Family association has key role, says scholar

ABU DHABI // Divorce is a growing problem in the UAE and more needs to be done to prevent family break-ups, according to a female Islamic scholar, one of the 30 ulama invited to the country as part of an annual Ramadan tradition. "I think the UAE Family Development Association is highly equipped to play this role," said Sheikha Naima bin Yaish, a Moroccan scholar specialising in family Islamic jurisprudence.

Sheika Yaish, who was invited by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, as part of the tradition of welcoming Muslim scholars during the holy month, urged greater investment in programmes that help keep families together and educate couples how to have a fulfilling marriage. Divorce has become an epidemic in the Gulf, and, according to one Saudi Arabian study, divorce rates in the UAE have reached 46 per cent.

A recent government-issued sermon suggested that state ulamas might cancel oral divorce - which simply requires a husband to utter "I divorce thee" to his wife. This annuls the marriage without having to go through a judicial process. Some Arab countries, such as Morocco and Tunisia, have already moved away from oral divorce and now require divorcing couples to appear before a judge, mainly to safeguard the rights of the wife.

Regardless of how divorce proceedings are reformed, most scholars agree that preventing family break-ups is a crucial issue. "In the past, the local imam or the family's elder or the community's learned would play the role of mediator, preventing couples from divorcing. But now we don't have that anymore," said Sheikha Yaish. Marriage counselling courses have been tried before. In March, the Ministry of Social Affairs launched a two-month programme, called Sweet As Honey, in response to complaints from Emirati wives that the unrelenting pace of change was putting intolerable stress on them and their marriages. But few husbands attended, a fact much lamented by many of the wives who did.

Sheikha Yaish said: "I recommend to the UAE something along the lines of existing programmes in Malaysia or Morocco. "Malaysia tried a wonderful experiment: they did a study of divorce rates and found it to be 36 per cent. So they started a programme that requires anyone who gets married to attend a monthlong course to study the science of family. "It is fully paid for by the government, and includes hotel accommodations and a tourism trip.

"At the end of a year, divorce had fallen to 19 per cent. They managed to cut it by half through education, and that was only targeting the newlyweds. I am sure they can do the same for those already married." Sheikha Yaish runs a similar programme in Morocco, which claims to have helped prevent 70 per cent of their cases from divorcing. "Through one organisation, Karama for Women's Development, we entered a partnership with the family court and asked them to send us their divorce files as a last effort to mediate between the husband and wife."

She said the group had been so successful it had even managed to help a dozen divorced parents to remarry five years after their separation. Sheikha Yaish said one of the essential elements young couples were missing today was education in family jurisprudence, what she called the culture and science of family interaction. This was adding to the rising divorce rate throughout the Muslim world. "Family now has a different role than it did in previous generations. It's not possible for newlyweds today to enter into a marriage with the same mentality as their parents," she said.

"The main role of the family today is to give emotional fulfilment to its members, starting with the wife and husband. They must fulfil each other emotionally otherwise the family is threatened with break-up. "Adultery, usually the sin of husbands, is also a rising phenomenon among wives, and that too is due to lack of fulfilment for women. "They must also be fulfil each other sexually. This is a very important element of marital life."

Sheika Yaish added that globalisation had introduced the western concept of individualism to the Muslim world, which is not complementary to Islamic or Arab culture, and that it was also contributing to family break-ups. "We have a phenomenon in our society now toward individualism," she said. "Current Arab culture does not teach new generations how to fulfil their future spouse emotionally. We don't have this in our traditional family values.

"Contemporary society imposes many stresses on the individual and the best way to go out and face the world is by being emotionally fulfilled within the marriage." relass@thenational.ae