Diyam Part 1 Complete Hausa Novel

The neat classroom, holding 36 students, was silent; you could hear no movement except the rustling of papers and the very clear voice of the lecturer delivering a lecture to law students at the Blavatnik School within Oxford University. The lesson was about marital laws, and the lecturer was explaining in detail the laws related to marriage. Because the students had come from different countries, the lecturer was taking them one country at a time, reviewing their marital laws so that, at the end, they could come together to compare which ones were better and what changes should be made.

Today, the lecturer had reached the countries of the African continent. She began with Nigeria, the giant of Africa. Calmly, she started reading out to the students the laws that Nigeria has regarding marriage. In the middle of the lesson, they heard a snicker. The lecturer stopped reading, raised her head, and together with the rest of the class looked toward the section where the laughter had come from.

At the extreme end of the classroom, sitting alone like an abandoned island, was a beautiful young lady. At first glance from afar you would think she was pretty, but as you got closer you would realize she was far more beautiful than you imagined; the more you looked at her, the more her beauty revealed itself. Many at the school assumed she was Arab, but Nigerians who saw her recognized that she was one of them—a Fulani girl, a tribe with ties to Arabs. From her expression, you could tell she herself did not realize she had laughed. The silence in the class and the feeling that she was being watched made her quickly lift her head. Her wide eyes met those of the lecturer standing in front of the desk. They stared at each other for a moment, then the lecturer said, “Why did you laugh? Are you finding this funny?” She shook her head, a faint smile at the corner of her cheeks. The lecturer walked back near the podium, stood there looking at her, and asked, “Where are you from?” Still with her head lowered, she said, “Nigeria.” The lecturer said, “What is your opinion about these marital laws in Nigeria? Do you think they are fair, or do you have any corrections?” She stayed silent for a while, then gave a small laugh and shook her head, her face showing that something was troubling her. Suddenly she spoke: “I don’t have corrections, ma’am. Because all those laws you are listing exist only in writing—maybe for the sake of people like you who will look for them for educational purposes—but they are not actually used.” The lecturer looked interested and said, “So, can you tell us the situation of marriage in Nigeria?” Instantly the smile left the girl’s face. She swallowed something in her throat and lowered her head, staring at the writing in front of her. “You have very beautiful handwriting, my sister,” she heard his voice in her ears, as clear as if he had just said it to her.

She lifted her head and said, “In Nigeria, ma’am—northern Nigeria to be precise—marriage is just like a form of legal slavery.” The entire class’s attention shifted to her; even those who had been taking notes turned to look at her. She continued in English with a Nigerian accent: “Of course, before marriage there are the words ‘I love you,’ but most of the time they stop at the lips and don’t reach the heart. Once the marriage happens, the husband may have a feeling similar to that of a master when he buys a slave. Like, since I paid your dowry, it means I own you—you belong to me. He forgets that he and his wife belong to each other. Some men, even before the first year passes, will change and become like total strangers to the wife, as if she has never known him in her life.

“I know that more than 80% of our people in the North are Muslims, and I know that in the Qur’an it says ‘al-rijalu qawwamuna ‘ala an-nisa’—men are guardians over women.’ But then, a little further on, the Almighty says that this guardianship is given to men because they are responsible for providing food, clothing, and shelter. Yet at present, more than half of our men cannot carry the responsibility that God has placed on them. Many women are the ones feeding themselves, clothing themselves, and providing for their children—sometimes even for their husbands. A woman will go out to an office to earn money or go out to buy goods for her business, then come back and cook the food she bought with her own money, sweep and wash, do the laundry for herself, her children, and her husband—the clothes she bought with her own money—help her children with homework from a school whose fees she pays, and then the husband still expects her to bring him bathwater, prepare him, massage him, and meet his needs in their marital bed.”