Four witnesses

 Published in The News on April 7, 2007

I’m amused by the Council of Islamic Ideology’s declaration that four witnesses are required to prove adultery. For one thing, no one in his right mind would commit adultery in full view of four males. Secondly, adultery means different things to different people. In the wild north, a woman is liable to be stoned to death or shot if she’s caught talking to a man who is not her father, brother or uncle. So they should remove that caveat about confessing to adultery being sufficient for conviction.

If I were hauled to a police station or kidnapped by the heavily veiled female students of the Jamia Hafsa, I would confess to any crime, even the murder of the first prime minister of the country (although I was only seven years old at the time) to save myself from being tortured.

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/print/49614-four-witnesses

 

Council of Islamic Ideology deals another blow to human rights in Pakistan

When someone tells me about how women in the west are exploited, I'm tempted to point out that those women are given half their husbands' properties and assets whenever they're divorced. Of course, when women divorce their husbands, they too have to surrender half their properties and assets.

In another major blow to human rights, the Council of Islamic Ideology has held that it's okay for underage children to marry after attaining puberty. What's wrong with these people? How can they tolerate girls aged nine to become mothers? 

In another ruling, these learned men have decreed that after women are divorced and have complete their iddat (waiting period of four months and ten days), their ex-husbands are not liable to pay them anything for food and living expenses. How will the poor women raise their children? So now we know why there are so many female beggars on our streets! And so much for our women's rights and them being treated much better than women in other countries!

You know what these stone-aged people should do? They should invest heavily in cloning, that way they will only have male children. Or they should all migrate to an uninhabited island and live there and not ever see a woman!

Council of Islamic Ideology wants to "protect" our women!

The perfect world for CII members would be one without women

Published in The Express Tribune Blogs on May 27, 2016

Embed from Getty Images

I do not know under whose leadership the body of persons known as the Council of Islamic Ideology was formed. A few days back it recommended the banning of paper money and reversion to coins, as was the practice in the 7^th century. I wonder why they didn’t ask the government to ban cars and trucks, and ask for donkey and camel carts to be used for transportation instead. Or that all high rise buildings should be demolished and replaced with huts and hovels!

But their recent proposals to “protect” our women prove that these worthies are obsessed with women. In fact, they believe that all the world’s problems will disappear if women are oppressed and locked up. Consider the following measures which they think will “protect” our women

1. “A husband should be allowed to ‘lightly’ beat his wife if she defies his commands and refuses to dress up as per his desires; turns down demand of intercourse without any religious excuse or does not take a bath after intercourse or menstrual periods.”

This gem about proves that these so-called “scholars” are morons who should be locked up. How does one know how to beat anyone “lightly”? Let’s say a man goes into a rage when his wife refuses to obey him. Only a moron would expect him to pause before starting to beat up his wife and say to himself,

“Wait a minute, I’m supposed to beat her up lightly”.

So should he just deliver only one massive blow to her head instead of the many he wants to inflict on her?

2. “A beating is also permissible if a woman… interacts with strangers; speaks loud enough that she can easily be heard by strangers; and provides monetary support to people without taking consent of her spouse.”

This effectively means that women should be locked up and prevented from going out of their houses. How can women go shopping without talking to male strangers and without being easily heard by them? As for “providing monetary support to people without the consent of her spouse”, is this such a major problem in our society?

3. They want a woman’s voice to be so low that she should not be heard by strangers, but these same old fossils have graciously allowed women to take part in politics. So what about all those burqa-clad ladies in the assemblies who have to talk loudly so they can be heard by assembly members (most of whom are men)? Should they be beaten up (“lightly”, of course) every time they make a speech or ask a question in parliament? 4. These men are so obsessed with women that they want to ban female nurses from attending to male patients. Apparently they think that a woman getting too close to a sick person can cause him (or her) to go berserk, turning him into a rapist or the nurse into a nymphomaniac!

I wonder why such men are bent upon making Pakistan the laughing stock of the whole world. Since they think women are responsible for all their problems, they should gather all like-minded men in the country and settle in one of those numerous islands in the Arabian Sea near Karachi. No women, no problems, eternal bliss.

Shakir Lakhani

Engineer, teacher, industrialist, associated with petroleum/chemical industries for many years. Loves writing, and (in the opinion of most of those who know him), mentally unbalanced. He tweets @shakirlakhani (twitter.com/shakirlakhani)

https://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/34833/the-perfect-world-for-cii-members-would-be-one-without-women/

Disband the Council of Islamic Ideology!

Published in Daily Times on March 15, 2014

Sir: This is with reference to your editorial ‘Disband the CII’ (Daily Times, March 13, 2014). It was during Ayub Khan’s reign that the law was made, making it necessary for a man to take his wife’s consent before marrying another woman. This law is also part of the 1973 Constitution, which was approved by all the religious parties after heated debate. Even though scholars like Maulana Maudoodi, Maulana Noorani and Maulana Mufti Mahmood were active politicians at the time, none of them objected to this clause. Neither did Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jamaat-e-Islami. And none of them ever objected to the fixing of the minimum marriage age of 18 for boys and 16 for women.

So why has this issue suddenly surfaced? Is it to divert our attention from those who cut off people’s heads to play football with? Or to make people forget that those whom the government is presently appeasing are the very same who were recently bombing girls’ schools? If we allow children as young as five or 10 to get married, what difference is there between us and the pre-Islamic people who also used to kill baby girls at birth? Is that what they will ask us to do next? I have always wondered why some people are convinced that women are the root cause of all evil. Such people definitely need psychiatric treatment.

SHAKIR LAKHANI

Karachi

CII's fatwa: no need to take permission from first wife before marrying again!

Published in The Express Tribune blogs on March 12, 2014

Suddenly the head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has claimed that it’s against the tenets of Islam for a man to seek permission from his wife before taking another one. The question that arises is why now, after more than 53 years?

When the law was enacted, Islamic scholars like Maududi, Noorani and Mufti Mahmud were active politicians. None of them objected. Therefore, it was assumed that the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961 was in accordance with the teachings of Islam. So, what made the current head honcho of CII claim that there is no need to ask your wife if you want to take another one?

One can’t help but think that he has done this to divert the attention of people from the activities of those who think it’s perfectly legitimate to cut off the heads of soldiers to play football with or those who want to spend their lives bombing girls’ schools. I know that ever since Ayub Khan made the law making it necessary for a man to take permission from his wife before taking another one, fundamentalists have been bitter.

“It’s against a he-man’s nature to take permission from his wife for doing anything, let alone marrying another woman,” says one.

“I rarely talk to my wife, unless it’s absolutely necessary,” says another.

“Same here. The only time I say anything to my wife is when dinner is served late,” adds another.

I asked a man who took a second wife why he felt the need to do so. He replied, “After seven daughters my wife stopped producing and I desperately wanted a son, so I married again.”

I asked him if he had sought his wife’s permission to which he replied, “That’s out of the question! I just told her I was taking another wife.”

Concerned, I persisted and asked him if she would have permitted him to marry a second time if he had asked her, to which he firmly replied, “If she had objected, I’d have immediately divorced her and she knew it.”

This man took a third wife when his second wife became infertile after giving birth to five girls. Ten years have passed and the third wife is the mother of four but still no son for him.

Apart from the one who has three wives, I’ve known very few polygamous men. One was a relative who took a second wife because his first one was barren. Another one told his sons about a secret wife when doctors told him he didn’t have long to live. And then, there was one who sent his wife and children for a month-long holiday to Murree and married a film actress. His brother also had a secret wife who emerged after his death.

When you get down to it, although Islam permits polygamy there are strict conditions attached. A man has to treat all his wives equally – something physically impossible to do. What this means is, if the first wife gives him a sound thrashing, he has to go to his other wives and get beaten by them one by one!

Jokes apart, only a fool would want to have more than one wife nowadays with the cost of living so high that most people barely earn enough to keep body and soul together. Another thing to consider: there are 106 males for every 100 females in Pakistan and hence, many Pakistani males will remain single unless of course, they get wives from one of our neighbouring countries.

If an increasing number of Pakistani males decide to take second or third wives, there will be a major crisis in the country… as if there weren’t enough issues as it is!

But one thing is for sure – if a man wants to take a second wife for whatever reason (including the fact that his wife now weighs so much she reminds him of an elephant in the zoo), he will do so and knowing how contemptuously the Muslim Family Law is treated, nothing will happen to him unless his first wife’s brothers throw him into the sea. Which is what he deserves, to say the least.

And if all this wasn’t enough, these chaps in the CII have also decreed that it is ‘un-Islamic’ to fix the minimum age for marriage at 18 (for boys) and 16 (for girls). It looks like they want us to go back to the Stone Ages. Think about it. If we are asked to arrange marriages of our five-year-old children, what difference would there be between us and those who lived in pre-Islamic days?

Don’t they know that the consent of both parties – which includes the boy and girl and not just their parents – to a marriage is essential in Islam? How can young children decide whom they want to marry and whom they don’t?

It seems like the time has come for us to start praying that they don’t ask us to strangle female babies at birth.

After all, you can expect anything from these guys.

Shakir Lakhani