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| India-Pakistan | |
| CII's unhealthy obsession | |
| 2016-01-21 | |
| [DAWN] BY killing a move to raise the marriage age for girls from 16 years to 18, the members of the relevant National Assembly standing committee have proved that they value their subservience to conservative holy mans more than their status as people's representatives. And once again the Council of Islamic Ideology has succeeded in doing a grave injustice to girls and Islam both because its assertion that Islam bars fixation of minimum age for girls' marriage is wholly untenable. The CII's sickly obsession with keeping the door to child marriage open reminds us of a debate in the Indian Central Legislative Assembly, 87 years ago, on the Hindu Child Marriage Bill. The objective of the bill was to restrict the marriage of minor Hindu girls. Largely through the Quaid-e-Azam's efforts the measure was made applicable to Muslim girls and it became the Child Marriage Restraint Act in 1929. The bill was fiercely opposed by the Hindu members of the assembly, and when it was suggested that the measure should apply to Muslim girls too, a majority of the Muslim members strongly opposed it. A measure of the public opposition to the bill can be had from the fact that petitions against it were signed by 72,725 persons while only 10 persons supported the bill. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... not all Muslim members of the assembly and Learned Elders of Islam outside opposed the bill. Maulana SLearned Elders of Islamn Nadvi and Khawaja Hasan Nizami backed the measure. Two representatives of the Deoband school said legislation on child marriage could be initiated by a Muslim sovereign but not by a foreign government. Some Muslim members changed their position during the debate. For example, Mian Shah Nawaz from Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard 2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers 3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... was originally an enthusiastic supporter of the measure but turned against it after being shown a fatwa by 74 Learned Elders of Islam. The Quaid-e-Azam
"Are we precluded from dealing with this evil? Sir, I do not pretend to be an alim, and I am not one. Nor do I pretend to be an authority on theology. But I do know one thing, that during the last 30 years of my fairly active practice in Bombay, I always understood that marriage law had nothing to do with religion as such; that marriage was a contract according to Muhammadan law, pure and simple. Will honourable members point out to me a text of which I am not aware? I repeat that marriage is a contract according to Muhammadan law. Can that be challenged? If anybody contradicts me on that, he has yet to learn the Muhammadan law. But the question is this, whether there is any text which makes it obligatory on Mussalmans that they should get their daughters married before the age of 14. There is no text.... "I cannot believe that there can be a divine sanction for such evil practices as are prevailing, and that we should, for a single minute, give our sanction to the continuance of these evil practices any longer. How can there be such a divine sanction to this cruel, horrible, disgraceful, inhuman practice that is prevailing in India? | |
| Posted by:Fred |