"Whenever attention is drawn to the absolute and inhuman power that the Shariah gives to the husband to throw his wife out, to terrorize her into submission, the apologists say, ‘That is just a smear. Allah and the Prophet have declared repeatedly that of all things, talaq is the worst.’ They have indeed. ... That is all very well. But, having recounted such declarations, the apologists never explain how that which is the most detestable thing has been made so easy for the husband! For, while in theory talaq is said to be so abominable to Allah, in practice the position is entirely the opposite. The jurists repeat the counsel that divorce is something from which one should abstain. But this is just counsel. As to the power, they are unanimous: it is a power which lies with the husband, and it is untrammelled. Should the husband choose to exercise it, no one, and no consideration can save the wife. The counsel itself has the caveat invariably built into it, a caveat large enough to drive an elephant through it: you should not give talaq, the jurists say adding, except when there is need for it! In the typical instance, we read in Durr-ul-Mukhtar, one of the great works of Sunni jurisprudence, ‘And giving of divorce is permissible, according to all (the jurists) because the verses (of the Quran) are unconditional (in this respect). And it has been said by Kamal, that the most correct view is that one should abstain from it, except when there is need for it, for example, in cases of suspicion (about the character of the wife) and old age (of the wife)...’ and so on, each clause permitting that which the previous one had counselled against. In theory talaq may be abominable but in practice the husband has the power—the absolute, unconditional power, a power for exercising which he is not accountable to anyone on earth—to throw the wife out by just uttering the word ‘talaq’... The fatwas enforce these rules with the utmost rigour. They enforce two rules in addition: the rule that, faced with such a pronouncement, the wife has no recourse at all, there is no one, no authority which can intervene to save her as wife; and the rule that once she is thrown out she is entitled to no maintenance at all, save the minimum sustenance during three menstruations, that is she is entitled to nothing at all after three months are over."