Muslim Law doesn't recognise pre-marital sex; fornication an offence under Quran, observed the High Court while hearing a plea filed by an interfaith live-in couple seeking protection against alleged harassment at the hands of the police.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Noting that in Islam, any sexual, lustful, affectionate acts such as kissing, touching, staring, etc. before marriage are prohibited, a division bench of the Allahabad High Court recently dismissed a plea filed by an interfaith live-in couple seeking protection against alleged harassment at the hands of the police.
The court observed that the couple/petitioners (a 29-year-old Hindu woman and a 30-year-old Muslim man) had not expressed their willingness to marry in the near future, the bench of Justice Sangeeta Chandra and Justice Narendra Kumar Johari added that in Muslim law, no recognition can be given to sex outside marriage, LiveLaw reported on Saturday.
“Zina (fornication) which has been defined as any sexual intercourse except that between husband and wife includes both extramarital sex and premarital sex and is often translated as fornication in English. Such premarital sex is not permissible in Islam. In fact, any sexual, lustful, affectionate acts such as kissing, touching, staring, etc. are “haram” in Islam before marriage because these are considered parts of ‘Zina’ which may lead to actual ‘Zina’ itself,” the court said.
The bench further observed that the punishment for such offence according to Qur’an (Chapter 24) is a hundred lashes for the unmarried male and female who commit fornication “together with the punishment prescribed by the ‘Sunnah’ (Prophetic traditions) for the married male and female that is stoning to death.”
The observations were made by the division bench while dealing with the protection plea filed by the couple alleging that the mother of the woman is unhappy with their live-in relation and that an FIR had been lodged against them, the LiveLaw said.
Essentially, in their plea, the petitioners had, inter alia, averred that they are facing harassment from the police and hence, they should be given protection by the court as their case is squarely covered with the apex court ruling in the case of Lata Singh vs. State of UP (2006).
To this, the court noted that the views expressed by the Supreme Court pertaining to ‘live-in’ relationships “cannot be considered to promote such relationships”.
The court also emphasised the need to create awareness in young minds regarding the emotional and societal pressures and legal hassles which may be created by live-in relations.
“Awareness has to be created in young minds not just from the point of view of emotional and societal pressures that such relationships may create, but also from the perspective that it could give rise to various legal hassles on issues like division of property, violence and cheating within live-in relationships, rehabilitation in case of desertion by or death of a partner and handling of custody and other issues when it comes to children born from such relationships. Partners in a live-in relationship do not enjoy an automatic right of inheritance to the property of their partner.”
