Rantings of an inconsequential lot!

I just was going through the newspaper, when I came across an article on the latest fatwa issued by the Darul-Uloom Deoband seminary in Uttar Pradesh. The seminary, once known as a vanguard of modernism amidst a sea of fundamentalism, has finally succumbed. Of late, its edicts have bordered on being retrograde and outright ridiculous.

The edict in the Imrana case was shocking, nay deplorable. That a man can rape his daughter-in-law, and then be "rewarded" by a clean chit, as also by his own daughter-in-law's hand in marriage, is mind-boggling. And why, pray did the seminary issue such directions? Because, in its warped vision, the daughter-in-law is, I quote, "haram", for her own legally married husband, and should he insist on identifying himself as her husband, he may as well accept excommunication. For one moment, even if we neglect the stupidity of the seminarians, then we must feel appalled at the sheer cowardice of the husband. You loved a woman, if not loved, you cared for her as she cared for you, and now just because some bearded goat thinks it fit to deny you your marital rights on the grounds that your father has had carnal relations with her, you simply are not expected to accept it lying down. The husband ought to have denied the seminary the right to decide what and how the matter was to be resolved. He ought to have stood by his wife, and pressed the administration to punish his erring father, excommunication be damned.

But no, the husband simply bent. And that is a great defeat, for those who sought to portray an image of modernity amidst conservatism, of the Muslim community. For a community to accept this so silently, is to acknowledge and affirm its support for it.

The seminary's latest salvo was on the Women's Representation Bill, which has been in limbo for as long as I can remember. From what I read, and from whatever I understood from that, I was shocked. The seminary seemed to imply that for women to contest elections, or to aim to represent people in a popular assembly is un-Islamic. Even if they were to accept the validity of their claim to contest elections, women must stay within purdah the whole time, and must delegate to their men folk the right to represent even after getting elected. Well, I cannot comprehend why any Muslim woman would want to contest elections, if such an activity were going contrary to the tenets of her faith.
The truth is that the Muslim community is now fed up of these seminarians, and their bigoted vision. No religion can claim to be the true representative of God on earth, so long as it denies women, one half of God's greatest creation, humankind, and their rightful place in society. And if a religion does not hold this "divine" license, well then why bother with the mutterings of its leaders?