By Faiyaz Ahmed Siddiquee
The “triple-talaq” is a form of divorce practiced among Hanafi Muslims, under which a man at any point of time may divorce his wife by saying, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you.” There isn’t any such reference of divorcing one’s wife in the Quran and Sunnah or claimed found by any Islamic high-brow. What the text says is that each talaq utterance should be followed by a waiting period of three menstrual periods for women.
The period of time helps mitigate and resolve the issue between husbands and wives. Never to forget, it is mentioned in the Quran that divorce is the only most heinous act before Allah which he has legally allowed mankind to perform. On the very basis, polymath like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of Aligarh Muslim University, discerned that Islam is spiritually against divorce and considers marriage a sacred relation too as in Hinduism.
A human being, living in a web of human relationships, has every liberty to a system of belief.
The individual’s faith in the institution of religion can’t be supported by conviction, which in our today’s world has become the basis of contemporary human thinking. On this very account all the schools of Islam and its followers, irrespective of conviction, must come to terms and live with harmony and absolute tolerance. The lack of rational basis in one’s believe in the religious institution provides every room of liberty to adherence to triple-talaq, or not to believe in it.
But then, there is always ‘the demand of time’, it was sheer situational obligation that compelled caliph Omar (RA) to pass an executive order of triple-talaq, in order to protect the women of the time, in Madina, from the psychological tortures of their respective husbands. Primarily, there wasn’t any such command in the Quran or reference in Hadith, although, he took the decision — violating the existing command. The caliph Omar’s step makes us infer that the Islamic Sharia isn’t as rigid (or a holy cow) as has been propagated. What the caliph Omar did, was merely a government order. If one government could decide something, so can other governments. If his decision taken as precedent, empowers the ruling governments for amendments in society as they see fit even if they be against the Quran and Sunnah.
I am not a formalist, moreover a Hanafi and believe there’s always a scope of ijma (consensus) on anything and everything in Islam without violating its fundamental principles.
On the flip side, the apprehensions of the Muslims of India are also justified that in the guise of repealing triple-talaq, gradually in a subtle fashion the minorities might be pushed towards the uniform civil code.