THE vein of obdurate misogyny that runs through society has been unable to come to terms with any gains, however halting, made on women’s rights in this country. One of the most consistent offenders in this respect in the last few years has been the Council of Islamic Ideology.

On Wednesday, following the constitutional body’s 199th meeting, its chairman Maulana Sheerani said at a news conference that the current practice whereby courts were dissolving marriages on applications for khula — a woman’s right to seek divorce — was not correct. He explained that while a wife is allowed to file a case for marriage dissolution under khula, it could only be granted if the husband agreed to it.

As practised in Pakistan, a woman’s right of khula does not require her husband’s consent, only that she forgo her dower amount, after which it is mandatory upon the courts to grant her a khula.

This leaves men without much of a choice in the matter, which is perhaps why it so troubles the CII. Clearly, compassion or logic seems to have no place in the CII’s deliberations with regard to women, whom it would prefer have no agency where the ordering of their lives is concerned.

Last year, it described laws barring child marriage as un-Islamic, with utter disregard for the terrible psychological and physical toll that the inhuman custom inflicts upon minors.

Although fortunately it is an advisory body whose pronouncements are not binding upon our elected body of representatives, the CII’s views resonate in what is essentially a deeply chauvinistic social milieu and offer a crutch for those seeking to roll back women’s rights.

A case in point is the Muslim Family Law Ordinance 1961, which has been a thorn in the side of the ultra right ever since it came into existence because it gave women some protections in the sphere of marriage and divorce; especially as these came at the cost of liberties that men had traditionally enjoyed.

They included the unfettered freedom to contract multiple marriages: the MFLO requirement that they obtain permission of their existing wife or wives to do so has been denounced more than once by the CII as un-Islamic.

One wonders why its position on women is so persistently regressive: after all, out of its latest meeting on Wednesday, there also emerged the humane observation that transgenders should be given their share of family inheritance.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2015

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