Clerics block ‘un-Islamic’ child marriage bill

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Lawmakers have withdrawn a proposal to impose harsher penalties on those who arrange child marriages after it was scuttled by a religious body who branded it “blasphemous” and against Islam, sources told AFP Friday.

The proposal, which would also have raised the legal age of marriages for females from 16 to 18, called for “rigorous” punishment up to two years in prison for those who organise child marriages, still common in some parts of Pakistan.

Marvi Memon, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), had moved to amend existing child marriage legislation in the lower house but was forced to withdraw her bid after it was rejected by a parliamentary committee on religious affairs, a source familiar with the development told AFP.

A representative from the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) had dubbed the amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint (Amendment) Bill 2014 as “anti-Islamic” and “blasphemous” during the committee meeting, the source said.

The CII was formed in 1962 to advise parliament on the compatibility of laws with Sharia.

Its recommendations are non-binding, and it has drawn widespread criticism in the past for other rulings — including in 2013, when it suggested making DNA inadmissible evidence in rape cases, instead calling for the revival of an Islamic law that makes it mandatory for a survivor to provide four witnesses to back their claims.

“Marvi wanted deletion of the word ‘simple’ punishment for those involved in arranging child marriages to ‘rigorous’ or ‘two-year’ punishment in the actual legislation,” the parliamentary source, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, told AFP.

“Marvi also wanted the age for girls’ marriage to be raised from 16 years to 18 years, which does not in any way violate the teachings of Islam,” the source said.

The original law stipulates the age of marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men but Pakistani religious scholars believe it is not in accordance with Islamic teachings.

They say there is no specific age limit for marriage in Sharia as an individual can marry when he or she reaches puberty and puberty cannot be defined by age.

Rights activists strongly criticized the rejection of bill.

“It is a pity that the committee came under the pressure of the council’s unjust ruling,” leading rights activist IA Rehman told AFP.

Branding the decision “absurd”, he warned the council was paving the way for its own disbandment and calling its stance a setback to efforts to safeguard human rights in Pakistan.

4 COMMENTS

  1. The Prophet PBUH, never used a phone, he traveled by horse or a camel, he never used a car. Going by the logic of these maulanas, communicating by phone or traveling by car should be made unislamic. Every era has its unique culture and traditions and a unique way of doing things. Slavery existed during the time of the prophet PBUH, he did not ban it, should we also make slavery legal in Pakistan if one is to follow the logic of these maulanas.

  2. Dont comment on that which u have no knowledge. May i suggest to all including miss marvi to first read the qur’an, second to understand it. And then third, will u then deny the words of god after having understood them. They are the the ones who invoke the curse of allah. You either accept gods laws or u dont.

  3. Listening on television to religious scholars who, apart from religious education, are also well-versed in ‘worldly’ education, I am left in no doubt that religious laws are divided into two basic categories. First, there are those in which there can be no change at any time, in any place or under any circumstances, like Muslims have to pray five times a day, which can not be changed or modified.

    And then there are the ones which govern situations other than those covered by the category described above. And in these laws, changes can be made and such changes do not take the persons out of the circle of Islam.

    Unfortunately, the following of the enlightened religious scholars is among like-minded people who do not wield much of street power. As against that, the other type of Maulanas, who can even declare the use of brain as un-Islamic, happen to have the most powerful street following, which so scares our weak and corrupt leaders that they do not even dare take any action against them.

    Like there is the famous saying that receiving education is obligatory for every Muslims male and female.

    However, I have seen even this qualified by our traditional Maulanas by the addition of the following text ‘Education means religious education.’

    This limitation seems more to be that of the mind of these Maulanas because if the term ‘education’ in the saying really meant only religious education, we would not have had such accomplished people in science and other fields among Muslims.

    Long time back, as a young man I was standing at the seashore, looking at the waves. Just then a very old, bearded man came to me and said “There are cities on the other side of water as well and people live there.” I just looked at him a bit amazed because it was not such a revelation. However, the gentleman thought that it was only because of his age that he got to know this fact and he wanted to enlighten me on that, for free. I see most of our traditional Maulanas as not having much more depth beyond the level of that old man. What is even worse is that they feel duty-bound to impose their ideology on the rest of us, by the use of brute force, if necessary.

    General Ziaul Haq harmed us in many ways, the worst of which was burdening us with the extremists, militants and terrorists, and not sparing even the parliament.

    And the second worst of Ziaul Haq’s acts was imposing on us the Sharif dynasty, which is still with us and don’t know for how long still. Having been ‘groomed’ by Ziaul Haq, even if not very respectful but the dynasty seems extremely fearful of the extremists among Maulanas and is scared to hell taking action against them or their creations, despite the mischief and much more that they are doing to us. Nawaz Sharif dares not even replace the extremists among the Council of Islamic Ideology, with some reasonable ones.

    And to our greatest misfortune, General Raheel Sharif seems to have developed an excellent relationship with Nawaz Sharif. So, there is not even the slightest of pressure on Nawaz Sharif to mend his ways. We are just stuck with the lot.

    Karachi

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