Many Nigerians regard the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, as a stormy petrel, for his penchant to express his view on any issue. He recently stirred the hornets’ nest with his proposition to introduce a new law that will restrict polygamy in Kano State.
The former Central Bank Governor had told his Muslim audience: “Those of us in the (mainly Muslim) North have all seen the economic consequences of men who are not capable of maintaining one wife, marrying four. They end up producing 20 children, not educating them, leaving them on the streets, and they end up as thugs and terrorists.”
He disclosed that a sub-committee of scholars in the Kano palace had been working for over a year on a bill, which when passed into law by the government, will restrict indiscriminate polygamy.
Calling it “a big law” that will cover the whole gamut of marriage, from consent to divorce to maintenance of children and inheritance, he avowed it will be the first ever codified muslim law on personal status in Northern Nigeria.
His pronouncement continues to generate an avalanche of responses among the Muslim faithful, with mullahs divided over the proposed law on polygamy. Two Islamic scholars, Prof Ishaq Akintola of Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), and Sheikh Abdul-Rahman Ahmed, the Chief Missioner of Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria, agreed with the emir. They believed he was interpreting the letter and spirit of the Quran on marriage injunction.
The bill, Sheikh Ahmed asserted, is not about banning polygamy. According to him, polygamy as an Islamic institution is guided by rules and regulations, not a free for all, and by no means, an avenue for a man to showcase his manly prowess.
He noted that the abuse of polygamy has become widespread and its essence is lost, reducing it to an instrument of oppression, instead of an institution to protect women.
By his assessment, there was nothing anti-Islam about the emir’s proposal, given that a lot of work and consultation were carried out for almost one year.
He spotlighted the crux of the matter. “Whether people marry one wife or none at all, there is poverty in the land. This is something we must seriously address. The law will succeed if there is a programme of massive education and poverty alleviation.”
The bill, when it becomes law, he believed, will exert control on those who are able, those who are capable, and those who are qualified. Society, according to him, can no longer be indifferent: “For our indifference, we are paying the price of terrorists, hoodlums and area boys, people who didn’t receive adequate parental attention as children, because their parents were either not there or too busy to give them attention,” he said.
“The first line of responsibility for the children is parents who must be gainfully employed to take care of them. I do agree that there is economic injustice, but people cannot procreate irresponsibly and hold the society responsible for the upbringing of irresponsible procreation. Every man must be responsible for his wife and children––this is what the proposed law is talking about.”
The law will not be a panacea for all of society’s ills, he cautioned. “It is not about just law and order. There is a holistic approach to it and that includes economic justice, equity, fair distribution of resources, good governance, responsive and responsible government.”
Similarly, Prof Ishaq Akintola also welcomes the law on polygamy. His organisation, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) issued a statement in support of the emir’s proposal. “In our statement, we made it very clear that Emir Sanusi was interpreting the letter and spirit of the Quran on injunctions concerning marriage.
Sanusi’s proposal is seeking to place conditions before anybody who wants to practice polygamy, such that if you are not capable economically, you cannot practice polygamy,” he said.
Citing Quran 24:33––let those who do not find the means to marry keep chaste until Allah enriches them out of His grace––he argued: “If you are jobless and you have no means to sustain and maintain a wife, then you have no business marrying. By the injunction of Islam, you cannot put a woman in discomfort; you cannot put her where she will be hungry. You cannot marry more than one wife if you cannot take care of the second wife.”
He observed that many abused the licence to marry more than one wife, thereby reducing women to items to decorate their house. Quran’s grants to marry up to four women, he stressed, is predicated on a crucial condition: that the man will be equitable to the women.
“That (conditional) clause nullifies other statements that came before it. If you cannot maintain two, three or four, then marry only one,” Prof Akintola concluded.
He gave a pragmatic approach to polygamy: “You cannot be living in a single room and decide to put two women there. Even a single flat is not ideal. If you can maintain two flats, then you can marry two women; if you can maintain three flats, then you can marry three.”
He added: “In the African context, if you marry a woman, you are marrying the in-laws; your wife will bring her sister, brother and mother. If you marry a second wife, she also will bring her relations. The third one too will bring those dependants, then you have commotion.”
Polygamy is conditional in Islam, he said, and according to him, what Emir Sanusi and Kano State Government have done was to interpret correctly what Quran says concerning matrimony in Islam.
Conversely, the Council of Imams and Ulama, Kaduna State, disagreed with Sanusi’s postulations and proposal. The body’s assistant secretary, Imam Musa Tanimu described Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II as an economist, not an Islamic scholar (saying “he only has a diploma in Islamic Studies from Sudan”) and that his views on some Islamic issues and doctrines are steeped in economic logic, which are not necessarily Islamic.
“He could have consulted Islamic scholars and jurists,” Tanimu observed. “He raised a lot of issues concerning Islam, which are not relevant because he has refused to consult those who are well grounded and have deep knowledge of the matter. He has forgotten what the Quran says: ‘You should ask the people on knowledge on the issue before you talk about it’. If he had thought about that passage of the Holy Quran, he would not have made that statement that he was going to propose a bill to the Kano State House of Assembly to the effect that before you add another wife, you have to fulfill some financial conditions.”
The slant of Sanusi’s viewpoints, he pointed out, are understandable given his background as economist. “But that is not what Islam is looking for. Even the first, the second, the third and the fourth wife does not depend only on economic consideration or financial capability.”
He highlighted other conditions necessitating marriage: “If you are not able to protect your sexual desire, if you are not able to prevent your eyes from looking at women, if you are not able to control your ear from hearing obscenity, then marriage is recommended.”
Marriage, according to him, is for those in need (such as sexual need or need for child) and who have the capability to marry.
“Capability means financial capacity to provide. Take accommodation for example. What type of accommodation is required? It depends on your financial capability, not necessarily you going to provide a three-bedroom flat. If she agrees to stay with you in a single room, it is allowed, so long she will be protected in that room. When you look at it from this angle, the Emir made a mistake.”
He thought it prudent for the emir to preach good governance instead.
“When you have good governance, this proposal wouldn’t even arise. Bad governance makes it difficult for people to take care of themselves. With good governance, nobody will be talking about poverty.”
He advised the monarch to tackle the problem from the top, not from the grassroots. “Let him make recommendations on good governance to reduce poverty in the north and country at large,” he concluded.
Source – The Authority
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