Once again, last month, the question of marriage of Muslim girls came to national attention following the Delhi high court judgment in the case of Tahira Begum vs the State of Delhi. Whenever a matter of Muslim Personal Law arises, everyone has a view and the issue becomes a subject of heated debate.
My first reaction is to look for my answers in the text of the Quran. The two Surahs which speak to me about women in Islam are Surah Al Baqr and Surah Al Nisa, the second and fourth Surahs of the Quran. So I tried to view this judgment through the lens of these two Surahs. What is the Quranic injunction about the age of puberty and the age of marriage?
First, let us look at the judgment. The division bench of Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and S.P. Garg ruled in favour of upholding the right of the 15-year-old girl Shumaila to live with her husband Mehtab. Her parents had filed a habeas corpus writ petition alleging their daughter had been kidnapped by Mehtab who had also stolen money from them. The bench quoted the Mohammedan Law which allows a girl to marry without her parents’ consent after attaining puberty. But recognising the delicacy of the case, they ruled that certain safeguards had to be placed to protect the girl. These included the condition that when she turned 18, she could, if she so wished, declare the marriage void.
http://newageislam.com/islamic-sharia-laws/syeda-hameed/where-is-her-home?/d/7654
