Editorial

Family Life: The Islamic Guidance is Clear

Afavorite trope of Western feminists and Islamophobes, as well as with their parrot-like imitators in Muslim-majority countries, is Islam’s “dearth” of rights for women. Of course, they and their parrots never mention the marital inequities faced by Catholic and Jewish women.

Once titled the Catholic Church’s “defender,” Henry VIII (1491-1547) founded the Church of England (a.k.a. the Anglican Church) because he wanted to remarry and try for a male heir. As its supreme head, he dissolved the monasteries, absorbed and redistributed their massive holdings as he saw fit, and thereby ushered in the English Reformation.

One result has been very long-term — the King James Bible (1604-11) “has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world” and remains “extremely popular” even today (“400 years of the King James Bible”. The Times Literary Supplement. Feb. 9, 2011).

The Catholic Church forbids remarriage if the other spouse is alive. The only way around this is to annul the first marriage, which begins with establishing the marriage’s complete failure and then involving an ecclesiastical tribunal. Obviously, this is a time-consuming process.

The traditional Jewish marriage, a contractual relationship, has no ecclesiastically conferred status. Therefore its termination — other than by one spouse’s death — is a matter decided by both parties among themselves.

However, there is a catch: Only the husband can issue a get (divorce) (Deut. 24:1-2). Thus his ex-wife, who cannot legally remarry if he is absent or rejects her request, becomes an agunah (Ruth 1:13), a woman “chained” to the marriage. However, the consequences of remarriage without a get are not as severe for a man.

The Quran proclaims: “If you divorce women and they reach their appointed term, hold them back in amity or let them go in amity. Do not hold them back out of malice, to be vindictive” (2:231). Although Muslims can contract and dissolve their marriages, the Prophet (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) stated: “The most hated of permissible things to God is divorce” (“Sunan Ibn Majah,” hadith no. 2018”; “Sunan Abi Dawud,” hadith no. 2178; and al-Bayhaqi, “al-Sunan al-Kubra,” vol. 7).

The guidance is clear: Spouses should be patient and forgiving while trying to save their marriage — if such is their goal — to the extent of seeking help from their families, friends, imams or professional counselors.

Islamic Horizons invited Khalid Iqbal, a former ISNA vice president, to contribute his insights in this regard. As the founder of the Rahmaa Institute (www.rahmaa.org), which helps Muslims develop strong family bonds by reducing dysfunction and thereby lowering the divorce rate, his advice is most valuable.

In this issue, we discuss the long-term and ongoing inequities faced by North America’s original inhabitants. Despite our own legal status as citizens by birth or naturalization, or as legal residents, we must recognize our obligations toward the Indigenous people, upon whose land we are standing and making our lives and futures, while they largely remain marginalized and voiceless.

Thus we have included a section on the lives and challenges of the land’s real owners, who were dispossessed by the original European conquerors and the ensuing floods of settler colonialists and their descendants. All of us, regardless of our faith, have the moral responsibility to not only reach out to them, but also to support their struggle to recoup their rights and lives.

While we were preparing this issue, the umma lost three outstanding people: Malik Badri, the “father” of Islamic psychology who sought to formulate an Islamic basis for the discipline; Agha Khalid Saeed, who worked so hard to lay the foundation of Muslim political involvement in the U.S. and fought against injustice; and Nedzib Sacirbey, a founding father of Bosnia. May God reward them and grant them eternal peace. Ameen. ih

PUBLISHER The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)

PRESIDENT Safaa Zarzour

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Basharat Saleem

EDITOR Omer Bin Abdullah

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Iqbal Unus, Chair: M. Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Milia Islam-Majeed

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