Polygamy

Audio transcript:

>>STEVE ST. GEORGE: Hello. I'm Steve St. George. And this is your crash course in Islam. Today we tackle polygamy. You've seen it in movies or read about it in books about a caliph or prince surveying his haram full of beautiful wives and concubines. Or maybe you've read news reports about men in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia taking more than one wife. However you've come to it you may have an idea that polygamy is considered OK in the Muslim world. But you'd only be partly right. The Quran does allow a man to have more than one wife, up to four if he can support them. The prophet Mohammed himself had multiple wives, many of whom are widows of the conflicts between Mecca and Medina or in some other way social outcasts. However that doesn't mean all modern Muslim nations treat polygamy the same way. Just as there is a diversity of individuals identifying as Muslim, so too is there a diversity of opinions on whether polygamy is really good Muslim practice. In more secular countries such as Tunisia and Turkey, polygamy is illegal while in religious nations it is practiced more widely. The president of Sudan actually encourages polygamy. In Malaysia it is also allowed but very tightly regulated. The one constant in all of this however is that women are not allowed to marry more than one man.

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