Fasakh Nikkah

More than 200 couples belonging to Barelvi maslak had to repeat their Nikkah  in Aharaula village, about 20 km from Distt. Moradabad, U.P. India, because these Barelvi Sunni Muslims had committed the crime of attending a namaz e janaza led by a cleric from the rival Deoband sect. The namaz on August 11 was led by Maulana Hafiz Abu Mohammad during the burial of his uncle, Master Nazakat Hussain, a respected madrassa teacher who had died at the age of 85 years.However, this enraged local Barelvi leaders. Days after the burial, Haji Ali Hasan, a village elder travelled to Moradabad to meet with Mufti Abdul Mannan Karimi, a Barelvi cleric, and briefed him on how a Deobandi had led a band of Barelvis in prayer. The mufti cracked down. Those at Hussain's burial were no more Muslims and had turned kafir, he decreed in a fatwa last week. The price for resumption of status quo was, "tauba karo, kalma padho aur nikah padhwao (do penance, recite the kalma, marry your wive s all over again)".  This has led the spate of Barlevi Sunni couples to get their Nikahs renewed by the Barelvi clerics all over again.  

What beats me, is not their calling each other kafir, but that how on earth can the poor wretched unwary wife be condemned to be divorced due to some act of her husband ?!! What is the fault of the poor lady? Is this the ‘status’ given to the women in Islam that anyone can play with their life for any rhyme, reason or on any whim????  Again the cursed divorce, which is the most disliked though a permissible act near God, and has to be administered thrice before it takes effect, is so easily perpetuated just on the saying (verdict) of some stupid cleric?  And, I sincerely hope the couples had not conjugated in between or else any children conceived during their being “without” Nikkah would again be declared as NaJaiz Aulad by these cheaper than a penny clerics.!! Strange and unbelievable.  Any comments from any courageous learned ones, who can speak their mind out against such clerics?  Who authorises them to give such verdicts and how and on what qualifications???

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)