Source: Aljazeera

An online petition against triple talaq has been signed by 50,000 Muslim men and women across the country.

By Shriya Ramakrishnan

Twenty five-year-old Salma’s* life crumbled one morning when her husband forced her and her two young children, aged three and two, from their house in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

Salma had married in 2010, just after graduating from high school. Her parents were overjoyed when the son of an influential religious leader from their community proposed to her, a humble girl from a poor family. The wedding, she says, was a happy occasion.

After the wedding, Salma left her parental home and went to live with her husband and his family. Her husband was the imam at the nearby mosque and owned a shop that sold religious books. She busied herself with household chores.

But, in the days that followed, their marriage took an unexpected turn. She says her husband and his family turned violent and began to subject her to constant abuse.

“They would beat me up for the pettiest issues,” Salma says. “My in-laws always felt that I wasn’t worthy of them, and frequently threatened me by saying that my husband would divorce me and marry someone who is equivalent to their status,” she told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview.

At times, she says, the family withheld food and medical care as punishment, even from her children.

Salma didn’t want to worry her parents, so she kept quiet about the abuse.

“One day my father-in-law convinced my husband to divorce me by uttering the word talaq thrice,” she says.

So, a few years into their marriage, Salma’s husband threw her out of the house, using the triple talaq to divorce her.

According to this practice, a Muslim man may divorce his wife by speaking the word “talaq”, which means “I divorce you”, three times in quick succession to her.

The practice has been outlawed in many Muslim majority nations, but is permitted in India under the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937 ( PDF ). According to this act, in matters of personal disputes, the state will not intervene and a religious authority will instead pass judgments.

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