All You Need To Know About The Practice Of Nikah Halala Shown In Shivaji Patil’s Halal

Shivaji Loton Patil’s film Halal is based on the practice of Nikhah Halala, followed by among Sunni Muslims. It involves a female divorcee marrying another man and sleeping with him, to get together with her previous husband. The film features  Chinmay Mandlekar, Priyadarshan Jadhav and Neha Dakhinkar in lead roles and will release on ZEE5 soon. Before you watch the film, here’s a little something you should know about Nikah Halala.

Watch the film here.

Nikah in Urdu means marriage and Halala means to turn something unlawful to lawful. A marriage done by Halala makes the divorced woman lawful to her husband again. The woman who is divorced through the triple talaq practice cannot marry her previous husband unless she goes through the Halala practice. 

In this law, the woman becomes ‘haram’ (unlawful) after triple talaq and can become Halal only after she marries another man and sleeps with him. Only if the man either dies or willingly divorces the woman after sexual intercourse, can she go back to her previous husband. But if he dies before consummating their marriage or doesn’t divorce her, she can’t undergo the practice of Nikah Halala. Islam allows a man to divorce a woman and remarry her twice. The third time, he can get her back through the Halala practice.

This rule was set so that the man refrains from torturing his wife by marrying and remarrying her how many ever times he desires. It is said that the Prophet himself established this law to end the barbaric pre-Islamic practice of men remarrying women several times for their pleasure.

The Nikah Halala practice has been abused several times, especially in India. In 2016, an Indian Muslim woman claimed that her husband’s friend had raped her, and was calling it a part of the ‘Nikah Halala.’ The husband had lost his wife in a game of gambling and to win her back, had asked his friend to sleep with her.

Several petitions have been filed against this practice in the Supreme Court. In 2018, a Muslim woman suffered from an acid attack, for petitioning against the practice. A law still has to be passed by the government on criminalising Nikah Halala.

Watch Ishq Subhan Allah on ZEE5, a show that explains as well as critiques certain regressive Muslim laws.