I am, admittedly, 100% against polygamy.  If you didn’t already know, so are many Muslims, including my husband.  Although the Qur’an does permit polygamy, it does so under strict circumstances, and is not meant to allow any man to take any number of wives.

First of all, a man can have just four wives.  He must love and care for them equally, a statement which many see as a warning against the practice, since it is virtually impossible.  As one particular Muslim marriage website states, “Providing a fatherly figure for orphans is the only specific circumstance in support of polygamy mentioned in the Quran (4:3).”  I’ve heard many Muslims say that polygamy is not for our time - that when the Qur’an was revealed, during times of battle women would be left alone with children and needed to marry again, therefore a man was permitted to marry up to four wives in order to care for them.  Regardless, the aforementioned website has detailed information for anyone interested.

Still, the most clear case I’ve found against polygamy is in this article from the New York Times.  Myra Morton shot her husband in his sleep hours before he was set to board a flight to Morocco, where his younger wife, Zahra Toural, awaited him.  The couple planned to try for a baby during the visit.

Seems to me like an abuse of the system.  The dead husband, Jereleigh “Sadik” Morton, inherits a lot of money, meets a Moroccan woman online, flies to Morocco to marry her (illegal as it is in his own country to have two wives, he does it elsewhere), then tries to split his $6m inheritance (which, from my understanding, belonged to both Myra and Jereleigh, as it came from a malpractice suit involving their daughter’s death) with the new wife. 

I am not saying that Mrs. Myra Morton was justified in what she did - certainly not - but neither was her husband.

Last week, I was invited by Nadia Gergis to join the blogging team at Arabisto.com, a site for news and commentary on the Middle East.  I am proud to have been invited, and excited to be able to write about the rest of the MENA region (rather than just Morocco) for a change.  Please check out my first post, on Muslim women and Vitamin D deficiency.

I post the cartoon not because I agree with the sentiment, but because Ms. Potter poses a good point - the double standard.

I linked to a New York Times article on niqaab in Britain yesterday; today I shall link to another issue of religious expression in Britain - a girl who sued her school for not allowing her to wear a “purity ring” advertising that she would remain a virgin until marriage.  The school said that although it does allow religious expressions, it did not view the purity ring as a requirement for the girl’s religion, Christianity.  Hijab is permitted, as are Sikh bangles and other things deemed religious requirements.

My only comment here is that niqaab and this girl’s purity ring fall into just about the same category.  There should not be one allowed without the other.

The niqaab, pictured above, is causing a big stir in Britain, according to a New York Times article. And what one woman was quoted as saying in the article is precisely why, to me, niqaab is a tool of separation:

“I feel empowered,” she said. “They’d like to see, and they can’t.”

More information on the niqaab debate:

Yes to hijab, no to niqaab

On the niqaab controversy

A niqaabi FAQ

Despite my title, I think I’m entitled to occasionally just post articles I find interesting (like the one yesterday). Here’s one by a 17 year old high school student defending hijab that I found on an “Islamic” (they said it, not me) website that I found, although I can’t say I agree with it 100%.

And here’s a post from Cat in Rabat that struck me. And not just because it showed up in my linkbacks.