Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind's Petition Against Same Sex Marriage An Unnecessary Step

By New Age Islam Staff Writer 19 June 2023 The Petitioners Have Not Challenged Quran's Teachings ----- In November 2022, Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dang filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking legal approval of same sex marriage. In 2018, Supreme Court had legalised homosexuality. Since, the issue was a sensitive one, the Supreme Court referred the case to a five judge bench. The petition is under consideration of the bench. The government of India, the Bar Council of India and a section of the civil society have opposed the idea of same sex marriage. The government of India said that the idea of same sex marriage was only an urban elitist view and that the judicial creation of a new social institution of same sex marriage should not be considered a right. It was of the opinion that same sex marriage was a threat to the holy union of a biological man and woman in India. The government of India further felt that same sex marriage was against Indian culture and heteronormative frame work of sexual relations. The Bar Council of India also opposed same sex marriage and claimed that 99.9 per cent Indians opposed the idea of same sex marriage. However, it did not give any proof of their claim. It passed a resolution requesting the Supreme Court not to adjudicating in the petition. They considered it highly inappropriate. Meanwhile, Pew Research Centre published a survey report on same sex marriage. The report said that 53 per cent of Indians favoured same sex marriage. But the issue took a bizarre turn with the Islamic organisation Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind moving the Supreme Court opposing the petitions seeking legalisation of same sex marriage. It said that same sex marriage was against the teachings of Islam. It called on the judiciary not to transgress into legislative domain by legalising in India a western concept that hits at the sacred institution of marriage and family and obstructs the natural process of procreation. The petition says: "Islam's prohibition of homosexuality has been categorical from the dawn of religion. From the primary religious text, the holy Quran, to the embargos placed through to the teachings of Prophet Mohammad, the primary legislator and to the interpretations available in the work on the Islamic teachings in gender relations and sexuality, the position of Islam with respect to the prohibition on homosexuality is undisputed and established." The statement gives the impression that the petitioners have directly challenged the Quran and therefore, the Jamiat had to rush to defend the Quran. That is not the case. The petitioners do not believe in the Quran or even in the Indian sexual ethos. They are among the millions of homosexuals in the,world who have been fighting for their rights. Islam or Quran is not their direct target. They do not believe,in Islam so they dont know,what the,Quran says on the issue. The Supreme Court will also adjudicate in the matter according to their own judicial parameters and not according to what Islam says because India is not an Islamic country and its legal systen is not based on Islamic shariah. India is,a democratic country and its Constitution grants equal religious rights to all the religious communities. It grants right to profess their own ideology even to the atheists. The courts decide any issue under legal parameters and not according to the parameters of a particular religion. According to government statistics, 2.5 million gay people kive in India but the petitioners have claimed that 8 percent of the Indian population are homosexual. LGBTQ have been seeking their rights and in 2009 the Delhi High Court had legalised homosexuality. In 2018 the Supreme Court legalised consensual gay sex in India. The current petition seeking legalisation of same,sex marriage is only a logical progress of that campaign and the Supreme Court will adjudicate under the current legal frame work. Earlier, when homosexuality was legalised, Islamic organisations and Muslims had protested, citing the Quran's injunctions against homosexuality. The judgment of the court did not seek to impose its judgment on Muslims. Muslims were free to follow Quran and hadith on the issue. The judgment was only for those who sought legalisation of homosexuality. In the same way, in case, the Supreme Court legalises same sex marriage, it should not be seen as an onslaught on Islam. Same sex marriage will remain a taboo in Islam irrespective if what the courts say. Therefore, Muslims should not see any move by any group or community as an attack on their religion. The Jamiat itself acknowledges that the rights of LGBTQ are being granted on atheistic paradigm. It says: "The context and the social structure in which the LGBTQIA+ movement brewed from LGBT to LGBTQ and further to LGBTQIA+. The background has been expanding day by day and has been the atheistic paradigm and not the one that is based on theistic value system." This is the problem with Jamiat. It thinks that the judiciary of India should act only on theistic value system, or on Islamic value system. India's democratic system honours even atheistic value system and takes into consideration the global advance in granting LGBTQ rights as well. Muslims are free to propagate their views and beliefs on sexual issues and tell the government and the judiciary what is right od wrong according to their scriptures but they should not consider any move by a homosexual group in the courts an onslaught on Islam. It will be an onslaught on Islam only when the court enforces a law or judgment that goes against the injunctions of the Quran and hadith on them. Therefore, Jamiat's petition against same sex marriage was an unnecessary step. ----- Same-Sex Marriage: In Attacking Notions Of Love, The Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind Propagates A Narrative That Is Hostile To Change By Shahrukh Alam April 22, 2023 The Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Hind is before the Supreme Court seeking to intervene in a writ petition, which, in turn, prays for the “right to marriage” for sexual minorities. Some of us were hoping that the organisation would refrain from jumping into the fray, embarrassing a significant number of Muslims by trying to form a “Muslim narrative” on the issue that is hostile to change, unempathetic, and also hegemonic. An application for intervention normally implies that the intervener has something worthwhile to contribute to the matter at hand, or that the resolution of the dispute, one way or another, will have a bearing on the intervener’s rights and interests. It would seem from reading the application that the organisation finds that its rights and interests would be seriously affected if the “sustainable societal norms” that it is used to “keep changing on the basis of variable notions based upon newly developed value systems emerging from a different worldview in a different paradigm”. That sounds rather churlish. The Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Hind has a distinguished history of resisting imperialism. If only it would stop to consider whose company such small-mindedness puts them in now: The apartheid regime in South Africa that appealed to “historically accepted societal norms” when upholding the prohibition on interracial relationships and marriages; the slave owners who drew on morally accepted social hierarchies to dismiss the abolitionists’ challenge; or those opposed to the temple entry movement in India who made similar arguments about religious and cultural mores. As an organisation with a history of resistance to imperialism, the Jamiat would know that societal norms are often hegemonic and they do, in fact, keep changing organically, through the efforts of those on the margins, who wish to feel more included. The Jamiat further complains that the “petitioners are seeking to dilute the concept of marriage, a stable institution, by introducing a free-floating system by introducing the concept of ‘same-sex marriage’”. This is a familiar complaint too, mostly made by those challenging various provisions of the sharia with respect to more informal marriages (muta or temporary marriage, etc) and unilateral divorces, in favour of a uniform civil code. Usually, those complainants are “on the other side”, and the Jamiat finds itself defending personal choices. The Jamiat vociferously, albeit unsuccessfully, defended “triple talaq”, arguing that marriage in Muslim Personal Law is akin to a contract, and not a sacrament, so it may be revoked at will. Others too defend these forms of marriage and divorce on various grounds that include the fact that evolving jurisprudence recognises (and supports) different forms of living arrangements and that relationships should not be standardised or overly regulated by the state. In some cases, the courts also rely on such jurisprudence ( in recognising live-in, or queer relationships, and other forms of “modern families”), while in certain others they choose to ignore it ( in “love jihad” cases, for example). In this case, however, the Jamiat seems to be treating religious canon much like the current government treats the idea of national security. An idea that seeks to govern everything, and yet there is no engagement with historical contexts, or with radical and divergent ideas within a religious tradition. Canon (and national security) is safe only in the hands of the patriarchs. Unsurprisingly then, the application records: “That every organised religion is bound to have certain principles attached. When a person enters into a religion or declares herself to be a follower of a religion, that person is expected to have a belief in the foundational norms of such a religion. A person who fails to follow such norms is considered a sinner in the religious paradigm. Any person who questions the well-established norms of a religion or demands the creation of a non-existing space within the religious norms and its teachings is, in fact, seeking to amend the religious norms. There cannot be an imposition of a radical non-religious worldview in established, inseparable and core principles of religions.” This suggests that religious norms are hegemonic and universal, with no scope for alternative meanings. Such positions are completely oblivious to the very rich history of difference and dissent within Islam, or to the traditions of liberation theology. It proclaims that norms are what they are, and critical or alternative engagements are an imposition on the majority. This could have been the security police speaking to an “anti-national” protestor. The state (like the Jamiat) thinks little of the imposition of its own unreflective views on minorities. This is quite ironic with respect to the Jamiat because normally it does concern itself with minority rights, most specifically in cases where it is itself, in fact, the minority. It would take more self-awareness than it has been able to display at present to also accord the same rights to one’s own minorities. There is an imagination of Semitic religions as being rule-bound and unbending. I have always found it odd that Muslims (when religious) are imagined as being standardised, mechanical beings, leading their lives as per daily fatwas, without the eclecticism of Hinduism, for instance, where everyone does as they please. This negates the reality of Muslim lives that negotiate, in much the same way as everyone else, with religion and with state, and with all other modes of power. They make these negotiations through critical engagement with theology and cultural Islam, but also sometimes by having faith, in knowing that bona fide actions do not make them outcasts, even when they fall outside the canonical law. Therefore, it is particularly disappointing to see the intervention application citing the Quran, and the Prophet (peace be upon him), in a decontextualised way, to attack notions of love, and in aid of power. During the hijab case, some of us made arguments that relied on “freedom to choose”, and on “personal autonomy”. One particularly crude response to these arguments was: If you wish to dress in a particular way, do so at home, or at your religious schools, but not at public schools. We argued then that in order to properly exercise choice, an individual’s identity and personal autonomy has to be constructed holistically, and not demarcated into religious and secular spaces. It was not an instrumental argument: Some of us made it in good faith, actually believing in those ethics. I do hope that there would be enough young people who would object and intercede against the Jamiat’s own version of that very crude argument: If you want to be different, do it in your own non-religious space. ----- Source: Same-Sex Marriage: In Attacking Notions Of Love, The Jamiat-E-Ulema-E-Hind Propagates A Narrative That Is Hostile To Change URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-human-rights/jamiat-ulema-hind-same-sex-marriage/d/130027 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism