‘Misusing Freedom’: Muslim Women in India Demand End to Shariah Courts

An organization called Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality filed an affidavit on Tuesday petitioning India’s Supreme Court to ban the practice of triple talaq, in which a husband can repeat the word “talaq” three times to be legally divorced from his wife. The group also demands the abolition of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA).

The women’s organization points out that the process of triple talaq violates women’s right to equality, while the AIMPLB, overseeing Muslim personal law, defends the practice by saying that it is “better to divorce a woman than kill her.”

In an affidavit, the AIMPLB argued that men are more “emotionally stable” and therefore should be in charge of determining whether a divorce should occur.

“Shariah grants the right to divorce because men have greater power of decision making. They are more likely to control emotions and not take a hasty decision,” according to the AIMPLB affidavit.

The Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality wrote in their affidavit that the AIMPLB, “should be abolished to save the country and Indian Muslims from the clamp of fundamentalists/activists having the ideology similar to Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and his organisation Jamat-ud-dawa (JuD).”

“Some people and NGOs are misusing the freedom given by the constitution. They want to keep Muslim education in Muslim extremist’s hands, entirely free from the government control,” the affidavit stated.

In India, each religion has its own set of “personal laws” dictating how matters such as divorce, marriage, and adoption are handled. To make things less complicated, the country’s Supreme Court has been pushing for a uniform civil code, which AIMPLB is fighting tooth and nail.