Islamic Triple Talaq in India
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The Supreme Court of India handed down a ruling that many had been wanting to hear for decades.
The Supreme Court of India handed down a ruling that many had been wanting to hear for decades. The five judge bench ruled out Triple Talaq as invalid and unconstitutional. As per the Quran, Muslim custom allows men to divorce their wives by saying the word “Talaq” three times or simply sending it through SMS. More than 22 Muslim countries have regulated triple talaq, abolished it or laid down stringent preconditions for its exercise but India being a secular country; it was insulated by this change. India formerly allowed religious bodies to have control over some rules relating to marriage, divorce, and property.
The change in the country is a massive victory for women’s rights and human rights. Women in India have braved threats, abuse, and boycott for landmark Supreme Court judgment. The judgment is enormously significant as Muslim women were unable to cut through the patriarchy.
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“India of 2017 is not the India of 1986-87, the leadership of Narendra Modi is not the same as that of Rajiv Gandhi,” law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, referring to the Shah Bano judgment of the apex court which the then Rajiv Gandhi government, enjoying absolute majority in Parliament, overturned in 1986, diluting rights of Muslim women for maintenance on the grounds of triple talaq.
The Supreme Court ruling means instant suspension of the practice for at least six months while Parliament enacts a new divorce law.
India’s Muslim law board and conservatives in Muslim society say that the practice of triple talaq is wrong but they opposed court intervention and unsuccessfully argued for the matter to be left to the community to tackle the problem.
An Indian Islam journalist, Zaraful Islam Khan says that if Islam opens the doors for such interference by courts, parliament and the government than there won’t be any end.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been cooling for the legal provisions to be quashed after the court’s decision. He tweeted “it grants equality to Muslim women and is a powerful measure for women empowerment.”
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