Transgenders Can Now Get Married In Pakistan Under Islamic Law

A dispute between men and few transgender activists led to the fatal death of Alesha who was shot eight times on her chest earlier this year in Pakistan. What killed her were not the gun wounds, but the denial of receiving medical treatment as she lay in the hospital. The same soil that housed her blood is now the home of a new fatwa that gives the right to marriage and non-discrimination to the transgender population living in Pakistan as of this week.

Fifty prestigious clerics got together to issue this fatwa declaring that transgender persons have the right to marriage, inheritance and funeral rights according to the Islamic law. “The hijras are human beings and they have rights given by Islam. Through this fatwa, we want to inform the public that they can marry,” said Muhammad Zia ul Haq Naqshbandi, the leader of the clerics.

However, the fatwa still defines the specificity of marriage in its traditional language. Since gay marriage still remains punishable upto life imprisonment, its states, “It is permissible for a transgender person with male indications on his body to marry a transgender person with female indications on her body.”
Giving more dignity to transgender persons in social atmospheres, the fatwa also states that it is ‘sinful’ to discriminate against them in any manner whatsoever. “Making noises at transgender people, making fun of them, teasing them, or thinking of them as inferior is against sharia law, because such an act amounts to objecting to one of Allah’s creations, which is not correct,” the ruling said. Moreover it states that parents who are depriving their transgender sons and daughter of their inheritance, they are “inviting the wrath of God” and thus are punishable under the religious law.
Calling the transgender persons ‘Allah’s creations’ rather unnatural is a cultural milestone of its own for a country like Pakistan. Making them inclusive through the Islamic law will soon hopefully give them a path that will make them more accepting within social and cultural gatherings, which is the need of the hour worldwide. As per the 2009 census, there are between 80,000 to 300,000 transgender persons currently trying to survive in Pakistan amidst the cultural violence they face. Most of them are forced into sex work and prostitution to earn their bread as ‘third gender’ is not officially recognised in the land’s law. But hopefully, this new form of religious recognition will be the resolution that helps in craving a niche for the invisible community.