Amina Wadud’s Perspective on Polygamy: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

In Islam woman has become a subject of debate in the last few decades. The issues regarding women need a careful study. Some issues have aroused due to misinterpretation and misunderstanding of Quranic instructions regarding women. Polygamy is one of those issues. This practice has been criticized by many modern Muslim scholars including Amina Wadud. The current paper investigates Wadud’s view regarding polygamy in Islam. The paper also gives a brief overview of her approch to the Quranic teachings. According to her, the purpose of polygamy was only to protect the wealth of orphan girls. She maintains that the practice of polygamy is not practical in 21^st century because the women no more need the aproval of men for their survival as was in the past. She spacifies verse 3 of suah Al-Nisa with orphan girls and denies its generalization. She also suggests that the custom of more than one wife be abondoned. This paper, thus, critically analyzes her perspective on polygamy and at the end concludes that the custom of polygamy is neither confine to orphan girls nor does it need to be stopped. Furthermore, it does not degrade women. Instead in some situations, such as during imbalance in men and women ratio it is in favour of women.