Muslim preachers often boast and attribute to Islam the credit for granting women of that era a special right to include a divorce clause in the marriage contract if their husbands took additional wives.
However, they are mistaken on two fronts:
- Firstly, even pre-Islamic Arab culture granted more rights to women, allowing them to include such conditions in marriage contracts.
- Secondly, no such condition can be found in the Quran or the Hadith. Although later some Islamic scholars permitted it, the MAJORITY of Islamic scholars deemed such a condition invalid. While Allah neglected to clearly mention this rule in the Quran and Hadith, consequently, 99.99% of Muslim women over the last 14 centuries suffered due to their lack of awareness of this right. Thus, the question arises: if Allah is truly all-knowing and aware of the future, why did He not clearly mention this right of women in the Quran or Hadith?
If this right is really special, then see how pre-Islamic Arabia already gave this special right to women, and they didn't need any Allah for that, and the whole credit goes to them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_pre-Islamic_Arabia
Marriage by agreement (in Pre-Islamic Arabia):
The reason for intertribal marriages was to ensure the protection and possession of the children the couple would produce.[2] Women in some intertribal marriages had more freedom and retained the right to dismiss or divorce their husbands at any time.
Moreover, only a minority of Muslim jurists regard such a condition to be valid.
Three out of four Sunni Imams of Fiqh stated that such a condition (i.e., divorcing a woman if the husband marries another wife) is invalid. They argue that no such condition is mentioned in the Quran or the entire Sunnah of Muhammad.
For further details, please refer to the following link:
https://islamqa.org/hanafi/daruliftaa/7871/placing-conditions-in-the-contract-of-marriage/
1) The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) said: “Every condition that is not in the book of Allah is invalid.” (Sahih al-Bukhari)
2) The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) also said: “All the conditions agreed upon by Muslims are maintained, except a condition which permits what is prohibited or prohibits what is permitted.” (Sunan Tirmidhi)
They (the three Madhhabs out of 4) say that marrying a second wife, etc… is lawful for the husband, and to stipulate a condition that prevents him from exercising this permissible right will not permissible.
The outcome is as follows:
- Since Allah failed to explicitly mention this right in the Quran or Sunnah, approximately 99.99% of Muslim women have endured its absence over the past 14 centuries, remaining unaware of it altogether.
- If Allah possesses all-encompassing knowledge, including knowledge of the future, and is aware that 99.99% of Muslim women would suffer due to this oversight, why did He not clearly articulate it in the Quran or Hadith?
The inference is straightforward. There is no divine entity in existence, and it appears that Muhammad authored the revelations independently. Being a human, Muhammad lacked omniscience and thus overlooked clarifying this ruling in the Quran or Hadith, leading to the suffering of Muslim women over the subsequent 14 centuries.
How can Islamic preachers still proudly tout this and attribute any merit to Islam for such a flawed ruling?
Hassan Radwan