Taliban bans polygamy in Afghanistan

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The News

Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has issued an order banning polygamy among members of the group.

Polygamy is common among the Taliban and most senior members have more than one wife. Even the group’s founder Mullah Mohammad Omar reportedly had at least three wives. One of those was Osama Bin Laden’s daughter that had secured an alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda before the events of 9/11. The current chief has two wives, Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, has a harem of three.
The Taliban leadership is concerned about rampant corruption among members who were looking to raise money to either pay the bride price (dowry paid by the groom to the bride’s family) or sustain their many households.
The Taliban leadership believes that spending a huge amount of money on wedding ceremonies could lead to criticism from their enemies/opponents or from within the group.

Section 494[6] of IPC makes bigamy a criminal offence, but section 2[7] of Muslim personal (Shariat) Act 1937 allows the application of polygamy on Muslims.
Muslim men in India are allowed to marry up to four women and the sanction for polygamy, comes from the Quran which permits polygamy under certain conditions.
Note 1 : The Quran says that a man can take a second or a third or a fourth wife but only from among orphans and widows and that he must treat them all equally. (Roots of polygamy in Islam are from Medieval Jihad)
Note 2 : Muslim women aren’t permitted to practice polyandry.

Misuse of Polygamy rules
- One of the issues with this law is that it was misused by the men and to do multiple marriages, especially by converting into Islam.
- The issue was addressed by the supreme court in the case of Sarla Mudgal v. Union of India 1994, that the second marriage of a Hindu husband after embracing Islam being violative of justice, equity and good conscience would be void.

Now that Taliban has banned Polygamy (for whatever reasons), Will Indian laws also prohibit polygamy for all?

The Delhi high court is looking into a PIL which seeks to end polygamy & bring adequate arrangement for the existing wife’s accommodation and maintenance.
The HC has asked the Centre to submit its stand on a petition filed by a Muslim woman wanting bigamy or polygamy be practised by Muslim men to be declared unconstitutional and illegal.

Law Commission in its 227th report (2009) presented to the government highlighted that traditional understanding of Muslim law on polygamy is gravely faulty and conflicts with true Islamic law in letter and spirit.
Law commission said that since polygamy is allowed in the Muslim personal laws so it could be not be banned before but it needs to be critically reviewed.