Shariah life or hellish imprisonment?

Rehana [not real name] is the third wife of a farmer in Bangladesh living in the remote village in Kurigram district. Her poor parents could not afford to support her in attaining formal education, while she went to nearby Makhtab [Koran study center], which is the only education she ever had received. During childhood she had dreams of marrying any affluent peasant and lives a comfortable life. But, fate has ended her as the third wife of an old man, who is almost at the age of her father. And most importantly, ninety per cent of marriages taking place in rural Bangladesh or any of the Muslim nations are conducted under Shariah law, where registration is simply ignored. Any local clergy can recite verses of Koran in presence of the bride and groom before declaring them to be couples.

In Islamist Sharia eyes, women are simply treated as the pleasure tools of men. Even some highly education Islamic scholar, who obtained Masters from Dhaka University, told me several times, "wives are to meet our sexual desire. Beside that, they have no further obligation".

In Islamic law [sharia] marriage is a legal bond and social contract between a man and a woman. There are two types of marriages mentioned in the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, the nikah in verse 4:4 and the nikah mut'ah in verse 4:24.

Nikah is the first, and most common, form of marriage for Muslims. It is described in the Qur'an in 4:4.

Regulations:

It is aimed to be permanent, but can be terminated by husband engaging in the divorce process or the wife seeking a divorce.

1. The couple inherit from each other.

2. In some cases, mostly in the urban areas, a legal contract is signed when entering the marriage. Otherwise, in the rural areas, there is nothing written to stand as document or prove of marriage.

2. The husband must pay for the wife's expenses [dowry].

3. If a divorce date is determined in the Nikah contract [if there is any]

4. In Sunni jurisprudence, the contract is voided [so there is mostly marriage without contract expecially in Sunni originated nations]

In Shia jurisprudence, the contract is transformed into a nikah mut'ah. In cuntries like Iran, this Mut'ah marriage rules are mostly used by men while attending prostutes. Such marriage can last for just one night to several months.

Nikah mut'ah, often referred as "fixed-time marriage" since many of these marriages have a time limit, is the second form of marriage, although it is not stated in the Qur'an. There is controversy on the Islamic legality of this type of marriage, since Sunnis believe it was abrogated by Muhammad. The Qur'an itself doesn't mention any cancellation of the institution. Nikah mut'ah sometimes has a preset time period to the marriage, traditionally the couple do not inherit from each other, the man usually is not responsible for the economic welfare of the woman, and she usually may leave her home at her own discretion. Nikah mut'ah also does not count towards a maximum of wives [four according to the Qur'an]. The woman still is given her mahr [dowry], and the woman must still observe the iddah, a period of four months at the end of the marriage where she is not permitted to marry in the case she may have become pregnant before the divorce took place. This maintains the proper lineage of children.

The Shi'ia sect allows this type of marriage; however, the Sunni paradigm prohibits it.

Now let us look into the other aspects of rights of a wife, who married under Shariah law but such marriage was registered. Salma [not real name] was married 15 years back to her long lover boyfriend. She has two children from her husband. Salma obtained higher education from a private university. In years of her marriage, her husband left for abroad in search for better luck. Since then, this woman is maintaining her children with the income she can make from a small business. While the husband is attending hookers and brothels abroad, she is left juts alone, without anyone to care about her and even cannot walk out of her marriage as in the Muslim societies, when any marriage is in trouble, mostly wives are made liable for this. Men use to put blames on characters of the women and abandon them from marital contracts.

While Salma is strugling in Bangladesh to maintain her life as well lives of her children, her husband continues to exploit the relations and takes substantial amount of money from her every month just for continuing the marriage. Moreover, he borrowed huge amount of money from Salma's parents, which he never returned. Salma is compelled to meet the financial demand of her husband, just for the sake of continuing the extremely odd marriage, so that, society will not put a blame on her of being a 'bad woman'.

Salma leaves tears alone, while her parents are also not intending to listen to her agonies. To them, being in marriage is most important for their daughter, ignoring the fact, whether her husband cares or not.

Her husband in abroad, spends nights with women and mostly in pubs and clubs, blowing out the hard-earned money of his wife.

In each of the Muslim nations, where Shariah Law is in practice, women are the worst sufferers and represseds. By giving false interpretation of Koran, Muslim chergies try to treat women as mere tools of serving men's luster. Some women, of course oppose to such hellish lives, but unfortunately they not only get driven out from homes, as well, they even end up in endless miseries entering grips of flesh traders or brothels.

We can never say, what fate awaits for Rehana or Salma in the densely populated Muslim nation in South Asia, where uttering a word against Shariah Law is considered to be blasphemous, how many millions of such innocent women will suffer in the years to come is the very important question of time.

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Shariah life or hellish imprisonment?

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