Recent incidents of Arab nationals vanishing after marrying poor, underage Muslim girls in Kozhikode district have brought back the spectre of ‘Arabi Kalyanams’. VR Jayaraj tells us how such ‘weddings’ have returned to haunt poor Muslim families in Kerala

It was history revisiting Kozhikode, a historical city on the Malabar coast, on June 13 when Jasem Mohammad Abdalkarim Abdullah Al-Mohammad (27), a UAE national, married a 17-year-old Muslim girl hailing from a poor family in Manjeri in Kerala’s Muslim-majority Malappuram district. he give her 48 gm of gold and some money as mahar (bride money) at a Yateem Khana (orphanage) in the city where she was an inmate since she was five.

The event marked the resurfacing of Arabi Kalyanam (Arabian marriage), the infamous practice of Arabs visiting Malabar, particularly Kozhikode, for trade and other purposes marrying local Muslim girls purely for the purpose of fulfillment of lust for flesh during their stay and returning to Arabia after some time, presenting the girls with some money, promise to come back some day and in most cases, their children. Jasem Mohammad, said to be an official with the UAE defence force who came to Kozhikode on a tourist visa, followed the same route as that of his touring predecessors by using the minor girl for satisfying his bodily needs (abused and raped, according to the girl) at various places in Kerala. On June 30, he flew back to the UAE after giving her some money (but there were no reports of a promise to come back).

Three days after Eid-ul-Fitr (August 9), the girl was informed by Jasem Mohammad that he had divorced her with mutalaq, the illogical act of uttering talaq three times, an irrational and unilateral custom non-existent or invalid even in the most conservative Muslim societies in shariah-based Islamic nations. “Even in this age, it is easy for the smart men in the Muslim society of Malabar to marry and divorce without respecting the concerns and opinions of the girls or their relatives. In some sectors of our community, the sun is yet to rise,” says author-journalist Shanavas. “It is simple exploitation and in this case, it was plain flesh trade. He spent some money, hired a tender girl, exploited her and went back... just like any other flesh-seeking tourist. Indeed he is a criminal but I am irked more by all those here who made his adventure worth the money he spent. So many community authorities were responsible for that,” he adds.

Arabi Kalyanams have their roots in the times when Valiyangadi (big bazaar) in Kozhikode was famous for trade in the mesmerising cinnamon of northern Malabar and other spices and the industry of construction of urus (dhows) built of wood at the shipyard at Beypore port, some 12 km south of the city, was buzzing with activity. Those were the times when ordinary Muslims of Malabar lived in abject penury, total illiteracy and under the absolute control of mullahs, mukris and feudalists for whom Arabs were princes who bathed in aromatic waters caught in golden tubs, clad in the best silks available on the earth and travelled on immaculately white stallions. So the Arabs came here leaving their legal spouses back in Arabia, ordered their ships to be built or their consignments to be acquired and waited. Sometimes it took three months and sometimes a year for their ships to be ready or their packages to be prepared and that was an interlude to spend which they wanted pleasure games.

“That is how Arabi Kalyanams began,” says young Samad, a researcher in Kerala’s Muslim history. “If Muslim girls of 16 and 17 are available for marriage even now, it would not have been difficult for the ‘princes from Arabia” to get girls of that age or even below that during those times,” he points out. So the Arabs, forget their age, married young girls of Malabar by giving them “unimaginable” amounts as mahar and used their bodies as they liked till the construction of the uru was over or the consignment was ready for shipment. Then they left the shore waving the last goodbye after promising to return some day. A few, bitten by the bug of romance the girls could create in them during the honeymoon or because of business necessities, did come back but in most cases the brides were relegated to oblivion, gave birth to kid(s), and went back into their penury. Though confirmation of talaq was necessary for a re-marriage, some indeed got married again with or without that. “Calling it Arabi Kalyanam, in a sense, is some sort of glorification. It is flesh trade, pure and simple,” Samad says.

However, the number of Arabi Kalyanams began to come down towards the end of the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the efforts of leaders of the renaissance in the community which had to happen as a historical necessity at a time when everything in Kerala society was undergoing a positive evolution in the context of the pre-Independence social revolution. “However, Arabi Kalyanams have been happening all the while in Kozhikode and other areas. The numbers have come down, indeed, and another difference is that if there was no need to be shy about such events in those times, now people go about it rather discreetly for various reasons. What happened recently at Kozhikode could be just the tip of an iceberg in that sense,” admits an office-bearer of a prominent Muslim organisation that justifies the recent Arabi Kalyanam.

It has already been proved that “marriage” between UAE national Jasem Mohammad, son of an Arab and a Malayalee Muslim woman from Kozhikode, herself the victim of an Arabi Kalyanam of yesteryears, and the poor Manjeri girl of the orphanage did not take place as an innocent or ordinary matter between them. It is now obvious that there had been agents who ensured that the Arab could choose his bride just like one buys something from a shop from among the many inmates of the orphanage who were paraded before him by its authorities. The Arab’s mother had played a crucial role as she still defends the marriage, saying her son is not a total Arab, that he knows Malayalam and that he used to visit her once in six months and that the girl and her family had given full consent. The so-called Muslim scholars have already come out saying that this could not be called an Arabi Kalyanam but it was a legal marriage between a grown up man and mature woman despite the fact that she is yet to attain the legal marriageable age of 18.

That is not all. It was the Markaz’u’dava, the headquarters of the Kerala Nadvathul Mujahiddin (KNM), a Muslims outfit which claims to be fighting against the inhuman customs in the community and un-Quranic practices, that had issued a document of marriage for the Arabi Kalyanam and interestingly, it had not mentioned the fact the groom was an Arab but had included some misleading information by identifying his residence as the address of his mother. The orphanage authorities are now arguing that the marriage was legal as it was based on a circular issued by the Kerala Government’s local Administration Department in June asking civic body secretaries to register marriages of all Muslim girls over 16 years of age in total violation of the Child Marriage Prohibition Act. local Administration Minister MK Muneer of the Muslim league, second largest constituent of the Congress-led ruling UDF, has not yet seriously responded to protests over the circular which was later modified or to those against the recent Arabi Kalyanam.

“It was a perfectly arranged Arabi Kalyanam but for a simple mistake Jasem and his associates committed: They did not consider the fact that the girl was educated, had passed her Plus II with brilliant marks, had a free mind and was determined to pursue her studies. She was a wrong choice for them,” said Rihana, an IT professional hailing from Kozhikode. It was the girl herself who blew the whistle, approached the Child Welfare Committee and insisted that the police take immediate and stringent action. Four persons have already been arrested. When mullahs and mukris still insist that the marriage was legal as per Muslim laws, the girl is persisting in her argument that it was nothing but sexual abuse. According to scholars from the community like linguist MN Karassery, men of Arabi Kalyanams used to target beautiful girls from poor families. “The only consideration is money and nobody thinks about the life into which the girl is being pushed into. It’s a men’s world where they decide everything. And the women of the family have no role in that except to present themselves in the clothes they are given,” fumes Rihana.

Arabi Kalyanams are not the only brutality the poor Muslim girls of Malabar are pushed into by the all-male community leadership and families. Rough estimates suggest that more than 10,000 poor girls from Malabar, especially the Nilambur area of Malappuram district, have so far been thrown into the slush and slime of slum life in the suburbs of Mysore and other cities in Karnataka through marriages to men from there, whose antecedents and backgrounds are totally unknown to the girls, their families or even the mosque committees that consummate such marriages. These marriages are called Mysore Kalyanams. According to socio-political activists like Aryadan Shoukath, who even produced a magnificent movie, Padam Onnu: Oru Vilapam (lesson One: A Cry) to depict the brutalities and trauma through which a poor Muslim girl subjected to such practice would go through, Mysore Kalyanams are a byproduct of the sudden-found affluence among Muslims facilitated by remittances from the Gulf which caused the size of dowry to skyrocket to levels unimaginable to families with no Gulf background.

Nabeel, a resident of Nilambur who frequents Mysore for business purposes, says that hundreds of poor girls married in this way to men from there are forced to work in brothels or open brothels inside their own or rented shacks in the unhygienic backyards of the city. “It is a big trap. Brokers, local men and often relatives of the family approach the parents with this proposal from some Mysore man who would not demand huge amounts as dowry. The proposal may not be tempting in any manner. But there is no option before the parents as they have to marry the girl off somehow and the gravity of this urgency increases if there are other girls in the family. It is a journey of no return. Once the girl is married off, she is gone from home forever. It’s simply brutal,” Nabeel says.

like in the case of Arabi Kalyanams, Mysore Kalyanams also happen with the connivance and blessings of people in various levels. Residents of Nilambur say that the normal commission the brokers receive for arranging such marriages is 30 per cent of the dowry amount. Even the broker knows nothing about the men who come to marry the poor girls and enquiries by social activists have proved that many of them are pickpockets, robbers and pimps. “Once fallen into this trap, the girl has no option but to come to terms with the reality that there is nothing left for her in life except carry on with whatever that hell provides. She knows that she could not return to her parents. She has nowhere to go. After throwing these innocent girls into these hell-holes, our religious leaders and Muslim-based political parties boast of the good works they are doing for the poor of the community. They are nothing but parasites shamelessly feeding on the bones of these poor,” Nabeel protests.