Vanguard Online Edition
Why we passed Fatwa on Islamic preacher with 86 wives –Imam Ashafa
Written by Emeka Mamah, Kaduna
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Mohammad Nureen Ashafa is the Imam of Ashafa Central Mosque, Tudun Wada, Kaduna; Vice President, Ashafa Mosque Foundation, as well as the Co-Executive Director of Interfaith Mediation Centre of Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum, also in Kaduna.
He spoke to some media organisations on the implications of the death sentence [fatwa] passed on octogenarian Islamic preacher, Mohammed Bello Abubakar, by the Jama’tu Nasril Islam [JNI], for marrying 86 wives contrary to Islamic injunctions. Excerpts:
Do you support the fatwa passed on Mohammed Abubakar for admitting that he has 86 wives?
I strongly support the JNI fatwa. In Islam, if somebody claims to be a Muslim, he professes Islam and he wants to act in the name of Islam, then he has no legitimacy to marry more than four wives.
In Koran Chapter four, God made it very clear.You are free to marry women of your choice; you can marry two, three, or four. However, if you feel you cannot do justice among them, marry only one wife. This scriptural text is not ambiguous.
This is a direct instruction from God, so, anything that negates that injunction is not allowed. You cannot marry more than four wives. There is room for concubine in Islam. And that is why you see some royal fathers have four wives and they have concubines.
The history of concubine has to do with slavery, if you had women who are in your possession as slaves. This is because in those days, people bought slaves. It may no longer be fashionable in modern times but the law is still there.
If you have women as slaves, they can have children for you but you have to protect them, and give them the same honour you give your wives, though they are not legitimate wives. But Islam says if you want to be a man of honour, then give the slaves their freedom. This also goes to show that the institution of concubine is discouraged within the Islamic framework of social justice.
So, if somebody says he has 86 wives, and he claims to be a Muslim scholar, there is nowhere in the history of Islam that such a thing is accepted. Prophet Mohammed had more than four wives, he had nine wives but he had the wives before the law on limitation on the number of wives a Muslim can marry.
Traditionally, there was no limit to the number of wives a man can have. Islam took into consideration certain needs, social and emotional, sexual urge, all these are part of the things a woman needs in marriage. It is injustice if you do not provide these adequately for the woman. If she is commit adultery, what happens to her?
So, how do you share 86 wives in a year? It means that you cannot meet some of the women more than once in a week. In fact, it may not even be possible because we have 52 weeks in a year. So, if you see one every week, the others have to wait till the next year to take their turns. What is the legitimacy? There is no legitimacy for that in Islam. It is an abuse on the rights and dignity of these women. It is an abuse on the sanctity of woman-hood. It is an abuse to marry 86 wives in the name of Islam.
He can do that in the name of culture because there is no restriction on the number of women a man can marry, in most of the traditions.
He initially had two wives in Lagos but he claimed he saw a spirit telling him to marry as many wives as possible. No spirit controls a Muslim, it is God. This is unacceptable in Islam. I do not call for his head to be chopped off. There are so many of them who do a lot of stupid things in the name of Islam. Women have rights, they have dignity and honour. Islam respects the dignity of women. If you cannot do justice to four wives, Islam says marry only one wife.
The truth is that the norm should actually be monogamy because it may be difficult for a man to treat four women equally. But, in exceptional cases, it is polygamy if you are strong. I am a polygamist because I have two wives and I try to give equal justice to the two of them. It is not enough for me to say that because I have enough money or houses then I should marry a third wife. A woman needs emotional satisfaction. That affection is part of the rudiments of marriage.
How does the man with 86 wives satisfy the sexual and emotional needs of these women?
And the man is about 80 years old and the law of diminishing returns has caught up with him. If he were to be a younger person, then we may conclude that he takes Viagra or other stimulants but here we have a man who is about 83 years old having 86 wives.
One of the things that can nullify any marriage in Islam is when a man is not able to satisfy his wife sexually. If a man cannot meet the sexual needs of the wife, the woman is free to demand the dissolution of that marriage. It constitutes an abuse of Islam for any Muslim,anywhere to marry more than four wives.
But there are insinuations that the JNI did not follow the due process before giving the fatwa verdict and, again, there are no indications that the women are complaining that the man does not satisfy them as a husband?
In Islam, before a sentence is passed on an accused, he must be given the opportunity to defend himself. That is one. But there are certain things that somebody does that you no longer need to take evidence from anybody. Islam is based on oral and physical evidences. Islam does not accept pictorial evidence because an artist can manipulate a lot of things. The law says do not marry more than four wives but, here, a man says himself that he has 86 wives, and then under the Sharia, he is guilty. It is like a man who publicly declares that he committed adultery, he becomes liable and does not require further evidence to convict him.
The man said he has 86 wives, so, the fatwa committee does not need to sit him down to take evidence. The JNI gave the verdict based on the man’s confession that he has 86 wives.
He said the eldest wives are over 70 years old. He said so, and the television showed some of the wives, children, his house and so many other things.
Moreover, the JNI has offices in most parts of the north and in Minna. He claims to be a Muslim, so, the JNI does not need to meet him physically because he made the statement. If you say you have 86 wives, then JNI said he should no longer wear the toga of Islam, given his level of inconsistency with the Sharia law.
He has become a non-Muslim, given the level of his in conformity with the dictates of Islam.
The issue is not whether the women complain or not but it is about a golden rule. Of course, the women may not complain.The issue is that he claims to be a Muslim and he ran foul of the law which says he should not marry more than four wives. If he were a traditionalist, he is free to marry as many women as he desires and nobody will complain. If a Muslim girl dresses half naked and begins to walk the streets, as a Muslim and an Imam, I have the right to caution and call her to order but if a Christian girl does the same thing, I do not have the right to talk to her because she is not a Muslim.
If a Muslim takes a bottle of beer and starts drinking in my presence and he claims to have a right to do that, I would take a cane and flog him right there if he is a member of my mosque because he is messing up the moral values of the Muslim community. The Islamic culture is unique because there are rules that guide the behaviours of a Muslim. That is why there is no compulsion in joining the religion of Islam.
A man has a right to decide to become a Muslim but he may not be free to just renounce the religion the moment he is in. There is no compulsion in Islam. You do not force people to come into the religion. However, when somebody willingly comes into it, it is not easy for him to say that he is leaving it.
He ought to have known the consequences before coming in. It is like being a citizen of America and tomorrow you say I am no longer an American citizen, I am now an Afganistan and I hate America.
You start condemning America. Will America let you go? It is treasonable felony because you have no right to be a citizen of Nigeria and sabotage the nation.
Islam has the same system within the religion. If a Muslim commits an act of treasonable felony, he is bound to get the capital punishment. If the man is taken to the court and claims to have forgotten that he is expected to marry not more than four wives, the court may tell him that since he admits that it is wrong, he should leave all other women, give them compensation and let them go and retain only four women. So, he has to release 82 of the women and select the best four. The children are his as long as somebody else did not help him to sleep with the women. He has to protect these children and give them the best. But if he dies now, who takes care of those children? One hundred and seven children? Who will take care of them? Should I help do that?
The answer is definitely no, because I have my children. If what that man does is in the name of Islam, he is very wrong. He should come out to defend himself. He should renounce 82 0f the women and hold on to only four. If he does that, he has a better future.
But several Emirs and other rich Muslims have more than the prescribed four wives. If this man did not speak, nobody would have known. Are there mechanisms that the JNI can use to determine those who flout the law and perhaps also sanction them?
If you have more than four wives and you do not say it, the Sharia would not know anything about it. If you do not confess that you have more than four, nobody dares say anything because you have your privacy and your privacy is well protected in Islam.
You do not intrude into the privacy of others and that is why if you claim or suspect that some-one sleeps with a certain woman without having actually caught them in the act, you will receive 40 lashes.
So, if anybody has more than four wives, either as a king, politician or businessman, as long as he does not come out openly to say so, it is left for him and his Lord. A day will come when he will account for his misbehaviour.
There are four basic principles of marriage. There must be the interest across the parties. You do not hijack a woman and give to a man.
They must be interested in each other. There must be love. There must be acceptance by the families of the couple.
There must be legitimacy of the dowry and there must be that willingness on the part of the man to satisfy all the emotional needs of the woman, within the Sharia.
What is the implication of the fatwa proclaimed on this man?
It simply means that he is a persona non grata as he is no longer recognized as a Muslim. People call him a Muslim leader but this fatwa has removed that title from him. He is no longer recognized as a Muslim and he does not represent Islam in any way. Whatever he does negates the principles of Islam.
A Muslim is free to do anything he wishes to do as long as whatever he does is not inconsistent with the Sharia law. If he does anything that does not conform to the principles of Sharia, the Sharia puts a bar and says you cannot cross. You cannot live in Islam with that.
Must he be killed because it is believed that fatwa means that he must be killed?
That is a different matter entirely. Fatwa simply means opinion on very controversial issues affecting the Muslim Ummah, in order to check certain excesses or behaviour that may pollute the image of Islam in the eyes of the world.
Fatwa is the Islamic position on certain issues. In his own case, the fatwa does not mean he should be killed. But the content of the fatwa determines if he should be killed.
But even if the fatwa says he should be killed, that does not mean that one person should go and kill him.He has to be taken before the court of law and the court will give a verdict after giving him some time to defend himself. Except in a situation where he says he is not going to defend himself, that he did it.
In Islam, there are certain behaviours equivalent to treasonable felony and can warrant capital punishment. No individual has the right to execute such punishment; it has to be done by a constituted authority that is the Sharia court in Islam.
The leadership [JNI] has given an opinion; it is now left for him to be taken to a court of law for him to defend himself.