Nurmila, N. (2025). The Global Ikhwan Women’s Experiences in Polygamous Marriages in Malaysia: Polygamy as Means to Be Closer to God. In: Othman, N., Nadarajah, Y., Mohd Isa, R. (eds) Polygamous Marriages in Peninsular Malaysia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9104-0_12 

 

 

Abstract

As one of the ways to recruit more membership for Global Ikhwan and to counterbalance the negative image of polygamy, Global Ikhwan launched the Polygamy Club on 15 August 2009. This chapter will elaborate the Global Ikhwan women’s experiences of living in polygamous marriages. Based on my interview with 14 Global Ikhwan members consisting of 3 polygamous husbands, seven first wives and four second wives, this chapter shows that all polygamous marriages among Global Ikhwan members were arranged by their leader, Buya Ashaari. All of the research participants have communal life arrangements, in which each member contribute economically to the jama`ah (the community of the Global Ikhwan) and in return, their basic needs are fulfilled by the Global Ikhwan.None of the wives receive maintenance from their husband, reducing economic conflict among the wives. However,this does not mean that the wives have no problem in their polygamous marriages. They must suppress their feeling of jealousy and in doing so, they were trained by their leaders to overcome this feeling by trying to be closer to God, “cleaning” their “selfishness” to have their husband for only herself.