| Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice The Complete Layman’s Guide to the Koran Polygamy Polygamy! Is The Koran For or Against? In the following verse, already quoted, Allah appears to grant men the right to marry up to four wives if he can treat them all equally: 4:3 If you fear that you cannot deal justly with the orphans, then marry such of the women as appeal to you, two, three or four; but if you fear that you cannot be equitable, then only one, or what your right hands own (captives of war or slave-girls). This is more likely to enable you to avoid unfairness. In a later verse Allah states that it is impossible for a man who has more than one wife to treat them equally. 4:129 You will never be able to treat wives equally, even if you are bent on doing that. So do not turn away altogether [from any of them] leaving her, like one in suspense; and if you do justice [to her] and guard against evil. He (Allah) is surely All-Forgiving, Merciful. Muhammad 'Abduh, (1849:1905) “Egyptian jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, regarded as the founder of Islamic Modernism” (Wiki) argued that these two verses taken together means that the Koran is against polygamy. The Prophet would not allow his son-in-law Ali to take another wife after Fatima. This would also suggest that polygamy is not a hard and fast rule. Narrated Al-Miswar bin Makhrama: I heard Allah's Apostle who was on the pulpit, saying, "Banu Hisham bin Al-Mughira have requested me to allow them to marry their daughter to Ali bin Abu Talib, but I don't give permission, and will not give permission unless 'Ali bin Abi Talib divorces my daughter in order to marry their daughter, because Fatima is a part of my body, and I hate what she hates to see, and what hurts her, hurts me." Bukhari 7:62:157
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