The debate over marriage age in Yemen: Why were those who demanded an age limit declared 'apostates'?

Aydın Tonga

Debates over the age of marriage in the Islamic religion have always remained current from the past to the present. At the root of these debates, there is undoubtedly the established minimum age limit. According to traditional jurisprudence (fiqh), girls can be married from the age of 9 and boys from the age of 12. On the other hand, this situation has not remained confined to books of jurisprudence; for centuries, it has found a field of application in many "Islamic countries."

For example, in the "1917 Law of Family Decree," which was the Ottoman Empire's first official and unified family law regulation and is described by some as a "progressive" decree, the age limit was set at 17 for girls and 18 for boys, yet it was set at 9 for girls and 12 for boys under certain conditions.

So, has anyone ever raised the flag of rebellion for an age limit or declared those who demanded an age limit to be apostates? Let us answer directly: Yes.

The details of the incident are as follows:

In 2009, a bill was prepared in Yemen to prevent girls from being married at an early age due to poverty and tribal traditions, which stipulated that the minimum age for marriage should be at least 17. This is where the rebellion comes into play. On March 21, 2010, some clerics in Yemen issued a fatwa against setting a minimum age requirement for marriage. In this religious ruling, signed by clerics including Abd al-Majid al-Zindani, one of the most influential religious figures of the time, those who advocated for the banning of child marriages were declared "apostates" (murtad). The following lines of the fatwa explicitly state: "Those who advocate for this law are in the position of apostates!" In other words, they have left the religion. Therefore, the punishment they face religiously is death!

The fatwa was published in writing following a large-scale religious meeting in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, on March 21, 2010. Subsequently, it entered a wide circulation network through mosque networks, local media, and tribal councils. Afterward, thousands of men who supported child marriage took to the streets and stood behind the declaration.

In fact, the prepared law had a background. According to this, in 2008, a 10-year-old girl named Nujood Ali managed to escape from an adult man she was forced to marry by her father and successfully obtained a divorce by applying to the court, a situation that caused a great stir all over the world. Subsequently, this law raising the marriage age to 17 was prepared and adopted. However, for the law to come into effect, the President had to sign it. This is where the breaking point begins. Because after the fatwa was prepared, radical members in parliament sent the law back to the Parliament's Sharia Committee for re-examination. The terrifying part is that some of the scholars sitting on this committee were the very people who prepared and signed this "apostate" fatwa in March 2010. Ultimately, the law was withdrawn and shelved.

The consequences of this situation, which is a tragedy in the true sense of the word, are of course unbearable. Three years after this event, in the Meedi district of Hajjah province in northwestern Yemen, an 8-year-old girl named Rawan was married to a 40-year-old man. And unfortunately, the child lost her life on her wedding night due to internal bleeding.

According to the latest data released by UNICEF, the prevalence of child marriage in Yemen is around 30%. The organization reports that there are approximately 3.8 million girls and women in the country who were married before the age of 18.

Today, there is no minimum age limit determined by law for marriage in Yemen.