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 Muslims & polygamy (Multiple Marriage) in Canada
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'Polygamy is a crime, non?
Toronto's Star
Jun 01, 2008 04:30 AM
Fouad Boutaya found out the law isn't quite as clear-cut as he thought when his wife married his friend and police said they could do nothing
Jun 01, 2008 04:30 AM
Noor Javed
Staff Reporter
There was little Fouad Boutaya could do to console his broken heart when his wife eloped with his best friend – a man still legally married to another woman
But he thought in Canada, where polygamy is illegal, he would be able to find support and solace in the legal system
Instead, months after he complained to police, contacted local government officials, and found documents proving that an illegal marriage had taken place, he was told simply there was nothing any official could do since the marriage had never been legally registered
The story of the polygamous marriage was told in the Star a week ago from the perspective of Safa Rigby, the mother of five still legally married to Hossny Ismail when he married Boutaya's wife. It was Boutaya who phoned Rigby in Egypt to break the news of what her husband had done
"Polygamy is a crime here, non?" said Boutaya, 44, who switched from French to English throughout the conversation
"They keep saying it's not a problem. But while they say that, there are more children in a broken family – without a father, without a mother," said Boutaya, who moved from Morocco to Hamilton with his wife, 36, and two children in 2003
The laws that criminalize polygamy date back more than 100 years in Canada, but in modern times, no one has faced prosecution for the practice. According to the Criminal Code, those who enter into a polygamous marriage, polygamous conjugal union, or officiate at a polygamous union can be charged with a criminal offence and face up to five years in prison. Even if the marriage is not registered, it is still considered a crime according to the law
"There is a legal loophole and we need to close it," said Andrea Horwath, New Democrat MPP for Hamilton East, who has been trying to get the government to address the polygamy issue for years. Although the law clearly stipulates that polygamy is illegal, without registered marriage licences and documents proving that a marriage took place, the government is unable to take any serious action against the officiant or the polygamist. Religious marriage documents – without the backing of an actual marriage certificate issued by the province – hold little weight in the eyes of the law. Government and Consumer Affairs Minister Ted McMeekin used the same argument last week at Queen's Park when urged by opposition MPPs to investigate religious clergy misusing their licence
"Marriage is a contract. A contract requires a licence, and once a marriage occurs, it has to be registered. There are no multiple marriages being registered in the province of Ontario," he told the Legislature
Turning a blind eye to polygamy is not new. For the past 60 years, fundamentalist Mormons in Bountiful in southeastern British Columbia have openly practised polygamy as an integral and necessary part of their faith, with little legal recourse
When Boutaya read Rigby's story in the Star a week ago, he realized he was reading the story of his own life. Ismail hadn't sought a widow, a divorcee, or a woman in need of financial or emotional support when he married Boutaya's wife –conditions that would justify polygamous unions under Islam. Instead, he married a woman who wasn't even legally divorced yet. Just a month earlier, Boutaya and his wife had filed for separation in family court
"This is not Islamic. Nothing about this marriage was Islamic," said Boutaya, who now has sole custody of his two children. "They used Islam to hide their affair."
While Islam sanctions polygamy, it imparts specific conditions and rules under which polygamy can and should be practised. The Qur'an itself states the difficulty of choosing such a lifestyle: "You have it not in your power to do justice between the wives, even though you may wish it."
Boutaya said he is shocked a religious man like Aly Hindy, the imam at Salahuddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, would support such a marriage
"What he has done has destroyed two families," said Boutaya. "Why does he still have the licence to marry people?"
Officials with the registrar general's office investigated Hindy last year, when Boutaya brought this case to their attention, but were unable to prove the allegations
"The minister, once hearing this, did order a review of the situation," said Greg Dennis, a ministry spokesperson. "We looked at records, we talked to people involved and we made our conclusions from there. We found and heard nothing to indicate that there had been any polygamous marriages performed."
The religious document is not enough, Dennis said. "A religious ceremony is not law."
More than two years after his wife left him, Boutaya remembers every detail of the moment of revelation he has relived in his mind many times since. The former civil servant came home early from a job-hunting trip to Ottawa to surprise his wife and two children, picking up a cake on his way. When he arrived, he found Ismail sitting at the dinner table, eating comfortably, as if he was in his own home
"I asked him, `What are you doing here, my friend? You should not be here alone with my wife when I am not here,'" said Boutaya
"What's the problem?" Boutaya said Ismail replied. "She is my wife."
In shock, Boutaya stormed out with his two children – a daughter, 7, and son, 11 – and drove to the local police station in Hamilton
"It was my first reaction. I just needed someone to listen to me and protect me," said Boutaya. Instead, he was told that he didn't have much of a case
So Boutaya sought proof. He spent the next month talking to imams while taking care of his children and trying to adjust to life at the Good Shepherd Centre, a local shelter, where they lived for four months. His wife continued to live in their home.
"It's been so hard for my kids. They were in shock for weeks afterwards," said Boutaya, who now lives in subsidized housing
For years, officials have said part of the difficulty in prosecuting polygamy has been that it is a victimless crime. But the story of Boutaya and Rigby, and the seven children caught in between, suggests there can be a great deal of emotional harm
"For the women and men, it is devastating and life changing," said MPP Horwath, who says she has spoken to a number of women and men affected by polygamy. Horwath says she has been urging the government to liaise with the Muslim community, and to put legislation in place that protects the rights of all people
Boutaya insists on speaking out publicly about what he says is the abuse of polygamy, even though he has had little support from within the Muslim community and his own situation is irretrievable. He's now in the middle of getting a divorce.
"If I can't save my family," he said. "Maybe I can save the situation of someone in the future."
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Re: Muslims & polygamy (Multiple Marriage) in Canada (Re: Mohamed Omer)
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UNDER THE LAW
Here's what the Criminal Code says about polygamy
(1) Everyone who
(a) practises or enters into or in any manner agrees or consents to practise or enter into
(i) any form of polygamy, or
(ii) any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time, whether or not it is by law recognized as a binding form of marriage, or
(b) celebrates, assists or is a party to a rite, ceremony, contract or consent that purports to sanction a relationship mentioned in subparagraph (a)(i) or (ii),
is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years
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Re: Muslims & polygamy (Multiple Marriage) in Canada (Re: Mohamed Omer)
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Polygamy is against the law, period
May 27, 2008 04:30 AM
Haroon Siddiqui
Those practising polygamy in Canada are breaking the law. So is the Muslim cleric who told Star reporter Noor Javed that he has officiated or "blessed" more than 30 polygamous unions
Aly Hindy, the controversial imam of Salahuddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, rationalized it saying that Islam allows four wives:
"This is in our religion and nobody can force us to do anything against our religion. If the laws of the country conflict with Islamic law, then I am going to follow Islamic law, simple as that."
It is simple but not the way he frames it
No one is above the law, period
This, happily, is also the majority Islamic view
Muslims are obliged to obey the law of the land where they live. This has been the opinion of most scholars through 1,400 years of Islamic history. It is anchored in the sharia's emphasis on al-maslaha, the common good, and also the societal need to maintain the rule of law
Scholars are divided only on whether Muslims must obey the law even if it violates Islamic precepts. Here the argument turns on whether Muslims are free to practise the basics of their faith (declaration of faith in Allah, five daily prayers, charity, fasting in the month of Ramadan and the hajj)
Canadian Muslims enjoy such freedom, more so than in some Muslim nations
Polygamy is not one of the five essentials of Islam. Therefore, anyone wanting more than one wife is free to leave for another jurisdiction – or risk facing prosecution
Canadian legal opinion is divided over whether the polygamy section of the Criminal Code can withstand a Charter challenge pitted against the right to freedom of religion
The debate has been over the polygamist splinter sect of Mormons known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in Bountiful, B.C. The calls for prosecution will only increase now that sect leader Warren S. Jeffs has been convicted in the U.S. and American prosecutors are moving against the sect
There is an element of hypocrisy around the topic
Even as we become voracious consumers of sexually explicit TV and movies and media, as well as the soap operas surrounding the infidelities and mistresses of the rich and the famous (the late François Mitterrand, Mel Lastman, etc.), we remain queasy about polygamy
Within Islam, too, there's debate over theology and the plight of multiple wives and children
While neither the Old nor the New Testament abolished polygamy, the Qur'an regularized the practice in AD 625 after a war in which 10 per cent of 1,000 Muslim warriors were killed, leaving widows and orphans
Urging the faithful to be fair to them, the Qur'an says,
Give to the orphans their property ... And if you fear that you cannot act equitably toward orphans, then marry such women ... two or three or four; but if you fear that you will not do justice (between them), then marry only one (4:2-3)
But in the same chapter, believers are told, You have it not in your power to do justice between the wives, even though you may wish it (4.129)
So, men may marry more than once if they can treat the wives equally, which they cannot
Therefore, monogamy is the norm. An overwhelming majority of Muslims have only one wife
Some Muslim states, or states with large Muslim minorities, have banned polygamy altogether, as has Tunisia, or banned it for civil servants, as has India
Public opinion is also turning against the practice
In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, filmmaker Nia Dinata's movie, Love for Share, about her pain when her father semi-abandoned her mom for a younger woman, proved popular. Another sign of the public mood came last year when a popular TV imam took a second wife and saw his ratings and businesses plummet
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Re: Muslims & polygamy (Multiple Marriage) in Canada (Re: Mohamed Omer)
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Toronto's secret world of polygamy
Safa Rigby holds her youngest of five children in their home, May 21, 2008. Rigby had it all. Four great kids. A faithful husband. Then she found out about his other wives
As Toronto mother describes her ordeal, imam admits he has `blessed' over 30 unions
May 24, 2008 04:30 AM
Noor Javed
Staff Reporter
There were no pleasantries, there was no small talk. Safa Rigby had expected to hear her husband's voice when the phone rang one morning. Instead, the caller didn't even bother to say hello
"You think you know your husband. You don't know him at all," said the man, a friend of her husband's. "His car is parked outside my house right now. He is with my ex-wife. They just got married last week," the man said
It took a minute for the news to sink in. Then she called her husband of 14 years, demanding to know if what she had just been told was true – that while she spent a year in Egypt raising their four children in a more Islamic environment, he had used it as an opportunity to marry not just one, but two other women in Toronto
"Yes, I'm married," he said, quashing all her dreams of their future together
He told her he was married in a small ceremony 20 days earlier, officiated by Aly Hindy, a well-known Toronto imam, at his Scarborough mosque
"I cried for six days straight. Lost my appetite, ignored the kids, even had to start taking antidepressants," said Rigby, 35. "What I couldn't understand was how such a thing could happen in Toronto, my hometown, where polygamy is supposed to be illegal."
It was easy. He simply found an imam willing to break a Canadian law, in exchange for upholding an Islamic one
"Polygamy is happening in Toronto; it's not common, but it's happening," said Hindy, imam at Salahuddin Islamic Centre
Hindy, hardly a stranger to controversy, is well known for his friendship with the family of Omar Khadr, the young Canadian detainee at Guantanamo Bay, and his outspoken views on the implementation of Islamic law. In the past five years, Hindy said he has officiated or "blessed" more than 30 polygamous marriages; the most recent was two months ago. Even some imams in the GTA have second wives, he added
"This is in our religion and nobody can force us to do anything against our religion," he said. "If the laws of the country conflict with Islamic law, if one goes against the other, then I am going to follow Islamic law, simple as that."
Those who condone the practice rarely let their views be known, and those who practise it themselves tend to do so in secret, making it difficult to record how many such marriages have taken place in the GTA. Equally hard to determine is how many polygamous families have immigrated to the country, despite a 2005 report commissioned by the federal Status of Women that tried to find out the extent of polygamy and its implications
But conducting such unions in clear violation of Canadian law is wrong, according to Syed Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, who speaks frequently on polygamy issues
"Muslims should not enter into polygamy while they are living in Canada, because the local Canadian law prevails. It overrules the Islamic law if there is a conflict between the two," he said
Under the Criminal Code, polygamy was deemed a crime in 1892. Those who enter into reside in, or officiate a polygamous union can be charged with a criminal offence and face up to five years in prison
But the last time polygamy was prosecuted in Canada was more than 60 years ago. Fundamentalist Mormons in Bountiful, in southeastern British Columbia, have managed to get away with openly practising polygamy, believed to be an integral and necessary part of their faith, since the 1940s with little legal recourse
A raid six weeks ago on a Texas polygamist compound, in which 440 children were seized by child-protection officials, also drew attention to the practice of polygamy and a sect's religious beliefs. An appeals court, however, ruled this week that the children, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, be released
Islamic laws on polygamy, while based on religious texts, differ from the Mormon example. While the Qur'an permits polygamy, it is not a requirement of the faith – and for those who wish to practise, there are strict conditions: "If you deem it best for the orphans, you may marry their mothers – you may marry two, three, or four. If you fear lest you become unfair, then you shall be content with only one, or with what you already have."
"The purpose of polygamy was to protect women," said Shahina Siddiqui, a social worker with the Islamic Social Services Association, who has worked on a number of polygamy cases. "The way it is being done here, it is not just. Second and third wives have no social support, no legal protection, no recourse if things go wrong; that in itself negates the entire premise of the Islamic law. It can't do what it was meant to do." Polygamy can work, Siddiqui stresses, if the society is set up for it, if it's open to it, and if adults consent to it
Provincial laws do provide some protection for women in polygamous marriages. According to the Ontario Family Act, women who came to Canada with valid polygamous marriage documents can claim spousal support and welfare benefits. While the law has yet to be challenged, it is believed that those married here could also likely do the same on the basis of being vulnerable persons
"It was about women and their needs back then, but what it is today is about a man wanting to have more women," said Rigby, who recently moved back to Canada with her children, and has just started the process of separating from her husband, a businessman. "This is their `halal' form of having an affair."
Rigby said her husband told her his reasoning for marrying the second wife was to "help" her out of a difficult financial situation. Other polygamists cite marrying divorced women as a means to provide them support or be able to have children if their wives are unable to conceive. In some cases, a wife who is ill will herself begin the process of looking for a spouse for her husband, said Hindy
"I don't encourage people to do it, unless they have reason for it. Life ends up being very complicated. You have to jump from one house to another all the time," he said
That's why Hindy advises men to keep the second marriage a secret as long as they can, even from the first wife. There have been instances where he has gone with the men to their homes to share the news with the first wives, in an attempt to help lessen the blow
Hindy had advised Rigby's husband to stay quiet. When Rigby emailed Hindy, soon after discovering he had conducted the marriage, he offered little support
"You have to stand beside him in these difficult times. You should stop causing problems to him. You will not get anything by divorce except destroying your life," she said he told her
At that moment Rigby realized how lonely her path would be
Since the marriages are shrouded in secrecy, women are embarrassed to speak about their situations, have few supports in place, and are often forced to deal with it alone
"You are ashamed. You feel like you are the reason behind it. I stopped socializing, interacting. I became withdrawn. People's first impression is that if a man marries again, it's because of the failings of the first wife," Rigby said. "I spent a year trying to fix the problem, which I didn't even create."
It took Rigby almost two years to leave the marriage, as she struggled to figure out how she would manage as a single mother, now with five children, ages 1 to 14
While Rigby eventually left, many women feel they don't have the strength to do the same. A 28-year-old Mississauga mother of two said she decided to stay in her marriage, more for her kids than for herself, even after she discovered her husband had married another woman
During the year he had two wives, he would alternate nights between the two. "It was a horrible thought. To think of your husband with another woman," she said. But she stayed on, hopeful that he would eventually leave his new wife. "I lost trust. I lost all respect. At that point I didn't love him. I knew he was with her. He was sleeping with her. He was doing everything with her," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. Eventually, he left his second wife
While the Muslim factor may be a minor one in the larger debate around polygamy, which for years has focused on Bountiful, B.C., there is consensus on both sides that the practice will soon be forced to face a constitutional challenge.
Muslims have thought that if such a challenge on the basis of religion is launched, they would also benefit. But Nik Bala, a family law professor at Queen's University, believes the case for Muslims is much weaker than that of the Mormons
"In Bountiful, the argument of freedom of religion applies, since polygamy is a requirement necessary to get to heaven. Islam permits polygamy, but doesn't require it to be a practising Muslim," said Bala. "The freedom of religion argument doesn't hold up as strongly."
But on both sides of the debate, the protection of women and children is considered paramount
In Rigby's eyes, whether polygamy is illegal or legal is irrelevant. "If it is happening and it is here, then there should be some kind of support system set up to protect us," she said, suggesting marriage workshops or support groups for women.
For now, Rigby is writing a blog on her two years in a polygamous marriage. "No one wants to talk about it, but at a certain point, we're going to have to start having that conversation."
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Mohamed Omer
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست