Muzaffarnagar: Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband has issued a fatwa saying that arranged halala is not Islamic and the people doing so should be ‘ashamed’.
Halala involves a divorced woman marrying another man, consummating the marriage and then getting a divorce, after which she is able to remarry her first husband.
A panel of Islamic scholars of Deoband, in reply to a question, replied with a fatwa that read: “In divorce cases, some people decide in advance that a woman has to do halala with another man in order to re-marry her earlier husband. This is completely wrong and Islam does not like this deed. It is shameful and prohibited under the Islamic law”.
They also explained women's rights in the fatwa. "If any woman is divorced under triple talaq, she has the right to marry any man excluding her ex-husband. But if the second husband divorces her, he can marry her first husband after an 'iddat; (spending a fixed period of time at home). Forcing such a woman to do halala in order to marry her first husband is forbidden," the fatwa read.
The fatwa was welcomed by other Islamic scholars and NGOs. Several cases have been reported of women being forced to do halala after fetting a divorce from their husbands.