Imtiaz Sooliman – Perspective Zohra Sooliman Cofounder of Gift of The Givers Foundation
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Bismillah Rahman Rahim, assalamu. Alaikum. Welcome to another
edition of perspective. I'm super excited for this morning's show,
simply because I have two amazing women on the show with me. The
first one is Zara Suliman. She's going to be talking about her
thesis for her master's degree. The second lady has written a book
about her abusive marriage and how she found herself, but let's get
to Zoda Suleiman right away. She is the co founder of the gift of
the givers, an amazing organization. It is world
renowned, and we all know the type of amazing work that is done by
gift of the givers. She's also a counseling psychologist, and she's
the founder of the of a counseling care line, the gift of the givers,
counseling care line. And,
you know, in addition to lots more other things that this amazing
woman is involved with, it's Women's Day, it's women's month,
and we are here to celebrate amazing women and talk about the
work that they are involved in and just how they are touching
communities. They touching individuals and making a
meaningful and a very positive difference. Sara Suleman, Salaam
Alaikum to you. Welcome to the program. Walaikum. Salaam
Warahmatullah wabarakatuh to you and to all the
audit the audience of Hilal TV, it's wonderful to have you on the
show. And you know, I was thinking about this interview of ours, and
I was wondering, What do I say? This is the woman that is the
successful woman behind the successful man. You know, just how
does this play out? You've been behind or side by side with your
dear husband, Dr, MTR, Suleiman, and you guys have achieved amazing
work, not only in South Africa, but all around the world. But then
you went on. You've raised a family, and you've also gone on,
and you've studied psychology, and then you've embarked on your
masters. And that is, of course, the crux of this conversation
we're going to be talking about the thesis, which is very
interesting indeed, very specially for us Muslim women, and very
specially for us as Muslim women who were emancipated by our
beloved Muhammad, sallAllahu, alayhi, wa sallam, Abu Nabi arim
SallAllahu, alayhi, wasallam,
alright. Zara, are you there? Yes, I am. Did you get my question, my
statement, and my question for that matter, so I got your
statement. I'm not sure what you're exactly asking. Okay,
apologies for that. I do apologize. Okay, I'm asking about
your thesis. What brought you to that point? What made you decide
that? Well, obviously you were studying psychology, and then you
went on to study for your masters, and you had to present a thesis,
and I want this very busy life of yours, Alhamdulillah, why that
particular subject
so working, as you introduced that I have founded the gift of the
givers, care line counseling service. We in our 27th year this
year, and
in my in my years, at that time, five years ago, when I was busy
with my thesis, I had seen many, many cases of marital conflict,
polygamy, polygamous marriages, and a lots of other issues
pertaining to marriage, but particularly, polygamy, has not
been an issue that people have been brave enough to talk about
and in. In my counseling over the years, I have seen how the women
struggle through this, how their children struggle through this,
the injustice that is meted out upon the women, irrespective of
whether they the first wife or the second wife, and that how that
translates into one or the other family being excluded from the
inheritance. And so there were many Muslim personal law issues
that were
implic Well, what could I say manifested in the way that
polygamy was practiced and and so I felt it was very necessary to
talk about something that no one else was brave about to talk,
brave enough to talk about. So you really raising the voices of
Muslim women in polygamous marriages, they talk about their
lived reality, and that, of course, was the basis of your
work, your thesis.
Have you gone back to those women that you used, you know, who's you
use as case studies in your thesis? Have you given them any
feedback? Have they read.
The thesis, and what was the response?
So yes, that's actually a requirement of the study. Once the
study, in fact, through, throughout the study, you
constantly check and confer with your participants whether what you
have written about their situations, if it is true to their
lives. So they were involved all the way through the research and
and then again, when the document was when the thesis was completed
and submitted. Each one of them got their own copy, and I had
gotten positive responses from every one of them because they
felt that finally, their story got out there, but and their voice was
heard, because women, according to the way the traditional Islam is
being practiced, women do not have a voice, unfortunately, so, and
yet it is so, contrary To the robust Islam that was practiced in
the day of our beloved Nabi, sallAllahu, sallam, and for many,
many, many decades after that. But unfortunately, with the
patriarchal system, women's voices are silenced. And they were very,
very they were very, very appreciative that their voices
were heard. Okay, obviously this needs to come out in book form so
that the voices can be heard further and as loud as they
possibly can be heard. I'm wondering if women in these
situations, if their situations will change once the book is out
in the public domain, and let's look at our community, because,
Alhamdulillah, we do not that. 1400 years ago, women were
emancipated by our beloved Nabi eqim Salaam. And when we look at
Islam as a religion, there are rules and regulations guiding
polygamous marriages, and if those rules and regulations are followed
to the T we won't have women who are not happy in their situations.
We won't have the fear of second, third, and even possibly fourth
wives worried about their children's rights being protected.
Should they should their spouse pass away? Should they no longer
be around? And those are very critical issues for women in
multiple marriages, second marriages and so forth, polygamous
marriages.
So Julie, that was the very intention for why this thesis was
was written, why the study was undertaken. And just for
correction, I'd like to say that in Islam there is no polygamy.
There is only polygyny. Polygamy means when both the male and the
female are permitted to take on more than one spouse. But
polygyny, the way it is practiced in Islam, it's only a man is able
to practice polygyny, where he is permitted to take on one or more
wives, up to the maximum of four. So I want everybody to understand,
we don't have polygamy. We practice polygyny. So so to answer
your question whether this will make a difference, that is my
intention, and that is my aim, to get the book out there to all the
stakeholders, not just to the general public and to women and to
men who plan to take this path, but to you know, to to reach the
religious bodies, the bodies that advocate for women's rights
according to Islamic law, and and and various stakeholders that have
a crucial role to play in this in this scenario,
other religious bodies, the Ulama councils, etc. Have you passed on
your thesis to them, and have you asked them for comment? What is
come, you know? What sort of feedback have you gotten thus far
regarding the religious councils or the religious bodies, the
Muslim religious bodies, obviously,
so. So I did, I did a few presentations of my thesis. The
one that I started with was that the organization that I started
with was the IPSA College in Cape Town. And if anybody knows about
IPSA, it's an institution. It's a university, Islamic University,
that goes right up to Master's levels, and
a lot of the modules that are offered pertain to Muslim personal
law. And I did my presentation there for all of the lecturers.
Department, academic department, as well as their students. And it
was very well received. And being, you know, scholars there that they
the lecturers there academics, they are of a very high caliber,
both in secular and in Islamic Studies, especially dealing to
pertaining to Sharia law, and the the the feedback that I got from
them was very positive, because they said that although collegiate
is an is an institution that has been permitted in the Quran, and
they are, there's a framework of Sharia law to follow, but not
going to generalize, but in majority of the cases, it is
practiced incorrectly, and hence the amount of pain and suffering
that the women and the children Experience simply because of the
malpractice of polygyny. So I got that from IPSA, the other
community radio stations where they are ulama involved. Many of
them are headed by ulama. They had asked me to send them the thesis,
which I did, but I did not get any feedback. But many of them
indicated that when the book is ready, they would like to have a
look at it and and it seems that they also have the intention of
wanting to propagate about this in a positive way, and using the
platforms to as a medium to rectify, to educate, to create the
awareness of the incorrect practice, and then to modify and
correct that practice. So Inshallah, that is my hope and my
purpose for getting it out there in a book and and I hope that
Allah will realize that purpose. I mean, for my Amin, I can't wait
for a copy of that book, and I'm hoping and praying that you get
down to it sooner rather than later, but I do know that you are
a very, very busy woman being this very successful woman standing
side by side with a very successful husband, and that, of
course, is Dr Imtiaz Suleiman. We're going for an ad break. Zara,
when we come back, I want to ask you about this new piece of
legislation, Muslim personal law. Have you had a look at it? How do
you believe it ties in with your thesis, and do you think it's the
right piece of legislation for us as Muslims in South Africa
regarding marriage? You know the marriage laws in South Africa, but
we will be back with you for a response regarding that question
in a minute or two. Inshallah, welcome back. Bismillah. Rahman
Rahim. We are talking with Zora Suleman about her thesis, which
inshallah will soon translate into a book and will be available to us
as the general public. And it's about Muslim women in polygynous
marriages, a lived reality. And let me just reframe the question
that I gave to Zara just before the ad break, and it's really
regarding Muslim marriages being recognized by the state here in
South Africa and Muslim personal law. There is a political party
that has been raising this issue in Parliament, and I'm wondering,
does it talk to exactly what Zara is talking about in her thesis, or
is there perhaps some sort of a disconnect? Zora, back to you.
Salaam. Alaikum. Welcome back. Walekum. Salaam, Warahmatullah,
barakatu. So to go back to your question, Julie, you know this
bill has been gazetted for a comment and questioning, and that
ends on the 31st of August. So the Department of Home Affairs has put
this bill out because they need to. It needs to be legislated,
according to a meeting that was taken
that had happened in cabinet last year around March of 2022,
and and so I think we're very close to it being gazetted as a
sorry to be it becoming a legislation as a single Marriage
Act. So to go into your the issue of whether this is going to speak
to some of the issues that I have raised in my thesis. Yes,
definitely. So to bring context to the situation as Muslims, we have
to follow the Sharia law first and then. Because we South African
citizens, we follow the South African law. So, yes, there has
been some disconnect in the past and over the deliberation over the
last 20 odd years regarding the Muslim personal Law Act, there
have been many, many progress.
Uh, regarding this the marriage bill and so. So let me bring an
example. So whilst we follow the Islamic law and the Sharia as our
code of law, and our Muslim theologians preside over our
cases,
they are still not able to make sure that the laws that they tell
us about in Sharia are implemented, and if a person
defaults on the implementation, there is no arm of Sharia law that
where the perpetrator will have to serve a punitive measure, such as
maybe being imprisoned or maybe paying a fine or something of the
sort. So that is where the secular law comes in. So let me give you
an example. We have people that issued the luck to their wife,
left, right and center. This is a common issue. I get people coming
to me. They have been to the jamiats or the other ulama bodies,
and they say, Please, can you reinstitute our marriage for us,
because we issued, we uttered those words in in haste. I mean,
anger. The problem with this is that, so it's not I'm just not
talking about the willy nilly utterances of Talaq. There are
many other issues. The women gets disowned, the children get get
removed from the inheritance if there's a kala or if something
like this happens in the cases of women, where there's polygynous
marriages,
in the past, marriages were not recognized, and they still not be
in the process of that happening, but every Nika that took place had
to be registered with the home of Department of Home Affairs as a
civil marriage. And once you had a civil marriage, then if, in the
case of dissolution of the marriage, whether by death or by
divorce, the woman could go to the law and claim her rights, whether
it was maintenance, whether it was inheritance, or whatever it may
have been the the issue at the time may have been so in that way,
it's an improvement for us. It's progress for us women, because now
there is recourse. There's legal recourse that we can go to and we
can have the injustices and the and all of that implemented
through an arm of law which cannot be done through the religious
bodies. I'm kind of wondering about the many in our lives, our
husbands, our fathers, our brothers, our sons.
You know the fact that they overlook this very important
ruling in Islam, according to Sharia, where they go into
polygynous marriages, then they maltreat or mistreat either the
first second or the third wife, and they obviously, they have
preferences amongst the wives. And the one is treated like a queen,
the other one is treated like perhaps a servant, or whatever the
case may be. How do we bring them to book? How do we bring them to
book on these issues?
So, like I said, again, Islamically, there is no arm of
law. Even if the woman goes to a Mawlana, or the man goes to a
Maulana, there's nothing more that the Mawlana can do other than
giving him, giving them guidance and talking to them and telling
them about how this practice should be practiced, according to
the Quran, according to the Sharia, the fairness, the justice,
the division of time, the division of resources, and to be fair to
your wife. And Allah says in the Quran as well that
that man cannot be fair in his heart, in he can be so physically,
financially and in terms of the division of resources, but in
terms of dividing his emotions equally to both or more than two
wives, or let's say, more than one wife. It's not possible. It's not
humanly possible. But then the Quran is very explicit that if
that is the case, you still treat the women, the other women, with
kindness and with dignity and respect her for that respect her
and and for that, you will be rewarded. So yes, in in the Quran,
it is very clear Allah says a.
In Sura Nisa, you can marry two, three or four women of your
choice. And I'm not quoting the exact words. I'm I'm remembering
it, and I'm talking about that verse and, and Allah says, but you
can only do that. And he and, and it mentions there whether you can
marry an orphan child or and it gives the other categories, but
only if you can be fair and just if not, it is better for you that
you may refrain from sin and very clear, very explicit, absolutely.
And if everybody follows that one verse, and there are a few verses
subsequent to that, but that one verse, it covers everything. So
going to a Maulana, the molana is going to tell you the very same
thing. But when this couple leave the molars office, and the husband
continues, which is the majority of the cases, the husbands are
quite arrogant. I'm not saying that's for everybody, but they
feel that they are for they've made up their own rules and their
own laws, and that the first wife and the subsequent wives must just
follow. They don't want to have that resistance from any of them.
They just want to move on with life in the way that they are
doing it, which is the unfit way, absolutely. And we also do know
that the very, very strict parameters ruling the multiple
wives situation, you've spoken about fairness justice, and you've
also touched on something really important, and you can be fair in
physical matters, but as far as the emotions are concerned, how
can you be fair there? Because we do know men do have their
preferences, whether you the more beautiful or the more intelligent
wife, but those are the you know. Those are the lines that get
crossed, and unfortunately, the poor women are then left at the
mercy of the man and his choices, preferences and whatever else
drives him in the situation of multiple wives. Let's also very
quickly, we have about three or four minutes left to wrap up time.
Zora, a very huge issue in our community as well, which is not
being addressed. And very specially, since it is women's
month is the issue around GBV, this is happening. It's
escalating. And I'm wondering if our ulama bodies are able or
capable to be able to address this. Why are they not talking
about these issues?
You know, in the masjid platform, absolutely, they have a platform
every Friday to address the masses of our fathers, brothers and our,
you know, and our husbands. And it's not being done.
So, you know, during the time of the the corona, the pandemic.
It was the prosecutor of the court. I forget she was the ex
Prosecutor of the court. Her name is in guka. I can't remember her
name. You might remember, but she mentioned that GBV was the silent
pandemic, and the coronavirus is gone. We are out of that pandemic,
but we are still very much in the pandemic of the GBV. And again, I
say, the reason that there is no recourse Islamically, and that is
where this bill will be to the advantage of women is in cases of
gender based violence. And gender based violence does not only cover
partner violence amongst other
categories, partner violence is just one aspect of it. And
yes, I am. I cannot answer the question why the Ulama would not
use the member as a platform of education in in talking to the men
about how they should be treating their wives, when, ironically, one
of the last messages that the Prophet sallallahu alay wasallam
gave in his last khutba at on on the on his Hajj, was treat your
women kindly. So it is something that if the prophet did it at a
major event like the Hajj and and mention this point of treating
your women kindly in the kutba of the Hajj. What you know, I really
do not know why our ulama are not using the platform on every Friday
to cover this aspect, but we do work with the jamias so to be to
give them credit rates.
Due, we get a lot of referrals from the jamias, and the couples
go to them for the same reason. And then, and often the the wife
says, You know what? I cannot live like this any longer. And I've
come here to for for a Talaq. And then, of course, we have to follow
the procedures. And ulama would then refer them to us at Careline.
We would, we would then take them through a counseling and a
mediating process, mediation process. So that's what we can do.
But I don't think that the member is being exploited for the purpose
that it's there a purpose of education and creating awareness
and using it as a platform to rectify social issues that are
relevant in our community, and that's where we have to leave it.
Zara, it's I can't believe how time flies. I have to catch up
with you again sometime in the future to talk about all of these
issues and obviously get the message spread as widely as we
possibly can, by way of Hilal TV. Thank you indeed, so much for your
time. And when, just give us very quickly, when do you believe the
book will be published?
So I'm actually involved in a parallel process currently. So I'm
writing two chapters for a book for which I'm it's part, I'm part
of a Muslim personal Law Group, so I've contributed two chapters to
that book. And then once that process is over, which we, we
anticipate would be somewhere around next year, March. And then
I would go with the full with my personal book, where I would write
it as a full narrative of the women's experiences. So I would
say sometime next day. Inshallah, who knows? Maybe by August next
year. Inshallah, yeah, if Allah wills, then we might have it ready
by there. Inshallah, I mean, wonderful talking with you,
raising very important and pertinent questions, not only in
the Muslim community, but issues that impact on women the world
over. Keep well, keep up the great work till the next time. Assalamu.
Alaikum to you. Wala Kum salaam, Warahmatullah wabarakatuh, and
thank you for having me on this platform. Absolute pleasure. Go.
Well.