Kafa'ah
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Kafa'ah or Kafaah (
Legal Rulings
Islamic scholars (
The Hanafi Position
According to the traditional
The Maliki Position
The traditional
The Shāfi'i Position
According to the
The Hanbali Position
Scholars of the
Objectives
The main goal of Kafa'ah is to make a peaceful and lasting marriage. The argument is that a household built based on the common perceptions, equivalent views, and understandings would make a peaceful and happy marriage. However, if such a rationale is to be accepted, it raises the question as to why these restrictions only apply to a prospective wife and not the husband.[5] An objective more congruous with the legal rulings would be to protect the interests of the prospective wife by ensuring that she is not in disgrace in her conjugal bond. This however, raises the question as to why it would be a disgrace for an Arab woman to marry a non-Arab man.[citation needed]
The Hadhrami Controversy
Social Stratification Between Sayyids and Non-Sayyids
The controversies associated with the doctrine of kafa'ah were exemplified in a chain of events which occurred in
The Dissent by Rashid Rida and Ahmad Sūkartī
In response to the heated controversy, an Islamic reformer by the name of Rashid Rida argued that such marriages were valid and permissible, in his journal al-Manār in Egypt.[5] There was nothing in Islamic law, as he argued, that prohibited marriages between Sayyid women and non-Sayyid men.[5] Rida's views were echoed by Ahmad Surkati, who wrote a pamphlet in 1915 titled Surah al-Jawāb (The Form of the Answer) in permitting such marriages based on the principle of equality.[3] According to Surkati, kafa'ah should be restricted to the rationale of ensuring a good relationship between the partners; accordingly, if a woman decides to marry someone seemingly inferior, because "of other such qualities which please women", she is allowed to do so.[3]
It must be stressed again that the traditional Hadhrami interpretation of kafa'ah (in restricting marriage between Sayyid women and non-Sayyid men) is not found in the canon of orthodox Islamic scholarship.[3] The arguments promulgated by Rida and Sūkartī are thus merely a defense of traditional Islamic scholarship as much as they are a rejection of Hadhrami societal attitudes determined by self-interest.[3]
Rebuttal by Sayyid Umar al-Attas
These arguments, however, were strongly rebutted by Sayyids, one of whom was Sayyid Umar al-Attas, a leading Hadhrami scholar residing in Singapore, who declared such marriages to be unlawful. In doing so, he identified four levels of compatibility based on descent (which always applies for women and not for men, i.e., a man can marry someone from a lower rank, but a woman cannot): Arabs must not marry non-Arabs, Qurashīs must not marry non-Qurashīs, Hāshimites must not marry non-Hāshimites, and descendants of Hasan and Husayn must not marry anyone other than other Hasanids and Husaynids.[5] In his book published in 1905, The Marriage Between A Sharifah and A Non-Sharif and Esteemed Position of Ahl al-Bayt, he concluded that it is impermissible for a Sayyid woman to marry a non-Sayyid man, even if it is based on her own desires or with the consent of her wali.[11] Additionally, Abdullāh Daḥlān attacked Surkati's stance that all humans were equal, arguing instead that God had created some humans like the Prophet's family as superior to others. The dispute quickly deteriorated into racist diatribes. Daḥlān reportedly remarked about Sukarti, "Will the Negro stand corrected of his saying or persist in his stubbornness?" Other Hadhrami Sayyids insulted Sukarti by calling him "the black death", "black slave", "the black", "the Sudanese" or "the Negro", all while claiming that he could not speak Arabic and that he was a non-Arab.[3]
Consequences
The far-reaching consequences of this heated discussion went beyond the doctrine of kafa'ah and sparked a power struggle in Hadhramī communities in South East Asia. People began to openly question the rigid system of social stratification dominated by the Sayyids, their status and privileges.[5][3] Some of the practices that became publicly contentious include the custom of taqbil (kissing the hands of Sayyids), and the exclusive use of the title, "Sayyid" itself.[3][5]
See also
References
- ^ "Kafaah كَفائَة - Islamic Encyclopedia". islamicencyclopedia.org.
- ISBN 9789004231948– via Google Books.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8772-7727-9.
- ^ a b عبد الستار ابو غدّه (Abdul Sattaar Abu Ghuddah) (2002). الكفااة في النكاح (Kafa'ah in Marriage) (in Arabic). Beirut: Daarul Basharail Islamiyah.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-415-51917-5.
- ^ الكفاءة في الزواج (in Arabic). Retrieved June 23, 2014.
- ^ الفرق بين الشيعة والسنة في اعتبار كفاءة الزوج (in Arabic). Retrieved June 23, 2014.
- Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Nuh Ha Mim Keller (1368). "Reliance of the Traveller"(PDF). Amana Publications. pp. 523–524 [m4.0-m.4.5]. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
- Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Nuh Ha Mim Keller (1368). "A Classic Manual of Islamic Scared Law"(PDF). Shafiifiqh.com. p. Chapter M4.0: A Suitable Match (Kafa`a) [m4.0-m.4.5]. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
- ^ ben Mashhoor, Idrus. "Pengertian Kafa'ah" (in Indonesian). Retrieved June 22, 2014.
- ^ Affandi, Bisri (March 1976). Shaykh Ahmad Al-Surkati: His Role in Al-Irshad Movement in Java in the Early Twentieth Century (Master of Arts thesis). Montreal: McGill University. pp. 52–54.