A seminary in Deoband, having a huge following in the subcontinent, has decreed that Muslims cannot marry over the Internet.

The decree comes a few days after a Maharashtrian Muslim's decision to divorce his wife over the phone by saying 'talaq' thrice.

Scholars from different schools of thought are debating on the validity of this talaq.

The decree, issued last week by the Darul Uloom Deoband, about 130km from Lucknow, says that Muslims cannot conduct nikah over the Internet.

A nikah requires a man to accept a woman in marriage in front of two witnesses. It requires a public gathering so that it is not a secret affair, say religious scholars.

Contrary to the general practice, a nikah does not require the presence of any religious head or the pronouncement of any Quranic verses.

The decree came in response to a question asked by a man in Pakistan.

Mohammad Zahirullah Haqqani, of a seminary called Darul Uloom Haqqaniya of Naushera town in Pakistan, had sent a query to Deoband. He sited an example of a Muslim man in the US who married a woman in Pakistan over the Internet. The two saw each other through a web camera and spoke to each other by voice mail. They then got married over the Internet.

Haqqani asked Deoband scholars if the nikah was valid.

At the department of fatwa in Deoband, the committee comprising Maulana Mahmood Hassan, Maulana Zafiruddin and Maulana Habibur Rehman pronounced the nikah invalid.

The committee said that it was necessary to perform nikah in a public gathering.

The committee, however, ruled that if the groom, who is in the US, appoints someone in Pakistan to accept the bride in nikah on his behalf, then the marriage could be valid. The appointed man would have to identify the groom on the Internet. The identification should be done in public.

The decree also said it was not necessary for the bride and the groom to see each other, be it through the Internet or any other medium.

Islamic scholars Shafi Monis, vice-president of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and Abdul Hameed Nomani, spokesman of the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, agree.

According to them, in the past nikahs have taken place without the presence of the bride and groom.

Marriages have taken place over the phone. But here, too, the groom had to appoint a man at the bride's place.

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Nomani says it is possible fake identities over the Internet. "A groom may bring some other person online in his place and fake his own identity. Also, there are technologies available through which one can change his or her face on Internet. Therefore, there should be someone to identify the two and give witness in public," he says.

"A similar process has been used in nikah done over telephone. There were cases of people changing their voice. So the witness is important."

But Muazzam Ahmed, a cleric with the historic Fatehpuri mosque in old Delhi, begs to differ. Ahmed, who subscribes to Bareilwi school of thought, thinks nikah over the Internet should be valid.

He says: "In Islam, marriage is a contract between two people. It has nothing to do with public gathering. Public gathering is important but not necessary. Public gathering is done just to avoid any misunderstanding in future. It is just a safeguard so that someone does not deny about his or her marriage in future."