Muslim Women Need Sharia not Personal Law: Farha Faiz

To add to the triple talaq debate, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board has come up with an argument that Muslim women are happy with Sharia law and don’t want Uniform Civil Code to be applied in the country.

“It  is not the Personal Law Board or the women in it, who are against the proposed Uniform Civil Code, but Muslim women in general in the country do not want it. They feel safe and secure under the Sharia law,” Kamal Faruqui, a member of AIMPLB said, as reported by India Today via Press Trust of India.

However, Farha Faiz, advocate at the Supreme Court, president of Rashtriya Muslim Mahila Sangh, and petitioner in the matter, articulates that there is a difference between Sharia Law and Personal Law Board. “Sharia Law is what is written in the Quran and Personal Law Board is nowhere close to exercising the laws written in the holy book,” she says.

She told SheThePeople.TV, “Muslim women definitely are secure under Sharia law but what the Personal Law Board is doing (is) giving significance to triple talaq and nikaah halala which are not written in the Quran. The AIMPLB is not even a legal entity, it is just an NGO. They have a misleading name which has for years misguided both the Muslims and the Indian government.”

She contends that the Muslim Personal Law board is only there to benefit men and discriminate against women. “Triple Talaq is ‘Talaq-e-bidt’ which means that it is not written in Quran while what’s wriiten in the holybook is addressed as ‘sunnat’, so it is quite clear that personal law board’s way of treating talaq is not a part of the holy Quran.”

Since AIMPLB has no legally binding authority, it is not the best judge for the community, she says. “But Muslims need to be aware of this fact and not be fooled by the Personal Law Board,” she contended.

In fact, Faiz had moved the apex court to abolish the AIMPLB for reportedly spreading Islamophobia and to save Muslims from India from fundamentalism, as TOI reports.

Picture credit- WikiHow

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