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Mutah: Temporary Marriages in Shi'a Islam

In Shi'a Islam, the mutah is a temporary marriage contract when the Muslim woman is seen as having the intelligence to carry it out.  Except it is a two edged sword, because once the contract is settled, the woman cannot pull out.


The following quote is from Iranian Shi'a religious leader Ayatollah Tabatabaei, but may practiced in poor Muslim nations like Indonesia by Muslim women with Saudi men. However, it is forbidden in Sunni Islam, however only the woman is subject to punishment.

"8) In Shia fikh (law) a woman is traditionally regarded as 'nakis' in intelligence which means defective. However, in mutah she is able to contract her own mutah without witnesses. Normally, she is not allowed even to have the independence to ask for divorce without a wakil(representative) of the marja (Scholar she follows instead of the 12th Imam) because she is 'emotional' and prone to hasty and wrong decisions. In mutah this is not the case. First she is regarded as 'wholly intelligent' to make the contract in private but once the contract is done then she is not able to pull out. Then she returns to becoming 'nakis' again and only the man can give back his right for sex with her."

Fikh treats women as nakis (defective) in intelligence because in Muslim law, emotional intelligence is considered lower than rational intelligence.  This actually is a cultural bias. Mutah in itself reveals this cultural bias in favor of men because only the men can say "No, I will not have sex with you."

However things get worse.

 "9. Children too can do mutah if they are over 9 for girls and over 14 for boys. However, the father's permission is needed for girls who are still virgins. Ayatullah Tabatabaei says that a girl who is not a virgin but who lost her virginity through fornication must be treated as a virgin when she wants to do mutah and therefore seek the father's permission. This leads to women fornicating rather than doing mutah as it needs permission from the father."



 Comments:

Mutah is worse than traditional marriage: the woman will be punished if she gets pregnant. Yet Islamic law does not allow for contraceptives, possibly for the same reasons why the Catholic church bans marriage.  The purpose of mutah appears to be to create slaves, since even a non-Muslim woman can be trained in mutah.

Any woman who gives birth to illegimate children i.e. children that the father denies is his (and his denial is bindiong), then she is subject to 99 lashes for fornicating. 

Personally, I feel that the temporary husband should be obligated to pay a blood price for each child arising from that marriage.  If he can agree to a contract like this, then he should be obligated to learn about condoms at the least.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You are not a Shi'a but writing about Shi'a faith and what is allowed and what not. Let me tell you that plenty of what you have written is incorrect.

Particularly about contraceptives. I don't know of a single Shi'a who is avoiding them as a religious recommendation.

Unknown said...

Hello Gandhara,

I think you have gotten a lot of the facts mixed up... the Wikipedia article is also no authority on Shi'a Islam. You have not given a link to the book you have quoted from.

I recommend that you consider http://www.al-islam.org/alpha.php?sid=359147322&cat=145&alpha_id=58&t=alpha as an authority on Shi'a Islam or this as the rules from one of the Mujtahids: http://sistani.org/index.php?p=251364&id=48&pid=2350.

BTW I don't know anyone in the Shi'a world who avoids the use of contraceptives due to religious rules - no such rule is heard of :)