Johannesburg – Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe congratulated over a hundred imams who were accredited as marriage officers in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Their accreditation in terms of the 1961 Marriage Act would enable Muslim marriages to be legally recognised for the first time officially, Motlanthe said in a speech prepared for delivery.

Previously, Muslim couples needed to have civil unions to convert their traditional marriages to legally recognised unions.

“As a result of the imams being designated as Marriage Officers… the registration of Muslim unions will accord Muslim marriages legal status and with that, the protective instruments of the secular state may be accessed to ensure that these Qur’anic values are realised and complied with, within the Constitutional state.”

This would help to conquer the exclusion historically experienced by the Muslim community.

In order to qualify as marriage officers, the imams had to sit a two-hour examination and achieve a mark of at least 70%.

SAPA