Just when one settles into a comfort zone with the perception that the Kingdom is finally breaking free of some of the shackles that have held it back from emerging into the 21st century, a news item here or there forces a sudden brake to such hopeful aspirations.
Most of you are probably aware of the case of Fatima, a married woman divorced against her will or that of her husband’s by a judge on grounds that the marriage challenges Islamic Shariah. The woman today languishes in prison for refusing to give in to the judge’s sentence.
Now it emerges that there are similar cases floating around, imposed by those whose interpretation of our religion leaves much to be desired, be they the family of the married couple or some judges hindered in their own sets of beliefs with no legal Islamic precedent.
A story reported recently in this newspaper highlighted yet another case of forced beak-up of an apparently happy marriage, granted by a judge on the basis of “tribal incompatibility” and the fact that the woman’s legal guardian was not sanctioning the marriage. It involves a physician, Rania Albou-Enin whose husband this time around has been jailed.
Scholars of our religion are quick to agree that her marriage was carried out in accordance with Islamic laws. An Islamic judge in Bahrain who recognized the woeful circumstances she was placed under with her father’s refusal to allow her such a union married her to the man of her choice. The Saudi judge, to whom she had initially petitioned to overturn her father’s refusal, then granted the divorce based on the father’s demands.
Such bizarre verdicts based on tribal or other dubious grounds by a third party to break up happy marriages directly contradict the laws of Islam, laws I may add, that are meant to be the precedents for such rulings. By applying their own prejudiced interpretation, these judges who are supposedly Islamic scholars are breaking the very laws they are meant to uphold.
And while there is growing public dismay at the authority these judges have taken upon themselves to dispense their brand of justice, and calls are coming from different quarters to lobby such cases directly to the king, I wonder why our legislative body, the Shoura Council, has been so far quiet on the issue.
Why have they not taken it upon themselves to challenge such ridiculous judicial rulings? Are they afraid that they may be branded “liberal” or worse still “heretics” by some who choose to hold the rest of us hostage with their extreme views? And why has the minister of justice not branded such cases as travesties of justice and demanded an immediate reversal? Or is everyone waiting for such cases to disappear from public notice or be dealt with by a royal decree?
The longer such separation is enforced, the longer the nightmare the couples involved will have to endure. And if that were not bad enough, what precedents are we allowing to be set that contradict the rulings of Islam? Are we to have individual codes of justice, based on the tribal affiliations and whims of individual judges? Are we as a collective society willing to accept such shocking and un-Islamic judgments that border on the bizarre?
And if that were not enough, another news item said it all. It seems that the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has decided against allowing families to participate collectively in the upcoming Janadriya Festival, the Kingdom’s annual heritage show staged in Riyadh. According to the organizing head Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Sabeit, the ban is due to a previous agreement with the commission to prevent the gathering of men and women in the same premises. Women and children can enter on certain days, while their fathers sit in their parked vehicles outside the grounds.
Families can go into a shopping mall together or fly in the same aircraft together, but cannot attend a significant event that relates to their history and culture? I wonder what minds considered families attending such events together as a moral violation of society and the road to decadence. After all this festival is sanctioned by the government, and encouraged by no less a person than the king himself to raise the people’s consciousness of their heritage.
And here we are once again in the new century, straining to move forward among the family of nations but held back by some very tight tribal strings.
