TayoBlog

On May 22, we are organizing a workshop to assess developments in Muslim Family Law in South Africa since 1994. In the democratic Constitution of South Africa, state was expected to facilitate and recognize marriages conducted under religious or customary laws. And this provision included Islamic law. It is ten years since African customary law has been accommodated, but not Islamic law.

I wanted to write this Blog to reflect on talking about this issue, and thinking about it. I was interviewed on a local Muslim radio station about the forthcoming workshop. Have prepared myself to present a broad overview of the goals and questions that were to be raised at the workshop, I very soon myself presenting my personal view on the matter. I partly blame the interviewer for dragging me in this direction, but only partly.

I presented my view on the matter, but failed to give a perspective of the workshop at hand. I  am not using the Blog to present what I really wanted to say. I am using it to reflect on the difference between talking about the issue and thinking about it.

In my interview, I focussed particularly on the gap between society and religous worldview that Muslims grapple with everyday. On the one hand, there is the reality of life which includes double-income families, and even single-parent families where women in particular have to make ends meet. I was also thinking about rights-norms that have become very much part of South African society (even if South AFricans do not always live up to them). The entitlement to rights, if not always to reciprocal duties, was rooted in our everyday practices.

On the other hand, there are the demands of a religous law that seems to assume an older social world. The absolute right of the husband to unilaterally divorce his wife is one of them. It is part of a network of relations that presumes that the husband is a provider, more knowledgable, more rational and has the final say in the household. 

The social reality and the social norms (shariah) are present in Muslim societies throughout the globe. They exist side by side. They bring up all kinds of tensions and conflicts in homes and societies. They generate heated debate over what Islam says. Alternatively, they provide the framework for complaining about the bad times in which people live. They give a semblance that islam has something to say about everythng.

Whatever position a person holds, the reality of these two in some kind of tension cannot be denied. And it is this tension that seems difficult to articulate. Positions are taken and held, but the fundamental conflict between norms and society reality is avoided. And the debate on the Sharia rages on, and the fundamental conflict remains hidden  from most sides.