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men are killed. leaving widows and orphans to be supported.
is Spencer
suggested in his book. "The Fundamentals of Sociology"t if each of the
men who survive the war have only one wife. then there will be a lot
of women without husbands. The result of that will be a considerable
drop in the number of children born which might lead to a considerable
imbalance between the rate of birth and that of death. This will
weaken the nation. Accordingly, if such a nation is to retain its
power, then there will be a need for polygamy in order to make use of
all the women available to that nation in terms of getting them to
give birth to children. " And, Sayd Qutb also believed that
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polygamy then, is a necessary legislation to face the odd situations
that result from the imbalance between the number of men and women
(in the society). However, it cannot be practised in the normal
circumstances when the number of men is equal to that of the women,
in such a case there will be no spare female without a husband .
An example to such a case is, at the beginning of Islam when Islamic
of 2
society was at the stage of establishing itself, there was an urgent
need for polygamy. This was due to the fact that there was a lot
of battles and wars that Muslims had to fight. As a result of such
wars. a lot of Muslim men were killed, leaving behind a lot of
widows and orphans children who were in need of men to look
after and provide for them., For instance, in the battle of Uhud.
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70 men out of 700 Muslims were slain.
3
2. In normal circumstances. when there were no warso the number of
1ý Iý
women might still be much more than the number of men. What would
happen if the number of women for example, is twice or three times the
1. Al-Darrawi, Muhammad, al-Zairaj al-Isfam-i, AmZm al-Tabedjyva'
- -,
Ial; mic Marri; ge before the Challenges). p. 123
2. Ibid.
3. Siddiqi, op. cit.. Pe 116
tq(The
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