womens news sept 07 via winds of jihad
After years of silence, Muslim women in India are loudly battling repressive religious laws. The case of one semi-literate woman, a survivor of rape, ignited their cause ...
In June 2005 the 28-year-old mother of five from the village of Charthawal in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh complained to her husband, Nur Ilahi, a rickshaw puller, of being raped by her father-in-law, Ali Mohammed, while her husband was absent.
Even though India is a secular country, Muslim leaders insist on following Sharia, or Islamic law, in such personal affairs as marriage, divorce and inheritance. It was to this system of justice that Imrana first turned.
The village council--composed of five male village elders--ruled that her marriage be dissolved because Imrana had become "haram" (sinful) since she had entered into a relationship with her husband's father. In Indian villages that lack formal courts, these elders often act as judge and jury though they have no official jurisdiction other than the esteem that local people allow them ...
No consideration was given to the coercive nature of Imrana's sexual relationship with Ali Mohammed ...
Women's groups vigorously rallied around Imrana to fight the verdict and seek justice in a secular court.
In October 2006 a local, secular court sentenced Ali Mohammed to an eight-year prison term for the rape and ordered payment of 8,000 rupees (about $170) as compensation to Imrana ...
Subhashini Ali, president of the All India Democratic Women's Association, affiliated with the Communist Party of India, recruited about 1,500 women, mostly Muslims, to swarm around Ali Mohammed's house in June 2005 to protest both the crime and the fatwa.
"This was the very first women's demonstration in this village," she told Women's eNews. "We made it clear that we demand humanitarian laws rather than religious ones."
The women marched to the district court, demanding that justice be meted out. Consequently, the local police soon arrested Imrana's father-in-law and charged him with the criminal offense of rape.
The protestors also demanded that local Sharia courts be dismantled ...
Since the time that Imrana's case became public in 2005, women's groups across the country have organized a steady stream of protests, demonstrations and petitions in solidarity with her and against fatwas in general ...
But Muslim female activists have also been hurt.
Imrana, Adib and other activists have been receiving death threats from members of the Muslim clergy and community in the state. A week after Imrana first filed charges with the police about 70 Muslim clerics led a protest march against her and her supporters, alleging that their actions were un-Islamic.
For reasons of safety, Adib and others have for the past year donned the burka whenever they leave home.
Meanwhile, the chair of the Sharia court that issued the fatwa, Maulana Imran, maintained that Nur Ilahi should divorce his wife, but the couple has ignored the ruling ...
Constituting 13 percent of the country's population at over 140 million, India's Muslims form the world's second largest Muslim community. They have staunchly maintained their Muslim identity, resisting innovations or modernizing influences, and have lower-than-average literacy rates, which helps insulate them from progressive forces within Islam, such as online communities, and broader social changes taking place in rapidly developing India.
For women, this means one of the most restrictive cultures in the Muslim world.
In Muslim India a man can still divorce his wife by the simple expedient of repeating "Talaq" three times, while a woman has no recourse.
Polygamy is legal, along with a low marriage age--at attainment of puberty--for girls ...
