Ibraheem A. Waziri
Sometimes on July 16, 2020, friends and well-wishers residents of Arewa Facebook Community (AFC) gathered around my wall, to mourn with me on a thread of tribute I wrote over the loss of my elder cousin, Shaykh Umar Balarabe Ibraheem. Part of the aspect of the tribute that attracted the attention of many was the reference to the deceased articulated Fatwa [legal position] that mirrors the recent Fatwa issued by Shaykh Dr. Bashir Aliyu Umar about divorce discharged in fictional drama. Dr. Bashir’s has caught the attention of many a pundit residents of AFC, since 9th January 2021, when a Hausa online newspaper reechoed his Fatwas obtained from an already extant video clip!
Then in my July 2020 piece, I wrote of Shaykh Umaru Balarabe, that part of his Fatwas while alive was: “Marriages pronounced in fictional drama (wasan kwaikwayo) are not valid because of lack therein, of complete conditions of marriages, according to the jurisprudential canons in use in this part of the world. But divorces in them are valid. Meaning if one is not legally married to the person they impliedly divorce in their fictional dramas then the divorcing words will automatically apply to their own spouses in real life. When asked why he used to answer that all the canons conclude that there is no joke in the affairs of divorce. Once it is uttered it has to fall real on something and that should be the real spouse at home – of the actor if he is married – outside the purported drama.”
I have had cause to reflect about this position for years. Shaykh Umar Balarabe used to quote from Mukhtasaral Khalil, the clause, “wa jadduhu wa hazluhu sawaun”, meaning in the affairs of divorce seriousness or seriousness (joke) doesn’t matter and stop there asking any disputant to show any nass(text) from Qur’an, Hadith or any of the Maliki/Ashariy canons in use here is West Africa nay Hausaland, Northern Nigeria, that explicitly contradict his assertion.
Here we are today where Shaykh Dr. Bashir Aliyu Umar is repeating the arguments of late Shaykh Umaru Balarabe – whom I used to think was a loner in this – point by point, Qur’an and Hadith. The only difference is the slight leeway Shaykh Bashir is able to provide where Shaykh Umaru Balarabe would not. Shaykh Umar maintained that even when a man in a movie point at another actress projected to be his wife and pronounced divorce upon her and owing to the fact that he is not legally married to her, then the divorce falls on his legal real wife if he is married. His argument used to be that, an adult person under any circumstances must not refer to himself as divorcing his wife, if he is not intending so since there is no room for jest in matters of divorce in Sharia and no matter the situation. So if one should ever mention divorcing his wife then the words will fall on his actual real wife.
Encomiums On Talban Zazzau Abdulkadir Iya Pate and Iyan Zazzau Bashari Aminu
Whereas Shaykh Bashir gives space for accommodation in terms of wordings and exact pointers and specifiers; he believes where an adult person refers to self, divorcing wife and without using appropriate specifiers in a movie scene only then the wordings will extensively apply to his real family outside the drama. He then cited Ibn Qasim with his Maliki largely regarded fringe Fatwa which differs from him and suggests that a context even without appropriate specifiers may not lead to unwarranted implications on a real marriage.
SOME THOUGHTS
Islam attaches so much premium to words spoken. In fact, one becomes a Muslim or non-Muslim, that is, belonging or not, to the universal brotherhood, instantly, and without causing any to doubt them by what they say in a brief period as in a second. Thus in all Muslim cultures, from the smallest unit of a society, which is family, have their foundations in the clarity and efficacy or otherwise of words spoken. It is the exactitude of words told that seal marriage contracts. Words to or from parents recklessly – as is believed – can open gates to multiple forms of spiritual and physical adversities and narrow the quantum of prosperity index for a child in their entire life. In the same vein, words spoken can ruin family or marital relationship, within a blink of an eye. This tends to foist a distinct form of awareness and unique character in any Muslim society when pursuing socio-cultural discourses and at any time. Muslims everywhere seem to concentrate too much on what and how things are said or not!
It is with this kind of mind-frame that the Muslim societies received cinema and cinematography, additional forms of operationalizing productive social dialogue, whose development to current form and practice was largely achieved, within late 19th century to the present, and by a civilization that does not place the same premium on words uttered as a Muslim civilization. In the West, a parent can say anything no matter how nasty to a child or vice versa without posing or attracting to themselves any supposed type of spiritual danger or provoking a general feeling of group-wide cultural impropriety.
Similarly, institutions of marriage are not endangered by careless whispers in an instant. Thus a film in the West does not pay attention to any perceived spiritual bearing the words of an actor can have on themselves, in their real life, no matter how they are spoken in as much as it is within the logical structure or particular thread of an outlined fiction.
This, of course, will pose a challenge to the Muslim societies who on one hand are beginning to come to terms with the utility and relevance of film making as an effective instrument of social engineering, cultural dialogue, and conscientization; and on the other, if not handled or managed carefully, could breed unpleasant social mutations in society, lead to non-conscious alteration of moral categories in favor of what the societies in their current form may consider detestable social and personal conceptions, thereby diluting the whole essence of Muslim societies and civilization. It is this similar concern as is clear from the two separate video clips by Shaykh Dr. Bashir Aliyu Umar, which informs his much-discussed Fatwa.
Therefore the implications drawn from these could be that movie directors, producers, and actors in Kannywood, must be extra careful in how they frame up and participate or present scenes and couch dialogues involving the Divine lest they shoot themselves out of the favor of their most precious Islam. While any other form of the depiction of other aspects of our social life might easily be accommodated attributing them to sole intention to dramatize, others relating to marriage and family life should be threaded with an extra layer of caution due to the reasons from the Qur’an, Hadith and the entire body of Maliki/Ashariy jurisprudence that is operational here as an ethical framework and a source of values for centuries as late Shaykh Umar Balarabe Ibraheem would mention.
This is not an exercise that seeks to nullify and invalidate the profession and practice of film making is this milieu as Hajiya Hamida Koguna , would want to say; but an effort to further pristinely purify the practice for it to serve our society upon its ordained chosen paradigm of social engagement. To some of us, it is better to borrow the modern social technology of entertainment and bend it to suit what is a local requirement of engagement, than to borrow it as it is, and then make our own ordained social order bend to its foreign requirements by sourcing for Fatwas out of our inherited ethical framework to achieve that.
Kannywood industry has been doing fairly well over the years. The government of Kano State, its host, has done better over the years by inaugurating a censorship board that oversees its activities and ensures compatibility of its output to the supreme but unwritten cultural constitution of these societies and the legal constitution of the land. To this end we have seen how a whole drama series spanning years could be run, keeping the interest of its national international audience nonstop, without men and women making body contact in ways that violate our sacred tradition in social engagement. Therefore couching film dialogues in divorce scenes that will not violate our traditional codes can never be harmful in any way and cannot affect the quality of an actor, director, or producer or affect their marketability and prosperity indices going upward in their profession. We also don’t necessarily need the extended hand of a Maliki fringe Fatwa, like that of Ibnal Qasim to execute this function satisfactorily.
Allah Ya jikan Shaykh Umar Balarabe Ibraheem da sauran magabata; Allah Ya tsare, Ya albarkaci Shaykh Bashir Aliyu Umaru damu baki daya!
