They are old predators with new vigour. Often bearded, invariably in flowing
robes and expensive turbans. The rich, middle-aged Arabs increasingly stalk the
deprived streets of Hyderabad like medieval monarchs would stalk their harems in
days that we wrongly think are history. These Viagra enabled Arabs are
perpetrating a blatant crime under the veneer of nikaah, the Islamic rules of
marriage. Misusing the sanctioned provision which allows a Muslim man to have
four wives at a time, many old Arabs are not just marrying minors in Hyderabad,
but marrying more than one minor in a single sitting.

"The Arabs prefer teenage, virgin brides," says Jameela Nishat, who counsels and
sensitises young women against the malaise. Two of her volunteers, Shahida
Yasmeen and Tasneem Sultana, in their early twenties experienced the trauma of
being scanned by an old Arab. A few months ago, they accompanied an undercover
television reporter who was following these sham marriages. They reached a home
where half a dozen other prospective brides were gathered. "It resembled a
brothel. The girls were paraded before the Arab who would lift the girls’ burqa,
run his fingers through their hair, gaze at their figures and converse through
an interpreter," says Yasmeen recalling the day.

Most girls inspected by the Arab were minors, and forced by a complex union of
their parents and Islamic clerics to yield to the preliminary probes of the
Arab.

Curiously, the high priests of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB)
and the fatwa brigade of Darul Uloom Deoband, who are gearing up to defend the
legality of Islamic Courts in the Supreme Court, seem to have shut their eyes to
this phenomenon that is aided and abetted by Hyderabad's Qazis or clerics.

Many Qazis prepare both marriage and divorce formalities together. While
marriages require the grooms to be present, divorces are a bit different. A
talaaq can be given verbally, through a letter, an email, telegraph, phone or
even sms. "Many talaaqs are coming through sms these days," confirms Mufti Abdul
Ahad Falahi, a Qazi at a Darul Qaza in Mumbai. "If a woman who has received an
intimation of talaaq doubts its veracity, she can check with her husband. If he
accepts he has sent the message, the talaaq will be valid."

Most Qazis solemnise these sham marriages in complete violation of Islamic
principles of nikaah and talaaq. A woman cannot be married off to another man
unless her first husband gives her a divorce, or she has sought khula
(separation) and has completed idat (a period of three menstrual cycles from the
day of the talaaq).

Maulana Hameeduddin Aqil, head of a prominent Muslim body Millat-e-Islamia,
dismisses such marriages as sinful. "They are committing a sin. It's not nikaah,
it's prostitution by another name," says the frail, seventy five year old.

Impoverished and easily lured by the promise of a better future, many Muslim
parents are increasingly pushing their daughters into this flesh trade that has
a convenient respectability of an Islamic marriage. The Arabs, in collusion with
the greedy Qazis, marry girls for a short period. In some cases, for a night.

On the first of August, forty five year old Al Rahman Ismail Mirza Abdul Jabbar,
a Sheikh from the UAE, approached a broker in these matters, seventy year old
Zainab Bi in the walled city, near the historic Char Minar. The broker procured
Farheen Sultana and Hina Sultana, aged between thirteen and fifteen, for twenty
thousand rupees. Then he hired Qazi Mohammed Abdul Waheed Qureshi to solemnise
the marriage. The Qazi, taking advantage of an Islamic provision, married the
girls off to the Arab. After the wedding night with the girls, the Arab left at
dawn.

The girls’ parents were promised their share of the booty by the broker but when
it didn’t, they went to the media. The girls are not too disturbed by the whole
episode. "The Arab would have given us money. We can’t marry an Indian because
our parents are too poor to pay dowry," the girls told Noorjahan Sidddiqui, a
co-ordinator with Confederation of Voluntary Association, a Hyderabad-based NGO.

Muslim families that cannot afford to match the dowry demands of Indian grooms,
are the first preys of old Arab grooms who not only give them the sanctity of
marriage but also thousands of rupees. Unlike in India, in the Arab countries,
it's the boys who pay girls the dowry. While rich Arabs go West to get white
brides, transitory or otherwise, those with modest revenue streams look towards
the East, especially Hyderabad where it seems, a well-oiled machinery is in
place.

Hyderabad has a long history with Arabs. During their heydays, the Nizams
(1724-1948) recruited many Arabs in their army. Subsequently, some of them
guarded the Nizams’ coffers and their harems too. Many Arabs married local girls
and settled in the Barkas area of Hyderabad (it resembles an Arab street even
today).

Muslim politicians in the city never took the issue seriously. "It’s not on the
poll agenda of any politician," says Mazhar Hussain, director of Confederation
of Voluntary Associations, a social welfare outfit. Even Majlis-e-Ittihadul
Muslameen, the party that Hyderabad’s Muslims have voted repeatedly has done
nothing about it.

"You cannot deny that the fortunes of many families have changed through such
marriages," a r g u e s MIM’s seventy three year old president Sultan Salahuddin
O w a i s i , seated at his palatial bu n g a l ow situated at a distance from
the filthy slums of his faithful voters. Not politicians, not Islamic clerics,
not even a majority of citizens, it appears, are too angered by the issue.

In the middle of this small world that looks part victimised and part practical,
is a local mosque where a Friday sermon is coming to an end. A lanky imam reads
out an "important" announcement: A Muslim body invites the faithful to discuss
the evil effects of Television.



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1219601.cms?headline=One~minor~gi\
rl,~many~Arabs~


See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1325 Inbreeding and
the Arab World's Pathologies

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1294 The Fascism of
Sharia: Imrana rape case sparks outrage over Islamic laws

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1288 The Fascism of
Sharia: Fatwa Against Rape Victim Angers Secular India

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1279 The Fascism of
Shariah: Courageous Woman raped by father-in-law refuses to obey Shariah ruling

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1276 The Fascism of
Sharia: Secular outcry results in arrest of father-in-law rapist

See also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/1275 The Fascism of
Sharia: Rape victim forced to marry her father-in-law rapist


See also:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/khilafism/message/845
Indian Muslims fight for shariah law to allow pre-teen
marriages



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