Monday, March 27, 2006
One more Islamic marriage oddity
Reuters reports on an Islamic couple who went to bed married and woke up divored -- and no, Britney Spears did NOT convert for this story:
If you really, really liked this -- or even really, really hated it -- there's lots more:
A Muslim couple in India has been told by local Islamic leaders they must separate after the husband 'divorced' his wife in his sleep, the Press Trust of India reported.That doesn't sound good at all. But fear not, if there is an Islamic marital problem, the answer is more Islam:
Sohela Ansari told friends that her husband Aftab had uttered the word 'talaq,' or divorce, three times in his sleep, according to the report published in newspapers Monday.
When local Islamic leaders got to hear, they said Aftab's words constituted a divorce under an Islamic procedure known as 'triple talaq.' The couple, married for 11 years with three children, were told they had to split.
All cynicism aside for the moment, this episode also shows that you can't spell insanity without a little sanity at the end:
The religious leaders ruled that if the couple wanted to remarry they would have to wait at least 100 days. Sohela would also have to spend a night with another man and be divorced by him in turn.
That actually makes sense. I wonder if the local leaders will hear about it before the recalcitrant couple is hacked to death with machetes for their impudence.
The couple, who live in the eastern state of West Bengal, have refused to obey the order and the issue has been referred to a local family counseling center. [...]
"This is a totally unnecessary controversy and the local 'community leaders' or whosoever has said it are totally ignorant of Islamic law," said Zafarul-Islam Khan, an Islamic scholar and editor of The Milli Gazette, a popular Muslim newspaper.
"The law clearly says any action under compulsion or in a state of intoxication has no effect. The case of someone uttering something while asleep falls under this category and will have no impact whatsoever," Khan told Reuters.
