Sign-up for the MWU! newsletter--enter your email address below:
Readers Now Online
We need your help.
If you support our magazine and our mission, please consider contributing to this project and progressive Muslim media. We accept donations through PayPal’s secure system by using the button below.
Sohela and Aftab had been married for 11 years and have three kids together. One night recently while sleeping, Aftab repeated the word "talaq," or divorce, three times.
Now the Mullahs in their village in the Indian state of West Bengal have ruled that not only are the couple officially divorced, but that by saying the dreaded word three times, Aftab had opted for the super-sized "triple divorce" formula, which means poor Sohela would have to marry another man first and get divorced from him before being able to remarry sleepy Aftab.
"Muslim clerics issued a fatwa (religious decree) asking the couple to live separately immediately after the news reached the local mosque," police official Bhaskar Mukherjee told AFP.
The landmark ruling by the West Bengal religious authorities opens up endless possibilites. Triple-sleep divorce could be just the beginning of various sleep-induced ritual and legal activities.
