• Home
• /
• Rest of Asia

Minister demands fatwa for rich to marry the poor

"The rich should look for the poor, and the poor should look for the rich," he said.

An Indonesian minister came up with a bizarre solution to fight poverty and demanded making it mandatory for affluent families to marry those from humble background.
Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister, Muhadjir Effendy, urged the Religious Affairs Ministry to demanding a fatwa (religious edict in Islam) over the issue. "The rich should look for the poor, and the poor should look for the rich," Effendy was quoted by CNN Indonesia, Coconuts Jakarta reported.
According to Effendy this will help in elevating the social and economic status of poor families. "Because poor people [marry each other], new poor families are born. This is the problem in Indonesia," Effendy further said.
He added that according to official data, around 5 million of 57 million households in Indonesia are poor while around 15 million families fall under the "near-poverty" category. Effendy said that of the 2.5 million marriages that take place every year, around 10 per cent are destined to become poor families.
Responding to Effendy, the Religious Affairs Deputy Minister, Zainut Tauhid Sa'adi, said the ministry does not have the authority to issue fatwas and that it was against the idea of regulating who people should marry.