polygamy

is, in Islam, contrary to popular thought, neither a religious rite nor an islamic value... it is rather a pre-islamic practice which, rather than being mandated by the quaran, is regulated therein in order to prevent injustice to powerless orphans.

From Kartini 's era until the present, this belief that polygamy is a religious rule has persisted, as if the claim that 'polygamy is permitted in Islam is the only truth... as if this belief has to be taken for granted... as if this belief is divine and therefore cannot be challenged or changed... and as if challenging polygamy is equivalent lo challenging Islam. In contrast, this book argues that polygamy is not a religious rite or an Islamic value. Polygamy is a pre-Islamic practice which has been regulated by Islam in order to prevent injustice to powerless orphans. That is, what is Islamic in the Qur'anic verses 4: 2-3 is not 'the practice of polygamy itself, but ' the importance of being just to the powerless'. As this research suggests, polygamy can lead to unjust treatment of women and their children. This book takes the view that to prevent such injustice (and given that preventing injustice is an Islamic value accepted by all schools of Islamic thought), the Indonesian Marriage Law should be modified to abolish the practice of polygamy.

Nina Nurmila

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