By TCN Staff Reporter
New Delhi: In a development which will have far reaching implications on the situation of Muslim women in India, Muslim religious scholars and clerics have recommended a more pro-women reforms in the Muslim divorce laws.
The recommendations were made in a recently concluded international seminar on Muslim jurisprudence which was attended by Maulana Syed Rabey Hasani Nadvi, president of All India Muslim Personal Law Board and once controversial former Rector of Darul Uloom Deoband Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi as prominent among others.
The clerics reportedly said that the purpose of the pro-women reform is to ensure that wives don’t have to go through unnecessary hassles and atrocities by their husbands while taking khula (divorce).
As opposed to “Talaq”, which is divorce given from husbands to wives, Khula is the divorce sought by wives from their husbands. It’s a provision which essentially aimed at empowering women with a right so that they can demand divorce from their husbands in case they didn’t want to stay in the matrimonial relationship.
The Islamic clerics also discussed on how much power can be given to Qazi (judge) in order to deal with such conditions; because its normally seen that in the present patriarchal system, even when Islam empowers women to take divorce on her own in the form of Khula, husbands blackmail/oppress their wives and ensure that they don’t get khula (divorce).
The seminar which concluded on March 5, also discussed the marital problems resulting out of the difference of educational backgrounds between boys and girls/bride and grooms.
Besides reforms in divorce laws, the religious clerics also discussed the complications surrounding issue of insurance policy
Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, general secretary of the Islamic Fiqah Acadamy which organized this three-day seminar in Indore, said that soon a committee will be formed in order to evolve and formulate insurance policy as per the Islamic principles.