The recent news of Ayesha, a young Muslim woman in Gujarat who committed suicide over the alleged torture, demands of dowry and domestic violence from her husband and his family, has rocked the news and flooded our timelines. But beyond the condemnation of suicide and lip-service against the demands of dowry from women, how much has it made us think or reflect? Has it truly shaken us enough to stop the practice in our society, or will this become another case to be eventually forgotten in the short annals of public memory? The video she left behind is very difficult to get through. The sparkle of her eyes, even in that moment of immense emotion, is testament to the vivid and bright young woman she would have been, and a question mark upon us all in our complicity in this dire matter.
FEAR ALLAH, NOT SOCIETY
The truth is that we fear society and ‘what people will say’ more than we fear Allah the Exalted. We go to weddings littered with the rampant evidence of dowry, because we fear what the hosts will think if we boycott it. We indulge in extravagance at weddings in our families because we fear what others will say and how they will conceive of our finances.
We engage in practices such as caste or gender discrimination, because while we are well-heeled in the expectations of societal stratification, we cannot fully commit ourselves to the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, who respected all women in a society which chose to bury alive infant girls. Many of us may protest at these accusations, claiming that in our own personal lives, we have never indulged in such practices. But if we infer from the famous Hadith on Munkar – witnessing evil and sin and allowing and abetting it to happen, is also a sin. While we may privately condemn acts of violence against women, as a societal and collective whole, very few have struggled to stop it by hand or tongue.
DOWRY IN INDIA
Demanding dowry from a woman or her family has absolutely no place in Islam. Instead, Mehar is emphasised strongly, and is a necessary aspect of Nikah. Not only is Mehar sometimes delayed indefinitely, and women are pushed to ‘forgive’ it even in situations where there is ample financial capacity to give it, but taking dowry from the woman’s family is practiced across the Muslim society in the subcontinent.
The fact that girls are considered highly blessed in Islamic tradition is often ignored in favour of cultural expectations around the primacy of boys, which continues in the favourable treatment of boys, whether in the access to education or how they are not expected to even clean up after themselves, but are assured of having their mother or sisters pick up after them. It is well-known that the Blessed Prophet ﷺ used to do his own chores at home, even mend his own clothes, and play with his grand-children, when he was not occupied by prayer or matters of state.
In an era where masculinity is defined only by gratuitous violence or physical strength, the Prophet ﷺ remains an exemplar for boys of our society, not only in his treatment towards women, but also how he actively took part in the matters of home, treating the domain with the interest and engagement it deserves from all its residents, not just women.
DOWRY – A PATHWAY TO VIOLENCE
Apart from the fact that dowry is un-Islamic and indeed, forbidden to take from the wife, it is a matter of broad societal concern, beyond the Muslim community. Dowry is often the reason families are pushed into crippling debt, disarray and even suicide as is in this case. Due to the assumption that girl children will eventually need dowry, they are often killed off in acts of female foeticide, and, if not killed in foetus, their births are mourned due to the expense they might incur in future. Due to the scrutiny and legal control on dowry in the past many years, there are covert forms of extorting dowry in the form of underhanded gifts, or by invoking the woman’s family’s emotional appeals that they chose to do so voluntarily and in order to “send off” their daughters and establish a home for her. More than 8000 women die of dowry deaths every year in India. In a country rife with honour killings, domestic violence, dowry deaths, marital rape, and other forms of violence within the marital home, this ideal often exposes itself as a farce when put into practice in our society marked by ignorance.
Women who build up the courage to tell their parents about domestic violence or a desire to seek therapy or counselling, or even to return to their homes temporarily for their safety are rebuffed because society frowns upon the act of daughters abandoning their marital homes. While living in plural societies offers many learning opportunities of interaction, Muslims should critically self-reflect on the very clear line between religion and culture. Cultural practices, if they clash with Islamic principles, cannot be adopted and must be sharply rejected. Dowry is one such example.
SEEKING SOLUTIONS
There is no time to lose. We cannot lose more women to this scourge, and more families to the black-hole that is this form of socially-accepted coercion. The most beautiful framework is nearest to our hearts – the Islamic conception of marriage and marital life. This has to be explained to all those around us as an example. The masjid has to be a centre-point in this debate. As Zara Faris has noted in her essay, the masjid, which used to be the centre of the community life in the early days of Islam, has now been reduced to a large prayer-mat. Reviving the true spirit of Islamic principles can only emerge from the mosques – not only should they reject holding any nikah that involves dowry, but should also make women aware of their marital rights, conduct public discussions on these aspects, and sensitise all people in the area on these practices.
Additionally, since dowry has become a taboo in many circles and has been covertly going on in the name of voluntary gifts, mere legal control or supervision is not enough to control the practice because it often happens outside the realm of what is visible. For this purpose, educating our youth is most necessary. This has to start early, and be part of honest and frank conversations in our homes and schools.
The marital realm is often seen as private and not open to discussion. But Islam makes a fine balance between privacy – not discussing the private conjugal matters of spouses, maintaining the privacy of homes and the modesty of women – and prevention of injustice, even if it happens behind closed doors. Talking about such an issue is often seen as shameful, but the real shame is losing young women to such needless societal neglect. Islamic movements have to ensure that Muslim society becomes a beacon of hope to challenge the darkness in South Asian society, not imitate its worst aspects and make it their own.
In order to ‘adjust’ and appear to be in the eyes of others, we ought not to give up the most basic principles of our faith. The Islamic conception of marriage is simple, transparent and based on a principle of equity and dignity. We must shed the cultural baggage that weighs us down and be set free, and watch how this allows our youth to flourish, and women to dream of better futures.
[The writer is a Research Scholar, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University]