Marriage officials form WhatsApp group to encourage Polygamy

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In the Name of Allah, the Most Gra­cious, the Most Merciful.

As-salā­mu ‘alaykum wa-rah­mat­ul­lāhi wa-barakātuh

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Recent­ly, news about a What­sApp group of 900 women signed up for polygamy in Sau­di Ara­bia has been doing the rounds on the Media. Some of our Mus­lim (Broth­ers and Sis­ters) have also tak­en to for­ward­ing and cir­cu­lat­ing this bit of “infor­ma­tion” to oth­ers. We remind Mus­lims that some in the Media have a clear agen­da to malign Islam and Mus­lims and we request the Ummah to not become a tool in this war of disinformation.

Wifaqul Ula­ma would like to urge Mus­lims to be care­ful when send­ing and for­ward­ing infor­ma­tion to oth­ers. The fact that What­sApp has only recent­ly raised the max­i­mum num­ber of par­tic­i­pants in a group to 256 should have raised some concerns.

Sau­di Ara­bia is an inde­pen­dent sov­er­eign Nation and cit­i­zens of Sau­di Ara­bia have the right to for­mu­late laws with­in their bound­aries just like Amer­i­ca, Unit­ed King­dom or France. Polygamy is ille­gal in Unit­ed King­dom but legal in many parts of the world.

Now sit back and read the orig­i­nal sto­ry and notice how it gets embell­ished and sen­sa­tion­al as it trav­eled around the world. We have only list­ed 3 coun­tries but google search reveals that the same news (from Sau­di Ara­bia) is report­ed in the most bizarre man­ner around the world. In order to embell­ish the sto­ry, the orig­i­nal source is dropped and more and more sec­ondary sources are used which are already embellished.

Before pro­ceed­ing we would like to remind the read­ers that Islam doesn’t per­mit Polygamy but allows polyg­y­ny but for the sake of the arti­cle we will use Polygamy.

Original Story in Saudi Press:

MAKKAH — A car­tel of eight mar­riage offi­cials have formed a group on What­sApp to prop­a­gate polygamy as a rem­e­dy to the ris­ing num­ber of the divorced women, wid­ows and spinsters.

Report­ing the news recent­ly, Makkah dai­ly did not name the mem­bers of the group but said they have estab­lished a car­tel under the name “polygamy”.

Mem­bers of the group said they were call­ing on young men mar­ry more than one wife in order to cut down the num­ber of Sau­di women with­out part­ners to share their life.

They said they moot­ed the idea after notic­ing the ris­ing rates of divorce in Makkah and decid­ed to encour­age polygamy to get men mar­ry more than one woman.

The group col­lect­ed data of about 900 women con­sist­ing of divorcees, wid­ows and women who had nev­er mar­ried before.

They gath­ered enough data about women who would not mind being a sec­ond, third or a fourth wife.

The list con­sist­ed of Sau­di, Yemeni, Moroc­can, Syr­i­an, Pales­tin­ian, Egypt­ian, Niger­ian, Bangladeshi, Chi­nese, Pak­istani and women of oth­er nationalities.

Some women only gave their nation­al­i­ty or the name of their tribes but they have sub­mit­ted suf­fi­cient infor­ma­tion to enable the mar­riage offi­cials con­tact them eas­i­ly when­ev­er there is an inter­est­ed suitor.

Accord­ing to the list, the old­est of the women was 55 years old and the youngest 18. Their heights ranged from 140 to 177 cen­time­ters and their weight 45–98 kg.

Some of the women made dif­fi­cult con­di­tions which might not be easy to meet. One of them asked for a dowry of SR60,000 while anoth­er said the man to mar­ry her should have mem­o­rized the entire Qur’an.

The women’s edu­ca­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions var­ied from the master’s degree to high sec­ondary school. One of them has a PhD and is teach­ing in university.

The list also includ­ed women with no edu­ca­tion at all but they did not mind polygamy.

One of the women who applied through the group is a divorcee with eight children.

The mar­riage offi­cials said they are ready to assist in match­mak­ing free of charge.

Which Religions & Nations Permit Polygamy?

Here is a quick (but not exhaus­tive) list of reli­gions and coun­tries which per­mit polygamy.

Islam

[4:3] And if you fear that you will not deal just­ly with the orphan girls, then mar­ry those that please you of [oth­er] women, two or three or four. But if you fear that you will not be just, then [mar­ry only] one or those your right hand pos­sess­es. That is more suit­able that you may not incline [to injustice].

Christianity

Yet the Torah does not out­law polygamy.

In Fun­da­men­tal Lat­ter Day Saints (FLDS), the Prophet is the earth­ly leader and medi­a­tor between God and man. Women are on this earth to serve their hus­band and obey the Prophet. If a woman does this faith­ful­ly, her hus­band may invite her to join him in the Celes­tial King­dom. A wom­an’s eter­nal fate depends on keep­ing this Principle.

Judaism

Yet the Torah does not out­law polygamy.

South Africa

Jacob Zuma, the 73-year-old is a proud polyg­a­mist — fol­low­ing a Zulu tra­di­tion — and cur­rent­ly has four wives. He is also known for his infi­deli­ty and has fathered a child with anoth­er woman.

Bhutan

Polygamy and polyandry (when a woman has more than one hus­band) are sur­pris­ing­ly legal in Bhutan, although they are not com­mon these days.

Original Story gets spiced up by Daily Mail (UK):

Sau­di mar­riage offi­cials cre­ate a What­sApp group for match­mak­ing men with mul­ti­ple wives and 900 women have already signed up

• Offi­cials have estab­lished the what­sapp car­tel under the name ‘polygamy’
• They came up with the idea after notic­ing divorce rate in Sau­di was increasing
• About 900 women, includ­ing divorcees, wid­ows and spin­sters have signed up

A group of mar­riage offi­cials in Sau­di Ara­bia have formed a group on What­sApp to match­make men with mul­ti­ple wives in an attempt to deal with the ‘prob­lem’ of a ris­ing num­ber of divorced women, wid­ows, and spin­sters in the country.

The eight offi­cials have  estab­lished the what­sapp car­tel under the name ‘polygamy’.

Mem­bers of the group said they were call­ing on young men to take more than one wife in order to cut down the num­ber of Sau­di women with­out partners.

Offi­cials report­ed­ly came up with the idea after notic­ing an increase in divorces in the city of Makkah.

About 900 women, includ­ing divorcees, wid­ows and women who had nev­er mar­ried before, put their names for­ward say­ing they would not mind being a sec­ond, third or a fourth wife.

As well as Sau­di women, poten­tial brides on the data­base came from Yemen, Moroc­co, Syr­ia, Pales­tine, Egypt, Nige­ria, Bangladesh, Chi­na, and Pakistan.

Some of the Sau­di women also pro­vid­ed details of the tribes they belonged to, the Sau­di Gazette reports.

Accord­ing to the list, the old­est of the women was 55 years old and the youngest 18.

The women have even pro­vid­ed details of their physiques, with heights rang­ing from 4′7″ to 5′10″, and weights between 7st 1lb and 15st 6lb.

The mar­riage offi­cials would then con­tact them when­ev­er there was an inter­est­ed suitor.

Some of the women had very spe­cif­ic traits they were look­ing for in a new part­ner — one ask for £13,000, while anoth­er said the man to mar­ry her should have mem­o­rized the entire Qur’an.

A third woman, who is divorced, said her new hus­band must also accept her eight children.
Some of the women had just high school edu­ca­tions or no edu­ca­tion at all, while oth­ers had mas­ter’s degrees, and one even had a PhD and was teach­ing at a university.

The mar­riage offi­cials said they were offer­ing the match­mak­ing ser­vice free of charge.

Original Story gets spiced up by Daily Mail (UK) and further Masala added in India:

Riyadh: In an attempt to curb the prob­lem of divorced and unmar­ried women in the coun­try, a group of mar­riage offi­cials in Sau­di Ara­bia have cre­at­ed a new What­sApp group that facil­i­tates match­mak­ing of men with mul­ti­ple wives.

Accord­ing to a report in the Dai­ly Mail, the offi­cials have cre­at­ed the group under the name ‘Polygamy’.

The cre­ators of the group said that they have been urg­ing men to take more than one wife in order to bring down the num­ber of sin­gle women in the coun­try. The offi­cials also said that Mec­ca was the one of the cities that wit­nessed ris­ing num­ber of divorces.

So far, 900 women, includ­ing divorcees, sin­gle women and wid­ows have signed up for the ini­tia­tive. These women said that they did not mind being the sec­ond, third or fourth wife of a man.

Many of those who signed up for the pro­gram hailed from Moroc­co, Yemen, Pales­tine, Syr­ia, Bangladesh, Chi­na as well as Pak­istan. These women pro­vid­ed details about their physique, age, height, weight and even caste and tribe that they belonged to.

The offi­cials also revealed that the old­est woman to sign up was around 55 years old while the youngest one was about 18. The also said that they would keep the details of these women with them and would con­tact them as soon as they came across a suit­able match.

Mar­riage offi­cials said they offered these match­mak­ing ser­vices for free of cost.

Original Story gets spiced up in Australia:

Ris­ing num­ber of spin­sters and divorced women in Sau­di Ara­bia leads to polygamy push

A RISING num­ber of sin­gle and divorced women in Sau­di Ara­bia has lead a “car­tel” of eight mar­riage offi­cials to pro­mote polygamy as the solu­tion to all sin­gle ladies’ problems.

But the mod­ern polyg­a­mist woman has high expec­ta­tions, includ­ing demands of a dowry of AU$217,000 and a knowl­edge and mem­o­ry of the entire Qur’an.

The Sau­di Gazette reports mem­bers of the car­tel were call­ing on young men to “mar­ry more than one wife in order to cut down the num­ber of Sau­di women with­out part­ners to share their life”.

The group are using the social media app, What­sapp, to con­nect part­ners under the name “polygamy”. They began the group after notic­ing an increase in divorce and decid­ed polygamy was the answer. The prac­tice is com­mon in the desert coun­try, known as the birth­place of Islam.

The mem­bers, despite being anony­mous, say they are ready to match­make, free of charge.

More than 900 women — divorcees, wid­ows and “spin­sters” — have report­ed­ly signed up, sug­gest­ing they were aggre­able to the idea of becom­ing a sec­ond, third or fourth wife.