Marriage in Sharī‘a and Ḥaqīqa: Mystical Marriage in the Thought of Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ṭāhā

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the twentieth-century Sudanese reformist Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ṭāhā (1909–1985), examining his views on marriage in the Ṣūfı̄ expressions of sharı̄‘a (Islamic law) and ḥaqı̄qa (Truth/Reality). He argued that the present laws shaped by the Medinan revelation in the Qur’ān have not granted women equal rights in the institution of marriage. A devout Ṣūfı̄, Ṭāhā envisaged that women’s advancement depended on redefining marriage laws build on the strength of the original qur’ānic texts founded on the principles of the revealed message in Mecca, which guarantee gender equality. He used the Ṣūfı̄ themes as a vehicle to enhance equality, dignity, individual’s freedom, and spiritual development within a peaceful marriage relationship between husband and wife. The chapter thus discusses a shift in the content of Ṭāhā’s attentiveness from sharı̄‘a marriage to a deeper concern with Ṣūfı̄ term of ḥaqı̄qa that has not received adequate attention in the past.