what was the right judgement in this case. what if it had happened in Islamic country.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
as far as i have read and heard from scholars, if a woman is raped by her father-in-law, she becomes haraam for the son (her husband)....
if she was raped by someone else (say her brother in law) then she was not to leaver her husband, but in this case, she has to....
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
if she was raped by someone else (say her brother in law) then she was not to leaver her husband, but in this case, she has to....
But what is the woman's fault? what if she really loves her hasband and don't want to leave him? what if she have children, do the children also need to suffer?
Is it really justified?
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
this is very arbitrary and bordering on the irrational and cruel. What is the justification for this, in the light of Quran and Sunnah.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
if she was raped by someone else (say her brother in law) then she was not to leaver her husband, but in this case, she has to....
Well well, what is the punishment of a married rapist in Islam:
Stoning till death, thats what this father in law deserves.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
Now please read this very carefully. See the TRUTH.
http://www.islamonline.net/English/…article04.shtml
Imrana Case…Rape of Truth in India (Special Report)
By Zafarul-Islam Khan, IOL Correspondent
NEW DELHI, July 4, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) - The alleged rape of a
Muslim woman by her father-in-law in an obscure Indian village has,
once again, proved the mighty role—vicious as it may be—the media can
play in our lives.
The case that has shaken India, grabbed headlines worldwide, and
caused secularists, feminists, communists, and extremist Hindus to cry
out aloud, demanding the abolition of Muslim personal laws, against
the wishes 145 million Indian Muslims, is—in a nutshell—the work of "a
journalist".
It was only natural for IslamOnline.net to be alarmed by the case as
it appeared in the media and it was up to IOL correspondent in India
to dig as deep as humanly possible to get to the bottom of the
so-called Imrana case. This report reveals “astonishing” facts, to say
the least.
“Property Dispute”
According to IOL correspondent, the issue reportedly started on the
morning of June 3—a month ago—when a 28-year-old illiterate Muslim
woman, called Imrana, living in the north Indian district of
Muzaffarnagar claimed that her father-in-law (Ali Mohammad) had
“raped” her at night. Imrana, mother of five, claimed that he fled
when she “screamed”.
Enquiries by this correspondent show that no one in the tiny house or
her immediate neighbors heard any “scream” at night. This was strange
as it is summer time when all people living in the tiny interconnected
houses sleep on the terrace or in open courtyards inside their homes.
What adds a new dimension to the case is that this allegation was made
in the midst of an on-going dispute in the family about selling the
ancestral property. The father-in-law wanted to sell the house while
the son, Noor Ilahi, and his wife Imrana—the heroine of the infamous
story—opposed the move as they had nowhere to go.
A team of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which visited the
concerned village and met the alleged victim, her relatives and
village people Saturday, July 2, came back with the impression that no
rape had taken place and that it was a case of property dispute, says
IOL correspondent.
“First Bullet”
The father-in-law has all along denied the rape claim and the issue
was dismissed within the family but some neighbors got wind of it and
soon a small-time local journalist called Shakti of the Hindi paper
Dainik Jagaran got wind of it.
Shakti came to the family and demanded ten thousand rupees to keep
silent. The poor family pleaded that it did not have this kind of
money, according to IOL correspondent, citing local witnesses.
The journalist went ahead and published the story in his newspaper.
Zee TV picked it from Dainik Jagaran and thereafter all the channels,
newspapers, agencies, NGOs and government organizations descended on
the small village of Charthawal whose inhabitants would tremble even
at the sight of a single baton-wielding policeman.
These vultures started interviewing just about anyone they found on
the village streets, reporting edited versions which showed that a
great crime had been committed against a hapless Muslim woman even
before the crime was established, says IOL correspondent.
The local media continues to describe what happened as “rape,”
discarding the adjective “alleged” in such cases, although no
authority till now has proved it to be a case of rape.
Unusual media focus and the incompetence of the Indian Muslim
religious and political leadership has only worsened the situation as
was seen in the somewhat similar case of Gudiya a few months ago.
Local Council
Alleged “rapist” Mohammad Ali arrested by the police.
As in many rural areas in the Subcontinent, a local elders council
(panchayat) was called in the village June 15 to deliberate over the
issue. A local maulavi (scholar) told the panchayat that after the
incident the woman was haram (forbidden) for her husband as she is
like his “mother” now and that she should marry the rapist.
The panchayat was described by the media as a “Shariat Panchayat” as
if a meeting of Islamic scholars had taken the decision, which is not
true. Naturally the woman refused this grand gesture and moved out to
live with her brothers in a nearby village. Noor Ilahi, a rickshaw
puller, could not stand the attention and fled from the scene.
Next day, June 16, the 59-year-old father-in-law was arrested by the
police on rape charges and sent on judicial remand for 14 days.
While all this was going on, neither the woman nor her husband had
complained to the police. It was only two weeks after the alleged rape
that the woman made a complaint to the police and an FIR (first
information report) was registered. She appeared before a civil court
in Muzzafarnagar June 20 to make her statement.
“No Rape”
That was the time for political meddlers to exploit a situation for
their benefit, as usual. A Delhi-based secularist women’s outfit
called Muslim Women Forum sent two representatives June 20, to meet
Imrana. They bribed her with five thousand rupees and asked her to say
to the media and police that she would not accept the ruling of
Shari`ah (Islamic Law) and would only go for the civil court’s
judgment to safeguard her rights.
On June 30, Dr. Tasleem Rahmani, president of the Muslim Political
Council, called a press conference in Delhi in which he showed a
3-hour video in which Imrana appeared saying that no rape had taken
place, that she was given five thousand rupees by a "feminist
organization".
Rahmani said that the case was blown out of proportion to malign the
Muslims and the Shari`ah. He planned to file a complaint in the Press
Council of India against “irresponsible” reporting. Most newspapers
and channels chose not to carry Rahmani’s statement.
Fatwa
Then comes the role of some religious people to unintentionally fuel
anti-Muslim media. A Noida-based Urdu newspaper, Rashtriya Sahara,
asked the mufti in India’s premier Muslim seminary, Darul Uloom
Deoband, to give his opinion.
The mufti, Maulana Habibur Rahman, without ascertaining the facts of
the case or going to the area or sending someone there to find out the
truth, issued a fatwa on June 25, saying Imrana “is now haram
(forbidden) for her husband and should leave him”.
“We have obtained a copy of this fatwa and asked Mufti Habibur Rahman
certain questions. He was unable to counter our argument that the
Qur’anic injunction (“And marry not women whom your fathers married…”
4:22) does not apply here,” says this correspondent.
"The mufti gave us some references to support his view but when we
read them, they did not seem to support the mufti’s interpretation
which is the opinion of some Hanafi fuqaha (scholars) who consider
rape also as a cause for prohibiting such marriages.
“We confronted the mufti again. This time he referred us to another
maulana who, he said, was present in the meeting when the decision was
taken. We asked him, why should we go to someone else when he (Mufti
Habibur Rahman) had signed the fatwa. Seemingly he was not pleased
with our argument and asked us to write down whatever “problems” we
had in mind. We did this promptly and are still waiting for his
reply.”
Other schools of thought like Shafi`i, Maliki, Jaafari Shia and Ahl-e
Hadees reject this interpretation, as they hold that only legitimate
marriage is meant in the Qur’anic injunction and a crime does not
change the rule.
Just one day after our interaction June 29, the mufti’s office
announced Friday, July 1, that the previous fatwa was not about
Imrana, which is factually incorrect. While the name “Imrana” is not
mentioned in the question to which the fatwa was given, her village
and district are mentioned. Moreover, the July 3 issue of Rashtriya
Sahara Urdu newspaper carries an article by Mufti Habibur Rahman which
explicitly mentions the name of Imrana and pronounces the same opinion
he earlier expressed in his fatwa.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board, too, has now distanced itself
from that fatwa and will soon reconsider the issue, says IOL
correspondent.
Political Chance
Political parties were also quick to take advantage of the issue in
order to indulge in their usual pastime of attacking the Muslim
personal laws and repeat their age-old demand to force a “Uniform
Civil Code” (UCC) applicable to all citizens.
True, UCC is a “guiding principle” laid down in the Indian
Constitution’s Article 44, but at the same time personal laws of
various communities including Hindus are respected and the stated
policy of the government ever since independence has been that the
personal laws will not be changed unless the demand is made by the
concerned community itself, according to IOL correspondent.
Various communist, socialist, and rightist parties repeated their
demand to enact UCC. The most vociferous was the beleaguered Hindutva
leader LK Advani who thundered Friday that “Muslim laws must change”.
The Imrana issue had given a strong stick for the Baharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) to beat “pseudo-secularists”.
“No civil society can accept the treatment being meted out to Imrana,
the victim of a heinous crime, by scholars. The ulemas (scholars) must
reconsider their decision to ensure that dignity is restored to
Imrana,” said Advani.
On June 28, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said in a specially
convened press conference that “the entire nation is concerned over
recent developments in relation to the case of Imrana, a helpless
victim of rape allegedly committed by her father-in-law.” Jaitley
demanded the implementation of UCC, saying that Imrana’s case shows
that “obnoxious religious practices [are] still prevalent. … This is
wholly unacceptable under any civilized notion of the rule of law.”
President of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council-VHP) Ashok
Singhal said that “the time has come to quash the Muslim Personal
Law.”
Marxists, too, joined the fray. Communist Party of India (CPIM)'s
Brinda Karat on June 27, said that it’s a “shocking example of how
contractors of religion can bulldoze the constitutional rights of a
citizen.”
Congress Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi announced on the same day
that “Fatwas are irrelevant.” Replying to a question, Singhvi said if
there is a crime involving a person of any religion, caste or creed,
then it is dealt under the criminal law and fatwas or personal laws
become irrelevant.
A delegation of the National Commission for Women visited the victim
on 30 June. It demanded a speedy trial and appealed against
politicization of the incident. Commission chairperson Girija Vyas, a
Congress leader, said that “the issue should not be politicized but
treated on humanitarian grounds.” She said that the “Constitution is
supreme.”
Personal Laws
According to IOL correspondent, it is a fact of life in India today
that all possible liberties are taken where Muslims are concerned. The
media does not take the same freedom when it comes to other
communities. The same media was repeating ad nauseam that the AIMPLB
was supporting the Deoband fatwa when only a certain member of the
board, a laywoman, had done that. Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan
said July 1, that in the guise of the Imrana issue, the media is
targeting Islam. “There is an attempt behind this conspiracy to malign
Islam and Muslims,” he added.
On July 1 the AIMPLB distanced itself from the Deoband fatwa and said
that a meeting of its working committee would be called to deliberate
on the issue. Next day Syed Shahabuddin, president of the All India
Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM), came out strongly against Advani’s
outpourings. He said that the AIMMM condemns the political
exploitation of the Imrana case by the BJP to promote its
long-cherished agenda of religious assimilation of the Muslim
community through imposition of a common civil code in substitution of
its Shari`ah-based Personal Law.
The storm over Imrana will die down as time passes, but forces which
are ever ready to use any handle against Muslims will soon find some
other issue and blow it out of proportion unless leaders of the Muslim
community are ready to meet the challenges and adapt to the demands of
the modern times and requirements of natural justice.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
From what I read, even if a person casts a dirty eye on his daughter in law, his son must divorce her.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
Oh Cmon, plz do some serious research before making such statement.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
What exactly is the argument for this stance?
From what I understand, the ruiling was very much Hanafi-specific, and the other schools do not agree with the stance that Nikkah means sex, and not marriage (which is how the Deoband interpret the prohibition found in 4:22).
The rational provided by the Ulema at Deoband was very lacking in substance (it was published in the Milli Gazette some time ago), and simply presumed the correctness of their interpretation.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
Stoning till death, thats what this father in law deserves.
The Ulema were clear, however, that the father-in-law should be prosecuted under the law (they can't stone to death in India).
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
Good job Iconoclast you definetely cleared up a lot of things on the case.
Now the question is what if the rape was real, even then she had to go through the same fate?
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
Good, reading all the arguments, its clear that Fatwa was wrong,
Though since Fatwa is suppose to be all binding and without redressal.. its better to stick to proper judicial system rather than Fatwas....... It may have been effective judicial system in past........ not in current modern world...
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
Now the question is what if the rape was real, even then she had to go through the same fate?
Even if the rape was real, she does NOT have to go thru same fate, she does NOT have to leave her husband, i will post a good article about this soon.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
ok
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
OK here is an excerpt from an islamic court about this issue.
**
[QUOTE]
The Effects of Incest on the Validity of Marriage
What about the perpetrator of the crime and the woman victim in a case of rape?
As for the man who raped his daughter-in-law, if he was of sound mind and committed the crime of his own free will, and if this is established in a court of law by confession or by proper procedures of evidence, then the prescribed punishment for adultery is to be carried out upon him. This punishment is for the convicted perpetrator to be stoned to death.
The evidence for this is related by Jâbir b. `Abd Allah that a man from the clan of Aslam approached the Prophet (peace be upon him) and informed him that he had committed adultery and bore witness against himself four times. The Prophet (peace be upon him) then ordered that the man be stoned. The man who committed the crime had been a married man. [Sahîh al-Bukhârî (6429)]
This sentence cannot be carried out by anyone other than the authorities. If the public were to take the law into its own hands, this would lead to anarchy. It can only be carried out after an official judicial verdict to that effect is issued. Moreover, capital punishments are prescribed to only be carried out by the state. They require the due process of law to be fully observed whereby the crime of adultery is legally established and all prohibitive factors and any doubts that would lead to a suspension of the sentence are ruled out.
As for the woman, since she was forced into the act, she is guilty of no sin or crime. Her innocence is a point about which all scholars are agreed.
She is also definitely not to be separated from her children. Indeed, they are her children by the consensus (ijma`) of the people of knowledge. It is unlawful to separate them. It is related from Abû Ayyûb al-Ansârî that Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: “Whoever separates between a woman and her child will be separated by Allah from those he loves on the Day of Judgment. [Mustadrak al-Hâkim (2/63)]
Al-Hâkim said about this hadîth: This is an authentic hadîth according to the conditions of authenticity set forth by Muslim, though he did not include it in his compilation.”
And Allah knows best.
[/QUOTE]
I think what the Hanafi people have done is to extrapolate the verdict of adultery between father in law and DIL to rape, which does not seem appropriate.**
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
Though since Fatwa is suppose to be all binding and without redressal.. its better to stick to proper judicial system rather than Fatwas....... It may have been effective judicial system in past........ not in current modern world...
Actually, the Deoband deny giving an official fatwa on the matter. Rather, an opinion was solicited by a journalist and they gave their opinion on what should be done.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
I dont know if this has been discussed before. IMO if the women has a complaint then this rascal father in law has to be tried by the court. Indian legal system only allows for civil laws to be seperate not criminal law. Rape is criminal and he should be punished by the court. Whatever else is upto the sharia.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
What is official Fatwa? ISn’t Fatwa is something just proclaimed…
Its playing with words by Maulana after being proved stupid…:halo:
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
^ u said it man u said it.
Re: Deoband fatwa on Imrana
A Fatwa is a ruiling on a matter, and it is binding.
In the Imrana case, the person being asked didn’t even know if Imrana was even subscribing to the Hanafi school of thought.
I hope you can see the difference between answering a reporters question (i.e. being baited) and pronouncing (with authority) on a case.