Sunday, July 30, 2006

Polygamy

Ini cerita poligami yang sebenarnya, yang banyak bapa-bapa di Malaysia sudah salah-gunakan dan banyak kaum hawa yang menjadi isteri kedua dan ketiga sudah lupa.

Those who support polygamy very often say that they are only following the Prophet's way;
but they have conveniently ignored the fact that the Prophet married a woman 15 years older than him and for the he remained monogamous first 25 years of his marriage, ie throughout the life of Siti Khadija, his first wife.

It was only after Khadija's death that he married other women, and except for Aisha,
the other women were all widows or divorcees and he married them to cement family ties and unite warring tribes.

There is also an authentic hadith (sunan Ibn Majah) which reported that the Prophet objected to his nephew, Saidina Ali Abi Talib who was married to the Prophet’s daughter, from taking another wife.

He said, Ali could take another wife, only if he divorced Fatimah, the Prophet's daughter

"…because my daughter is a part of me and what saddens and hurts her, saddens and hurts me too, and any problems that befall her will be felt by me too."

And yet while from young we knew that a Muslim man could have four wives,
we did not know that the verse on polygamy actually advocated monogamy,
that key Islamic scholars had supported monogamy,
that an authentic hadith existed which expressed the Prophet's displeasure that Ali would take another wife and would not allow him to do so without first divorcing his wife.