(2) In order to take away such feelings of dislike and...

(2) In order to take away such feelings of dislike and prevent its turning to hatred, and remove their discomfort, Islam awakens the man’s conscience to live in kindness and equity with patience, and not to cast off a wife who is temporarily in disfavour, since it may be that goodness and blessing may come through those very wives; so that it would be stupid to end the relationship hastily.

As is written in the same Surah Nisa’a: “If a wife fears cruelty or desertion on her husband’s part, there is no obstacle to their arranging an amicable settlement between them for which the wife must renounce some of her rights.

But if they return through reconciliation and peace through such unselfishness, such a settlement is better than separation and divorce.”(3) The same dislike of divorce, as the most detestable of extreme measures to be adopted only in the direst emergency, is advanced by all Islam’s greatest jurist-consults and leaders, an attitude summed up in the sentence in the book “Mustadrak Al-Vassael”: “Any woman who seeks to be divorced from her husband, save in cases of extreme necessity, falls out of the grace and mercy of the Lord.”(4) Or again: “Enter upon matrimony.

but do not divorce your wives, since divorce shakes the very throne of God.”(5) Islam fences in the man’s power of divorce with many limiting safeguards. A man may not put away his wife by violence, harassment, injury or in a way that may drive her to a life of immorality and corruption. Thus, Islam has for centuries surpassed anything yet achieved in Western countries, in its initiative to remove differences and restore understanding in family life.

This is particularly true of the family courts, where well-meaning relatives have a large say and everything is done to bring about reconciliation. Causes of differences are deeply studied; and, as relatives, they are able to go deep into confidential matters without either of the couple feeling that their private secrets are being exposed or their feelings excoriated in too public an ambience.

When the causes of the difference have been brought into the light of day the members of the family court exert all their powers of sincerity and heart and affection to bring about reconciliation and to quench the fires of temper, exhorting both sides to unselfishness, tolerance, and an effort to understand each other’s point of view.