ONCE again, someone on Twitter has raised a controversial issue that everyone is talking about. People like him believe that the end justifies the means. They take the shortest way to fame. The other day a man raised the issue of polygamy in a provocative way which made women feel jealous and angry at the same time. He did not even raise the issue, but went about suggesting ways that other men could take a second, third or fourth wife without losing the first. One of the tips he gave men who want to marry a second wife was to choose the right time to approach the first with the subject. For example, the husband should not bring up the issue during school examinations. Another tip was to let the first wife, who has just discovered that her husband has a second wife, go to her family's house if she insists and leave her there for two or three weeks. Eventually, she will absorb the shock and realize that her real home is her husband's and will return. Of course, the majority of women were furious when they read the tweets and started attacking the man. Some criticized him harshly and others even swore at him. However, our real problem does not lie in polygamy which is permissible in Shariah. Our Divine Law calls on men to treat women gently and kindly. The real problem is how some men look at this right given to them by Shariah and how they interpret it. Some men use polygamy to humiliate women while others use it to threaten their wives if they disobey them. Some men believe that Shariah has given them this right because they are better than women. They are all wrong. I am not going to mention the reasons why polygamy is permissible in Islam. There is no space for that. What I want to stress is that people are in dire need of awareness programs that will help them understand Islam and Shariah. We should not commit sins or treat others unfairly in the name of Islam because Islam does not promote such practices.
