Syed Khalique Ahmed
New Delhi–Is Firoz Bakht Ahmed, who was a school teacher and currently working as chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), is Waseem Rizvi in the making? Firoz claims himself to be the grandson of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s elder brother Abu-n-Nasr Ghulam Yasin.
Waseem had moved the Supreme Court to seek removal of 26 verses of the Quran he considered promoted violence. However, his petition was rejected.
A former chairman of the UP Shia Central Waqf Board, Waseem was discarded by his family and the Muslim society. He subsequently embraced Hinduism and acquired a new name Jitendra Narayan Singh Tyagi under the influence of controversial Hindu priest Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati. Coincidentally, both are currently in jail in Uttarakhand for making hate speeches.
The 61-year-old Firoz has moved the Supreme Court demanding a uniform civil code (UCC) for all the religious communities, including Muslims.
He had earlier filed a petition in the Delhi High Court in October 2019. However, the Delhi High Court withheld the hearing on petitions about the UCC after the Union Government in January this year submitted an affidavit. The Centre’s affidavit made it clear that Parliament had sovereign powers to legislate laws as per the policy of the government and no outside authority, including courts, can issue directions in this connection. However, the affidavit maintained that “citizens belonging to different religious denominations follow different property and matrimonial laws, which is an affront to the nation’s unity.”
There were more than six petitions filed in the Delhi High Court, including one by BJP leader Ashwani Upadhyayay, seeking UCC.
As the matter came to a dead-end in the Delhi high court, Firoz moved the top court seeking transfer of his petition from the Delhi High Court to the Supreme Court, for a fresh hearing in the case.
Arguing in favour of a UCC in his petition, Firoz says that the religious laws are ” highly gender-biased” and “treat women as somewhat inferior.”
He says he moved the court “to weed-out anomalies in the minimum age of marriage, grounds of divorce, maintenance- alimony, adoption-guardianship, succession-inheritance and differences based on patriarchal stereotypes, because these have no scientific backing, and perpetrate de jure and de facto inequality among women, and go against the global trends.”
Claiming that a UCC will cover “the entire gamut of laws governing rights relating to property, marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption and inheritance,”, he says in the petition that “personal laws, regardless of the community, are skewed against women.”
His petition also claims that religious laws are not impartial and unprejudiced. “Also, the religious laws cannot be viewed objectively. They are created from sentiments that are correct to conceptions of God. Thus to alter such a law, one also has to change perceptions regarding core religious fundamentals.”
Islamic laws, including those pertaining to marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption and inheritance etc. that fall within the definition of civil laws, are derived from the Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims all over the world since the present-day Islam came into being in the 7th century, believe that the entire Quran is the word of Allah, including the laws mentioned in it, and these are unalterable. The laws derived from the Quran and Sunnah are called the Islamic laws or the Sharia laws in popular parlance. Any amendment in personal laws, if needed at all, has to be within the parameters of Sharia, not outside it.
But the language used in Firoz’s petition claims that the “religious laws”, or for that matter Islamic laws, have been “created” by Muslims themselves which they(Muslims) consider “correct to the conception” or the understanding of God. And hence, the religious laws, including Islamic or laws of Shariat, are not impartial. He argues that the people must change their perception or understanding about their “core religious fundamentals” to bring changes in their religious or personal laws to achieve the objective of a UCC.
It is for the experts on the Qur’anic exegesis and Islamic laws to find out whether or not the arguments of Firoz fall within the category of blasphemy. But even a layman can make it out clearly from his language and the statements in the petition saying that one requires to change his belief in fundamentals of religion about personal laws about marriage, divorce, maintenance, adoption and inheritance etc. to fulfil the objective of a UCC as argued by Firoz. That means one has to abandon his belief in the Quranic truth as far as personal laws are concerned. So, by making such statements, Firoz is directly challenging the veracity or truthfulness of the Quranic commands concerning personal laws. If the arguments of Firoz are accepted, there are deficiencies in the Quranic laws and hence, the need for a UCC.
His petition further goes on to say, “Uniform Civil Code will, in the long run, ensure equality. While other personal laws have undergone reform, Muslim law has not. It perhaps makes little sense to allow Muslims, for example, to marry more than once, but prosecute Hindus or Christians for doing the same.” This appears to be the crux of the issue behind the demand for a UCC.
In his petition, he has attacked the provisions of Islam in every aspect from marriage to divorce, succession, adoption and inheritance etc. and pleaded for passing and implementation of a UCC to “strengthen and promote unity and integrity” of the nation as if the nation is very weak and not united in the absence of a UCC. He says that all these issues like marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance etc. were civil and human rights issues and should be made religion-neutral.
For example, his petition says that “the system of ‘succession and inheritance is highly complex in Islam and there is excessive discrimination between sons and daughters in parental property.” He says that issues of will, charity, succession and inheritance are not religious matters but that of civil and human rights and hence, these must be gender-neutral and religion-neutral.
Pointing out that ‘grounds of divorce’ and methods of divorce are different in different religions, he says that “the ground of divorce is not in any way a religious matter but is a matter of civil and human rights, so it should be completely gender-neutral and religion-neutral.”
He has also questioned the validity of Talaq-e-Hasan and Talaq-e-Ahsan even after the declaration of triple talaq as illegal.
Objecting to the Islamic law of adoption and guardianship, he says that grounds of adoption and guardianship is not a religious matter and hence, these should be gender and religion-neutral.
He says that the UCC has not been implemented despite 73 years of the adoption of the Constitution simply because of “vote bank politics.”
Pointing out that ” the real opposition to UCC comes from the Muslim community,” he asserts that ” UCC is important to end the exploitation of women.”
However, he changed his language when questioned about what he has stated in the petition. But he is firm on his demand for a UCC.
In a written reply to questions from India Tomorrow, Firoz says that “no change at all is required in Islamic laws.” However, he says that “UCC is the solution” to the “way the so-called ‘thekedars’ misinterpret the same to suit their pernicious ends.”
He admits that there is “no deficiency in Islamic laws” and “these are self-explanatory”. This shows a contradiction between what he says in the petition and what he speaks in public. He pitches in for a UCC saying “Islamic laws are misused and demonized by the so-called Islam’s well-wishers.”
He says that his petition is not against Islamic laws.
By demanding a UCC, he says he only wants “a stoppage to the wrong precedents, like four wives. Like triple talaq.”
To a question whether he is doing all this to secure his nomination to Rajya Sabha or appointment as a governor, he said, “This precept is a figment of imagination”. He says, “Amendment of the wayward behaviour of the various communities in the field of personal laws is the aim.”
In response to another question that whoever from among Muslims pitched in for a UCC has lost his status in the society and gone into political oblivion, he said, “No problem! I am doing my job honestly!”
The entire petition does not seem to be an original draft either by Firoz or his advocate Asutosh Dubey. As many as five paragraphs of the petition from 6 to 10 are lifted verbatim from an article in the Business Standard.
He has attached his family tree to the petition which has nothing to do with the subject matter in the petition. He has also claimed his relationship with towering Congress leader, freedom fighter and first Education Minister of India Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, perhaps to impress various parties.
In the petition, he has not mentioned his qualifications.
He claims himself as a columnist and a political analyst. In the petition, he claims to run a little known NGO, “Friends for Education”, and has written over 2,000 articles on issues about education and history in Hindi, Urdu and English languages. He also claims to have represented India in several international workshops/conferences in the US, UK, Canada, Italy, Poland etc.
