Triple talaq prevents men from killing wives

Introduction

Noting that a religion cannot be “reformed” out of its existence or identity, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Friday challenged the Supreme Court’s initiative to judicially examine Islamic personal laws relating to marriage and divorce, such as the triple talaq, which discriminate against Muslim women.

Issue

1. Practices depicted in the Holy Quran are out of bounds for the Supreme Court.
2. Personal laws of marriage and divorce are outside the purview of the fundamental rights of the Indian Constitution
3. Article 44, which envisages a Uniform Civil Code, is only a “directive principle of State policy and not enforceable.”
4. Personal laws of a community cannot be rewritten in the name of social reform.
5. While one community might be prepared to accept and work on social reform, another community may not be prepared for it
6. Court cannot supplant its own interpretations over the text of scriptures… whenever the court is confronted with any religious issue, it will look to the religious books of a particular denomination held sacred by it.

Advocating Polygamy

1. Polygamy ensures sexual purity and chastity and whenever polygamy has been banned, it emerges from history that illicit sex has raised its head
2. Polygamy is a blessing, not a curse for women… polygamy is the solution to the problem of divorced women and widows.
3. Blamed “communal” organisations for running a propaganda regarding prevalence of polygamy among Muslims to instil fear in the majority community.

The board claimed that Muslim Personal Law, based on the Quran, adequately provided for the rights of Muslim women and formed part of the issue of freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion guaranteed under Article 25 and 26 read with Article 29 of the Constitution of India.

Triple talaq is sin but Shariat permits it, says AIMPLB

About Triple Talaq Issue

1. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) quotes this in an affidavit to explain that though triple talaq is a “sin” and the “least appreciated form of ending a marriage”, Shariat (Muslim personal law) permits it.
2. Polygamy is “not even desirable”. The Koran does not make it mandatory. “Yet, since polygamy is endorsed by primary Islamic sources, it cannot be dubbed as something prohibited,” the Board told the Supreme Court.
3. Muslim body said any “uncontrolled use of divorce without regard to the restrictions established by the Shariat is a sin”. “To divorce the wife without reason and only to harm her, or revengefully due to the non-fulfilment of his unlawful demands by the wife or her guardians, and to divorce her in violation of the procedure prescribed by the Shariat, is irregular and undesirable.
4. The Board argued that the Shariat permits triple talaq in the interest of both the man and woman as a means to keep their dignity and privacy intact. The intention is to save the family from delayed justice in conventional courts and to avoid mud-slinging in public.

• The Shariat intends triple talaq to help the estranged couple to “move on” with their lives and get over the bitterness and hatred they had felt for each other.