Why does Islam allow Muslims to have multiple wives?

Why does Islam allow Muslims to have multiple wives?
BY: DR. ZAKIR NAIK

Muslims live by the belief in the great cosmic fact that human beings are God's creatures in the universe. Allah created man precisely and proportionately. "Surely I have made man in the most beautiful form." (Sura of the Qur'an: Fig. 4)

Allah knows what is best for human beings and their lives. Allah has established for human beings a number of laws and systems that are suitable for human nature. Based on this belief, Muslims are absolutely obedient to the Creator, accepting all the laws made by Allah, and firmly believe that these laws are purely for the benefit of mankind and are not harmful to mankind. There are some laws formulated by Allah, and human beings cannot know the secrets of them. Some laws, through the guidance of Allah, human beings can discover the profound philosophy.

The concept of polygamy
Polygamy is a system of marriage that allows a person to have multiple husbands or wives at the same time. Polygamy means a man has multiple wives at the same time; polygamy means a woman has multiple husbands at the same time. Islam allows polygamy within the limits of Sharia, but strictly prohibits polygamy. Why does Islam allow polygamy?

1. The Quran is the only classic in the world that encourages monogamy
Of all the scriptures, only the Qur'an says simply and calmly: "If you are afraid that you cannot treat them fairly, then you can only marry one wife each." There is no religious scripture that advocates monogamy, nor is there any scripture that restricts polygamy. Whether it is the "Vedas", "Lama Sutra", "Sa Sutra", "Mahabharata Sutra" and other Hindu classics, "Talmud" or "Injil", there is no one that advocates one husband and one wives or regulations restricting polygamy. And according to these classics, a man can have an infinite number of wives. Only in modern times did Hindu clergy, Jewish rabbis, and Christian church priests begin to restrict monogamy.

According to the Hindu scriptures, there were many upper-class Hindus who were polygamous. For example, King Dashrat, the father of Rama, the protagonist of the famous Hindu epic, and Krishna, one of the Hindu leaders, had many wives.

Let's turn to Judaism, where the Talmud allows polygamy. The Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) had three wives, and the Prophet Suleiman (Solomon) had several hundred wives. Judaism has always allowed polygamy until Rabbi Gesun bin Yehuda (960-1030 AD) issued a decree prohibiting polygamy. Hispanic Jews who had lived in Muslim countries still practiced polygamy in 1950, the year the Jewish Rabbi issued a decree prohibiting polygamy.

Previously, Christians were allowed to practice unlimited polygamy because the Injil did not limit the number of wives. Polygamy was not restricted until later, when the church restricted monogamy.

Let us explain why Islam allows polygamy.

2. The Qur'an allows polygamy
As mentioned earlier, the Qur'an is the only scripture that encourages monogamy. When it comes to polygamy, the Qur'an says: "You may choose the woman you love and marry two wives, three wives, and four wives; if you are afraid that you will not be able to treat them fairly, then you may only marry one wife each. , or be content with your slave-girls. This is nearer to justice." (Sura al-Nisa: 4)

Before the "Qur'an" was revealed, unlimited polygamy was a common social phenomenon. Many people had dozens of wives at the same time, and some people even had hundreds of wives. After the rise of Islam, polygamy was restricted to a maximum of four. Islam allows a man to have two or three or four wives, provided that they are treated fairly.

Surah al-Women verse 129 says: "Even if you love justice, you can never do justice to your wives; but don't be so partial to the one you love, and leave the alienated like hanging in the air. If you Be reconciled and guard against abuse, then Allah is indeed All-Forgiving and All-Merciful.” Based on this, polygamy is not the Islamic institution of marriage, but a special case or exception. We found that many people misunderstood this, thinking that Islam stipulates that Muslims must be polygamous.

Generally speaking, there are five kinds of things that are permitted and forbidden in Islam:
(1) Falzo (Master's order), that is, an obligation that must be performed;
(2) Mustahamb (laudable), matters to be encouraged to follow;
(3) Mubaha (permitted), matters that may or may not be complied with;
(4) McLuha (abominable), something that discourages doing but advocates giving up;
(5) Haram (prohibited), prohibited things.

Among the above five items, polygamy belongs to the third type, that is, polygamy is permissible, but it should not be encouraged or required. Therefore, Muslims with two, three, or four wives are no better than Muslims with one wife.

3. Women have a higher probability of life than men
As we all know, the birth rate of males and females is the same, but the resistance of baby girls is stronger than that of baby boys, and baby girls are more resistant to various viruses than baby boys. As a result, we found that the mortality rate for boys at child age is much higher than for girls.

Also, in every war, men die at a higher rate than women. Likewise, the proportion of men who die from traffic accidents and diseases tends to be higher than that of women. Therefore, the proportion of middle-aged women is higher than that of middle-aged men. Over time, you will find that the percentage of widows is much higher than that of widows.

In particular, the proportion of men in India is higher than that of women for reasons such as abortion. India and its neighbors are countries with more girls and boys in the world, and the ratio of boys and girls is seriously unbalanced. The main reason is that the probability of abortion is very high. Once it is confirmed that the fetus is female, the abortion is performed immediately, and millions of pregnant women are forced to have abortions every year. If this immoral, inhuman evil is stopped, the percentage of girls born in India every year is much higher than that of boys.

4. In some parts of the world women cannot marry
In the United States, women outnumber men by 8.7 million. In New York City alone, there are one million more women than men. And one-third of men in New York City are gay. More than 25 million people in the United States alone are gay. This means that these people have no idea of ​​marrying a woman at all. 

There are 4 million more women than men in the UK. In Germany, there are 5 million more women than men. In Russia the ratio is as high as 9 million.

5. Limiting monogamy is not a scientific solution
Assuming only monogamy, there will be 30 million unmarried women in the United States alone (25 million gay men in the United States), 4 million unmarried women in the United Kingdom, 5 million in Germany, and 9 million in Russia.

Let's assume again, if one of your sisters is one of the unmarried women in America, and there are only two choices in front of her: either marry a married man, or prostitute or live together illegally, and there is no other choice. . In this case, any virtuous woman who loves herself will like the first option.

Of course, most women are reluctant to share their husbands with other women. But in Islam, when faced with special circumstances, Muslim women, out of faith, must make a little personal sacrifice in order to recover a greater loss. Because many Muslim sisters will fall if they do not agree to polygamy, so they agree to polygamy.

6. Marrying a married man is better than being incest
In Western society, it is popular for men to seek lovers, that is, a man maintains illegal sexual relations with several women at the same time. Under such circumstances, women live without respect and protection. At the same time, it is impossible for Western society to accept polygamy, which makes it impossible for women to live dignifiedly in society, with no guarantee of life security, and possible physical and psychological violations at any time.

In this way, single women have only two choices, either marry a married man or go out into prostitution. Islam, on the other hand, advocates respect for women, agrees with the first option, and firmly opposes the second.

In addition, there are many reasons to answer the question "Why does Islam allow limited polygamy", but the main reason is to protect women's lives and maintain women's dignity.

Dove
In addition to this, there is the question of why polyandry is prohibited if polygamy is allowed?
A: Many people, including a minority of Muslims, have also asked the reasons for allowing polygamy. Why can't women have the same rights as men?
Islamic society is based on justice and equality. God created men and women in equal measure, empowering women with many powers and placing many responsibilities on her. Likewise, while men have a lot of power, they also have a lot of responsibilities. Allah has endowed men and women with different abilities and assigned tasks according to their abilities. Men and women are physically and psychologically different, so their roles and responsibilities are also different. Based on this, in Islam, men and women are balanced, but not the same.

The verses 22-24 of the Qur'an al-Women identify the types of women that Muslim men are not allowed to take as wives.

Below we briefly describe some of the reasons Islam forbids polyandry:
1. In the case of polygamy, children born to several wives will have no difficulty knowing their biological parents. If it is polyandry, the children born by the wife only know their mother, but cannot determine who their biological father is.

Islam places great importance on determining the blood relationship of a child's biological parents. Psychologists tell us that children whose parents are unknown often suffer from severe psychological trauma and mental disorders, suffering various misfortunes and mental anguish throughout childhood. As a result, we find that illegitimate children of prostitutes generally do not enjoy healthy, happy childhoods. When the child reaches school age, the mother is asked to give the child's father's last name, and the mother will name several fathers at this time.

Although modern science can determine the identity of parents through genetic identification, only the father-son relationship determined by scientific experiments is a kind of coercive and humiliating father-son relationship, which will only bring more psychological trauma and obstacles to the children.

Second, men are naturally prone to polygamy.

3. From the biological point of view, although a man has multiple wives, he is fully capable of fulfilling his obligations as a husband. In contrast, if a woman has multiple husbands, she will never be able to fulfill her responsibilities as a wife. Furthermore, women often experience many physical and psychological changes due to the various stages they go through during menstruation.

The above are some of the reasons why God forbids polyandry as we understand it, and there may be many other reasons why polyandry is forbidden, which we need to study further. Allah knows!

The article is excerpted from Xu Ran's teaching