WUNRN
Sent to WUNRN 11-19-12 by Momal
Mushtaq, Executive Director, The Voice of Youth
Pakistan
- Marriage of Daughters to the Quran
Image source: http://blog.naseeb.com
An
article titled ‘Married to the Quran’ in a past Pakistani weekly
newspaper, it was said: “According to Khabrain, a large number of feudal in
Sindh had married their daughters to the Quran. The ceremony took place after
the girl of the family was asked to take a bath, after which a Quran was put
before her as the men folk apologized to her for the ritual which would condemn
the girl to get married but to read the Quran every day. In Sindh, MPA Shabbir
Shah’s sister, ex-minister Murad Shah’s sister and two daughters, three
daughters of Mir Awwal Shah of Matiari, daughters and sisters of Sardar Dadan
and Nur Khan of the Lund tribe, nieces of Sardar Ghulam of Mahar tribe, and the
daughters of the Pir of Bharchundi Sharif, were all married to the Quran to
prevent their share of the land going to them and thus avoid redistribution of
land.”
This
is obviously an abusive and unIslamic practice. This has nothing to do with
religion and is all about power, control and greed. Women are not valued enough
to consider how their entire lives, dreams and hopes are ruined by a
‘tradition’ that is inhumane and beyond any rational explanation. Under the
guise of devoting their lives to the Quran, these women’s lives are obliterated
and wiped out. By trying to legitimize this barbaric behaviour the Quran and
Islam are being abused. It definitely does not become an acceptable
practice by giving it a religious twist. This is no different than the Jâhilîyah practices of
burying the girl alive, that Islam fought against from day one.
Obviously
this is not a recent practice and has been going on for a very long time.
Surprisingly, the men recognize that it is not right hence they apologize
to the woman before ruining her life. Mothers and other women of the
family who allow this to continue are accomplices to this crime as well. To
imagine that a father, brother, mother or sister allows this to carry on is
beyond comprehension. Obviously the society in which this practice
continues is silent and equally to be blamed.
Islam
does NOT encourage detaching entirely from the world so how can this practice
be claimed permissible? The names listed above are not those of uneducated
people, but men who hold high positions of authority. It is ridiculously unjust
how the lives of these women are ruined.
Islam does NOT give men limitless power to abuse women when they are given the status of ‘Head of the Household’. As ‘Head of the Household’, it does not allow them to legitimize their abuses. It angers me how women buy into such stupidity and allow it to continue.
________________________________________________________________
PAKISTAN - "MARRYING DAUGHTERS
TO THE QURAN" TO KEEP PROPERTY IN FAMILY
KARACHI:
Seven years ago, Zubaida Ali witnessed a bizarre ceremony in her ancestral
village in Sindh where her cousin Fareeba was married to the Holy Quran.
“It was extremely odd and, of course, very tragic. Fareeba, who is a very
pretty girl and was then around 25 years old, was dressed as a typical bride,
with red, sequined clothes, jewellery and mehndi patterns on her hands and feet
but over all this she was draped in an enveloping dark chaddor. There was music
and lots of guests but no groom,’’ Zubaida, 33, was quoted as saying by IRIN,
the UN information unit in a report.
The tradition under which Fareeba was `wed’ is known as `Haq Bakshish’, which
literally translates into giving up the right to marry. Families use Haq
Bakshish to prevent property leaving the family when a girl weds someone who is
not a relative.
Fareeba, who can now never wed a man, spends most of her time studying the Holy
Quran or stitching. She is a `Hafiza’, or one who knows the Holy Quran by
heart.
The Haq Bakshish tradition, most common in Sindh, but also followed in parts of
the Punjab, is most often practiced by feudal families, often `Syeds’. Syed
families are often reluctant to allow women to marry into non-Syed families, in
a kind of a caste system that sees such families as being lower in status.
Moreover, in cases when no match deemed suitable exists within the family for a
young woman of marriageable age, rather than have property leave the family
when a woman weds outside it and takes her share of the property with her, it
may be decided to preserve it by marrying her to the Holy Quran.
But the practice, frowned upon by almost all religious scholars and much of
mainstream Islam, is generally practiced in secret. It has been reported that
even the families of prominent political leaders from Sindh have engaged in the
custom, but this is usually denied by the persons concerned.
“It is not at all Islamic and in fact violates religion. We are moving to ban
this cruel practice,’’ Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the president of the ruling
Pakistan Muslim League, said. Hussain has recently introduced a bill in the
342-member National Assembly under which such marriages, as well as other forms
of enforced marriage, would be banned. The bill is currently being studied by a
parliamentary committee and is likely to be debated in the National Assembly
over the coming few weeks.
For similar reasons, the marriage of women to trees, or sometimes to small boys
or old men, has also been reported as a means to protect property. Many of
these practices, however, remain shrouded in secrecy within families and it is
difficult to determine precise details or the exact numbers.
But writers and researchers on cultural practices in Sindh believe that such
marriages are not uncommon. The tradition, which is thought to have existed for
centuries, gained greater prominence after a novel, `The Holy Woman’, based on
the practice was published nearly six years ago. Written by Pakistan-based
British writer Qasira Shahraz, the novel narrates the story of a young woman
married in this fashion.
Despite this and other campaigns, many of Pakistan’s 160 million inhabitants
remain unaware that such traditions even exist at all. “I did not believe this
happened here. I had heard in my village that some women devoted their lives to
religion, but I did not know it was forced upon them in this manner,’’ said
Zubaida Ali, who like most other women and many men, fiercely opposes the
practice.
Many provisions of the repressive Hudood ordinances, a set of Islamic laws
brought in under former President General Zia ul-Haq in 1979 under which many
women were jailed as punishment for alleged adultery or other `moral’ crimes,
were finally changed late last year. But even in Pakistan’s current climate of
change, it remains to be seen how successful the struggle to end traditions
such as Haq Bakshish will prove.