20 MCQAI (1)

Assalamualaikum. Maaf byk2…teman kering idea nak menulis. Idea yg ada cuma taip balik isi dlm sebuah buku kecik tulisan Dr. Zakir Abdul-Karim Naik dari India. Tajuk buku ni 20 Most Common Questios About Islam (20 MCQAI). Thank you so much to Nafisah yg bagi buku ni pada Gayah…Kenangan paling indah waktu Kem Perintis 2006 di SMKAY..

Sbg Muslim, kita kena prepare dgn ilmu utk berhadapan dgn dunia luar. Soklan2 yg ditanya dan dijawab dlm buku ni bukan selalu ditanya oleh nonmuslims ja. Kdg2 org Islam sendiri pun jadi ragu dan tertanya-tanya. Takpun, kita jadi ‘eh, betoi jugak noo??!!’ bila org pertikai pasal Islam. So, klw rasa cam taktau nak jwb bila ditanya ttg hukum hakam Islam, jgn sekali-kali goyah keyakinan kita. Balik umah, cari balik jawapannya. Apa yg teman usahakan ni, just nak mudahkan kita semua ja nak cari rujukan…utk 1^st episode ni, soklannya pasal poligami. Ada lagi 19 soklan yg akan dijawab utk episode seterusnya, insyaAllah…in English ni, tak pa eh…=)

1. Polygamy

Question: Why is a man allowed to have more than one wife in Islam? Or why is polygamy allowed in Islam?

Answer:

Definition of Polygamy

1. Polygamy means a system of marriage whereby 1 person has more than 1 spouse (isteri/suami). Polygamy can be of two types. 1 is polygamy where a man marries more than 1 woman, and the other is polyandry, where a woman marries more than 1 man. In Islam, limited polygamy is permitted; whereas polyandry is completely prohibited (haram).

Now coming to the original question, why is a man allowed to have more than one wife?

2. The Quran is the only religious scripture in the world that says, “marry only one”. The Quran is the only religious book, on the face of this earth, that contains the phrase ‘marry only one’. There is no other religious book that instructs men to have only one wife. In none of the other religious scriptures, whether it be the Vedas, the Ramayanan, tha Mahabharat, the Geetha, the Talmus or the Bible does one find a restriction on the number of wives. According to these scriptures, one can marry as many as one wishes. It was only later, that the Hindu priests(imam-imam) and the Christian Church restricted(membataskan) the number of wives to one.

Many Hindu religious personalities, according ro their scriptures, the father of Rama, had more than 1 wife. Krishna had several wives.

In earlier timea, Christian men were permitted as many wives as they wished, since the Bible puts no restriction on the number of wives. It was only a few centuries ago that the Church restricted the number of wives to one.

Polygamy is permitted in Judaism. According to Talmudic law, Abraham had three wives, and Solomon had hundreds of wives. The practice of polygamy continued till Rabbi Gersomben Yehudah (960 A.D to 1030 A.D) issued an edict against it. The Jewish Sephardic communities living in Muslim countries continued the practice till as late as 1950, until an act of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel extended the ban on marrying more than one wife.

3. Hindus are more polygamous than Muslims.

The report of the Committee of the Status of Woman in Islam; published on 1975 mentions on page numbers 66 and 67 that the percentage of polygamous marriages between the years 1951 and 1961 was 5.06% among the Hindus and only 4.31% among the Muslims. According to Indian law only Muslim men are permitted to have more than 1 wife. Despite it being illegal, Hindus have more multiple wives as compared to Muslims. Earlier, there was no restriction even on Hindu men with respect to the number of wives allowed. It was only in 1954, when the Hindu Marriage Act was passed that it became illegal for a Hindu to have more than one wife. At present it is the Indian law that restricts a Hindu man from having more than one wife and not the Hindu scriptures.

Setakat ni kome paham dak? Teman saja tak translate dalam melayu, risau jadi tak ori satgi..lagipun ni benda yg serius, kena seriuslah sikit. Takleh santai2 macam selalu..lagipun bahasanya agak mudah difahami, tp klw kurang jelas, bagitaula teman..nnti teman explain dalam comment space.. Lagi 1, teman pun ada shbt yg bukan Melayu, at least ada jugakla yg depa boleh baca dari blog ni…mudah-mudahan…

Let us analyse why Islam allows a man to have more than one wife.

4. The Quran permits limited polygamy.

As mentioned earlier, Quran is the only religious book on the face of the earth that says ‘marry only 1’: The context of this phrase is the following verse from Surah anNisa’ of the Holy Quran English translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali:

‘Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them) then only one’

[An-Nisa’ 4:3]

Before the Quran was revealed, there was no upper limit for polygamy and many men has scores of wives, some even hundreds. Islam put an upper limit of four wives. Islam gives a man permission to marry two, three or four women, only on the condition that he deals justly with them (bila boleh berlaku adil kepada isteri2 ja baru leh berpoligami. Kalau tak, no way man! Satu ja boleh Allah kata…bukan teman yg kata…)

In the same chapter i.e. Surah Nisa’ verse 129 says:

“Ye are never able to be fair and just as between women….”

[An-Nisa’ 4: 129]

Therefore, polygamy is not a rule but an exception (pengecualian). Many people are under the misconceptionthat it is compulsory for a Muslim man to have more than one wife. Broadly, Islam has five categories of Do’s and Don’ts:

(i) ‘Fard’ i.e. compulsory or obligatory

(ii) ‘Mustahab’ i.e. recommended or encouraged

(iii) ‘Mubah’ i.e. permissible or allowed

(iv) ‘Makruh’ i.e. not recommended or discouraged

(v) ‘Haram’ i.e. prohibited or forbidden

Polygamy falls in the third category of things that are permissible. It cannot be said that a Muslim who has two, three or four wives is a better Muslim as compared to a Muslim who has only one wife.

5. Average life span of females is more than that of males.

Males and females are born in approximately (kira-kira) the same ratio. A female child has more immunity than a male child. For the reason, during the pediatric age itself there are more deaths among males as compared to the females.

During wars, there are more men killed as compared to women. More men die due to accidents and diseases than women. The average life span of females is more than that of males, and at any given time one finds more widows (janda-janda) in the world than widowers (duda-duda).

6. India has a larger male population than female due to female foeticide and infanticide (janin). India is one of the few countries, along with the other neighbouring countries, in which the female population is less than the male population. The reason lies in the high rate of female infanticide in India, and the fact that more than one million female fetuses are aborted every year in this country, after they are identified as females. If this evil practice is stopped, then India too will have more females as compared to males.

7. The World female population is more than male population.

In USA, women outnumber men by 7.8 millon. New York alone has one million more females as compared to the number of males, and the male population of NY one-third(1/3) are homosexuals. The USA as a whole has more than 25 million homosexuals and lesbians. This means that these people do not wish to marry women. Great Britain has 4 million more females compared to males. Russia has 9 million more females than males. God alone knows how many million more females there are in the whole world as compared to males.

8. Restricting each and every man to have only one wife is not practical.

Even if every man got married to one woman, there would still be more than 30 million females in USA who would not be able to get husbands (considering that America has 25 million homosexuals and lesbians). There would be more than 4 million females in reat Britain, 5 million females in Germany and 9 million females in Russia alone who would not be able to find a husband.

Suppose my sister happens to be one of the unmarried women living in USA, or suppose your sister happens to be one of the unmarried women in USA. Among the options open to her are marriage to a man who already has a wife, or becomes “public property”(harta awam). Those who are modest (suci) will opt (pilih) for the first.

In Western society, it is common for a man to have mistresses (gundik) and/or multiple extramarital affairs, in which case, the woman leads a disgraceful (tercela), unprotected life. The same society, however, cannot accept a man having more than one wife, in which women retain their honourable, dignified position in society and lead a protected life.

Between the two options to a woman who cannot find a husband get married to a married man or become “public property,” Islam prefers giving women the honourable position by permitting the first option and disallowing the second.

There are several other reasons, why Islam has permitted polygamy, but the aim is mainly to protect the modesty of women.

Retyper,

Bintubahariyah,

Habis taip pukul 1041pm,

28 June 2007.