By: Dr Showkat Hussain Rather
Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet (S.A.W) said, ‘’whoever marries a woman on the condition of dowry he does not intend to pay to her, He is an adulterer. Whoever takes on a debt he does not intend to pay back to its owner, he is a thief.” (Source: Musnad-al-Bazzar 8721)
Abdur Rehman al- salami reported: Umair ibn al Khattab said, “Donot be Excessive in dowry of women” (Source: Musnnaf Abd-al Razzaq 10420)
Dowry refers to a dreadful, Unislamic and Unethical practice and this curse is practiced openly on wedding occasions nowadays. It is not only common practice among illiterate or uneducated sects of society but many educated people are also involved in this evil. Dowry is one of the social evil that has deteriorated our society very badly and is one of the main cause of our socio-economic deterioration.
The custom of dowry is route of many social evils since majority of people adopt it happily. Elite sections of a society are responsible for this evil practice as they extend luxurious assets to their daughters that a common man cannot afford. Middle and lower class sections are not economically so well to give dowry to their daughters so large portion among them fulfil this evil practice either by taking huge debts or by selling their life supporting assets. To fulfil this evil tradition some do not even hesitate to earn money by illegal means.
The issue is that due to the lack of knowledge and proper guidance, many are made to believe that such an evil practice has some justification in the religion which is totally false and in fact a gross misconception and sin as there is no such concept of demand in Islam. Islam actually rejects such a practice by condemning it to the worst of the sins.
Dowry is made to appear like a gift in terms of money or other assets like Jewellery, property etc but in reality it is the worst practice that not only means breaking the divine rule but also deteriorates our society as this leads to either late marriages or many not finding a match at all. Nowadays there are fixed dowry rates for boys of different professions viz Doctors, Engineers, Lecturers, Business personals and so on and the trend is such that many poor girls cannot even dream of getting marriage at the proper age and with the proper match. Merit of girls seems of no value in comparison to men of position and post. Thus parents hardly select a boy, well settled in life for their loving girl. In contrast boys accept girls belonging from higher class families, highly educated, in service and who are great earners. Many boys selects a girl whose parents can give hefty dowry at the occasion of marriage.
Such is the evil doing of this trend that if one looks at the statistics, it is a worrying sign and those living on the margins must be cursing their stars for being porn in poor families that cannot afford to pay dowry and therefore believe that they might never find a match. This trend needs to be reversed and eradicated forever. Our learned class, the Immams as well as other influential people must intervene and set things right.
The writer is Lecturer in Zoology
