MURREE: President Mohammad Ayub Khan has said that the Family Laws Ordinance, promulgated to put an end to indiscriminate polygamy which brought in its wake the social, moral and economic collapse of thousands of families, did not “conflict with any injunction of the Holy Book or the interpretation of Hadis”.

Replying to a letter written to him by Mufti Mohammad Shafi, Chairman, Managing Committee, Darul Uloom, Karachi, the president said the ulema, on whom rested the responsibility of liberating religion from the debris of wrong superstitions and prejudices, should march with the times.

“Islam is the only religion which cannot become out of date in any age or climate of material or mental progress and if, today, there is a disparity between our life and our faith, the fault is our own and not of Islam.”

The president described indiscriminate polygamy as a “barbaric torture of the highest order”. He remarked: “this does not only result in embittering and ruining the lives of innumerable tongue-tied women and innocent children, but also brings in its wake [the] collapse of thousands of families.”

The matrimonial malpractices current in our society, he added, were even more cruel and dreadful than the Hindu custom of Sati. In Sati, it was just one innocent woman who was driven into fire.

But in our society “numberless women were forced to live a life of consuming agony which was worse than death itself”.