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Muslim women’s body seeks Sharia court ban
NEW DELHI: Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality, a rights body – which has petitioned the Supreme Court against arbitrary triple talaq – on Tuesday demanded a complete
NEW DELHI: Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality, a rights body – which has petitioned the Supreme Court against arbitrary triple talaq – on Tuesday demanded a complete ban on Sharia courts, saying they can’t be allowed to function as a parallel judiciary in the name of mediation, conciliation.
In an affidavit, it also demanded that organizations such as All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) and Bhartiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) “should be abolished to save the country and Indian Muslims from the clamp of fundamentalists/ activists having an ideology similar to Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and his organisation Jamat-ud-dawa.”
It said: “Some people and NGOs are misusing the freedom given by the constitution. They want to keep Muslim education in extremist’s hands, entirely free from government control.”
The affidavit comes days after AIMPLB defended the practice of triple talaq, saying it’s better to divorce a woman than kill her. The government said it would file a response to the petitions against triple talaq in four weeks.
Triple talaq, under which a Muslim man can repeat the word talaq thrice to divorce his wife, violated women’s right to equality, several women have told the Supreme Court.
The affidavit of Muslim Women’s Quest for Equality filed through advocate Farha Faiz said: “There should be a complete change in madarsas education system and a Muslim university under government supervision is the urgent need to impart religious as well as worldly education to Muslims.”
It accused Muslim clerics of creating a gulf between the country and Muslims and brainwashing those who always faced the dilemma of “whether the country is above or the religion”.
The affidavit blamed vote bank politics, especially by Congress governments, for the plight of Muslims. Accusing them of choosing clerics or fundamentalists over regular people, it said they never encouraged Muslims to mix with other people.
