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Cairo: Despite the support of Egypt's top Muslim authority for marriages between mentally challenged people, the medical community and welfare groups have some reservations.
Egypt's Mufti, Ali Juma'a, said in a recent fatwa there are no restrictions in Islam against mentally challenged people getting married. "Sharia does not oppose such marriages as long as it involves physical or psychological benefits for the disabled," the top Muslim cleric said in his fatwa.
The fatwa last week received the blessing of the Islamic Research Centre, an influential arm of Al Azhar, which is the Sunni Muslim world's oldest institution of learning.
Medical specialists have different views though.
"The medical community cannot rubber-stamp such marriages as a whole," said Dr Adel Ashour, professor of paediatrics and genetics at the National Research Centre. "Each case should be assessed on its own," he told Gulf News.
Dr Ashour cites problems resulting from ill-planned or mismatched marriages of people with special needs. "It happens that a mentally disabled mother cannot properly look after her baby. This means difficulties for the child when he grows up."
He recommends not allowing a mentally disabled couple who suffer from the same degree of handicap to marry.
"The majority of them are likely to produce mentally unhealthy children," he argued.
Dr Ashour wants to urge Egypt's Mufti to issue a fatwa prohibiting mentally challenged people who get married from conceiving children "to head off problems associated with such pregnancies".
Dr Najwa Abdul Majuid, professor of genetics at the same centre, believes that people with special needs have the right to get married, but with strings attached. "Mental disabilities range from the simple to the severe. Marriage should be allowed in the simple cases only," she told Gulf News.
Hereditary
"The type of disability should be identified before marriage in order to know if it is hereditary or due to external factors." Dr Abdul Majuid advises that a disabled couple should get married under the care of their families to protect them from potential dangers.
"Most marriages of mentally ill couples have proven to be unsuccessful," said Sayed Juma, a community rehabilitation consultant at the Egyptian Ministry of Social Security. He thinks such marriages are usually arranged by manipulative guardians. "They want to seize the inheritance of the mentally disabled person," he said recently to the local press.
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