Re: Woman ‘ordered to marry rapist’
A good article on the subject:
From the article:
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.