Talaq Of The Town

The Prophet would have approved

Under Islamic law, all a Muslim man has to do to divorce his wife is to utter "Talaq!" - "I divorce you!" - three times, and the deed is done. Instantly. As if a wife is something a man may throw away like a pair of socks with a hole in them.

Ancient law? Sure, but not in India, where the top Muslim clerical authorities still uphold it, aided by twenty-first century technology. In the most recent case, a fatwa by Darul-Ifta, the fatwa department of leading Sunni Islamic seminary Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband, ruled that Talaq uttered thrice by a Muslim man on a mobile phone will be considered valid even if his wife is unable to hear it all three times due to network and other problems.

And this isn't the first backward, misogynistic ruling issued by Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband, either. They have previously issued fatwas against women judges and female modelling.

These facts first of all underscore the woman-hating character of much of the Islamic world. But they also demonstrate the lazy and wilfully blind short-sightedness of our Western "analysts" of Islam. A couple of years ago, this same group, Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband, issued a fatwa calling terrorism "un-Islamic". The blinkered masses instantly jumped on this as a shining example of how "moderate" mainstream Islam is. But in reality, the fatwa itself was riddled with enough loopholes to drive a tank through, and the group's "moderation" is obviously belied by its medieval orthodox Islamic sexism.

Just one of many, many examples of why you must never, ever, believe the mainstream media when they describe any Muslim group anywhere as "moderate". Do your own research first. I guarantee you that you will often find that the public face of Moderate Islam is but a cutesy facade disguising the barbarism beneath.