O' Sleeping Man

“The greatest of trials upon a woman is her husband’s other wife.” [Hadith]

I am grateful to Allah Almighty for conveying to mankind that polygamy is the greatest trial that a woman can be afflicted with, because in the society that I have grown up in, polygamy is treated as a religious frivolity which women no longer have the heart to bear nowadays. Meaning, it is viewed as the previous wife’s narrow-mindedness not to bear it happily. I also wonder why a Muslim child of age seven knows that Islam permits polygamy but the above Hadith is very, very unknown to the Muslim society.

This Hadith, together with other Quranic Verses and Ahadith put together, makes it clear that polygamy is not a religious recommendation, but a critical solution in certain critical situations of women and men.

In my life, I have heard many instances of polygamy which broke my heart, but this one episode tore me apart from head to toe, and I felt that I must do some catharsis by writing about it, else I will lose my mind thinking over it. When I heard about it, I felt my soul fly out of my body and into the body of that woman. Let us call her Aminah.

My name is Aminah. I was in love with him. One beautiful day, I got married to him.

I was soon in the family way. First the joy of being in love, then the joy of getting married to him and then the joy of being pregnant; I thought I would burst with happiness. Ah, burst did, but my bubble of happiness…

When I was seven months pregnant, my husband disclosed to me that he had married another woman about a month ago. She was one of his ex-girlfriends. He had married me because he had been in love with me. However, he realized after our marriage that he could not forget her either. So he married her too, six months after marrying me.

And I had no idea. You married her in secret, and I had absolutely no idea.

When did you begin to remember her after our marriage? On our honeymoon? When did you start considering marrying her? When I got pregnant? When did you decide to marry her? When we saw the ultrasound picture of our first baby? My mind rolls back over and over again into our first six months of marriage, trying to recall and trying to re-read your face expressions from the past…

Then one day, you said to me that you were leaving for an ‘official trip’. I was six months pregnant at that time. I did not know at all at that time but now I know that you were actually leaving to marry another woman.

You took those steps away from me towards another woman, and I was waving you goodbye and I did not know. You looked back and smiled at me, and I smiled back at you and I did not know the real reason of your happiness. You reached another doorstep to tie the knot of another marriage, and here was I closing the door of my house, carefully and firmly, thinking that it made my house secure.

There you were, smiling and nodding at another women’s family, giving them the assurance of keeping their daughter happy and secure. Did they not realize that you could possibly remember another forgotten love after marrying their daughter as well?

As the night crept on, I went into our bedroom and came upon your forgotten shirt lying on the bed. I picked it up lovingly, and caressed it lovingly. Little did I know, that you were caressing another woman at that moment. As I lied down on the bed, I felt the first kick of our first baby. I was overjoyed. I put my hand on my tummy, and smiled at the thought of having your baby. Little did I know, that you were out to father another baby with another woman at that moment. I began to feel sleepy and you were not around, so I fell asleep dreaming about you, holding your shirt tightly to myself. Little did I know, that you were also falling asleep, holding another woman tightly to yourself, at that moment.

Can you imagine the moments when I began realizing that something was wrong? Can you imagine the heart-sinking? Can you feel the emotions that our baby experienced when I began to have the inklings of reality? Can you feel the kick the baby felt? Can you imagine me being with another man? Behind your back? Forget the technical legality for a few moments, for the Prophet of Allah Pbuh has testified the turbulence of emotions anyways. Can we just talk about human emotions and human compassion for the time being?

Were you ever a child? Did you ever have a mother? Did you ever have a father? Can you imagine being a five-year-old and hearing your mother’s sobs into the night, because your father had married another woman? Perhaps you do not care about me, the woman, but do you not care about your children either? Can you not fathom the mental torture that the children go through when their father marries another woman after their mother?

Can you try imagine being born a woman? Can you imagine the hurt? Can you imagine the insecurity? Can you imagine the jealousy? Can you imagine waking everyday and feeling the creeping horror that no, it was not a nightmare but much worse than that? A torturous reality! Can you imagine living and dying every moment of your life?

You said to somebody, ‘I am very fair to both of my wives. If I load one’s mobile with a hundred rupees cash, I load the other’s mobile with a hundred rupees cash as well. It is money that really matters…’

What am I? A money-monger? A gold-digger? A slut? You think I will be happy to share my bed with another woman just because I am getting a hundred-rupee worth of mobile load in return? Surely, you have a very low opinion of the women species!

I prêt up for you, and in doing so, sometimes endure a lot of pain. I let go of my self-respect when I am told that you shall not earn and your husband shall feed, clothe and shelter you. The marital pleasures begin with your pleasure and my pain. My life is at risk during child birth. I cannot help losing my figure after childbirth, but it gives you a certificate to begin to taunt me and start sniffing around for another figure. No minaret of Friday sermons realizes or condemns this…so much so for the Jannah under my feet! Post birth, I also become prone to multiple medical complexities, some of which can be fatal. Any loyalty in return?  

The children are yours too, but you get disturbed when they get cranky or cry into the night or engage me in looking after them. You have given me the responsibility of your parents too and then you get irritated when I am not available to you because of the domestic work load. You do not share or lessen the load on me but begin dreaming of another romance with another woman.  

Then, with glee you remember that Islam ‘allows’ polygamy.

Polygamy was not sanctioned by Islam to legalize lust. And it is not oriented to use and discard woman like a tissue paper. Rather, it exists to support women themselves actually. The concept of polygamy in Islam is to ensure that no woman in the society is left alone without a male supporter, although that male supporter can be the father, the brother and the son too. However, when going for a second marriage, did you have a destitute woman in mind? Or did you look around for the prettiest?

O’ Sleeping Man! Woe unto you…Woe unto you for your arrogance.

Woe unto you for your selfishness. Woe unto you for your heartlessness. Woe unto for taking me for granted. Woe unto you for walking over me. Woe unto you for contorting religion to your selfish, base desires.

I am a human being too. We have certain role differences, as ordained by Allah Almighty, but Allah also made some things same between us. I too have a heart that wants love and I too have a mind that wants respect and I too have a soul that wants loyalty.

O’ Sleeping Man, wake up from your lustful slumber to dignified humanity ...