad-based NGO.


Muslim families that cannot afford to match the dowry demands of Indian grooms, are the first preys of old Arab grooms who not only give them the sanctity of marriage but also thousands of rupees. Unlike in India, in the Arab countries, it`s the boys who pay girls the dowry. While rich Arabs go West to get white brides, transitory or otherwise, those with modest revenue streams look towards the East, especially Hyderabad where it seems, a well-oiled machinery is in place.

Hyderabad has a long history with Arabs. During their heydays, the Nizams (1724-1948) recruited many Arabs in their army. Subsequently, some of them guarded the Nizams’ coffers and their harems too. Many Arabs married local girls and settled in the Barkas area of Hyderabad (it resembles an Arab street even today).

Muslim politicians in the city never took the issue seriously. ``It’s not on the poll agenda of any politician,`` says Mazhar Hussain, director of Confederation of Voluntary Associations, a social welfare outfit. Even Majlis-e-Ittihadul Muslameen, the party that Hyderabad’s Muslims have voted repeatedly has done nothing about it.

``You cannot deny that the fortunes of many families have changed through such marriages,`` a r g u e s MIM’s seventy three year old president Sultan Salahuddin O w a i s i , seated at his palatial bu n g a l ow situated at a distance from the filthy slums of his faithful voters. Not politicians, not Islamic clerics, not even a majority of citizens, it appears, are too angered by the issue.

In the middle of this small world that looks part victimised and part practical, is a local mosque where a Friday sermon is coming to an end. A lanky imam reads out an ``important`` announcement: A Muslim body invites the faithful to discuss the evil effects of Television.

Manipulating religion

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun202004/sl2.asp

Fly-by-night bridegrooms

The practice of minor Muslim girls being married off to rich and old Arab men continues. A look at dowry practices.


The long-winding narrow lanes in the desperately poor areas of Hyderabad; the dark, claustrophobic, one-room houses; the deadened souls and the emotionally-drained hearts know it all and yet won’t speak. In fact, they will deny it. Because, if they accept the truth, then they would be forced to confront the bitter truth: that their girl children are available for as little as Rs 5,000 to satisfy the lust of doddering old Arab men.

Sixteen-year-old Haseena who was married to a 75-year-old Arab, Jorani, for Rs 10,000 now forms a sordid chapter in the social history of Hyderabad. She made history when she ran away from him, traumatised. When her parents took her back after two days, Jorani refused to accept her and harassed the family to return his money (of the Rs 10,000 he paid, the broker had taken away Rs 5,000). Haseena lodged a police complaint and for the first time in the 30-odd years during which countless, short-term marriages of impoverished Muslim girls to rich old Arab men took place every other day, police booked a case, arrested Jorani who had married two girls in two weeks, and jailed him.

Terrified by the publicity, Haseena’s family fled the city and their angry neighbours chased away the media. Assistant Commissioner of Police A K Khan said last year they had picked up two Arabs, aged 80 and 67, for marrying girls for short terms, but could not proceed as the girls’ families refused to cooperate. Haseena’s complaint came as god-send. Police investigation revealed a well-oiled racket that was run by a “partnership” of religious leaders or qazis and a network of brokers, travel agents and hotels owners who look around, identify and convince parents of young girls. One of the three qazis identified as culprits by police, was even was running a “home” with “five-star” facilities to house the Arab men and their brides. “The community should step in a big way to deal with the issue,” said Mr Khan.

Dr Sunita Krishnan, who heads an anti human-trafficking NGO Prajwala, said the community refuses to accept that a large number of girls who marry “outside the country” end up in the red-light areas of Mumbai and Pune. Parents are gullible enough to marry off their daughters on phone, hand them the nikahnama, and send them off with the broker to start a new life “abroad”. A few months later, the parents get a cassette in which the girl says she is well and the parents rest happy that all is well.

Abbasi was 14 when she was married off. She was rescued from Kamatipura, Mumbai’s red-light area and subsequently rehabilitated by Prajwala. She recounts her story: “Someone abroad had a marriage proposal for me. The nikah was the phone. I said kubool (accept) on the phone. The next day I was sent off to Mumbai. After three days I was sent to wrong places… I told them I will not do what they say… they started beating and torturing me… I wanted to make a phone call but they did not allow me... They kept on beating me... I tried to run away but they caught me... There were many girls like me who were also tortured similarly by the sethanis (madams)…”

Prajwala began to investigate these marriages. Supported by the Confederation of Voluntary Agencies, a Hyderabad-based NGO that works with the Muslim community in several states, it brought out a study after examining 75 cases of “outside” marriages. Of these, as many as 40 families did not know for three years where or how their daughters were; 20 marriages lasted between three days and three months; only 15 had evidence such as photos, showing the girl living with her husband in a foreign country. These are the “culprits” who encourage a bahar ki shaadi. Activists believe a few thousand girls have “disappeared” after such marriages and the parents are too poor even to trace them.

Wretched poverty, the spread of the dowry system and increasing “commercialisation” of marriages in the Muslim community are some factors that have encouraged short-term contract marriages, says Gazanfar Ali Khan, assistant editor with the Urdu newspaper Rehnuma-e-Deccan. “A contract marriage has no sanctity in Islam. These are efforts to legitimise debauchery. I understand the newly married girl not only signs the nikah paper but also the divorce paper…this is haram (illegitimate) since there is no iddat period (40 days)... this is the worst possible exploitation of a Muslim girl,” he says. He believes qazis are the main culprits as they take advantage of a person’s poverty and commit a fraud rather than perform a marriage.

Sunita identifies yet another factor, that is the religious and social acceptance of talaq. Above all, Sunita says, the girl child is not valued. “If a girl child is sold or her life ruined, it is not a national loss, that’s why this is a non-issue, both for community and to society,” she says.

This culture of silence, which is the main reason for the perpetuation of the exploitation and abuse of the Muslim girl child (as in other communities) has to be stopped. Only community activism can be effective, she says.

MUMBAI: Mumbai has emerged as a big centre of this racket where old Arabs as well as people belonging to other nationalities, like Algerians and blacks, come for “some fun”. Mohammed Ali Road, Nagpada, Mahim and some other areas have many guest houses. Such alliances are backed a small group of unscrupulous Kazis and agents. In one place in the Nagpada area a kazi receives groups of people, mostly Arabs and Algerians who are very old. He prepares a nikahnama and talaqnama simultaneously, marrying the old Arab to the victim, who is always a minor. The fee is from Rs 10,000 to to Rs 1 lakh or more, depending on the girl’s beauty. The client then spends one or two nights with the girl and then goes away. The girl’s parents are paid half the amount and the balance is pocketed by the agents.

A leading Muslim social activist Shahajadi Hakim says: “The police can easily keep track of the movements of visiting foreigners, but they are not doing enough.” The involvement of mafia gangs in this racket are not ruled out.
Dowry is prevalent in Marathwada while in Mumbai, it is prevalent among UP Muslims.

LUCKNOW: Jamina Ahmed, a research scholar who is studying gloabalisation and social change among the Muslim community does not believe that only Muslim girls from the lower socio-economic strata are married off to affluent middle-aged men. “Even among the well-off you will see a preference for men who are affluent. The Middle East holds a special fascination. So the convergence of economics and religion becomes very potent. The trend is marked in those regions which have had a tradition of men going to the region to seek their fortunes.”

On why such cases are not so prevalent among Muslims in places like Lucknow, school principal Mrs Ayesha Khan, believes the community is tradition-bound.

R AKHILESHWARI

in Hyderabad

with inputs from Parag Rabade (Mumbai) and Pujaa Awastthi (Lucknow)


THIRTEEN YEARS LATER...

Nothing much has changed for Ameena

Ameena made headlines in 1991 and was the first public face of the exploitation and abuse of young Muslim girls from impoverished homes.

The 11-year-old had been married off to a 50-something Arab and was flying out of the country when she was rescued by an alert air-hostess.

Thirteen long years later Ameena’s situation is hardly any better. She married Abdul Majid last year, an autorickshaw driver, who is at least 20 years her senior, and has a three-month-old baby girl Husna. She lives in a dingy two-room house in a slum in the Mushirabad locality in Hyderabad. She recollects the past unwillingly. Her father, a rickshaw-puller with eight children was “misled” by some neighbours, into marrying her off. The subsequent glare of publicity forced him to leave the Old City with his family.

“He would have been living,” says Ameena softly, apparently carrying yet another burden of guilt that she was the cause of his apart from notoriety and unwanted publicity. Ameena slipped out of public memory as also that of the state. The Supreme Court had ordered the state to get Ameena educated, monitor her progress regularly and ensure some economic benefits for the family. She was enrolled into a government school. She dropped out. Neither did any official visit her nor was any assistance given to the family. She was forgotten till yet another old Arab came to Hyderabad looking for a young virgin.

Ameena was once again forced to live her nightmare as she was tracked down by the media. There is no escape for Ameena as long as poor girls continue to be preyed upon, with the consent of the family, the community, the society and the state.

R A





ARABI KALYANAMS AND MYSORE MARRIAGES



Arabi kalyanams (Arab marriages) and Mysore kalyanams (grooms from Mysore) were once synonymous with the backward Muslim communities of mostly Kozhikode, Malappuram and Wayanad districts in north Kerala. With the collapse of active trade links between Arabs and Malabar, the infamous Arabi kalyanam is believed to have ended though some of its critics say that Arabs still come and go and the practice continues on the sly. Arayadan Shoukath, writer and producer of last year’s state government award-winning Malayalam film Paatom Onnu Oru Vilaapom (Lesson one: A wail) says that ‘Mysore marriages’ are still on especially among Sunnis who largely constitute the uneducated lower middle-class strata of the community. “The impression is that young men from Mysore charge less dowry. They come to Malappuram and Wayanad with a letter of authorisation purportedly from their mosque committee and marry teenage girls. Many of them abandoned their wives once they became mothers,” he says. But there are many views. According to a lawyer and councillor of the Kozhikode municipal corporation, Noorbeena Rasheed, Arabs have helped many families by taking them back to the Gulf and giving them jobs. “In our community, women cannot remain unmarried. For an ordinary lower class family it’s difficult to arrange for a dowry. So they fall prey to these rich Arabs.’’ Norbeena, who has fought cases for such women, told Deccan Herald that many have also ditched these hapless girls. “However, now an awareness has grown in the community, especially now that women’s organisations have taken up the issue,’’ she claims.

Arabs often reach Thiruvananthapuram with the help of local Malayalis employed in the Gulf. “It often depends on the intentions of the local people employed there who bring them,’’ she says. As it turns out, many Arabs use the opportunity for pleasure and abandon them once these girls lose their sex appeal. Subair, a young trader in Malappuram, says “the high priests of the commmunity can halt this system if they wish. But they ask: who is going to marry these girls?’’

Shoukath, whose film threw some troubling questions at the community chiefs, says “the system has spawned several ills. Some of the local boys keep on marrying using this dowry. He uses the dowry from a prospective bride to settle dues with his old wife’s family. I am happy that my film has been well received by my people and the world outside. I wish there is a speedy end to this social malady.``

R GOPAKUMAR

in Thiruvanthapuram

Gill says;

``In Maulan Maudoodi’s Tafsir, there is no mention of mutah marriage. He interpreted that the verse basically relates to the women “whom your right hand possesses,”

It is mentioned in the Qur’an that sexual intercourse is permissible only with one’s wife or with a woman “your right hand possesses.” What does this phrase mean?


Sex with anyone other than one’s wife is adulterous. Hence, it is strictly forbidden with kind of women you mentioned, whether the woman is paid or unpaid, with her consent or without. Yet it is true that the Qur’an exempts the form you have mentioned, but this form is no longer in existence, and it cannot be reinstated. The expression, “those whom your right hand possesses” refers to slaves. When slavery was practiced, Islam could not stop it because it was a global system, common in all societies. When slave women happen to be in plenty, it is necessary to provide a legitimate means of satisfying their natural needs. Therefore, Islam allowed marriage between slaves, and between a free man and a slave woman, as well as the case of the master having a relationship with a slave woman, who later becomes a “mother of his child” which raises her status, preventing her sale and paving the way to her freedom. But Islam did more than any other system to ensure that slavery would disappear. Now that it has finally disappeared from the world it cannot be reinstated in future.

Obviously, #129 was based on very little actual knowledge about Mutah - whatever it is. If it is legalized prositution, it ought to be supported. If nothing else, at least as a means of bringing the Iranians the Danes on the same page.

What is wrong with prostitution (assuming its all safe and such) other than that we CHOOSE not to respect its enterprising and obviously industrious professionals?

Mutah seems to be prostitution from which the element of public disgrace has been excised. That would make it a wonderful institution. More power to Shia women.

Re: # 123

[then what are dating and living together before marriage and braking up after years of sleeping together?]

Different phases of a relationship :) And I thought you were the guru on Chowk on all matters of life. What a disappointing question!

[By calling it prostitution one is implying that women are at fault because of temporary marriage situation that is actually forced on them. I think any reasonable person would think twice before accusing women of something they had no control over.]

I do not think the alim who made a sweeping statement needs to be taken that seriously.