| 15 December 2010
Darul Uloom Deoband is once again in news not for some good reason but for an Anti Progressive and Anti- Women Fatwa. From past one year it has become norm with Darul Ifta, (the department which issues the Fatwas) of Darul Uloom to issue fatwas which would generate resentment, draw flak and condemnation from all quarters and even from Muslims, but the Fatwa activists of deoband seem to have learnt nothing from its mistakes, which become a punching bag for corporate anti Muslim media to further malign Islam and label it as backward, theocratic, obscurantist, medieval and stagnant.
The unrestrained questioning and seeking Islamic rulings for every small act has been shunned in Quran and it has been described as the habit of former people (2:67-71) who never found the path to salvation nor followed their Prophets and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) used to debar his Companions from following the footsteps of the previous generations as they were led to doom by adhering to this baneful and injurious habit The Companions had asked Prophet (pbuh) only about a few issues during the twenty three years of his prophetic mission.
Fatwa is an opinion of a jurist or theologian regarding some issue in the light of Islamic rulings and fundamentals, but the hype and sensation has been created by the Media and even majority of Muslims understand Fatwa as some binding Divine Law which otherwise isn’t the fact or truth. Darul Uloom Deoband which follows the Hanafi school of thought (madhab) and basis its Fatwas on the same. The madhabs are closed schools of thought whose adherents believe that the solution of every issue is present within their madhab, despite the variation of centuries between the period in which the madhabs evolved and now. The division of Muslims into madhabs has its own history and each adherent considers its own madhab as the repository of Gospel truth, and the madhabs also closed the doors of Ijtihad, though in certain old context it was valid but now when the conditions, context and circumstances have changed they are not willing to open the gates of Ijtihad, which distinguishes Islam from other religions. Thus due to this rigid and hostile attitude the Fatwas which are obtained and issued by the followers of these madhabs are supposed to suffer from these loopholes and draw flaks as the jurists are using the same medieval sources and madhabs to deal and answer the present day modern issues, hence their incompatibility is self evident.
Since spring till now the Fatwas of Deoband regarding women have been selling like hot dogs in the media, be it working women, setting the upper limit of age for girls to ride bicycles or now uttering Talaqs(Divorce) over phone. When the Fatwa regarding Talaq was doing rounds in media then did I search for Darul Ifta website of Deoband on the web, and soon browsed through thousands of online Fatwas dealing with varied issues and under the title of Divorce did I find the query and Fatwa which is drawing condemnation from one and all. It goes as “Salamualaikum, I angrily on cell phone said 3 talaqs to my wife but she claimed that she didn't even listened single word and nobody was around both of us. Please tell me whether talaq took place or not?” The learned Mufti responds as “If you have given three talaqs to your wife, all the three took place and she became haram for you after being bayinah mughallazah. She will be free to marry anywhere she likes after her iddah is over. It is not necessary for talaq to take place that the wife hears it or the witnesses are present”. This fatwa further aroused my curiosity and I began to search further and found some absurd, idiotic questions being asked and the Fatwa factories churning quick Fatwas like,
“Assalamoalaikum, I jokingly typed talak talak talak to my wife on skype chat assuming that she was going to give me divorce the next day of which I was very sure but it not happen and she extended the date. I don’t understand Islam very much and did not know nothing about how talaq works. We love each other very much and want to be together but right now caught in this thing. Want to know a way out of this other than halalah?” The non serious attitude of the questioner is evident from the question itself but the learned Mufti doesn’t leave any space for further comment and responds as “When you gave three talaqs, all the three took place, no matter whether the woman gives talaq or not. Your wife became haram for you whether you are aware from the commandment of Islam more or less. Neither you have the right to take her back nor solemnize new nikah without a valid halalah. After the completion of iddah period, the woman can marry where she wishes except you. It is proved from Bukhari (Vol. 2, P. 791) and Fatawa al-Hindiyah etc”. Instead of following the simple practicable and easy commandments of Islam, the people are complicating the issues by excessive deep questioning and Muftis too are endorsing this deplorable attitude.
I searched for more and found one seeker or male chauvinist asking “In the Hanafi madhhab can women be appointed as judges or Qadi's?” Male Mufti chauvinist responds
“Yes, she can be appointed as judge, but it is makrooh tahrimi, i.e. doing so is near haram. It is mentioned in hadith:
لن يفلح قوم ولوا امرأة (بخاري شريف)
It means that a nation that makes a woman their ruler will never succeed, hence woman should not be appointed as judge”. What more Anti Women can these Muftis issue and that too in contrast to Islam and Muslim history as women have been scholars, jurists, involved in trade, leading armies in the battle field and being heads of the State like Shajart al-Durr of Egypt or Sultanate of Women in Middle East. Even in the Subcontinent we had reigning queens like Raziya Sultana and Begums of Bhopal and Ulama were never opposed their rule.
Continuing further this Anti Women stance another query and Fatwa goes like this “Assalamu-alaikum. I want to know whether women can offer Salat behind male imam in separate room inside the masjid?” Mufti answers “Women should not go to mosques for performing salah, as it is said that best place for women to perform salah is the interior of their houses: خیر مساجد النساء قعر بیوتھن So, they should offer salah in their home instead of mosque”. Continuing in the same vein another person asks about the same “Is their any restriction for Muslim women going to mosque?” Mufti responds “The instructions about Hijab in the Quran and Hadith require women not to go to mosque, especially they have been restricted in clear cut words to attend mosque for prayers. This masla has been proved with evidences in the book: Naik Bibiyan Namaz Kahan Parhain”. The women have been debarred from entering the masjids, though in Prophet Muhammad(pbuh)’s time women actively participated as Namzees in Masjids, then it was stopped in certain context but now there is no need to cling and adhere to that practice once again. Instead of issuing Fatwas against dowry, female infanticide and feticide these fatwa activists are further curbing the freedom and liberty which Islam bestowed on women through their ‘Islamic’ fatwas.
My thirst grew further and I read some books hosted on the website of Deoband by one of its stalwarts Ashraf Ali Thanvi (1863-1943). I was shocked to witness his rigid, callous and pathetic attitude towards women in his book, Nikah [Marriage] in Islam and how he justifies male chauvinism and caste based hierarchy both of which are quite alien to Islam. Advising men about their civilizing mission he says, “You should continue teaching your womenfolk and inculcate respect and good manners in them. Do not allow them to become impudent and disrespectful. The intellect of women is deficient; it is therefore incumbent to take special measures in reforming them”. Thanvi then justifies Caste based hierarchy and divides Muslims among high and low castes on origin of their birth or occupation. He says “Equality in lineage is that the Shaykh, Sayyid, Ansari, and ‘Alawi are all equal to each other. In other words, although the status of a Sayyid is more than the others, if the daughter of a Sayyid marries a Shaykh boy; it will not be said that she did not marry someone who is of her family relations. Instead, it will also be regarded as if she has married one of her relatives. Equality in being a Muslim is only considered among the Moghuls, Pathans, and other non-Arab nations. There is no consideration of this among the Shaykhs, Sayyids, ‘Alawis, and Ansaris. A man who accepts Islam and his father was a kafir cannot be on par or equal to a woman who is a Muslim and her father was also a Muslim. The man who is a Muslim, his father is also a Muslim, but his grandfather was a kafir; cannot be equal to a woman whose grandfather was also a Muslim”.
The rulings such as these are Anti Islamic and inspired more from puritanical cultural practices and moorings rather than Islam and unless Deoband hasn’t the spine and grit to criticize the wrong beliefs and teachings of its stalwarts and Aslaf, Anti Women Fatwas are supposed to be churned time and again. If that is not the case then angry open letters are not out of question like that of BHARATIYA MUSLIM MAHILA ANDOLAN which demanded an answer to five questions from Muftis and threatened them even with imprisonment in the interests of Muslim women welfare.
I am aware of the role of Deoband as a Madrasa during the Colonial British Era and how it protected and upheld the Muslim identity and resisted the British hegemony and what role fatwas played in the liberation of India as well as other Muslim lands, but it is a reality that in the aftermath of Partition and newly independent India Deoband couldn’t keep pace with the changing circumstances. My humble request for Deoband would be to stop churning spurious and injurious Fatwas as well as open the gates of constructive Ijtihad and in the end would like to suggest the Muftis of Deoband to follow Maulana Abdul Haq Haqqani(d 1831), author of the famed exegesis of the Quran known as Tafsir Haqqani, while issuing Fatwas. During his times British Government replaced the Gold and Silver with Paper currency. These paper notes apparently from the traditional jurisprudence rulings were anti Islamic in nature. Maulana was asked to issue a Fatwa regarding the permissibility or impermissibility of using this Paper Currency from Islamic Perspective? He declined to issue a fatwa and said “Mera Fatwa Nahi Chelega, Note Chaljayega” (My Fatwa will not work and note will).