Ahmadiyya Movement — Page 41
41 disease, which would amount to treason against humanity, or should he remain childless and thus injure his country, or should he injure his own morals and those of the community by re- sorting to an immoral life, or should he divorce his wife at a time when her suffering and helplessness make her deserving of the greatest kindness and care, and thus become dead to all consid- erations of pity and equity ? Under such circumstances is there any remedy except polygamy, which would equally satisfy the demands of nature, society, and morality? In truth, those who condemn polygamy, or deny the necessity of it, either ignore the demands of nature and the various duties laid on man, or prefer a superficial moral glamour to consideration of real morality. Had they been aware of the restrictions and responsibilities which Islam imposes upon the husband in cases of polygamous mar- riages, they would have realised that polygamy is a heavy bur- den which a man is sometimes compelled to carry and is not a device for indulgence. Divorce in Islam Similarly, with regard to the doctrine of divorce the critics of Islam fail to Realise that the temperaments of the husband and the wife may, in some cases, chance to be so entirely incom- patible that to compel them to live together would amount to an attempt to reconcile fire and water, which is bound to result in the destruction of both, for as soon as these two substances are brought together fire would be quenched and water would va- porise, and what would be left would be wet ashes. Similarly, such a couple if compelled to live together would either com- pletely wreck their lives, or would defy the bounds of morality and thus prove a source of danger to society, and their conduct would furnish a shameful commentary for the arguments of the opponents of divorce. Such and all similar objections to the teachings of Islam are the result of ignorance or a lack of un- derstanding, for the teachings of Islam are, more than those of