News:
On April 21st 2015 Eurasia.net reported in a story entitled “Georgia’s Child Brides: Opting for Marriage over School” where Nikkah was blamed for allowing the rise in what is described as female children (under the age of 18) being forced into marriage under the guidance of religious men conducting Nikkah ceremonies that are not recognized by the State. A similar story was later published in by the same news source the next day titled “Kyrgyzstan Sees Rise in Child Brides”, once again the reporting attacked Sharia Law and Nikkah as a social problem oppressing Muslim girls, placing them in violent abusive relationships and destroying their educational and vocational ambitions.
Comment:
Both of these articles, as well as many others written in the past, represent a growing trend to isolate Islamic culture and Sharia Law as a brutal and cruel influence tormenting the lives of women who would otherwise have had happy and productive futures. The implication that Liberal Secular culture holds some salvation for women and girls and would secure their rights is a gross misrepresentation of the truth. Child abuse, trafficking in girls, female slavery and domestic violence are all increasing problems spiraling out of control in not only in Russia and the former Soviet States but the world over. Ironically the same news source only recently published a story entitled “’We Want a Voice’: Women Fight for Their Rights in the Former USSR” on the 8th of March 2015, which exposed the great dissatisfaction that women of the region’s most established democracy have with their political status. A quote from the article states; “…for the average Soviet woman (secular/democratic) emancipation meant a life of drudgery; bearing the “double burden” of home-making and child-rearing alongside work outside the home…….in a country beset by rampant shortages and widespread abuses.
Today, almost 25 years after the fall of the USSR, many problems faced by women across the post-Soviet states have a familiar ring in the west.” So it is clear that Sharia Law is by no means to blame for the origin of the misery and hardships faces by women in the Caucuses. The truth is that the problem of girls being forced in marriage has nothing to do with Sharia Law and more to do with economic injustices that create the needs of families to “sell” their daughter off into marriage before they are capable of carrying out the duties of being a wife. The absence of a true Islamic political system that delivers the educational and social system is the real issue to be addressed.
The Khilafah of the past never had a problem of women being forced into marriage as there were real powers available to secure the laws of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and the Sunnah of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم that forbade such practices. The State promotion of the high moral values of women being an honour to be guarded and respected created male citizens that were mature in their understanding of what it means to be a man responsible for protecting the rights of the dependents in his charge in a loving and secure family unit. Islamic Sharia does not validate a nikkah where women do not have their consent so linking forced marriage to Islam is a gross fabrication of the reality. Sharia Law actually promotes the happiness of the man and women in marriage as is proven in the Ayat of Quran in Surah 30 verse 21;
وَمِنْ ءَايَٰتِهِۦٓ أَنْ خَلَقَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَٰجًا لِّتَسْكُنُوٓا۟ إِلَيْهَا وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَكُم مَّوَدَّةً وَرَحْمَةً ۚ إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَءَايَٰتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ
“And of His signs is that He created for you mates from among yourselves, so that you may find tranquillity in them; and He planted love and compassion between you. In this are signs for people who reflect.”
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Imrana Mohammad
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir