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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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Mohamed Omer
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست