Nikah halala is one of the most bizarre and revolting aspects of Islamic law. It is a temporary marriage that allows a woman to return to her previous husband after a divorce. If her husband says “I divorce you” to her three times, she can’t return to him unless and until she marries another man, consummates the marriage, and is in turn divorced by the new husband. This is based on the Qur’an. Allah’s regulations for divorce emphasize regarding women that men “are a degree over them” (Qur’an 2:228). This may be why men can divorce their wives simply by saying, “Talaq” — You are divorced, or I divorce you. Such an easy procedure leads to divorces in a fit of pique, followed by reconciliation — and the Qur’an anticipates this and attempts to head it off by stipulating that a husband who divorces his wife three times cannot reconcile with her until she marries another man and is in turn divorced by him: “And if he has divorced her [for the third time], then she is not lawful to him after that until she has married another husband. Then if he divorces her, it is no sin for both of them that they come together again, if they think that they are able to observe the limits of Allah. These are the limits of Allah. He shows them to people who have knowledge.” (Qur’an 2:230).
“Uttar Pradesh: Man gives triple talaq to his wife, assaults and threatens her with a pistol to perform nikah halala with his father,” OpIndia, February 8, 2023:
In the Farrukhabad district of Uttar Pradesh, a case of triple talaq and assault with a woman has come to the fore. The victim, Arshi Fatima, claims that her husband, Ali Ashraf Qadri, first gave her triple talaq and is now pressuring her to perform nikah halala with her father-in-law in the name of compromise. The wife claims that her husband is violent and is threatening to kill her.
Notably, the victim had filed a complaint regarding the matter to the Maudarwaja police in August 2022, but no action was taken against the accused. Disappointed with the police inaction, the victim lodged her complaint to DM Sanjay Kumar’s office on February 7, 2022.
As the Additional Magistrate Narendra Kumar was leaving the DM office, the victim Arshi Fatima stood in front of his vehicle. The security personnel then handed the magistrate the victim’s complaint letter. The magistrate returned to the office to hear the woman’s complaint after realizing the seriousness of the case. Following this, DM Sanjay Kumar met the woman and assured her to take action.
OpIndia has accessed a copy of the victim’s complaint letter. In her complaint, the victim stated, “I filed a report against the accused under crime number 373/2022, section 323 of the Muslim Women Act, and complained to police station Maudarwaja in August 2022. The police have not yet taken any legal action against the accused in the matter.”
Furthermore, the victim said in her complaint, “The investigator of Maudarwaja Police Station has dropped the names of the named accused Sayeedullah, Rihanna, Nida, Faizi, Shoaib, Mushir, Sarwar Hafiz, Master from the case.”
The victim also alleged that when she opposed triple talaq, “he thrashed me and threatened with a pistol that even my dead body would not be found if I dared to take legal action against him.”
“He had caused my father’s accident and now he’s pressuring me to perform halala with his father in order to accept me back as his wife,” the victim alleged adding that the accused can get her killed along with her family.
While speaking to OpIndia, victim Arshi Fatima said, “Despite being elder and like my father, my husband’s father was eager to perform halala with me. While she was listening to all of this, my mother-in-law was tacitly supporting this misbehaviour. Although everyone in my husband’s family is highly educated, their behaviour is nonetheless extremely horrendous. They have badly tortured me.”
The practice of Nikah Halala in Islam is a requirement if a divorced couple wants to remarry again. Once a man divorces his wife, he can’t marry her again directly. To be able to do so, the woman needs to marry a different man, consummate the marriage, and then divorce the second husband in order to marry the original husband. This has been used as a sexual exploitation tool by many people, who give instant divorce to their wives, then in order to remarry them they force them to have sex with friends or family members, including their fathers, in the name of halala….
