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Egyptian rights advocates welcome fatwa forbidding short-term marriages

Women's rights campaigners are hoping a recent fatwa forbidding tahleel marriages will pave the way for a law criminalizing the archaic practice.
Mannequins display wedding gowns designed by the al-Ashi family at their atelier in Gaza City on June 3, 2013.

Dar Al Iftaa has issued a fatwa forbidding so-called tahleel marriages, or short-term, intermediate marriages in which a man marries a divorced woman for the sole purpose of making it religiously permissible for her to remarry her first husband.

The latest fatwa published on Dar Al Iftaa's official Twitter account condemns such marriages as "sinful," or haram. The fatwa was welcomed by social media activists and women's rights campaigners, the latter of who have long called for an end to the archaic practice that discriminates against women. They are hoping the religious ban on the practice paves the way for legislation criminalizing such marriages in Egypt.    

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