It is very common that religion being used for all the wrong purposes when it could have helped to enhance the lives of weak and the oppressed. Most of the times it would be the priests or clerics from a religion who would be misinterpreting the Holy Books to sustain their own interests and misleading the others within the community. The latest controversy about a comment from the senior Muslim cleric Kanthapuram A P Aboobacker Musaliar on polygamy shows that this trend still continues. Kanthapuram reportedly have said this: A second wife is biologically justified. Women’s menstrual cycle prevents them from sexual contact for 5-6 days.
His statement came in the backdrop of a state law reforms commission has come out with a draft bill to check polygamy and divorce by Talaq. The bill seeks that ‘monogamy shall be the rule’ and that ‘marrying again during the lifetime of husband or wife is an offence.’
The proposed bill wants that “if any married Muslim, man or woman, marries again during the subsistence of the first marriage, the party who violates shall be guilty of bigamy under the IPC and punishable as such.”
Kanthapuram says that polygamy is sanctioned in Islam. But noted writer M N Karassery has reacted strongly against Kanthapuram’s statement. In an article in this week’s Mathrubhumi weekly, Karassery writes that Kanthapuram’s statement has come from those who see woman as a mere sex object. He has also mentioned that polygamy as allowed in Islam is not for the sexual pleasures of man. He cites from Quran:
[4:3] If you deem it best for the orphans, you may marry their mothers – you may marry two, three, or four. If you fear lest you become unfair, then you shall be content with only one, or with what you already have. [via]
Here the emphasis is on protecting the orphans, but the clerics like Kanthapuram interpret it wrongly. Jamaat-E-Islami has welcomed the proposed bill, but Sunni sect of which Kanthapuram is part of is objecting it strongly. The Mujahid sect has not reacted to the issue yet.
Kanthapuram’s statement helps only to leave a bad mark on the Kerala Muslims, the Sunni sect to be particular. It is high time that clerics like him think about it.
(Image courtesy: Kanthapuram.com)