POSITIONS

of

MUSLIM DENOMINATION – GRAND MUFTI’S OFFICE IN THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA

Public discussion on Decision № 17 from January 11, 2018 of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria regarding the draft proposal to the National Assembly for ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the Grand Mufti’s Office of the Muslim Denomination in Bulgaria expresses its position on this significant also for our religion community issue, set out in the international document, prepared in Istanbul and known as the “Istanbul Convention”.

The Decision approves the Convention of the Council of Europe, signed by the Republic of Bulgaria on April 21, 2016 in French and English language.

The reasoning provides establishment of a comprehensive legal framework for the protection of women and female children against violence, but there are no implementing measures in it, and we pay attention to the fact that the Convention is not applicable in its current form in our legal system due to a number of undefined terms.

The Convention has been signed by 44 states – 28 EU Member States, and 17 of them have ratified it so far. The case is a topical for Bulgaria. There are 1 million registered cases for domestic violence against females. The discussion for the fate of the Convention divided the Bulgarian society. The religious denominations, the defenders of the human rights, the young generation, who worries if they will have grandchildren, lawyers, scientists, etc. together opposed the approved by the Council of Europe law.

A possible ratification of the “Istanbul convention” provides non-admission of changes of constitutional or legislative character. However it is known that if this convention is approved as an international treaty it will have primacy and priority over the national legislation of Bulgaria.

Its ratification foresees amendments in the family Code, Law on Protection Against Discrimination, Law on the Ministry of Interior, the Law on Youth, Law on the Legal Aid, etc., also adoption of acts against the domestic violence towards women, regulation of additional measures for protection of victims who suffered physical or psychological violence during the commission of the crime.

Our position on the Istanbul Convention is based above all on the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms”, on the recommendations of the Committee of the EU Ministers to the EU Member States for protection of women against violence; the Recommendation on gender equality standards and mechanisms; as well as the Reccomendation on the role of women and men in conflict prevention and resolution and in peace building; and last but not least the UN documents regarding the violence against women, children rights and the rights of people with disabilities, adopted and ratified by the Bulgarian Parliament. All of them condemn the violence against women, domestic violence, but for years they have not been implemented in Bulgaria in their entirety. All of this led to division in our society on various grounds, including on gender inequality in the social, labor and family life.

Family peace and tolerance, mutual respect between people of different gender and age are defined in our moral code. Following the example of the life and the work of our Prophet (pbuh).

The Holy Qur’an defines the woman as “mother, daughter and wife”, her legal position in the family and in the society is defined in 12 chapters and in a number of verses. They all are enshrined in our traditions and in our family relationships.

The moral norms enshrined in the holy book prohibit violence in family, against mother, wife and male and female children. Rude behavior towards female gender is not allowed. In a very clear way are defined the rights and the obligations of the pregnant women, infants, mothers, during divorce, after divorce; abortion; property and succession rights; domestic violence; physical and psychological violence against females; in case of marriage or divorce in front of witnesses; functions of women as a wife and as a mother; her material security as a wife and a mother, etc., and also the issues about her spiritual role in family and society. These legal canons and moral norms were in force and were officially implemented by the Islamic courts of the Kingdom of Bulgaria till 1934. During the last 80 years they remained dominant in Muslim families in the mixed regions of Bulgaria. And today they define and guarantee our physical and spiritual reproduction.

In Article 3 of the Convention “Woman” is a main term. It also includes girls under the age of 18. “Victim” of violence is any natural person of female gender. Gender-based violence against women” means violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman.

The Convention defines the “domestic violence” as all acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occur within the family or domestic unit or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.

The Islamic law provides three steps of solving family conflicts related to women. The first step is admonishment. The second step is “husband and wife sleeping in different beds”. The third step is religious arbitrage.

The forth chapter of the holy book is entitled “Women” and is entirely dedicated to the rights and obligations of the believing women. The value system of the woman takes a central place in the Qur’an. To the legal situation of the woman professing Islam, to her determining position in the family are dedicated encyclopedias of many volumes. She is freed from her slavery situation in family and society, in which they were before Islam. Islamic law provides equal and very responsible place of the woman in the family and her husband loses even his right to inherit entirely his wife.

Chapter 6/139 curses own children abuses.

Chapter 43/17 blesses gender equality.

Chapter 65/6 is entitles “Divorce”. There are defined in details the conditions for divorce and the consequences deriving from it. Everyone who does not abuse women after divorce and help women in trouble is blessed.

Violence against women has never been welcomed by the Bulgarian Muslims. They remain faithful to the following legacy of the Prophet Muhammad “Be kind with women!” “Marry!”, “And give good advices to your wives!”

The Muslim woman is honored and respected in the family environment. She is beloved wife and mother. Unlike her situation in many countries with civil society, that ratified the Istanbul Convention, the families of the Bulgarian Muslims are ruled by the husbands. Mysterious are the traditions in our family relationships. During the years of socialism and during theTransitional period these relationships did not changed significantly. Because during the second half of the last century a large part of the male half of our Muslim families were displaced in different villages and cities in the country.

The Istanbul convention is not a privilege to the Bulgarian Muslims. It involves risks to their identity where under the form of preventing violence against women it targets the sustainability of our families.

The questionnaires on the topic show that violence against women and as a whole against female sex in the family or elsewhere, are an act of those who had went astray of the Islamic culture, morals and family traditions, drinkers of alcohol, taking drugs, dealing with prostitution, etc. The “eradication” of violence against women which is in the basis of the Istanbul convention is not our natural problem, responding to our topical needs.

The insufficient religious education in the Bulgarian schools and neglecting it is in the essence of the scandal in the society caused by the danger that the adoption of the convention will erase the gender, moral, ethnic, national and religious identity of the citizens, and decisive place in the gender relations will take the “social” person.

Art. 3 of the Convention determines the biological sex and the new for us phenomenon “Gender”. It is one of the many new terms that have recently entered the Bulgarian language during the last 30 years. An English word from the American vocabulary. According to the first explanation “Gender” is a woman of “social gender”, of “third gender”. In this sense the foreign word does not have meaning in the Bulgarian life and literature.

The clarification on the case came from the scientific circles. “Gender” was the name of the ritual for circumcision of the female genitals in Yemen.

According to our religion the “third gender”, “gay society”, “gay marriages”, and also “Munchausen Syndrome” and especially “Gender” thematic are dangerous bottomless traps, hidden behind the Istanbul Convention. Such a phenomenon is a great drama for Bulgaria which anyway is experiencing severe demographic crisis, the reasons for which should not be searched only in violence against women.

In our society we have still not healed the deep spiritual wounds of totalitarianism.

Fascism and communism from our recent past gave up and crashed, because they infringed our religious values and foundations.

A defender of the family morals and values, that excludes violence against women in the Muslim family is the belief in Allah and the resulting from it law, moral and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

In this respect let us remain faithful to the command of the Almighty Who sais: “Do not harm women!”.