MUSLIM POLYGAMY
How polygamy fuels
terrorism
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
AFTER ALMOST four years of dealing with al-Qaida, jihad, Iraq and Muslim terrorism, it is obvious that we are up against something we have never encountered before in our history.
We have fought and defeated a Nazi regime that was unprecedented in its cruelty and intent on wiping whole peoples from the earth. We fought and defeated an Imperial Japan and helped turn them into a modern nation. We fought the Korean and Vietnam wars and saw how the portions of Asia we rescued thrived while those that fell under communism turned into bleak totalitarian societies.
But we have never fought an enemy so utterly "in love with death," as the terrorists themselves put it, so willing to commit suicide and take the whole earth with them in pursuit of their cause. All this demands that we take a look at Muslim society to find out what makes it so different. This does not mean we should desist in our efforts to bring democracy to Iraq or end terrorism. But it would be useful to find pressure points that might make our task easier.
What differentiates Islam from the world's other great religions - Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism - is that it sanctions and practices polygamy. How did this happen? The consensus among anthropologists is that humanity spent the first 4 million to 5 million years of our evolutionary history living monogamously in small hunting-and-gathering tribes. We know this because the few hunter-gatherers that remain - the Kalahari bushmen, the pygmies of Africa, the Australian aborigines – are all monogamous.
What is so important about monogamy? Its principal advantage is that monogamy guarantees every man an equal chance of having a wife. For small, tightly knit bands of humans surviving in perilous environments, this was crucial for maintaining group loyalty. If a dominant male took more than one wife while others were left with none, dissension would arise and the solidarity of the group would be destroyed.
Polygamy eventually did arise in nearly all parts of the world, however, and anthropologists believe it had to do with growing prosperity. When the first farmers and herders began to accumulate fixed wealth, women began to be bought and sold as wives. The "brideprice" - a payment the wife's family demands of the husband's family - is universal in polygamous societies. As the accumulation of wealth grew unevenly, wealthier men took more wives while poorer men were left with none.
Polygamy is still practiced widely in West Africa, where leading men sometimes take as many as 30 to 50 wives. This leaves a huge residue of unattached men. It is probably the principal reason why so many African countries are beset by "revolutionary armies" living in the bush and raiding rural villages to steal women.
By the 5th century B.C., most of the world's major religions had been established and had rejected polygamy as part of their social contract. When the Prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the 7th century, however, he inherited the polygamy that was still being practiced by desert herding tribes.
Although Mohammed limited each man to four wives and required that he treat them equally, he did not abolish polygamy. That decision has had a tremendous impact on history.
The prohibition against more than four wives was not always honored anyway and the "Sultan's harem" became a staple of Muslim culture. The counterpoint has been the large populations of unattached warlike men that populate Islamic history.
Islam has a long history of conquest, but it has also been plagued by revolutions from within. Typically a band of unattached men will go into the desert, decide that the faith being practiced by the urban elites is not the "true Islam," and burst back upon the cities to conquer them - and take their women as well.
"Jihad" has always been the faith of these efforts.
Today polygamy is not practiced widely in Islamic countries, but there is a firm residue of about 10 percent of all marriages. The country where the distribution of wives is most unequal - Saudi Arabia - seems to be the best at producing roving jihadists who roam the world in search of conflict.
The absence of a norm of a "man for every woman, a woman for every man" also creates an entirely different male psychology. At one extreme, men consider their own lives to be worthless and expendable because they will not have the chance to reproduce. At the other extreme, they are promised "72 virgins in heaven." Sometimes the extremes converge.
Polygamy creates dysfunctional societies. "Jihad" and its perpetual social unrest are unlikely to disappear until it is eliminated.
I would suggest the United States propose a "right to reproduce" be added to the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The United Nations would be the perfect place to initiate a global debate.
William Tucker is an associate at the American Enterprise Institute. His column appears Tuesdays.
French minister says polygamy to blame for riots
By Martin Arnold in Paris
Published: November 15 2005
France’s employment minister on Tuesday fingered polygamy as one reason for the rioting in the country.
Gérard Larcher said multiple marriages among immigrants was one reason for the racial discrimination which ethnic minorities faced in the job market. Overly large polygamous families sometimes led to anti-social behaviour among youths who lacked a father figure, making employers wary of hiring ethnic minorities, he explained.
The minister, speaking to a group of foreign journalists as the government stepped up efforts to improve its image with the foreign media, said: “Since part of society displays this anti-social behaviour, it is not surprising that some of them have difficulties finding work ... Efforts must be made by both sides. If people are not employable, they will not be employed.”
The riots, and the government’s slow reaction to the violence, has led to widespread criticism that France’s ruling class is out of touch with the rest of the country. Mr Larcher’s comments could further fuel the debate and are likely to outrage Muslim and anti-racism groups in France.
They also come as the government considers tightening visa-granting rules and a possible clampdown on polygamous families already living in France.
Although polygamy is illegal in France, visas were granted freely to family members of immigrants until 1993, when visas were banned for more than one spouse. Many wives continued to enter illegally, however and a clampdown, if enforced, could affect families that entered the country before 1993.
Politicians estimate there are 10,000-20,000 polygamous families in France, most from North and sub-Saharan African countries such as Algeria, Mali and Senegal, where the practice is legal.
Polygamy is a taboo subject for most mainstream French politicians. Far-right groups, however, have seized on it to argue that immigrants abuse the French social security system by collecting state benefits for several wives.
The government has also been criticised for refusing to closely analyse demographic patterns in France in order to better integrate minorities. But Mr Larcher said France was so traumatised by the Vichy government’s expulsion of French Jews to German concentration camps during the second world war that it still found it unpalatable to allow information to be collected on people’s ethnic origins.
He acknowledged that the unemployment rate among young people in France was twice the national average, but said other European countries faced similar problems. He also pointed the finger at the US, where he said the unemployment rate among blacks aged 16-19 was twice that of their white counterparts.
His comments came as Dominique de Villepin, prime minister, made his first visit to the poor Paris suburbs since rioting erupted almost three weeks ago.
Although the unrest has abated substantially in recent days, the French parliament on Tuesday approved a law prolonging by three months the life of a controversial 1955 curfew law.
Wives in fear that spouses will remarry (out of Africa)
In the ongoing debate over
the Islamic Family Law (Federal Territories) (Amendment) Bill 2005, an important
aspect that has not been discussed is that the new provisions have made women
more vulnerable to mental abuse.
Husbands can now enter polygamous marriages readily if not easily by a mere word "or".
The provision that used to demand that a decision to take on another wife must be "just and necessary" has been deliberately amended to "just or necessary".
A man then does not have to prove that his second (or third, or fourth) marriage is just and that he will ensure that all his wives will receive equal financial and emotional support and love.
He just has to prove that it is necessary for whatever reason.
From Women's Aid Organisation's (WAO) work with domestic violence for 23 years, we found that many married Muslim women live in fear of their husbands entering polygamous marriages.
This fear can be so crippling that it stops them from being able to live normal and happy lives.
Some of the women experience fear of being abandoned and loss of love, on top of the fear of deep hurt and, in many instances, of being beaten by their husbands.
Living in fear is a form of domestic violence.
It constitutes emotional and psychological abuse. This will affect the children, and ultimately it affects the institution of the family itself.
Lindsay
Murdoch, Jakarta
December 29, 2006
WHO else has more than one wife? That's the question Jakarta's political elite are asking amid a furore in the world's largest Islamic nation about polygamy.
The latest name to shock the country's feminists is the Indonesian Parliament's deputy speaker, Zaenal Ma'arif, who is in strife with his Islamic Reform Star Party (PBR) after he married a second woman last week, a 48-year-old school teacher with three children.
As Mr Ma'arif rejected calls for his removal from Parliament, his party's chairman, Bursah Syarnubi, told journalists that he personally was not against polygamy. But Mr Syarnubi said Mr Ma'arif "should have been more prudent by not publicising his second marriage because he is part of the leadership of the Parliament and the PBR". The party will decide Mr Ma'arif's future today.
Controversy about Indonesian men having more than one wife erupted in mid-December when popular and influential Muslim cleric Abdullah Gymnastiar shocked audiences on 150 local radio stations when he told them he had a younger, second wife.
Hundreds of women marched through Jakarta's streets in rallies for and against multiple marriages. The reverberations spread to the presidential palace where President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would consider expanding a law that prohibits some public servants from having several wives to cover everyone in the public sector, including soldiers and police. It is not known how many people this would affect as no government agency accurately tracks polygamy rates in the country of 210 million.
But government officials admit the practice is common, particularly in rural Indonesia where culture and religion attaches little or no stigma to women who marry a man who already has one or more wives. The only stipulation for a man is that he has the money to equally provide for all his wives.
But in cities such as Jakarta, where people tend to talk about the practice in whispers, the sense of humiliation women feel if their husbands marry again appears to be particularly acute.
Prominent Indonesians have been practising polygamy for decades. Former vice-president Hamzah Haz openly acknowledged a few years ago that he has three wives. Indonesia's founding president, Soekarno, practised polygamy; Megawati Soekarnoputri, who also became president, is the daughter of his second wife.
Some foreign businessmen in Jakarta — all converts to Islam — have what are known as "first" and "second" wives, including children with both. They divide their time between the two houses that they maintain.
Siti Musdah Mulia, a feminist author and academic, disagrees with interpretations of the Koran that men can have up to four wives. "Men who practise polygamy lack faith and cultural perspective and have something wrong with them — or are unable to refrain from — their sexual desire," Ms Mulia said.
"Women often consent to the practice of polygamy because of financial problems, marrying a man they believe will support them," she said.
What To Expect When You're Expecting a Co-Wife
Why American Muslims don't care to legalize polygamy.
By Andrea Useem
July 24, 2007
This article appears in conjunction with a special weeklong series on Islam published by On Faith, the Washington Post's religion blog. To read more, visit On Faith.
So, you're happily married to the Muslim man of your dreams when, suddenly, he drops the p-bomb: polygamy. For Aneesa Azeez, a 23-year-old Muslim convert and college graduate, her husband's announcement of his intention to marry a second wife devastated her. "I am shocked, hurt, angry and confused, all in one," she wrote in a letter to him.
Seems like a recipe for divorce, right? Polygamy is illegal, after all. But Azeez didn't play that card with her husband, 15 years her senior. Under the law that mattered to her—classical Islamic law—she accepted her husband's right to take up to four wives, as allowed by the Quran, as long as he could treat them equally.
At first, Azeez wrestled with jealousy toward her co-wife and pined for her husband on the nights and weekends he stayed with his second wife, who lived half an hour away. But eventually, a peacefulness settled in her heart and a friendship with her co-wife blossomed: "I am in polygyny because I want to be," she wrote on her blog, Polygynous Blessings, whose initial entries are collected in a self-published book of the same title. (Polygyny is the more precise term for the type of polygamy in which a man marries more than one wife.) Azeez's blog is just one of several in which American Muslims write thoughtful, sometimes wry, but usually positive commentary about living polygamously; other notables include Thoughts of a First Wife and Big Faith.
Azeez, who works from her home in upstate New York as a newspaper copy editor, could be a poster child in the movement to legalize polygamy—the Muslim equivalent of the poignantly normal gay and lesbian couples lining up outside San Francisco's City Hall in 2004. But she won't be marching in the streets, calling for the legalization of polygamy, as some Protestant and ex-Mormon polygamists have been doing. For the tiny minority of American Muslims who engage in polygamy, its illegality is close to irrelevant. And for mainstream American Muslims, who are dealing with enough negative publicity as it is, let alone the fact that polygamy gives many of them the heebie-jeebies, the legal status quo suits them just fine.
So, while the existence of Azeez's book, which had sold 150 copies as of mid-July, won't necessarily prompt the Department of Homeland Monogamy to raise its threat level to yellow, American Muslim polygamists are still a group to watch.
For one thing, they may be almost as numerous as the fundamentalist Mormons who make all the headlines (and score big ratings for HBO). Debra Mubashshir Majeed, a religious studies professor at Beloit College who is researching a book on American Muslim polygamy, estimates that less than 1 percent of American Muslims indulge in the practice—and these practitioners are most often African-American Muslims or recent immigrants from West Africa. That percentage may seem infinitesimal, given that the most recent estimate of the American Muslim population puts their numbers at 2.35 million, but it does mean there are perhaps as many as 20,000 American Muslim polygamists. In comparison, the current best guess about the number of fundamentalist Mormons involved in polygamy in the United States, Mexico, and Canada is only 37,500, according to Brooke Adams, who covers the polygamy beat at the Salt Lake Tribune. (Yes, polygamy has its own beat—in Utah, at least.) And while Muslim polygamists are quiet now, their political awareness may grow over time; after all, fundamentalist Mormon polygamists lived for decades in disparate and secretive communities, only recently emerging to claim their place at the civic table.
American Muslim polygamists are unafraid of prosecution, and they sometimes seem almost puzzlingly unconcerned with the illegality of their conjugal life. Azeez takes only minor steps to conceal her husband's identity, and only then to ensure his job is not jeopardized. "It's not like everyone is being rounded up and thrown in jail," she says—in stark contrast to fundamentalist Mormons who recall the raid of the Short Creek, Ariz., polygamist community in 1953. Similarly, Senegalese-American hip-hop star Akon casually revealed to a New York radio host in late 2006 that he not only had four mothers growing up but also currently has several wives at home in Atlanta. (He said he would go public with his "multimonogamous" family only if he had his own reality show. Just imagine it: Big Love meets Run's House.)
And prominent American Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was the first Muslim cleric to ever offer the invocation at the U.S. House of Representatives, was quoted in Paul Barrett's 2007 book American Islam* as saying that he performs polygamous unions at his Al-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn, N.Y. "If a man can have a hundred girlfriends, and it's legal, I don't say you can't have more than one wife," he reasons. Of course, Wahhaj is in the minority on this point; most mainstream imams would not condone the open flouting of the law. Tahir Anwar, imam of a well-established San Jose, Calif., mosque, writes in an e-mail that he would discourage any Muslims seeking a polygamous marriage and would not perform the ceremony: "It is not allowed in the land that we live in, a land to whom we have promised that we will follow all of its laws."
This idea that Muslims are contractually bound to follow the laws of the country in which they live—an idea rooted in the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed—is theologically sound, but only up to a point. It presumes that the laws of the land are immutable. It presumes that America is not, in fact, a place where a motivated group of individuals can mobilize others to change laws and social mores.
So, why aren't all American Muslim leaders jumping on the "legalize polygamy" bandwagon? After all, Muslim parents have banded together to call for public schools to recognize Muslim holidays, and Muslim cabdrivers are trying to protect their right to refuse alcohol-carrying passengers; shouldn't American Muslim leaders step in to secure the rights of their co-religionists to exercise their marital preferences?
As urban anthropologist Robert Dannin points out in his 2002 ethnography, Black Pilgrimage to Islam, some of the most intense and divisive feelings about polygamy are found within the Muslim community itself. Many Muslim women, of course, are frankly relieved that the law of the land forbids husbands from taking multiple wives. But Muslim religious leaders, who are by definition male, may have slightly different motivations in accepting the legal status quo. At a moment when leading presidential candidates can suggest the routine wiretapping of mosques and nearly half of the American public has a negative view of Islam, championing polygamy hardly seems like a winning strategy.
Back in 1890, when the federal government was preparing to dissolve the Mormon church, confiscate its property, and possibly even disenfranchise all its members in large part because of polygamy, the church's then-president, Wilford Woodruff, publicly declared his advice to all Latter-Day Saints to "refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land." Although American Muslim leaders have not been backed into such an uncomfortable corner, they are quietly issuing their own 1890 manifesto: consenting to theological accommodation as a price of American belonging.