Another Silly Fatwa: 48 Mile Travel Limit For Muslim Women

Pardon me for being ignorant. I just learned that the Darul-Uloom of Deoband has a ‘Fatwa’ department. And here’s the latest fatwa from those who would like some people to go back to stone-age:

From TOI: Darul Uloom Deoband has issued a travel advisory for women. The latest fatwa by the Islamic seminary rules that a single woman must not venture beyond 48 miles unless escorted by a 'mehram' — defined as a close kin with whom marriage or sex would be considered incestuous. Apart from this, a husband also qualifies as 'mehram'. The fatwa has invited derision from activist Muslim groups. The edict was in response to a query to Darul-Ifta (Deoband's fatwa department): "Is a married woman permitted to travel to another country with her female sibling?" The response (511/308/d) posted on the Deoband website on March 2 said: "She cannot travel without a 'mehram'. It's mentioned in the Hadees that a woman should not travel for more than 48 miles except in the company of a 'mehram' relative.

While silly maulanas keep issuing ridiculous fatwas it is heartening to note that the objections and protests are now rising from the muslim community itself.

TOI Mobile: ".....The ruling, made public on the eve on International Women's day, has raised the heckles of activists here who have strongly condemned the attempts to "shackle womenfolk by insecure maulanas". The issue was discussed threadbare at the meeting of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) and each of the 253 participants vowed to ignore it completely. The bid to impose 1,400 years old restrictions, when people travelled in kafila, is simply ridiculous, says Naeesh Hasan, the founder president of AMMA "specially in an era when a woman pilot can take a planeload of men across 14,000 miles without her father or husband lurking in the cockpit". Beghaum Shahnaz Sidrat, president of Bazm-e-Khawateen, 76 years old well-known progressive outfit of women, wanted to know what happened to women who had no meharam. "I was a lone daughter of widowed mother and have been moving alone since the time I remember. The maulanas must think of better ways to make their presence felt," she said. This is yet another attempt to subjugate women, said president of All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board, Shaista Ambar. A woman cannot be expected to be tied to her husband or father forever. What do maulvis have to say about long distance relationship, she asked and said such rulings only bring disrepute to clerics".

Fatwa against even 'Emoticons' - How silly can you get?

The policies of appeasement have emboldened idiotic maulanas to almost run a parallel state within India. Only recently the SC had emphasised the need to bring Indians under a uniform civil code. It should be made clear to the mullahs that any fatwa that runs contrary to the basic freedoms of an individual under the Constitution is illegal. We need to go a step further and completely ban the ‘fatwa’ culture of the mullahs. The only ‘fatwas’ our country requires are those enshrined in the Constitution. And though this suggestion may sound extreme I would encourage fatwa-happy mullahs to leave India and go live in Iran, Libya or Saudi Arabia and join their counterparts in proclaiming more ridiculous fatwas. 

If there can be a fatwa against even ‘emoticons’ one can imagine how silly these mullahs can get. As for the fatwa itself, I had to pick up the news from a foreign newspaper and found it on the TOI mobile site. The rest of the media has decided to stay within the 48 mile limit.