Divorce in Muslim Society
Is maintaining the family’s “face” more important than freeing its suffering members from a failed marriage? BY F. M.
D
ivorce is an isolating experience, and our culture cuts us little slack during the process. This is especially evident in comparison to non-Muslim societies where, barring some exceptions, marriage is viewed as a legal procedure that seals the deal on a relationship that already been maturing for a while. Many Muslim societies focus heavily on gender segregation, which enables little understanding of the opposite sex. While this has its merits, our societies have failed us by being unable to prepare us for what marriage is really all about. We all know of people who got married because of societal or parental pressure and, consequently, spend the rest of their lives resenting their partners and children. In fact, happiness or even contentment seem to take a back seat to parental expectations (e.g., grandchildren), children and familial expectations, economic stability and social mobility. To add to the complexities, many things that worked in favor of the traditional Muslim marriage are slowly changing — for
example, women are pursuing higher education and professional careers. In addition, the experience of Muslims living in the West is increasingly at odds with that of their peers in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, who don’t have to deal with the various financial stressors and other factors. Although many Muslims here have achieved considerable economic and social progress, their attitude toward human relationships remains firmly rooted in a mythical past. This past does not stretch back to the lives of the Prophet (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) and his Companions — real people who went through complex emotional and personal challenges while struggling with persecution, migration and war — but to a semi-mythical past involving a utopian Muslim society that had no need for comprehending human behavior or encouraging compassion and kindness. Is it any wonder, then, that Muslims are experiencing a major explosion in divorce rates? Now that we find ourselves in this defining moment in our collective social history, it
is perhaps time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Historically, Muslim societies have prided themselves on the family unit’s structural integrity and, as a result, Muslimmajority regions have low divorce rates. However, it’s incredibly naïve to expect a community of over 1 billion people to remain unaffected by global societal trends, especially as we do not have a centralized Sharia or legal system. We cannot pretend that divorce is a oneoff occurrence, that it happens to “other people,” that it’s absent in our culture or shift blame to something else. For instance, one respectable scholar correlated a women’s right to seek divorce in a particular country to the rise in that country’s divorce rates. Even if we agree to that being a part of the reason, we fail to look at other underlying societal factors that push people to divorce. Ignoring these reasons has led us to where we are at present and will inevitably cause more harm to the fabric of Muslim society. More often than not, divorce is a lonely
MAY/JUNE 2021 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 29
