India’s Supreme Court banned sharia court and fatwas.

It is such a good news.

But I wonder whether it would work at all. Dowry, Khap panchayet, casteism etc. are illegal in India, but indians practice those with impunity. I am afraid fatwas will be practiced with impunity too.

Setting price on anyone’s head has been illegal but imams never have any problem setting price on my head. Nobody questioned them. Police rather protected them when they issued fatwa.

Fatwa against Imrana was terrible.

On 6 June 2005, Imrana, 28 years old at the time, and the mother of five children, was raped by her 69-year-old father-in-law Ali Mohammad. Soon after she was raped, a local Muslim panchayat (council of elders) asked her to treat her husband Nur Ilahi as her son and declared their marriage null and void. Imrana defied the panchayat’s ruling and continued living with her husband.

The leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband also issued a fatwa, which quotes from Quran 4:22: wa la tankihoo ma nakaha aaba-o-kum, “And marry not women whom your fathers married”, and not distinguishing between rape and adultery, said that as a result of her father-in-law’s act, she should now be treated as the mother of her husband and she could no longer live with him even though Imrana had not married her father-in-law. She was still married to her husband when she was raped by her father in law therefore the fatwa provided by the panchayat’s disregard the Islamic rulings against rape and the punishment for the rapists. Due to such fatwa Imrana is in a way being prosecuted instead of her rapist father in law as she is being ordered to leave her husband and start a life with her rapist. The fatwa is a clarification of the ruling by the village leaders who disregarded the Islamic teachings for such cases for the sake of shunning Imrana who is thought to have brought shame to the community by having sexual intercourse with her father in law.

Such an insane fatwa was accepted by Indian Muslim community and supported by so called liberal secular Muslim friendly Hindu politicians.

Fatwas are there to oppress women, to suppress and denigrate women. To humiliate women. Fatwas are against women’s freedom. Against women’s education, work, against women’s love, sex, marriage, against women’s choice, going outside, using mobile phone, against talking with men, against their clothes, their happiness, against whatever they like. The truth is, Sharia court and fatwas against women would be continued if misogyny is continued in society.

Indian Muslims are not happy with Supreme Court’s decision. They want sharia court
and their right to issue fatwas against women’s rights, human rights, and freedom of expression. They want their right to practice barbarism.