About 150 Muslim couples had their ‘nikah’ annulled in a remote village in the Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh because they had attended prayers led by a rival religious head.
LUCKNOW: About 150 Muslim couples had their ‘nikah’ (marriage) annulled in a remote village in the Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh because they had attended prayers led by a rival religious head.
The bizarre twist of events unfolded after the ‘namaz-e-janaaza’ (funeral prayers) conducted by a Deobandi imam instead of the village imam who is a Barelvi. Followers of the Barelvi and Deobandi schools of thought differ on many aspects of Islam and have a history of violent clashes.
Meanwhile, a number of senior clerics have decried the fatwa from Bareli Sharif, a renowned Muslim seminary, under which the marriages have been annulled.
It all started on August 10 with the death of an elderly man in the Paanchon Peeran village in Sultanpur. This non-descript village is populated by Muslims who adhere to the Barelvi school of thought. The namaaz-e-janaaza at the burial was conducted by a sufi (Deobandi), Peer Baba Abdul Hakim, 80, since he was a friend of the deceased, and not by the village imam, Maulana Mehmood Alam, a Barelvi.
Angered by this, Maulana Mehmood approached the Bareli Sharif for a fatwa (opinion of the mufti) from the Daul ifta at the world-renowned seminary. The fatwa said that since a Deobandi cleric had conducted the prayers - instead of a Barelvi - the marriages of all Muslim men in the village stood annulled. These men, young and old, have been directed to perform their nikah again.
“I haven’t done anything wrong. I only got the right opinion from the Bareli Sharif,” Maulana Mehmood Alam told reporters in Sultanpur on Friday. He said that the nikahs were rendered void because the people who had offered namaaz under the leadership of a Deobandi imam, ceased to be good Muslims.
However, clerics have decried the fatwa. “This is really unfortunate… such events will only widen the differences between the different Muslim sects,” Maulana Mushtaq, president of the UP Sunni Waqf Board, told DNA. “If the namaz was unacceptable, it could have been conducted again by the village Imam. But telling the people to perform their nikah again is just ridiculous,” he said.
“Namaz se nikah tootne ka koi matlab hi nahin hai (The fact that they took part in the funeral prayers can’t trigger the annulment of their marriages),” says Lucknow’s Naib Imam and Member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangi Mahali. He said there was no such mention in Islam and the mufti who issued the fatwa “should have given due consideration rather than acting in a manner which seems vengeful”.
“This is just a cheap trick to get publicity,” said renowned Shia cleric Maulana Yasoob Abbas. “Such maulvis and maulanas are doing no service to the faith… there should be a board of respected clerics to put an end to such fatwas which make a mockery of Islam,” he said.
Whatever the clerics might say, for the Muslims of Panchon Peeran, the dilemma continues. A large number of them have actually gone ahead and got married all over again. “No one is allowed to tamper with the divine law,” said Sajibullah Khan, who re-married his wife after the decree was issued.
—With inputs from agencies
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