india

Updated: Apr 16, 2017 07:42 IST

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Saturday expressed concern over the way Sharia laws are now being openly questioned by people who “had little or no knowledge of Islam.”

“This is a matter of grave concern for us,” said Maulana Wali Rahmani, secretary of the AIMPLB adding that it was the duty of the board to correct this misconception about Muslim laws related to marriage, divorce, inheritance.

“We do not want any interference in our Sharia laws. The Constitution allows each person to profess and practise his own religion. Muslims do not want any change in their existing personal laws,” said Maulana Rahmani.

To support his claim, the board secretary said an AIMPLB delegation recently submitted a memorandum signed by over four crore Muslims to law commission chairman justice (retired) Balbir Singh Chauhan reiterating their position.

The apex body, which represents all Muslims sects, had come into existence almost 45 years ago when a pitch was made for a common civil code by the then Congress regime at the Centre.

The case in the Supreme Court and the subsequent spotlight and campaign to get triple ‘talaq’ abolished by a section is not merely an infringement of fundamental rights of Muslims to follow their personal laws, but a step towards common code, the board fears

Finding an out-of-court settlement to the Ayodhya dispute was another item on the agenda of the two-day session of the board’s executive committee at Nadwatul-Ulema in Lucknow.

Senior AIMPLB vice-president Maulana Kalbe Sadiq had already gone on record saying that efforts were being made to educate Muslims and get triple divorce abolished, but the board has distanced itself from the statement saying that “this was Sadiq’s personal views.”