Applying Shari ̔a in The West Facts, Fears and The Future of Islamic Rules On Family Relations in The West-MBerger

This volume provides new insights in the concept of shari‘a in the West,
and sets out a framework of how shari‘a in the West can be studied. The
premise of this volume is that one needs to focus on the question ‘What
do Muslims do in terms of shari‘a?’ rather than ‘What is shari‘a?’. This
perspective shows that the practice of shari‘a is restricted to a limited
APPLYING SHARI‘A IN THE WEST
set of rules that mainly relate to religious rituals, family law and social
interaction. The framework of this volume then continues to explore two
more interactions: the Western responses to these practices of shari’a and,
Facts, Fears and the Future of Islamic Rules
in turn, the Muslim legal reaction to these responses. on Family Relations in the West
Edited by Maurits S. Berger
Prof. dr. Maurits S. Berger, LLM is a lawyer and Arabist. He is professor of
Islam in the Contemporary West at Leiden University where he holds the
Sultan of Oman Chair of Oriental Studies, and is a senior research associate
Applying Shari‘a in the West

with the Clingendael Institute for International Relations in The Hague.
9 789087 281700
Applying Shari῾a in the West
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Editors:
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Editorial board:
Maurits Berger
Nico Kaptein
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Nikolaos van Dam
Baudouin Dupret (Rabat)
Marie-Claire Foblets (Leuven)
Amalia Zomeño (Madrid)

Facts, Fears and the Future of Islamic
Rules on Family Relations in the West
Leiden University Press

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Contents
Introduction: Applying Shari῾a in the West 7

Maurits S. Berger
Section i: Country Studies
1 Reasons for the Application of Shari῾a in the West 25

Mathias Rohe
2 America
Islam and the Problems of Liberal Democracy 47
Bryan S. Turner and James T. Richardson
3 Australia
The Down-Under Approach and Reaction to Shari῾a:
An Impasse in Post-Secularism? 65
Jamila Hussain and Adam Possamai
4 United Kingdom
An Early Discussion on Islamic Family Law
in the English Jurisdiction 79
Jørgen S. Nielsen
5 The Netherlands
Applying Shari῾a to Family Law Issues in the Netherlands 97
Susan Rutten
6 Albania and Kosovo

The Return of Islam in South-East Europe: Debating Islam
and Islamic Practices of Family Law in Albania and Kosovo 111
Besnik Sinani

7 Greece
Debate and Challenges 125
Angeliki Ziaka
Section ii: Law Versus Culture
8 Unregistered Islamic Marriages: Anxieties about Sexuality

and Islam in the Netherlands 141
Annelies Moors
9 Understanding and Use of Islamic Family Law Rules

in German Courts: The Example of the Mahr 165
Nadjma Yassari
10 A Language of Hybridity: Honour and Otherness

in Canadian Law and Shari῾a 189
Pascale Fournier and Nathan Reyes
Section iii: The Need for Accommodation
11 Accommodating Islamic Family Law(s): A Critical Analysis

of Some Recent Developments and Experiments in Europe 207
Marie-Claire Foblets
12 Religion, Gender, and Family Law: Critical Perspectives on

Integration for European Muslims 227
Zainab Alwani and Celene Ayat Lizzio
13 Reflections on the Development of the Discourse of Fiqh

for Minorities and Some of the Challenges It Faces 241
Abdullah Saeed
Bibliography 257
About The Authors 281
Index 285

Introduction
Maurits S. Berger
How can we make sense of the new phenomenon of shari῾a in the

West? In 2003, a respectable institution such as the European Court
of Human Rights ruled that ‘sharia clearly diverges from [the Euro-
pean] Convention [of Human Rights] values’.1 But equally respect-
able authorities, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord
Chief Justice of England and Wales, argued in 2008 that shari῾a does
not necessarily have to contradict Western legal and political values.2
Clearly, the presence of shari῾a in Western societies is of increasing
concern among Europeans, North Americans and Australians. Crucial
questions remain unanswered, however: what is shari῾a, especially in
a Western context, and what are these Western values it is diverging
from, and why is that so? Is shari῾a indeed applied in the West, and by
whom? And if so, is shari῾a a static notion or does it adapt to Western
values or structures?
A body of literature on the issue of shari῾a in the West is gradu-
ally emerging, focusing primarily on the ways private international
law deals with shari῾a and on the compatibility (or lack of compati-
bility) between shari῾a and Western legal concepts.3 This volume will
contribute to this academic discussion by taking the practice of shari῾a
by Muslims in the Western legal context as the basis for analysis. Two
assumptions underlie this approach. First, it is futile to study shari῾a in
the West as an autonomous and holistic notion, because this overlooks
the realities of its practice on the ground. The fact is that while shari῾a
as a concept of divine rules has developed over centuries of scholarship
into an autonomous ‘Islamic’ legal system, the practice of this system
has become fragmented in the Western context, and perhaps even dis-
torted, because it has had to accommodate the dominant Western legal
system. Second, we can only understand the interaction between these
two legal systems if the notion of a Western ‘legal system’ is seen in the
much wider context of the social, political and cultural values upheld
by Western societies. These values, together with preconceived Western
notions of shari῾a (the ‘fears’ mentioned in the subtitle of this volume)
have an impact on the practice of shari῾a.

8 applying shari ῾a in the west
Based on these premises, the discussion in this volume is divided

into three sections. The first section contains descriptions and analy-
ses of, on the one hand, the practice of shari῾a and in particular that of
Islamic family law within the legal frameworks of a selection of Western
countries; and, on the other hand, national responses to these particular
forms of shari῾a. In the second section, a number of thematic issues that
recur in the country studies will be addressed. The third section con-
tains contributions on the need and modalities for adaptation by either
Western or Muslim legal systems, so as to accommodate each other.
Before we discuss these sections in more detail, however, we must
first address a fundamental question: what do we mean by shari῾a?
What do Western Muslims Mean by Shari῾a?
Rather than defining shari῾a as a legal discipline of Islam,4 or as a set

of practices and laws applied in foreign countries,5 our interest is pri-
marily in what Muslims in the West mean and want in terms of rules
prescribed by Islam. This starting point warrants two remarks. First, it
explains why we prefer to use the term ‘shari῾a’, not ‘Islamic law’, in this
volume: while the latter is confined to the domain of ‘law’ in the legal
sense, which concerns certain relationships between people or between
people and the state, ‘shari῾a’ denotes the much wider domain of rules
pertaining to all relationships between people (including those of a so-
cial and moral nature), as well as the rules governing the relationship
between man and God (such as prayer, burial, slaughter, and so forth).
As we will see below, only by taking this wider perspective on ‘shari῾a’
can we obtain a clear view of what Muslims in the West do and want in
terms of religious rules.
The second remark concerns the approach taken to assessing the
nature and scope of shari῾a in the West. By posing the question, ‘What
do Muslims do in terms of shari῾a?’ rather than ‘What is shari῾a?’, we
adopt a legal-anthropological approach that takes Muslims as its refer-
ence point, rather than an abstract notion of shari῾a.6 Such an approach
is necessary if we want to develop a proper understanding of shari῾a in
the West. To reflect upon whether shari῾a is a violation of European
Convention principles or might be in compliance with English law
may lead us into an empty academic discussion if the specific rules of
shari῾a that are being discussed are not actually adhered to by Mus-
lims in the West. It is clear that shari῾a punishments are contrary to
Western values, as is the notion of a theocracy, but what is the use of
discussing these legal notions if they deviate from what Muslims in the

introduction 9
West are striving for? We must therefore move away from shari῾a as a
form of theological-legal scholarship, and first determine what rules are
adhered to by, or otherwise relevant for, Muslims in the West.
From this perspective, it is striking that so little is known about what
Muslims in the West mean by shari῾a. To my knowledge, only three
surveys have been conducted among Muslims in European countries,
and one among Muslims worldwide, in which Muslims were asked for
their opinion on ‘shari῾a’. The latter survey was a 2008 Gallup poll rep-
resenting 90 per cent of Muslims worldwide, in which ‘shari῾a’ ranked
highest – together with ‘democracy’, one should add – on the list of
what Muslims wanted.7 Of the other two surveys, one was conducted
in 2004 in the Netherlands, and found that 51 per cent of the Dutch
Muslims interviewed favoured a Muslim political party, and 29.5 per
cent thought that its political programme should be based on shari῾a.8
(The subsequent newspaper headlines that ‘one third of Dutch Mus-
lims favour sharia’ were therefore entirely wrong). A British poll of
2006 found that 40 per cent of British Muslims support shari῾a law
being introduced in pre-dominantly Muslim areas in Britain,9 while a
British study of 2007 found that 28 per cent of British Muslims would
prefer to live under shari῾a law.10 What is of interest to us here is that
none of these surveys defined shari῾a, nor asked their respondents to
do so, therefore leaving us ignorant of what Western Muslims mean by
shari῾a. However, based on what we know from existing studies and
from the following chapters, we can deduce three possible answers to
this question, each leading us in a different direction:
Shari῾a: a virtuous abstraction
The first answer to what Muslims might mean by ‘shari῾a’ in a Western

context is shari῾a as a slogan or an abstraction with a virtuous connota-
tion. Shari῾a stands for ‘the law of God’, or ‘all that Muslims need’, and,
effectively, for everything that is ‘good’ for Muslims. We might compare
the use of this abstraction with that of ‘justice’: it is perceived as virtuous
and necessary, but few people will be able to provide a full definition of
the concept, particularly when it comes to putting it into practice. We
can observe a similar attitude among devout Muslims towards shari῾a:
it is something virtuous and they want it to be applied in their lives,
even though they do not know exactly what shari῾a means in practice.
Although this notion of shari῾a is thus of little use to those who want
to define it as a set of rules, it is precisely this notion that makes shari῾a
such a powerful force in the minds of many Western Muslims. Indeed,
it might explain the high percentages in the abovementioned surveys:

when asked about shari῾a, what devout Muslim would give a negative
response?
Shari῾a: foreign national laws
Muslims living in the West who are also nationals of their country of
origin sometimes have the national family law of this latter country ap-
plied to them as a matter of private international law: a Pakistani couple
in England might be divorced in accordance with Pakistani (Muslim)
family law, a divorce pronounced in Iran in accordance with Iranian
(Muslim) family law might be recognized in Germany, and a polyga-
mous marriage that is legally concluded in Morocco might be recog-
nized (but not enforced) in the Netherlands. While national Western
courts are less and less inclined to apply foreign national laws to resi-
dents with a foreign nationality, these residents continue to navigate
their way through a legal labyrinth for the practical reason that they
often retain strong ties with their countries of origin.
Therefore, the Western Muslims who maintain that Western courts
should apply ‘shari῾a’ or ‘Islamic law’ in their case are in fact referring
to the Islamic nature of their national law, rather than to the complex
system of Islamic scholarly jurisprudence. Strictly speaking, this is not
‘shari῾a’ as described in the vast corpus of Islamic legal jurisprudence,
but national laws that have drawn upon that corpus and modelled the
selected rules into a format – a legal code – that is unknown in shari῾a.
Several of the following chapters will touch upon this particular appli-
cation of shari῾a. However, our interest in this volume is not in shari῾a
as foreign national law being applied in Western courts by virtue of pri-
vate international law. Our focus is on indigenous practices of shari῾a
in the West: what is it that Western Muslims do and want in terms of
shari῾a? And that is the third notion of shari῾a, as we will see below.
Shari῾a: the practices and desires of Western Muslims
Only limited research has been undertaken into manifestations of

shari῾a in the West, and that research which does exist mostly follows
the conventions of the respective academic discipline: social scientists
tend to look at social factors, including radicalization and religious
ritual; lawyers tend to examine family law;11 and Islamic finance has
been the domain of practising lawyers and bankers, rather than schol-
ars.12 The study of fatwas and the ‘fiqh for minorities’ (fiqh al-‘aqalliyat)
might yield novel insights into changing concepts in Islamic jurispru-
dence,13 but research has hitherto failed to indicate the extent to which

introduction 11
these changes are actually embraced by Muslims in the West. The over-
all picture of shari῾a in the West is therefore fragmented in qualita-
tive terms (the interpretation and manifestations of shari῾a) and almost
non-existent in quantitative terms (the actual practice of shari῾a and
how many Muslims adhere to this).
However, based on the research that has been done so far, and as is
confirmed in the following chapters, we may build up a general picture
of shari῾a as practised in the West. Devout Muslims in the West are
indeed committed to living in accordance with shari῾a, but this is lim-
ited to the following domains:
– religious rules, such as those pertaining to prayer, fasting, burial,
and dress code;
– rules relating to family law, in particular those pertaining to mar-
riage and divorce;
– rules relating to financial transactions, in particular the ban on in-
terest or usury;
– social relations, in particular gender relations and relations with the
non-Islamic environment.
Three observations can be made with regard to these four domains of

shari῾a rules. First, this collection of rules appears quite haphazard,
both in scope and in content. From an Islamic legal-theological per-
spective, however, this set of rules has an internal logic, because all of
these rules share a high ranking in the hierarchy of Islamic rules pre-
scribed by classical orthodoxy: they are explicitly mentioned in the
Qur’an, by the Prophet, or by scholarly consensus, and are therefore the
first to be followed by any devout Muslim.
The second observation is that of the abovementioned rules, only
those related to family law and the prohibition of usury or interest can
be considered ‘law’ or ‘legal rules’, according to modern standards. The
other rules pertain to religious rituals or social conduct and, as such,
are mostly outside the scope of legislation in Western countries (except,
for instance, when national burial or slaughter laws seek to accommo-
date religious practices).
Finally, these domains of shari῾a pertain to Muslims’ daily lives,
and appear to have little to do with political views on the need for an
Islamic restructuring of Western societies. Of course, such views do
exist among some radical Muslims, just as there are Muslim extrem-
ists who interpret shari῾a as a call for militant action against alleged
Western injustices. We must emphasize, however, that our goal here is
to gain a general impression of what the majority of devout Muslims in
the West desires and practises in terms of shari῾a.

Shari῾a Practices in a Western Legal Framework
We now come to the next step in our discussion, which is how West-
ern legal systems respond to these shari῾a practices. This is the start-
ing point of this volume. In the first chapter, Mathias Rohe provides
the scope of the discussion by presenting a comprehensive overview
of all the reasons that give rise to a need or obligation to apply rules of
shari῾a. He distinguishes between the ‘external reasons’ produced by
Western legal systems, such as private international law or the English
legal accommodation of Islamic finance, and the ‘internal reasons’ pro-
duced by Muslims themselves, such as a religious, legal or cultural need
to have shari῾a applied. We will see this dual perspective recurring in
the subsequent country studies.
The next six chapters are country studies that give an impression of
the scope and modalities of the religious legal needs of Muslims in the
West, and Western legal possibilities and responses to these needs. The
six studies demonstrate that we may, for a variety of reasons, divide
what we have so far called ‘the West’ in three regions, namely America
and Australia, North Western Europe, and South Eastern Europe. Each
of these regions has a different historical, social-economical and legal
relation with Islam and Muslims.
Three Western regions
Among the Western legal systems, those of America and Australia

perhaps allow Muslims the most freedom to apply forms of shari῾a,
particularly in family law. This can be partly attributed to the fact that
the Muslim communities in these countries are often middle or upper
class, and are therefore more prone to taking an intellectual and activist
position regarding shari῾a. The responses, however, are quite different.
In their chapter on America, Bryan S. Turner and James T. Richardson
conclude that regardless of ‘liberal’ problems with religion and pub-
lic concern vis-à-vis potential radicalism among Muslims in America,
the vast majority of Muslims in America are finding ways to adjust to
American secularism, while also expressing their religious identity in
various ways. In the chapter on Australia, on the other hand, Jamila
Hussain and Adam Possamai reflect on ‘the new Australian conserva-
tive modernity,’ which is a combination of resurgent social values of
Christian conservatism, active government priorities of disengagement
and a rapidly expanding culture of surveillance and obedience. In this
new phase of modernity, the authors argue, a process of de-legitimiza-
tion of diversity is occurring, especially with regard to Muslims.

introduction 13
The chapters on the North Western European countries of the Neth-

erlands and the United Kingdom illustrate how different the circum-
stances of the Muslim communities in these countries are from those
in America and Australia. While they all are migrants or of migrant
origin, the Muslim communities in the Netherlands and the United
Kingdom are mostly lower-class, and lack political or religious unity
and leadership. In his chapter on the United Kingdom, Jørgen Nielsen
describes how in their need for unified regulation of family law, Muslim
communities in the United Kingdom have been hindered by internal
divisions and disagreements on the interpretation of that law, resulting
in the emergence of various ‘Sharia councils.’ Nielsen argues that these
tensions among Muslims living in Europe can be attributed to Europe’s
imperial past, and that the arguments about the place of shari῾a in
Europe therefore have a deep symbolic meaning that is associated with
minority identity, and which can only be overcome after a long period
of negotiation and trial and error. While this process has been going on
in the United Kingdom for at least three decades, the development of
any form of unified Islamic family law or of councils that might provide
guidance or rulings on shari῾a is still in its infancy in the Netherlands,
as becomes clear in Susan Rutten’s chapter. Moreover, the Dutch politi-
cal climate has become such in the past decade that any initiative is met
with hostility and political, as well as legal, objections. Insofar as Dutch
Muslims want to undertake initiatives in this direction, they will there-
fore do so mostly within the context of the Dutch legal system, which,
according to Rutten, may be well equipped to cope with legal and reli-
gious pluralism and consequently with shari῾a, although some human
rights issues remain to be resolved.
The chapters on the South East European countries of Albania, Kos-
ovo and Greece bring us into an entirely different context. First and
foremost, the Muslim communities in these countries have been living
there for more than five centuries and have a long history of institu-
tionalization. This history was cut short with the implementation of
communist rule after 1945, but it has gradually re-emerged since the
fall of communism and the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Remarkable in
this respect are the cases of Albania and Kosovo, the only countries in
the West with Muslim majority populations. Besnik Senani describes
how these countries are struggling to accommodate secularism to
Islamic identity, with the clear aim of being as ‘European’ as possible.
In doing so, some political leaders in Kosovo and Albania have gone
so far as to distance their national culture from Islam, sometimes even
claiming more proximity to Christianity than to Islam. Angeliki Ziaki
describes a very different situation in Greece, even though this coun-

try shares a historical Ottoman legacy with Albania and Kosovo. The
Muslim minority lives in the most eastern part of Greece, where, as
enshrined in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, it has historically been allowed
a high degree of religious autonomy. This includes having its own muf-
tis, who preside over shari῾a courts that have exclusive jurisdiction in
family law matters. Although some observers criticize this situation as
‘neo-milletism’, alluding to the millet system under Ottoman rule, Ziaki
argues that it is possible to achieve a symbiosis between Greek secular
and Islamic law.
Shari῾a in the West
When surveying these studies, one of the most noticeable findings is

that practices of shari῾a are adapted to the legal, social, political and
historical contexts of each Western country, creating a diverse picture
of ‘shari῾a in the West.’ For example, the strict distinction between a
civil and religious marriage, as is legally prescribed in most Western
countries, can create a legal social and political grey zone where choices
between the two are made: are the two marriages to be conducted sepa-
rately and if so, in what order, and what is the status of a civil or reli-
gious marriage if only one has been concluded and not the other? These
questions are not pertinent to Muslims, but to people of all faiths who
want to marry religiously. In countries like the United States, Australia,
United Kingdom, Spain or Sweden the conflict has been resolved by
allowing the two ceremonies to converge. In countries like the Nether-
lands, France and Germany, on the other hand, the distinction between
religious and civil marriage is strictly adhered to as a principal matter
of separation of state and religion.
Another example where national context and history make a differ-
ence in the reception of shari῾a is that of the Islamic institutions where
decisions regarding shari῾a are taken, in particular regarding family
law matters. These institutions, known as Sharia boards, courts, coun-
cils or tribunals, may be integrated into the formal judiciary system
(as is the case in Greece), or may operate in an informal manner (as
is already the case in many Western countries with regard to Jewish
and Catholic ‘courts’), or may operate between formal and informal
domains by means of arbitration (as in the United Kingdom and, until
2007, in Ontario, Canada).
And, as a final example, we might mention the allowances made for
social conduct, in particular the use of religious dress. Here we see an
interesting difference between the United States and Western European
countries: while both regions adhere to similar notions of secularism

introduction 15
and liberty, the manifestation of religion – including that of Islam – in

the public and political domain is much more accepted in American
society than in European society. This particular form of secularism
is clearly much stronger in Western Europe and consequently has its
effects on the public manifestations of Islam. We will return to this sub-
ject below.
When we turn our view to the Muslims in the West, perhaps the most
conspicuous commonality that emerges from the six chapters is that
there is no enforcing agency with respect to shari῾a other than Muslims
themselves. Applying and enforcing shari῾a is mostly a matter of volun-
tary willingness to submit to these rules, whereby social actors – one’s
peers, family, or the Muslim community – may add a degree of pres-
sure or coercion. Enforcement of shari῾a may also result from Muslim
communities having organized themselves, either to coordinate certain
services for their community or to act as intermediates with the govern-
ment. In the case of America and Australia, Muslims have established
organizations that act as lobby groups, scholarly councils or advisory
boards. Efforts to create similar unified initiatives have failed in the
United Kingdom, resulting in a large number of councils that act pri-
marily as tribunals aimed at solving marital and other disputes among
Muslims. If we move to the European continent, the Netherlands serves
as an example of a Western European country where such councils do
not exist (and are considered undesirable from a political perspective),
but where the government has been active in coaxing the Muslim com-
munity to organize itself as a representative community. This govern-
mental engagement is representative for most North Western European
countries where Muslim communities, until now, are still divided and
therefore relatively powerless and without much of a representative con-
stituency. In South East Europe, we see yet another form of organiza-
tion: here, the Muslim community has historically been granted specific
autonomous privileges by the state to regulate certain affairs internally,
such as religious education, mosque construction, and family law, and
often receives financial support by the state to do so. If we juxtapose all
these Western practices of shari῾a in the West we may conclude that
shari῾a mainly manifests itself within the boundaries set by the freedom
of religion, and the state’s involvement is therefore limited accordingly.
This brief overview might prompt the conclusion that there are many
different forms of shari῾a in the West, due to the differences in Western
legal systems. This is not entirely correct. In the first place, there are no
different ‘forms of shari῾a’; instead, within a single concept of shari῾a,
we have identified four domains of rules practised by devout Muslims,
and within each of these domains we observe modalities in the ways

they are practised. These modalities may be the result of internal differ-
ences regarding interpretations of shari῾a, or the consequence of what
a national legal system allows or disallows with respect to a particular
Islamic practice. In the latter case, there may be differences between
Western legal systems, but these differences lie in the details. In terms
of legal principles, Western countries’ legal systems hold a majority of
their principles in common. The overriding principle is that of the free-
dom of religion, even though Western states may differ as to how they
regulate their involvement with these institutions. Therefore it is not
necessarily the principles of legal systems that have created the diversity
of shari῾a in Western countries, but the cultural and social context in
which these principles are embedded. This is the subject of the second
section of this volume.
Western Responses: Law Versus Culture
The country studies clearly show that the conflicts arising vis-à-vis
practices of shari῾a in the West are not only legal in nature. On the
contrary, very few shari῾a practices are a violation of the law; they are
more often a violation of what we suggest to call ‘culture’, which we
define as all norms relating to political, cultural, social or other nor-
mativity shared by the majority of society. While the legal response to
shari῾a practices is simply ‘this is (not) allowed under law’, the cultural
response can be summarized with the maxim, ‘this is (not) the way we
do things here’.
Most cultural contestation occurs in the domain of religious behav-
iour, particularly in Western European countries. Examples include the
headscarf, the face veil (burqa or niqab), religious dress, and the refusal
to shake hands with the opposite sex. Sometimes such responses are
brought to court or to the legislature and may, when accepted, then
become part of the legal response: a behaviour that is considered ‘not
the way we do things here’ is then turned into ‘this is not allowed under
law.’ In the particular case of Islamic rules, however, the prohibition of
a certain dress or behaviour that is culturally deemed undesirable may
contradict fundamental legal freedoms. The French law of 2011 ban-
ning the face veil illustrates this dilemma: on the one hand, the State
Council, adhering to the legal response, advised against such a ban on
the basis of the principle of personal autonomy, which allows a woman
to freely wear what she wishes;14 and, on the other hand, the legislature,
adhering to the cultural response, deemed open-faced encounters in
public a matter of ‘social contract’ that warranted legislation.15

introduction 17
Another issue that gives rise to public indignation is that of Islamic

family law. In her chapter on Islamic marriage in the Netherlands,
Annelies Moors provides an interesting insight into how religious mar-
riage – which is allowed in Western legal systems as a matter of personal
freedom – has come under scrutiny for political and security reasons,
because it has become associated with a deliberate attempt on the part
of Muslims not to participate in Dutch society. On the other hand, in
chapter 9, Nadjma Yassari demonstrates how and why German courts
have been quite willing to hear cases on the issue of the bridal gift
(mahr), which is one of the conditional elements of Islamic marriage.
All of the country studies provide additional examples of this dichot-
omy between ‘bad shari῾a’ and ‘good shari῾a.’ While Islamic dress, the
building of mosques and the use of Islamic family law tend to give rise
to controversy, Muslim initiatives to construct Islam-compliant finan-
cial instruments (banks, mortgages and insurance) are often applauded.
The United Kingdom has been a European frontrunner in adapting
national fiscal and financial laws to facilitate these new developments,
partly to meet the needs of British Muslims, but also to remain com-
patible with the expanding international market of Islamic finance.
To refer again to the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights:
clearly not all ‘shari῾a’ conflicts with European human rights values,
just as not all ‘shari῾a’ is considered undesirable in a Western context.
It is clear that a large part of the discussion on shari῾a is fuelled
by pre-conceived notions about its nature and what Muslims might
(secretly) want. The cultural bias vis-à-vis Muslim practices is high-
lighted in the contribution by Fournier and Reyes on honour crimes in
Canada. Although honour crimes are not specifically ‘Islamic’ – a point
frequently made by Muslim scholars – it is a practice that tends to take
place among certain ethnic communities from Muslim countries and as
such presents an interesting case study. Just like shari῾a, honour crimes
are branded in the West as foreign and therefore different. While this
may indeed be the case in quite some aspects, the authors point at the
a priori rejection of these institutions as alien practices. The authors
argue that the rulings by Canadian courts in honour crime cases focus
on the cultural “Other” but fail – or refuse – to see the similarities, not
only between these crimes and those committed in Canada with simi-
lar honour intentions, but also in the legal origins of these crimes in the
national laws of both Western and Muslim countries.
The legal – cultural dichotomy perhaps provides the key to under-
standing the conflicting reactions to ‘shari῾a’: the West has produced
legal systems that may allow for certain practices, Islamic practices
included, but at the same time, the West has preserved a cultural her-

itage that may conflict strongly with these very same practices. This
explains much of the confusion arising in discussions on shari῾a. For
instance, the law may explicitly allow the building of mosques, even
though there is nationwide opposition. Similarly, the law may protect
people’s freedom to meet and greet each other how they wish, but not
joining mixed-gender social gatherings or refusing to shake hands may
be considered an insult by local custom. On the other hand, legal and
cultural responses may also concur: Western laws allow interest-free
finance, and its Islamic version is accepted in most Western countries.
No wonder that Muslims in the West are often bewildered about what
they are allowed to do, and what not. Which brings us to the third sec-
tion of this volume: do Muslims adapt their interpretations of shari῾a
to the many Western legal and cultural responses, or is perhaps adapta-
tion needed from the part of the Western legal systems?
Adaptation in Western or Muslim Legal Systems?
Some of the country studies in this volume touch upon the issue of
Muslims adapting their Islamic rules to Western legal requirements, or
the necessity of adapting Western legal systems to the needs of Mus-
lims. In this third section of the volume, Marie-Claire Foblets explores
the need for and potential of Western legal systems to accommodate
Islamic rules: should Western legal systems do so and, if so, can they do
so? She answers both questions with a cautious affirmative (compare
Mathias Rohe in chapter 1, who holds the opposite view). Given the fact
that religious demands are an emerging societal phenomenon in the
West, Foblets argues, it is the state’s duty to offer adequate responses.
These responses should preferably embrace diversity from the perspec-
tive of freedom of religion or of thought, guaranteed as a fundamental
right of individuals. Moreover, since these religious demands are very
often visibly connected to those of identity, they must therefore be han-
dled sympathetically and with respect for their significance to those
concerned. In order for a Western legal system to make the necessary
accommodation to religious diversity, the principle of the autonomy
of the will should be taken as the starting point. This will allow for the
incorporation of religious rules in civil law, more freedom of choice in
private international law, and religious arbitration.
The two other contributions to the third section discuss the reverse
situation, that is, the need for and potential of Islamic legal practices
to adapt to the Western legal systems in which they operate. The two
contributions take different positions. Zainab Alwani and Celene Ayat

introduction 19
Lizzio argue against providing a singular, comprehensive model for

the integration of Islamic values within largely secular systems, but
instead advocate the need to look for similarities in the aims of both
(Islamic) religious and (Western) civil law. According to these authors,
it is entirely counterproductive to advocate norms drawn directly from
pre-modern Muslim legal discourses without a full consideration of
their outcomes and effects in specific European contexts.
Abdullah Saeed continues this latter argument with his discussion of
the novel development of shari῾a rules that are adapted to their West-
ern context, the so-called ‘fiqh for minorities’. This new discipline of
Islamic legal scholarship is based on the argument that living in accord-
ance with shari῾a should improve a Muslim’s life. If the strict applica-
tion of shari῾a rules makes his life harder – for example, if the Mus-
lim had to fast for a disproportionally long time somewhere in the far
North of Europe, or was prevented from rising up the social ladder due
to the prohibition of a mortgage, preventing him from buying a house –
then, according to minority fiqh, shari῾a itself demands that its rules be
adapted. Saeed argues that this new scholarship must be repositioned
within the broader debate on the reform of classical Islamic law that
applies to all Muslims, not only those in the West. According to Saeed,
such repositioning requires that temporary and ad hoc solutions be
replaced with a more principled discourse of reform, leading to real
change and new understandings of how Muslims should practise Islam
in today’s world, regardless of where they are located.
Conclusion
This volume does not only provide new insights in the concept of
shari῾a in the West, but also provides a framework of how shari῾a in
the West can be studied. The premise of this volume is that one needs
to focus on the question ‘What do Muslims do in terms of shari῾a?’
rather than ‘What is shari῾a?’ Taking this perspective provides us with
two insights: first, the practice of shari῾a is limited to a limited set of
rules (mainly related to religious rituals, family law and social interac-
tion) and, second, most of these rules do not pertain to the Western
definition of ‘law.’ The framework of this volume then continues to ex-
plore two more interactions: the Western responses to these practices
of shari῾a and, in turn, the Muslim legal reaction to these responses.
On the Western side we see that there is unity on matters of legal
principle but quite some diversity on the interpretation of these prin-
ciples. This interpretation can be partly attributed to historical, social-

economical and legal differences among Western countries, whereby

we might observe a general division into three Western regions: Amer-
ica and Australia, North Western Europe and South Western Europe.
The diversity of Western responses to shari῾a can be further explained
by distinguishing between legal responses, on the one hand, and what
we suggest to call the ‘cultural response’: while Western laws might pro-
vide general (religious) freedoms that allow Muslims to practise their
shari῾a rules, Western public and political discourse may oppose these
practices because they allegedly contravene with cultural identity.
Muslims, in turn, react to the Western responses to the Muslim
practices of shari῾a rules. Some may stubbornly adhere to these rules as
a matter of religious freedom, others may abandon them to avoid too
much confrontation, and yet others may seek to find common ground
between their religious rules and the rules of the Western societies
where they live.
The framework and rich material provided in this volume will con-
tribute to our understanding of shari῾a in the West. It is a phenomenon
that is relatively new and therefore still in flux. Developments succeed
each other in rapid order, often highlighted by shrill debates in the pub-
lic and political domain, whereby action and reaction are often hard to
separate. In this respect it is important to note that much is still to be
known about the actual practices and intentions of Muslims in the West
with regard to shari῾a before we can make final judgements about the
(in)admissibility of shari῾a in the West.
Notes
1 echr, Refah vs Turkey, 13 February 2003, Nos. 41340/98, 41342/98, 41343/98 and

41344/98. See for commentaries: D. McGoldrick, ‘Accommodating Muslims in
Europe: From Adopting shari῾a Law to Religiously Based Opt Outs from Gen-
erally Applicable Laws’, Human Rights Law Review, 2009 (Vol. 9, No. 4).
2 ‘Islam in Civil and Religious Law in England’, lecture by the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, Lambeth Palace, 7 February 2008; ‘Equality
before the Law’, speech by Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, East Lon-
don Muslim Centre, 3 July 2008. See for commentaries: Rex Ahdar and Nicho-
las Aroney (eds.), Shari’a in the West, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
3 Ahdar and Aroney (eds.), Shari’a in the West; Andrea Büchler, Islamic Law in
Europe? Legal Pluralism and its Limits in European Family Laws, Burlington:
Ashgate, 2011; Samia Bano, Islamic Dispute Resolution and Family Law, Lon-
don: Palgrave, 2011; Robin Griffith-Jones (ed.), Islam and English Law: Rights,
Responsibilities and the Place of Shari’a, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2013; Mark E. Hanshaw, The Unfamiliar Abode: Islamic Law in the United

introduction 21
States and Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; Julie MacFarlane,
Islamic Divorce in North America: A Sharia Path in a Secular Society, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012; Jørgen Nielsen and Lisbet Christiffersen (eds.),
Shari’a as a Discourse: Legal Traditions and the Encounter with Europe, Burling-
ton: Ashgate, 2010; Matthias Rohe, Muslim Minorities and the Law in Europe:
Chances and Challenges, Global Media Publications, 2007.
4 See for recent publications, e.g. Wael B. Hallaq, Shari’a: Theory, Practice, Trans-
formations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009; Muhammad
Hashim Kamali, Shari’ah Law: An Introduction, Oxford: Oneworld Publica-
tions, 2008.
5 See, e.g. the twelve country studies in Jan-Michiel Otto, Sharia Incorporated. A
Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past
and Present, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011.
6 This legal-anthropological approach has been advocated by a few scholars,
and mostly when discussing shari῾a in Muslim-majority countries – see, e.g.,
Baudouin Dupret, 1996 ‘La sharî’a comme référent legislative. Du droit positif à
l’anthropologie du droit,’ Egypte Monde Arabe (25), pp. 121-175.
7 John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who speaks for Islam? What a Billion
Muslims Really Think, New York: Gallup Press, 2008.
8 To be more exact: to the question ‘should the programme of this [Muslim]
party be based on shari῾a?’, 10.2% answered ‘Yes, entirely’ and 19.3% ‘Yes, to
some extent’ (Foquz Etnomarketing, Onderzoeksresultaten ‘Politieke Voorkeu-
ren Moslims’ t.b.v. Redactie Nova, Nieuwegein: Foquz Etnomarketing, Decem-
ber 2004, pp. 10-12).
9 icm Research, ‘Muslim Poll – February 2006’, prepared for the Sunday Tele-
graph, available on www.icmresearch.com.
10 There was a difference in age: 37% of 16-24 year olds preferred shari῾a com-
pared to 17% of 55+ year olds. See Munira Mirza et al., Living Apart Together.
British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism, London: Policy Ex-
change, 2007.
11 E.g., Natasha Bakht, ‘Family Arbitration Using shari῾a Law: Examining Ontario’s
Arbitration Act and its Impact on Women,’ in Muslim World Journal of Human
Rights, 2004 (Vol. 1, Issue 1); Samia Bano, ‘Cultural Translations and Legal Con-
flict: Muslim Women and the shari῾ah Councils in Britain’ in A. Hellum, S. Ali
and A. Griffiths (eds.), Transnational Law and Transnational Relations, Ash-
gate Publishing, 2011; Maurits S. Berger, ‘Sharia in Canada. An example for the
Netherlands?’ in: Crossing Borders, The Hague: Kluwer Rechtswetenschappe-
lijke Publicaties, 2005; John R. Bowen, ‘How Could English Courts Recognize
shari῾ah?’ University of St. Thomas Law Journal, 2010 (Vol. 7, No. 3), pp. 411-435.
12 E.g., Kilian Bälz, ‘Islamic Finance for European Muslims: The Diversity Man-
agement of Shari’ah-Compliant Transactions’, Chicago Journal of International
Law, 2006 (Vol. 7).
13 E.g. Alexandre Caeiro, Fatwas for European Muslims: The Minority Fiqh Project
and the Integration of Islam in Europe (PhD thesis), Utrecht: Utrecht University
Press, 2011; Dilwar Hussain, ‘Muslim Political Participation in Britain and the
“Europeanisation” of Fiqh,’ Die Welt des Islams 2004 (Vol. 44, No. 3), pp. 376-

40; Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League, ‘A message from Muslim schol-
ars to Muslim Minorities in the West’, Daawah, 2002, (No. 4); Shammai Fish-
man, ‘Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A Legal Theory for Muslim Minorities’, Center on
Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World, Research Monograph,
2006 (No. 2).
14 Conseil d’Etat, Etude relative aux possibilités juridiques d’interdiction du port
du voile intégral, 25 March 2010 (available online at: www.conseil-etat.fr/cde/
media/document/avis/etude_vi_30032010.pdf.).
15 See the explanations of their respective law proposals by the Cabinet (Projet de
loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l’espace public (No. 2520, 19 May
2010)) and by the Socialist Party (Proposition de loi visant à fixer le champ des
interdictions de dissimuler son visage liées aux exigences des services publics, à la
prévention des atteintes à l’ordre public (No. 2544, 20 May 2010)).

section i
country studies

1 Reasons for the Application of Shari῾a
in the West 1
Mathias Rohe
Introduction
Shari῾a – or ‘Islamic law’,2 in the narrow understanding – is broadly

perceived to be the opposite of a secular legal order. The heated debate
that took place in the aftermath of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s fa-
mous speech about the possible introduction of some parts of shari῾a
law into the English legal system is but one example of this.3 On the
other hand, some of the small extremist groups that promote shari῾a
in the West, which bluntly reject the ruling secular legal order, such as
‘shari῾a4Belgium’ and ‘shari῾a4Holland’, seem to justify such prejudice
against shari῾a. Very often, the fact that there is little information about
the meaning of shari῾a and about the scope and limits of its application
in the West leads to simplistic debates on all sides. The public climate
has become unfavourable even for an academic debate on these issues.
I myself was repeatedly denounced for promoting the replacement of
the German legal order by shari῾a, simply because I wanted to inform
the public about the existing German legal order with respect to the
treatment of Islamic norms.4 This has convinced me all the more that it
is necessary to address such issues, since they are real phenomena con-
cerning a considerable number of people living in Western countries.
This chapter is confined to the legal provisions of shari῾a, which only
constitute a part of shari῾a. While religious provisions, such as those on
ritual prayer, fasting, and so forth, fall under the freedom of religion
according to international and Western constitutional law, the appli-
cation of foreign legal rules is an exception in legal orders all over the
world. This is due to the now ruling principle of territoriality of legal
orders, which replaced personal law systems in Western states centuries
ago. The system of territoriality creates unified legal orders that grant
internal plurality, thus retaining the right to make a final decision on
whether foreign laws can apply or not.
With regard to the application of shari῾a in Western secular states,
the reasons for this are twofold. They are ‘external’ insofar as the law
of the land simply prescribes the application of such norms in a given

case, more or less irrespective of the intention of the parties involved.

‘Internal’ reasons are those rooted in the desires of the parties them-
selves. The latter can be sub-divided into technical/institutional, cul-
tural and religious reasons. In some cases, external and internal rea-
sons may meet where the law of the land creates spaces for the optional
application of such norms, should the parties choose to do so. In addi-
tion, there is a difference between formal and informal application of
these rules: whereas formal application requires recognition by the law
of the land and enforcement by its institutions, informal application
only depends on the free will and consent of the persons involved. We
will discuss those categories in which shari῾a may be applied below.
External Reasons for the Formal or Informal Application of Shari῾a

in the West
There are four fields of law where Islamic norms may be applicable or
recognized for mainly external reasons. First, private international law
may lead to the application of shari῾a within the limits of public pol-
icy; second, in some states Islamic norms have been integrated into the
existing law of the land; third, given legal facts created under shari῾a
may be recognized under Western laws for social reasons; and lastly,
there are cases of maintaining personal law systems, including shari῾a
for Muslims, for historical reasons. We will elaborate on these reasons
below. The possibilities for applying shari῾a in the West are clearly re-
stricted to the field of private law. Public law, and penal law in particu-
lar, are necessarily homogeneous in every country according to com-
mon international standards; thus, in these fields, the law of the land
alone can and has to be applied.5
Private international law
Private international law (the rules regulating the conflict of laws in

matters concerning civil law6) is a possible level of direct application
of shari῾a legal rules. To be precise, shari῾a as such cannot be applied
here, but only state laws based on shari῾a rules. In the area of civil law,
the welfare of autonomously acting private persons is of prime impor-
tance. If someone has organized his or her life in accordance with a
certain legal system, this deserves protection when the person crosses
the border. However, it is also within the interest of the legal com-
munity that in certain matters, the same law should be applicable to
everyone who is resident in a particular country. This is especially the

reasons for the application of shari῾a in the west 27
case in matters touching the roots of legal and societal common sense,
like the legal relations between the sexes or between adherents of dif-
ferent religions.
When it comes to the areas of family law and the law of succession,
the application of legal norms in European countries is often deter-
mined on the basis of the nationality of the persons involved, rather
than by their domicile.7 Other than in Canada, the United States,8 or
Switzerland, many European courts, such as those in Germany, France
and Austria, are therefore often obliged to apply Islamic legal rules
when these are the national law of the persons involved. In this respect
it may generally be stated that until now, shari῾a has had a particu-
lar strong position in family law and the law of succession. This can
be explained by the fact that shari῾a in these areas has a multiplicity
of regulations derived from authoritative sources (Qur’an and sunna).
Furthermore, a powerful lobby is obviously trying to preserve this area
as a stronghold due to religious convictions, as well as for reasons of
income and the exercise of power (which is very similar to the situation
in Christian Europe in the past). The Tunisian lawyer Ali Mezghani
states that ‘[i]n Islamic countries, it is difficult to deny that family law is
the site of conservation.’9 This is true despite the fact that reforms have
taken place in several Islamic countries, and still are in progress.10
However, the application of such provisions must comply with the
rules of public policy. If the application of legislation influenced by
shari῾a leads to a result that is obviously incompatible with, for exam-
ple, the main principles of German law, including constitutional civil
rights, the provisions in question cannot be applied. In family law, the
main conflicts between ‘Islamic’ and European legal thinking concern
the constitutional (and human) rights such as equality of the sexes and
of religious beliefs and the freedom of religion, including the right
not to believe. Conflicts mainly arise from provisions reflecting classi-
cal shari῾a, which preserve a strict separation between the sexes with
respect to their social roles and tasks (for example, in marriage and
divorce laws, and in matters of guardianship, custody and inherit-
ance), as well as the far-reaching legal segregation of religions under
the supremacy of Islam.11
Introduction of Islamic legal provisions
In addition to general rules of private international law, a few European

states have introduced legal provisions concerning family and succes-
sion matters to be applied in general, or to the Muslim population in
particular, allowing a de facto application of shari῾a rules.

28 applying shari῾a in the west
In the United Kingdom, Muslims may apply to have their mar-

riage registered. Furthermore, according to the Divorce (Religious
marriages) Act 2002, courts are enabled to require the dissolution of a
religious marriage before granting a civil divorce.12 The Adoption and
Children Act 2002 amended the Children Act 1989 by provisions (Sect.
14 A) introducing ‘special guardianship’ as a legal means of parental
responsibility besides adoption, which is forbidden by shari῾a.13 This
institution may have been aimed at accommodating Muslims in par-
ticular, but it is open to everyone, thus bridging the borders between
separate legal systems.
In Spain, it has been possible to apply Islamic rules regulating the
contracting of marriages to Muslims since 1992.14 In order to ensure the
necessary legal security, there are compulsory provisions for the regis-
tration of these marriages.15 This kind of legal segregation is very lim-
ited, concerning mere formal regulations without any relevant material
quality. Interestingly, the legislator in Spain has also amended Article
107 of the Código Civil regulating the right to divorce. The amendment
enables women resident in Spain to get divorced even if the law of ori-
gin or of their matrimonial home prevents them from doing so. The
legislator stated expressly that this amendment was intended to solve
problems in this respect, especially regarding Muslim women.16
Recognition of legal facts created under foreign shari῾a laws
The third legal reason for the applicability of shari῾a is the legal recog-
nition of facts created under shari῾a, such as polygamous marriages.
This must be distinguished from the aforementioned implementation
of foreign norms under international private law. German social se-
curity laws treat polygamous marriages as legally valid, provided that
the marriage contracts are valid under laws applicable to them at the
place of their formation.17 (Of course, polygamy fundamentally contra-
dicts German and other European legal standards; therefore it cannot
be contracted legally in Europe and is even punishable under German
law, Par. 172 Penal Code.) The legal reasoning behind the recognition of
these polygamous marriages is to avoid depriving these women of their
marital rights, including maintenance. Thus, according to German so-
cial security law,18 widow pensions are divided among widows who were
living in polygamous marriages. However, German law differentiates
between mainly private aspects of marriage and predominantly pub-
lic ones, especially those relating to immigration law. Law governing
the latter aspects provides only the first wife in polygamous marriages
with marital privileges within its scope of application, such as residence

permits.19 The treatment of polygamous marriages in Germany differs

from that in other European countries. In the United Kingdom, the
courts rejected the claim to a widow’s pension by a woman who was
engaged in a polygamous marriage, resulting in none of the wives in the
marriage receiving a payment.20
Personal law systems
The fourth reason why shari῾a can be applicable is in the case of a sys-
tem of personal law that has remained in existence due to historical
reasons. Thus, in Greece, the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) contained rules,
which are still in force, leading to the application of traditional shari῾a
law on Muslims of Turkish origin (see chapter 7 in this volume),21 while
the Turkish Republic has continuously reformed its civil laws and in-
troduced legal equality of the sexes in family law in 2002. This can
hardly serve as a model for Western secular states. Despite widespread
efforts in the Islamic world to improve women’s rights, many legal or-
ders in this region are still far from the legal standard of equality of the
sexes achieved in the West. It would simply be unacceptable to imple-
ment such rules in the existing systems, and – apart from the United
Kingdom (see chapter 4 in this volume) – it is highly unlikely that any
European public or legal order would be ready to concede legal plural-
ism in family matters at the expense of current public policy.
In Britain, the Union of Muslim Organisations of the United King-
dom and Eire has formulated a resolution demanding the establish-
ment of a separate Muslim family and inheritance law that is automati-
cally applicable to all Muslims in Britain,22 without any effect so far.
Some developments in recent years suggest that a considerable number
of Muslims in the United Kingdom do indeed desire the application
of shari῾a rules in these fields. According to a poll taken of 500 British
Muslims in 2006, 40 per cent supported the introduction of shari῾a law
in predominantly Muslim areas of Britain.23 The underlying idea might
be found in the legal situation on the Indian subcontinent – being the
prevailing region of origin of Muslims in Britain – which was and still
is ruled by a system of religious separation in matters of family law.24
The same is true for most Muslim states in the past and present. But
introducing religiously or ethnically-orientated multiple legal systems
in Europe does not represent a realistic or even desirable option.25 Such
systems may have been helpful and even exemplary in the past, when
they granted rights and freedoms to minorities that would otherwise
have been disregarded. However, this will always result in problems in
the form of inter-religious conflict over laws, as can be seen in Egypt,

for example.26 Besides that, freedom of religion contains the freedom

to change one’s religion or not to belong to any religion. This freedom
would be unduly constrained by forcing people into a legal regime
defined by religion. Furthermore, there is no uniform Islamic legal sys-
tem of substantial rules to be identified. In addition to that, the for-
mer Ottoman territories in the Balkans, as well as the Turkish Republic,
abolished shari῾a law a long time ago. Most of the Muslims who are
natives of these states – constituting the vast majority of Muslims in a
considerable number of European states, such as Austria, Germany and
Switzerland – would reject the re-introduction of such rules in Euro-
pean countries. In France, such issues are not even debated publicly.
Instead of such institutionalized forms of religious-based family law
systems, Muslims are entitled to create legal relations according to their
religious intentions within the framework of optional civil law (see
further below). This system reflects the emergence of relatively strong
states claiming to regulate or at least supervise family matters according
to legally consented principles.
Internal Reasons for the Formal or Informal Application of Shari῾a

in the West
In addition to the external reasons that may lead to the application of

shari῾a in the West, there are also internal reasons. These fall into four
categories:
Technical/Institutional reasons
In cases of intermarriage and the conduct of ‘international’ lives, the

persons involved may have a mere ‘technical’ interest in creating le-
gal relations that are recognized in all of the countries involved, irre-
spective of the specific content or the religious connotation of the law.
Problems arise when some religiously-founded foreign state laws refuse
to recognize decisions by secular states (administrations or courts) in
matters of family law, while they would recognize informal acts by re-
ligious personnel or alternative dispute resolution (adr) decisions on
the basis of their religiously-orientated laws. This is the case not only
with respect to some Muslim states, but also to the state of Israel regard-
ing Jews.27 In these cases, the resort to such informal bodies is likely to
be based on the technical aspect of recognition rather than on personal
affiliation to religious law. In this regard, international efforts to im-
prove mutual recognition of state decisions are urgently needed if state

institutions want to preserve their prerogative. As long as recognition is

in doubt, improvised solutions can be found even in state courts or ad-
ministrations. For example, in cases of divorce, courts might mention
that the husband has agreed to the procedures followed in Western law,
which could be then recognized as a talaq (repudiation) under shari῾a
law. In addition, Muslim witnesses could be invited to document this.28
In other cases, mere formal reasons such as the lack of documents
required for marriages under the law of the land might draw immi-
grants to enter into informal religious marriages in order to create a
socially accepted fundament for living together. Iraqi refugees in Ger-
many who were willing to marry under German law are currently fac-
ing this problem with regard to documents proving their capability to
marry under Iraqi law (which in this case is applicable according to
German private international law: Art. 13 egbgb). So far as these mar-
riages are not recognized by state law – as is usually the case – conflicts
including ‘divorces’ can only be resolved under the informal mecha-
nisms provided, such as through mosques or Muslim organizations by
applying shari῾a, often in hybrid forms rather than according to a par-
ticular Islamic state law.
Cultural reasons
When it comes to Muslim immigrants, various research projects in Eu-

rope in recent years have clearly demonstrated that considerable num-
bers of them maintain the structures of family life that they had in their
countries of origin.29 Some of them are reluctant to use the legal rem-
edies provided by the law of the state of their new domicile, because
they believe that they are bound to legal orders other than the law of the
land. Others are simply unaware of the fact that in certain matters, in-
cluding family law (for example, with respect to contracting marriages
and divorce), the formal legal rules of the state of domicile have to be
observed; otherwise, the intentions and acts of the parties involved are
not legally enforceable.
Thus, a marriage that is contracted solely according to traditional
Islamic rules may be socially accepted within a community, but it
deprives the spouses of legally enforceable rights in the state of domi-
cile with respect to the maintenance or inheritance usually connected
to marriages. On the other hand, these women cannot obtain a divorce
in state courts because they are not regarded as married according to
the law of the land. Therefore they seek ‘internal’ solutions within their
community.30 Here, accessible information about the rules of the law of
the land for immigrants is needed.

Furthermore, the socio-legal orders in many of the persons’ coun-

tries of origin tend to perceive family matters as private matters, except
for extreme cases of violence or other conflicts. This can lead to the
avoidance of ‘intervention’ or conflict resolution on the part of the
state, and for groups of immigrants to opt for merely informal, socially-
accepted solutions. Again, there is a need for information about the
protective function of state law for weaker parts of the family.
In addition, a lack of cultural sensitivity in some state institutions,
including courts, may lead to distrust and reluctance. Evidence such as
that from Canada31 supports this view. To this respect, courses or other
means of information for state officials should become more estab-
lished. The aim is certainly not to change the applicable law. Neverthe-
less, in my experience as a judge for several years, the feeling of being
personally understood is in many cases crucial for sustainable conflict
resolution, particularly in matters open to settlement.
Last but not least, new forms of socio-legal navigating are emerg-
ing, in particular among younger Muslim couples. They deliberately
use the lack of legal validity of mere ‘religious’ marriages. By this, they
can combine social acceptance of their relationship within the family
and the community with avoiding the legal consequences of a valid
civil marriage. Evidence from Denmark,32 for example, shows that such
couples marry validly under the law of the land when children are born
or when they decide to purchase real property. Apart from the reli-
gious legitimization aiming at the social environment, this behaviour
very much reflects common usage in contemporary Western societies.
Chapter 8 of this volume elaborates these cultural strategies in detail
with respect to the Netherlands.
Religious reasons
With regard to religious reasons, we have to make a fundamental dis-

tinction between the case of using the law of the land under religious
auspices on the one hand, and the rejection of that law by consequently
applying shari῾a in an informal way on the other.
Islamic norms may be applied within the existing framework of
the law of the land as far as this law is dispositive for the parties in-
volved. This is the case, for instance, in vast parts of contract law. As
an example we may note the fact that various methods of investment
are offered, which do not violate the Islamic prohibition of usury (riba,
which according to traditional views means the general prohibition of
accepting and paying interest).33 Concerning project finance, Islamic
legal institutions such as the murabaha or the mudaraba can be used.34

These are certain forms of partnership intending to attract capital own-

ers to participate instead of merely granting credit, the latter bearing
the risk of contradicting the riba-rules. Commerce and trade have
already responded to the economic and legal needs of traditional Mus-
lims. German and Swiss banks, for instance, have issued ‘Islamic’ shares
for investment purposes; that is to say, share packages that avoid com-
panies whose business involves gambling, alcohol, tobacco, interest-
yielding credit, insurance or the sex industry, all of which are illegiti-
mate in shari῾a.35
In the United Kingdom, a special concept of ‘Islamic’ mortgages has
been developed, which allows Muslims willing to purchase real estate to
avoid conflicts with provisions concerning riba (when paying interest
on ‘normal’ mortgages).36 An Islamic mortgage consists of two separate
transactions aiming at one single result. Until recently, each transac-
tion was subject to taxation. Now the double ‘stamp duty’ has effectively
been abolished, because it had been preventing Muslims from success-
fully engaging in the real property market due to the formal system of
taxation without sufficient reason. Even the German state of Saxony-
Anhalt placed an Islamic bond (ṣukuk,37 100 million euros as a start)
based on a Dutch foundation a few years ago.38 For traditional Muslims,
the availability of such forms of investment in Europe is of considerable
importance. To my knowledge, many of them lost huge sums of money
in the past to doubtful organizations from the Islamic world bearing a
‘religious’ veil, or to similar organizations based in Europe.39
In the field of matrimonial law, the tendency of implementing
Islamic norms in optional law can also be identified in Germany in
connection with matrimonial contracts.40 Thus, in Germany contrac-
tual conditions regulating the payment of the ‘Islamic’ dower (mahr or
sadaq) are possible and generally accepted by the courts (see chapter 9
in this volume).41 Other contractual regulations, especially those dis-
criminating against women, could be void according to Paragraph 138
of the German Civil Code on the protection of good morals.42 So far
there have been no court decisions on such issues, published or known.
However, to my knowledge some German notaries refuse to assist in
formulating wills43 containing the classical Islamic regulation on half-
shares for female heirs.
The second case – fundamentally different from the one above – is
the informal application of Islamic norms for reasons of religiously
driven rejection of ‘worldly’ laws given by ‘infidels’.44 ‘Eternal god-given
law’ is then (wrongly45) opposed to ‘weak man made law’.46 In Ger-
many, one of the few voices publicly demanding the introduction of
shari῾a and Muslim arbitration to avoid any application of ‘infidel’ laws

is the extremist founder of an Islamic centre in Berlin. In a book on

‘The Rules of Personal Status of Muslims in the West’,47 he repeatedly
declares non-Muslims to be infidels and rejects German legal rules and
judgments as ‘rules of the infidel’.48 Consequently, he urges Muslims in
Germany to maintain the rules of traditional Islamic family law. Incred-
ibly, he even argues that the traditional punishment for adultery – flog-
ging or stoning to death – should be applied to Muslim women in Ger-
many who are married to non-Muslims, even if they are unaware of the
‘applicability’ of these rules in their cases.49 He denounces the German
system of social security as evil, because it grants wives independence
from their husbands’ maintenance payments and thus enables them to
‘disobey’ their husbands.50
Some other religious extremists and traditionalists also argue that
Muslims should not accept the legal norms and judgments of ‘infidels’.
They should instead establish their own bodies of dispute resolution
and elect their own judges.51 But would extra-judicial dispute resolu-
tion then create a viable solution for weighing up the relevant interests
of the parties involved in a manner consistent with the community’s
standards, as well as with the indispensable principles of the law of the
land (see the next section below)?
These two different situations illustrate the possible conflicts between
the law of the land and a parallel normative order: it is up to the law of
the land – representing the community of citizens and inhabitants of a
country – to decide on the space and limits of optional law. Liberal legal
orders tend to open up a broad space for individual choice for good
reason. Nevertheless, there are sensitive areas of legal relations where
typically parties with different kinds of bargaining power meet. The
family and its legal interrelations is such a case in many respects. Here,
the need for state protection for the weaker parties is obvious. In gen-
eral, compulsory norms in all spheres of law are justified by this pro-
tective goal. In addition to this, they grant necessary common stand-
ards defined by legislation and thus peace in society. These standards
are obviously subjected to changing social convictions and lifestyles;
legislation will react to such changes sooner or later, legally protected
same-sex relations being only one striking example of this. In any case,
it is up to the law of the land given by the sovereign to define the limits
of normative plurality. Thus, the establishment of informal structures
opposing the principles of the law of the land is certainly a threat to the
latter – and to the individuals protected by it.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (adr) and Shari῾a
Within the scope of private autonomy, the parties concerned are free
to create legal relations within the limits of public policy and to agree
on the ways and results of non-judicial dispute resolution. In matters
of family law, relatives will often be consulted first. Should that fail, in-
formal or existing formal dispute resolution bodies might be involved,
as well as state courts. Certain decisions, such as officially recognized
divorces, are restricted to state courts in Europe. Others might be open
to adr mechanisms. Some of the reasons for choosing adr may par-
ticularly apply to family disputes: confidentiality and the choice of ar-
bitrators on the basis of personal trust can be even more attractive than
in other adr cases, such as those concerning economic claims. Besides
that, the specific reasons for preferring adr are threefold: institutional,
cultural and religious, as suggested above.
With regard to adr in family matters, we can discern both a major
advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that the official accept-
ance of adr, which allows for freedom in choosing the rules applicable
to the case at hand, might create a feeling of religio-cultural accept-
ance among those interested in preserving religiously based laws and
conflict resolution mechanisms. On the other hand, there is a danger
that the institutional homogenization of conflict resolution within a
community such as the Muslim community may neglect existing inter-
nal diversity within that community, and may even increase internal
pressure on ‘weak’ members of the community (‘the paradox of mul-
ticultural vulnerability’ according to Ayalet Shachar52) to make use of
the adr mechanisms against their interest and will. This danger is real,
since religiously based family laws tend to treat the sexes and religions
unequally according to the patriarchal structures underlying these laws.
Thus, in opting for adr, one has to decide which interests are to prevail:
those of religious communities as a whole (which means mainly the
interests of their leaders) or the interests of individuals.
When it comes to the present situation in Europe, we find an extraor-
dinary example of law and adr influenced by Islam in the United King-
dom, where an ‘angrezi shariat’ (English shari῾a) appears to be develop-
ing.53 This seems to be due to the fact that many Muslims in Britain still
have strong family ties to their respective native countries on the Indian
subcontinent, governed by religiously orientated laws in matters of per-
sonal status.54 In some cases, mainly those concerning family relations,
they seek socially acceptable solutions for legal problems within the
Muslim community through the aid of accepted mediators. The Islamic
Sharia Councils in England, which were established in 1980-82, seem

to be examples of such a kind of mediation.55 The Councils do not have

an official function, but they focus in particular on mediation in the
area of the law of personal status. There are frequently cases in which
a Muslim wife has obtained an English divorce that she subsequently
wants confirmed according to shari῾a by the pronouncement of talaq
(divorce) by the husband, so that the divorce will be accepted in the
social environment within or outside the country. Similarly, it is very
often the case that a husband refuses to divorce, and that while the wife
wishes to do so, she is reluctant to start divorce proceedings in the civil
courts.56 Even if the matter does not go to the civil court, the Council’s
decision may become important; it is not legally enforceable in Eng-
land, but it seems to be recognized in the state of origin as well as within
the religious community.57 Convincing the husband to pay the mahr
(dower) constitutes a further possible task for the Council.
While the decisions of the Sharia Councils appear to be based on a
relatively reform-oriented approach to the legal sources, they maintain
the traditional framework of shari῾a, including unequal treatment of
the sexes and religions in general. Thus, the English legal system does
not remain untouched by such proceedings, since they differ consider-
ably from basic decisions in English family law. For example, the coun-
cils use the instruments given in some Islamic states for wives to obtain
a divorce in court on the basis of the so-called khul‘, which is a con-
tractual or statutory right.58 The wife, however, must then pay back the
dower, which will very often have been intended to serve as an old-age
pension. This somehow rewards the husband’s persistence in refusing a
divorce, which is not acceptable according to the standard of the law of
the land. Certainly, an individual’s personal status is a ‘private matter’,
thus leaving scope for individual preferences, including those based on
religious or cultural convictions in general. Nevertheless, the institu-
tions of the law regarding personal status and, in particular, the balance
of rights and duties among the persons involved not only affect society
as a whole, but also reflect this society’s basic common convictions con-
cerning what is probably the most important part of social life. There-
fore it is up to the national legislator to establish a legal personal status
order that grants protection to everyone living in the country.
Thus, on the one hand, adr can serve as an instrument to achieve
socially accepted solutions within a community living at a certain dis-
tance from society as a whole. It might give access to groups that would
otherwise refrain from any kind of formal (non-violent) conflict reso-
lution. On the other hand, members of that community who refuse to
use the community’s special bodies for conflict resolution may well be
accused of undermining the community’s position, and of being a ‘bad’

member. This could press individuals into using a religiously-driven

system of conflict resolution against their will or interests, as the Cana-
dian example concerning the debate on introducing shari῾a boards
in the Province of Ontario clearly demonstrates.59 As a consequence,
unconditionally accepting communitarian bodies such as these could
lead to ongoing cultural segregation and to a ‘culturalization’ of indi-
viduals seeking their individual ways within a broader society. Intro-
ducing parallel power structures may endanger socio-legal cohesion:
where common legal standards, such as those regarding equal rights of
the sexes, religions and convictions, are considered to be fundamental
for society as a whole, solutions that deviate from these will certainly
cause massive tensions. At the same time, individual religious choices
are endangered if these individuals are unable to avoid the application
of religiously-based laws containing provisions that promote unequal
treatment.60 This is why most European legal orders do not allow fam-
ily status disputes to be formally decided by adr mechanisms.
Even in cases where adr is formally accepted by state laws (for exam-
ple, with respect to religious arbitration bodies such as the Beth Din and
the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals in the United Kingdom61), the ques-
tion remains as to whether the mere existence of an adr agreement is
sufficient. Certainly, within the scope of private autonomy, agreements
between adult and mentally healthy persons are supposed to be valid
and fair unless there is any specific evidence to the contrary. However,
in the context of migration and societal segregation, formal freedom
to agree or not to agree can be factually restricted to just one option, if
the relevant party has to expect substantial disadvantages in social life
in the case that they choose the ‘wrong’ option. Thus, if factual pressure
on the weaker party is not a merely theoretical threat, the official recog-
nition of communitarian bodies for adr and their decisions could pre-
vent the weaker party from obtaining the protection granted by the law
of the land and enforced by official courts. As suggested above, despite
various reforms in several Muslim states, shari῾a of personal status does
not grant equal rights to females and non-Muslims.
We should certainly reject the simplistic picture of Muslim women
generally being oppressed, powerless victims. The German Supreme
Court62 has stated that there is no room for the presumption that Turk-
ish wives living in ‘typical Muslim marriages’ are deprived of autono-
mous decision-making in their daily lives. Nevertheless, the problems
that do arise, which are often caused by cultural motivation, are obvious
and openly discussed among Muslims themselves. The commissioner
for women’s affairs at the Central Council of Muslims in Germany has
stated in an interview that, ‘Islam is not in need of a commissioner for

women’s affairs. It is not Islam that suppresses women, but men. And
therefore Muslim women are indeed in need of a commissioner for
women’s affairs.’63 It should be mentioned in this context that the Cen-
tral Council of Muslims in Germany declared in its charter on Muslim
life in German society on 20 February 2002 (the ‘Islamic Charta’64) that
Muslims are content with the harmonious system of secularity and reli-
gious freedom provided by the Constitution. According to Article 13 of
the charter, ‘The command of shari῾a to observe the local legal order
includes the acceptance of the German statutes governing marriage and
inheritance, and civil as well as criminal procedure.’ In the Swiss canton
of Zurich, the Union of Islamic Organizations in Zurich65 has expressly
stated in its Basic Declaration that the Union does not intend to create
an Islamic state in Switzerland, nor does it place shari῾a above Swiss leg-
islation (Section 1). The Union also expressly appreciates Swiss law con-
cerning marriage and inheritance (Section 5). Similarly, the renowned
French imam Larbi Kechat has stated that ‘Nous sommes en harmonie
avec le cadre des lois, nous n’imposons pas une loi parallèle.’66 Accord-
ing to Belgian experience, the vast majority of Muslim women living in
between the rules of Muslim family law and women’s rights also claim
the protection of Belgian substantive law.67 Thus, initiatives aiming at
the promotion of shari῾a by adr mechanisms should not be overesti-
mated regarding their importance for Muslims living in the West.
Finally, advantages and disadvantages concerning the reliability of
mediators and arbitrators have to be weighed up against each other. The
idea of promoting officially-recognized adr mechanisms for Muslims
in Canada was to grant the arbitrators the necessary personal and tech-
nical skills, including legal knowledge, by creating a system of educa-
tion and recognition for them. Indeed, one should be aware that refus-
ing to recognize ‘official’ adr bodies would not prevent people from
using unofficial mechanisms involving persons of unclear background
and skills. Two solutions are possible here: either to implement a sys-
tem of official adr or – the preferable approach in the author’s opinion,
for the reasons given above – to heighten the cultural sensitivity of the
state court system and implement information programmes focusing
on the advantages of the existing legal system.
The situation is entirely different when the adr deals with conflicts
other than those relating to marriage and divorce. Recently, a book
appeared in Germany on how ‘shari῾a judges’ settle criminal disputes
among Muslims in the country.68 While forms of mediation between
perpetrators and victims are established in penal cases – usually under
the supervision of the state (for example, according to Article 46a of
the German Penal Law Code), the limits should be clear: the exercise

of pressure on victims or witnesses cannot be tolerated by the state.

Nevertheless, the relatively small number of cases reported does not
indicate the establishment of a parallel ‘shari῾a’ system. Rather, it seems
to be restricted to parts of the population originating from huge Mid-
dle Eastern family clans that are used to ‘settling’ conflicts according to
their cultural traditions. In addition, special motifs relating to an immi-
gration background may be well involved: official criminal prosecution
in major cases would often lead to the loss of the perpetrator’s residence
permit, thus possibly affecting his whole family living within the coun-
try or family members in the country of origin dependent on his finan-
cial support. In such cases, there might be a tendency not to involve
state bodies, so as to avoid such effects. Another case involving Salafis
was reported in Spain in 2009. According to these reports, a group
of seven persons originating from North Africa allegedly ‘sentenced’
a woman who had committed adultery to death in a ‘shari῾a court’
condoned by the victim’s family.69 They were later set free because the
woman had disappeared and thus could not identify the accused before
the court. Until now, little research has been done in this field.
Preliminary Conclusions
In general, legal plurality does not usually endanger socio-legal cohe-

sion in mere ‘international’ cases. If persons only stay temporarily, de-
veloping few links to the state of residence, far-reaching legal diversity
can be seen as a natural phenomenon in a globalized world. But ‘inter-
nal’ cases involving considerable normative differences and citizens or
long-time residents do have such potential. Thus, they require greater
homogeneity in basic legal decisions. How, then, to properly differenti-
ate between ‘international’ and ‘internal’? In this regard, I would favour
the choice of forms of residence as the most significant connecting fac-
tor in family law issues, as immigration countries usually do for good
reason. Concerning internal law, it is necessary to undertake thorough
studies of the scope and limits of dispositive law and adr. In the field of
family relations, state protection seems to be indispensable; thus, most
Western legal orders are restricting the options available, especially
with respect to basic legal institutions and adr.
To overcome mere technical or institutional problems by applying
the law of the land, international efforts to improve the mutual recog-
nition of state decisions are needed. In those cases where documents
are lacking, administrations and courts should be ready to find creative
solutions or make more use of hardship rules.

Besides that, immigrants from countries maintaining a personal law

system and their descendants should be reasonably informed about
the legal situation of their new home country. Research in the United
Kingdom in particular has shown that to a considerable extent, reli-
gious marriages have been concluded under the misguided impression
that they are valid under the law of the land. This includes information
about the role of state law and institutions in family-related issues: in
the West, the state and its legal system have achieved a strong position
in recent last centuries. Economic solidarity within extended families
has been largely replaced by more or less state-run systems of social
security. At the same time, the state has assumed the role of the main
protector of weaker family members, particularly children and wives
in patriarchal cultural environments.
Problems remain in cases where parties are reluctant to bring their
cases to state courts for various reasons. If they refrain from doing so,
without any alternative available, the conflicts will continue and might
even escalate. Thus, if state court solutions are to be maintained, it is
absolutely necessary to respond to people’s reasons for rejecting these
courts; something that can be achieved without touching the content
of the law, for example, by increasing cultural sensitivity among judges
and in administrations. In Germany, for instance, the Academies for
Judges (Richterakademien), which serve as institutions for the training
of judges and other legal personnel already in office, provide a number
of short courses (up until now mainly taught by myself). Much more
could be done in this field.
Practical experience proves that non-lawyers tend not to be inter-
ested in the law as such, but in the outcome of its application as far as
they are personally concerned. Thus, in cases of differing options, the
choice of the respective norms is often driven much more by personal
worldly interest than by more abstract convictions about how the law
should be in general. Therefore, the demand for shari῾a should not nec-
essarily be seen as a general refusal to accept the ruling law of the land.
Nevertheless, the latter attitude does exist and is highly problematic
in terms of social cohesion. In any case, it is mandatory to carry out a
sound analysis of the considerably varying aspects – technical/institu-
tional, cultural and religious – in order to provide acceptable solutions
from the perspective of the legal order, as well as those affected by the
law.
It is essential that the basic rules of secular legal orders in liberal
societies are accepted by society as a whole. But can such legal orders
not only be obeyed, but also accepted by devout Muslims, and seen
as ‘theirs’ as well? The overwhelming majority of Muslims living in

the West seem to answer in favour of that. They recognize that these
legal orders are also engaged in a search for justice. Understanding the
‘maqasid al-shari῾a’, the deeper reasons for Islamic rules, in the search
for an overlapping consensus between the latter and the rules of secular
states, could be a viable solution at a contemporary intellectual level
(see also chapters 12 and 13 in this volume).
Examples of public discourse by Muslims in recent European fora
express aspects of the thinking behind this approach. At a conference
held in Sarajevo in 2007, the prominent Bosnian Muslim lawyer Enes
Karić, who teaches at the Islamic Faculty there, explicitly stated that
the caliphate is not part of the religion of Islam. He considers shari῾a
to be a set of rules with moral goals, and secular states to be products
of their actions. Therefore, in his view, ‘A state which is willing to pro-
vide a sufficient social structure, e.g. funds for students or pensions,
which intends to establish economic and social justice, which respects
and promotes human rights, is an Islamic state in this sense.’ (He also
cited the Islamic maxim adl al-dawla iman-ha, zulm al-dawla kufr-ha –
justice is the belief of a state, injustice is its unbelief – and said that the
concept of citizenship is a major European achievement.) Finally, he
said that the European secular democratic state under the rule of law
fulfils the conditions for justice, and concluded: ‘Therefore, we don’t
need a double system.’70
It would thus be highly advisable to support a Muslim research and
educational system driven by such thinking, dealing with the condi-
tions of life in secular societies and their basic values. Muslims should
play their fair part in the debate about the future of our common laws.
Notes
1 This article is based on research that took place in the context of religare
(see www.religareproject.eu), a three-year project funded under the Socio-eco-
nomic Sciences & Humanities programme of dg Research, under the Euro-
pean Commission’s Seventh Framework Research Programme.
2 There are two fundamentally different understandings of shari῾a. In a nar-
row sense, which is common among non-Muslims but also to be found among
Muslims, shari῾a stands for draconic penal sanctions, such as stoning to death
or cutting off hands, and for unequal treatment of the sexes and religions. In a
broader sense, shari῾a means the totality of Islamic normativity, including reli-
gious commands and the set of methods for discerning and interpreting norms
(usul al-fiqh). See Mathias Rohe, ‘Application of Shari’a Rules in Europe’, Die
Welt des Islams special issue, 2004 (Vol. 44, No. 38), p. 323.

3 See Rowan Williams, ‘Civil and Religious Law in England, a religious perspec-
tive’ (lecture delivered on 7 February 2008), available at http://www.archbish-
opofcanterbury.org/articles.php/1137/archbishops-lecture-civil-and-religious-
law-in-england-a-religious-perspective.
4 E.g. by the equally fanatic and poorly informed German feminist Alice
Schwarzer, see Patrick Bahners, Die Panikmacher, Die deutsche Angst vor dem
Islam, München: C.H. Beck, 2011, pp. 233-251, and the statement by the author,
available at http://www.zr2.jura.uni-erlangen.de/aktuelles/kanal.shtml.
5 See Mathias Rohe, ‘Islamic Norms in Germany and Europe,’ in: Ala Al-
Hamarneh and Jörn Thielmann (eds.), Islam and Muslims in Germany, Leiden/
Boston: Brill, 2008, pp. 49, 62.
6 Of course, in the sphere of public law and especially of penal law, foreign law is
not applicable. Public law regulates the activities of the sovereign himself, and
penal law has to define rules that are necessary to grant a minimum consensus
of common behaviour in the relevant society.
7 For further details see Mathias Rohe, ‘Islamic Law in German Courts,’ Hawwa
2003 (No. 1) p. 46.
8 See Marie-Claire Foblets and Adriaan Overbeeke, ‘Islam in Belgium,’ in: Rich-
ard Potz and Wolfgang Wieshaider (eds.), Islam and the European Union, Leu-
ven: Peeters, 2004, p. 25; Edwige Rude-Antoine, ‘La coexistence des systèmes
juridiques différents en France: l’exemple du droit familial,’ in: Philippe Kahn
(ed.), L’ étranger et le droit de la famille, Paris: La Documentation française
(Mission ‘Droit et Justice’), 2001, pp. 147, 161.
9 Ali Mezghani, ‘Le juge français et les institutions du droit musulman,’ Journal
de Droit International 2003, pp. 721-722.
10 See Mathias Rohe, Das islamische Recht. Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd ed.,
Munich: C.H. Beck, 2011, pp. 171-181; 207-234.
11 For details see Mathias Rohe, ‘Islamic Law in German Courts,’ Hawwa, 2003
(No. 1), pp. 46.
12 See Lord Nazir Ahmad, ‘Notes on the Judicial Situation of Muslims in the
United Kingdom,’ in: Thorsten Schneiders and Lamya Kaddor (eds.), Muslime
im Rechtsstaat, Münster: lit Verlag Münster, 2005, pp. 71-72; Urfan Khaliq,
‘Islam and the European Union: Report on the United Kingdom,’ in: Potz and
Wieshaider (eds.), Islam and the European Union, 2004, pp. 219, 246.
13 This prohibition is based on Qur’an surah 33: 4; for present legal orders in the
Islamic world see D. Pearl and W. Menski, Muslim Family Law, 3rd ed. London:
Sweet&Maxwell, 1998, chapters 10-25.
14 See Joaquín Mantecón, ‘L’Islam en Espagne’, in: Potz and Wieshaider (eds.),
Islam and the European Union, 2004, pp. 109, 130-132.
15 See Article 59 Código Civil in conjunction with the administrative provision of
the general directorate of the Civil Registry and the Notary of 10 February 1993.
16 boe 30-09-2003, Ley Orgánica 11/2003, de 29 de septiembre, de medidas con-
cretas en materia de seguridad ciudadana, violencia doméstica e integración
social de los extranjeros, 4.

17 See lg Frankfurt a.M. Famrz 1976, p. 217; lg Osnabrück njw-rr 1998, p. 582;
ag Bremen Staz 1991, pp. 232, 233; bfhe 152, 537; Staatsanwaltschaft bei dem lg
Muenchen i iprspr. 1996 No. 62; vgh Kassel nvwz-rr 1999, pp. 274, 275.
18 See Para. 34, Sect. 2 Social Code i.
19 See ovg Koblenz 12.03.2004 (10 A 11717/03), unpublished.
20 Court of Appeal in Bibi v. Chief Adjudication Officer [1998] 1 flr 375. None of
the women were accepted legally as widows. See the critical remarks by David
S. Pearl, Islamic Family Law and Its Reception by the Courts in England, Harvard
Law School Islamic Legal Studies program, Occasional Publications, May 2000,
p. 14.
21 See Konstantinos Tsitselikis, ‘The Legal Status of Islam in Greece,’ in: Mathias
Rohe (guest ed.), Shari’a in Europe, Die Welt des Islams – International Journal
for the Study of Modern Islam, 2004 (Vol. 44 No. 3), pp. 402; Konstantinos Tsit-
selikis, in: Jorgen Nielsen et al. (eds.), Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, Leiden:
Brill 2010 (Vol. 2), pp. 233-237, 242.
22 See Sebastian Poulter, ‘The Claim to a Separate Islamic System of Personal Law
for British Muslims,’ in: Chibli Mallat and Jane Connors (eds.), Islamic Family
Law, London: Graham&Trotman, reprint 1993, p. 147.
23 Available at http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2006_february_sunday_tele-
graph_muslims_poll.pdf (p. 14).
24 See Jacob Levy, The Multiculturalism of Fear, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000, p. 180; Sebastian Poulter, n. 22, p. 148; Lord Nazir Ahmad, n. 12, pp. 71 ss,
74 referring to the respective demands of the umo and the Muslim Council of
Britain.
25 See Mathias Rohe, ‘Religiös gespaltenes Zivilrecht in Deutschland und Europa?,’
in: Heinrich De Wall and Michael Germann (eds.), Festschrift Link, Tübingen:
Duncker&Humblot, 2003, pp. 409.
26 Shari῾a applies there not only if Muslims are involved in inter-religious rela-
tions, but even in any other inter-religious cases, e.g. between Christians of dif-
ferent denominations; see Mathias Rohe, n. 11, pp. 208 s.; 379. Also: Maurits S.
Berger, Sharia and Public Policy in Contemporary Egyptian Family Law (PhD
thesis), Groningen: Hephaestus Press, 2006.
27 See for legal problems relating to the Jewish get (divorce), see Michael Free-
man, ‘The Jewish Get and the State,’ in: Richard O’Dair and Andrew Lewis
(eds.), Law and Religions. Current legal issues 2001 (Vol. 4), pp. 365, 377.
28 See e.g. the procedures in an unpublished Iranian divorce case in the local court
of Siegburg/Germany in November 2011 (unpublished). Cf. the report ‘Schei-
dung mit Richter und Mullah,’ KStA 16.11.20122, available at http://www.ksta.
de/region/amtsgericht-scheidung-mit-richter-und-mullah,15189102,12032204.
html.
29 See Zaki Badawi, in: Michael King (ed.), God’s Law versus State Law, London:
Grey Seal, 1995, pp. 73, 75; Marion Simonet, ‘L’ étranger entre deux droits: les
facteurs d’adhésion des populations étrangères aux systèmes judiciaire et juri-
dique français,’ in: Kahn (ed.), L’ étranger et le droit de la famille, 2001, pp. 118,
139-141.

30 See S.N. Shah-Kazemi, Untying the Knot. Muslim Women, Divorce and the Sha-
ria, London: Nuffield Foundation, 2001, p. 47.
31 See Anne Saris, Jean-Mathieu Potvin, Naïma Bendriss, Wendy Ayotte and
Samia Amor, étude de cas auprès de Canadiennes musulmanes et d’intervenants
civils et religieux en résolution de conflits familiaux, Montréal, 2007, pp. 44.
32 Report given by Anika Liversage on a religare expert seminar on Unregis-
tered Marriages and Alternative Dispute Resolution in European Legal Systems
on 4 Sept. 2012 in London (papers to be published with Ashgate in 2013).
33 See Abdullah Saeed, Islamic Banking and Interest. A Study of the Prohibition of
Riba and its Contemporary Interpretation, Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1996;
Munawar Iqbal, Islamic Banking and Finance, Leicester: Islamic Foundation,
2001; Mathias Rohe, ‘Islamisches Wirtschaften aus rechtlicher Sicht’, in: Harald
Herrmann and Kai-Ingo Voigt (eds.), Globalisierung und Ethik, Heidelberg:
Springer, 2005, pp. 103, 107.
34 See Reinhard Klarmann, Islamic Project Finance, Zurich/Bâle/Genève:
Schulthess, 2003; Kilian Bälz, ‘A Murabaha Transaction in an English Court’,
ilas, 2004 (Vol. 11), p. 117.
35 See Angelo Venardos, Islamic Banking and Finance, New Jersey: World Scien-
tific, 2005, p. 70.
36 See Iqbal Asaria, ‘Islamic home finance arrives on uk’s high streets’, Muslim
News 25 July 2003 (No. 171), p. 6.
37 It is based on a combination of leasing contracts concerning the state’s real
property; see ‘Finanzmarkt: Islam-Anleihe aus Magdeburg’, Die Bank 1 January
2004.
38 See ‘Sachsen-Anhalt bereitet erste islamische Anleihe vor’, faz 06.11.2003, p. 31;
‘Anlegen mit Allahs Segen’, Handelsblatt 14 July 2004, p. 29.
39 See the reports on dubious investments in Turkey supported by certain organiza-
tions in ‘Neuer Markt auf Türkisch’, spiegel online 29 January 2004 (accessed
on 29 November 2004 at http://www.spiegel.de/0,1518,283591,00.html); ‘Der
verlorene Schatz’, Die Zeit 29.11.2006, available at www.zeit.de/2006/46/G-
Holy-Holdings?page=4; bgh vi zr 57/09 23.03.2010, available at http://beck-
online.beck.de/?vpath=bibdata\zeits\dstr\2010\cont\dstr.2010.1040.1.htm&hl-
words=#xhlhit
40 See Rohe, n. 10, pp. 366.
41 See bgh njw 1999, p. 574; olg Celle Famrz 1998, p. 374.
42 § 138 Sect. 1: ‘A legal transaction which offends good morals is void’; see Rohe,
n. 11, p. 366.
43 The validity of wills does not depend on such assistance according to German
law of succession.
44 See only the clear statement of the extremist criminal Faisal Shahzad (‘We do
not accept your democracy or your freedom, because we already have shari῾a
law and freedom’, ‘Bomb plotter receives life sentence’, Washington Post 6 Octo-
ber 2010, p. 10), who had planned to blow up a car bomb in Times Square in
New York in May 2010.

45 Legal norms always need human interpretation when they are applied, irre-
spective of the reason for their validity; secular law has immunized its core
rights (human rights rules) against democratic majority decisions which could
try to restrict or abolish them; see Rohe, ‘Islam and the Democratic state under
the Rule of Law – and Never the Twain Shall Meet?’, in: Marie-Claire Foblets
and Jean-Yves Carlier (eds.), Crises are Challenges, Leuven, 2010, pp. 215-236.
46 See e.g. the very superficial and incorrect juxtaposition of shari῾a and secular
law in teaching materials written by Amir Zaidan (director of the irpi – Islam-
isches Religionspädagogisches Institut – in Vienna). In his course ‘Einführung
in die Scharia – Kurs 1’ (p. 16) he describes secular law as a matter in need of
constant adjustment because of human incapability, as dependent on individ-
ual and particular group interests, as a mere reaction to social developments,
as mostly confined in time and space and without giving any help with orienta-
tion. Obviously he has no conception of the very same challenges for shari῾a in
the past and present.
47 Sālim Ibn ‛Abd al-Ghanī al-Rāfi‛ī, Ahkām al-ahwāl al-šakhsīya li-l-muslimīn fī
al-gharb, Riyadh 2001. See Rohe, ‘Islamisten und Schari’a,’ in: Berlin, Senatsver-
waltung für Inneres, Islamismus, Berlin 2005, pp. 98, 109.
48 Rohe, ‘Islamisten und Schari῾a’, 2005, p. 618.
49 Rohe, ‘Islamisten und Schari῾a’, 2005, p. 394. See also the results of an essay
competition among Muslims in Britain on issues concerning penal law (Abdul-
lah Mohammed in: The Federation of Students Islamic Societies, Essays on Islam,
Essay Competition, Winning Entries 1995, Leicester, 1995, pp. 14, 37). The winner
quotes a Muslim author saying that Europeans are afraid of the application of
Islamic penal norms (ordering harsh corporal punishments which are contra-
dicting human rights) because they have a criminal nature and wish to commit
unjustifiable crimes.
50 Rohe, ‘Islamisten und Schari῾a’, 2005, p. 79.
51 See Ibn Baz and Uthaymeen, Muslim Minorities – Fatawa Regarding Muslims
Living as Minorities, Hounslow, 1998, esp. pp. 71; The Fiqh Council of the Mus-
lim World League on its 16th session in Mecca, reported in ‘A message from
Muslim scholars to Muslim Minorities in the West’, Daawah No. 4 1422 A.H./
Feb. 2002, pp. 8, 11.
52 Ayalet Shachar, ‘The Puzzle of Interlocking Power Hierarchies,’ Harvard Civil
Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 2000 (Vol. 35), pp. 385, 386, and also Multicul-
tural Jurisdictions. Cultural Differences and Women’s Rights, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2001, p. 62.
53 See Pearl and Menski, 1998, pp. 3-81.
54 See Shah-Kazemi, 2001; Mathias Rohe, ‘Religiös gespaltenes Zivilrecht in
Deutschland und Europa?’, in: De Wall and Germann (eds.), Festschrift Link,
2003, pp. 409, 415.
55 Pearl and Menski, 1998, pp. 3-81; Zaki Badawi, in: Michael King (ed.), God’s Law
versus State Law, London: Grey Seal, 1995, pp. 73, 75-80; Shah-Kazemi, n. 30.
56 See Ph. Lewis, Religion, Politics and Identity among British Muslims: Bradford
since the 1990s, London: I.B. Tauris, 1994, p. 119 regarding the circumstances in
Bradford; Shah-Kazemi, 2001.

57 See Pearl and Menski, 1998, pp. 3-100.

58 See Mathias Rohe, 2011, pp. 222-226; Pearl and Menski, 1998, pp. 3-100.
59 See Mathias Rohe, 2011, pp. 319.
60 See e.g. the decision in Re S ‘Abduction: Intolerable Situation: Beth Din’ [2000]
1 Family Law Report 454, 460; there, a Jewish lady was not allowed to bring her
case under laws granting equal treatment, since it was her own religion that
made Israeli Jewish courts competent to decide.
61 These should certainly be main issues of our research, if they are accessible.
62 bgh (Federal Supreme Court) njw, 1999, 135.
63 “Verschleiert, aber selbstbewußt”, faz 27.02.2001, p. 14.
64 An English version can be found at http://www.islam.de/?site=sonstiges/events/
charta&di=en (accessed on 30.01.2004).
65 Vereinigung der Islamischen Organisationen in Zürich (vioz), Grundsatzer-
klärung 27 March 2005.
66 Larbi Kechat, ‘Le coran a été relevé au viie siècle: dans le contexte socioculturel
de l’époque, entretien réalisé par Guy Gauthier’, in Panoramiques 1997 (Vol. 29),
L’islam est-il soluble dans la République, pp. 183, 189.
67 See Marie-Claire Foblets and Adriaan Overbeeke, ‘Islam in Belgium’, in: Potz
and Wieshaider (eds.), Islam and the European Union, 2004, p. 34.
68 Joachim Wagner, ‘Richter ohne Gesetz. Islamische Paralleljustiz gefährdet
unseren Rechtsstaat’, Berlin, 2011.
69 See ‘Juicio islàmico por adulterio a una mujer en Reus’ (Salud Muñoz), Elmundo.
es 06.12.09, available at http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/12/06/espana/
1260084030.html.
70 Lecture held during a conference in Sarajevo organized by the German Fried-
rich Ebert-Stiftung on 19 November 2007. See also Enes Karić, ‘Islam und Säku-
larismus’, in: Hamideh Mohagheghi and Klaus van Stosch, Moderne Zugänge
zum Islam, Paderborn: Schöningh, 2010, pp. 115, 121-124.

2 America
Islam and the Problems of Liberal Democracy
Bryan S. Turner and James T. Richardson
Introduction
The main theme running through our chapter is that, while liberal gov-
ernments such as that of the United States claim to favour the separa-
tion of church and state, governments constantly intervene to regulate
religions in multicultural societies, precisely because religious beliefs
and practices create problems, real and perceived, of governance.1 For
instance, states often intervene in the domestic space to protect the
interests of children in interfaith marriages or in unpopular religious
communities.2 In New York State in 2011, legislation was passed to
recognize gay marriages, and yet state governments have regularly in-
tervened to control the practice of polygamy, for example among the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.3 The state
intervenes to regulate the employment and practice of chaplains in
prisons and in the military.4 In France, the state has banned the wear-
ing of the veil in public spaces. Therefore, in modern societies, there is
widespread ‘management of religions’ by the state.5
One might ask why the management of religion is a problem for
liberals. Surely the regulation of religion is a pragmatic and neces-
sary response to religious diversity? However, the problem is not the
intervention but rather the absence of a level playing field, which is an
essential aspect of liberal tolerance. The law must treat individuals and
social groups on the same basis, and the state must not be seen to treat
certain groups with special favour. This principle is very important
when it comes to the recognition of religious practices. Jews should not
receive special advantages over those that Hindus enjoy, and vice versa.
In America, the ideal of the separation of church and state makes this
principle central to constitutional rights. In practice, however, things
are very different. Some religious groups are allowed special privileges,
but others are not. The issue of equality versus respect for difference
has become very acute in the case of Islam, and no more so than over
the shari῾a. In some American states, politicians are pressing to ban the

shari῾a, but both Judaism and Catholicism have religious courts. Is this
freedom of religion equally applied and available?
Brian Barry, an important critic of multicultural celebration of dif-
ference, argues that in modern societies, our commitment to the impor-
tance of difference has undermined an equally important value: the
principle of equal treatment.6 He cites the exemptions and advantages
enjoyed by the Amish community in the United States, which appear to
have little relevance to the actual practice of their religion. Perhaps the
most important absence of fair treatment in modern American society
is that, while Jewish and Catholic tribunals are allowed to operate in cer-
tain areas of life, there is a widespread move to stop any institutionali-
zation of Muslim tribunals applying aspects of the shari῾a. The result is
endless contradiction and confusion within cultural and legal practices.
Another example of such a contradiction occurs in the area of finan-
cial affairs. While there is widespread fear of the shari῾a as applied to
domestic disputes, there is growing acceptance of so-called shari῾a-
compliant mortgages, shari῾a banking practices and institutions, and
a growing commercial acceptance of shari῾a insurance schemes in
America and other Western nations.7 While the public is fearful of the
presence of the shari῾a in American court systems, there appears to be
more acceptance of shari῾a finance, presumably because it is ‘good for
business’.
The liberal dilemma is intensified because we live in a world in
which religious differences are deeper and much more complex than
in the past. We should note that when early philosophers, such as Rich-
ard Hooker and John Locke and the colonial leader Thomas Jefferson,
addressed the issue of religious tolerance, they were mainly concerned
either with conflicts between Catholics and Protestants or between
Protestant sects. Although opposition to the presence of Jews in Europe
had often been the cause of violence, the seventeenth and eighteenth-
century debates about tolerance were typically about tolerance within
Christendom. By contrast, modern societies are multicultural and
multi-faith. Extensive labour migration, as well as the acceptance of
refugees from war-torn areas of the world, has transformed the West,
including the United States, by creating significant diasporic commu-
nities that are often organized on the basis of religious identity. Argu-
ably, the Westphalian model of tolerance based on a clear separation
between the private (individual conscience) and the public (the state
and the law) no longer holds in societies with substantial Hindu, Jew-
ish, and Muslim minorities.8
Intolerance is not just about domestic political issues, because
with globalization, the conflict between religions appears to be on the

america 49
increase. In the Middle East, and especially after 9/11 and the inva-
sion of Iraq, there is now ample evidence of conflicts in Islam between
Shi’ite and Sunni communities, as well as conflicts between Chris-
tians and Muslims. In Iraq there have been serious attacks on Catho-
lic churches; in Egypt there is mounting tension between Muslims and
Copts; and in Syria there is widespread fear that if and when the Assad
regime collapses, there will be reprisals against both Alawite and Chris-
tian communities. Beyond these Middle Eastern conflicts, there have
been growing tensions between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria,
where Muslims represent about 45 per cent of the population. Spread-
ing peacefully to northern towns like Osogbo in the 1820s, Islam estab-
lished its presence in Nigeria by more forceful means during the Fulani
Jihadist invasion of the 1830s. In response to the spread of Pentacostal-
ist evangelicals in Nigeria, various reform movements were created in
the 1990s to attract young people to reformed Islam and to spread the
religion across the country. As a result, Nigeria has become the focus
of an often-violent religious confrontation.9 Consequently, American
foreign policy has to try to improve the image of America and reduce
tensions between religions. For example, the United States government
spent $70,000 on advertisements on six Pakistani television stations in
September 2012, disavowing an amateur movie depicting the Prophet
in a prejudicial and hateful manner.10 The management of religion is
therefore a strategy of both American domestic and foreign policy.
These modern difficulties within and between religions may be
explained partially by the rise of fundamentalism in various world reli-
gions. However, we prefer to refer to this development as a growth in
piety. The spread of veiling is one very obvious example of new forms
of ‘urban piety’, and we can likewise regard demands for the implemen-
tation of some aspects of the shari῾a as yet another aspect of new piety
movements. In much of North Africa and the Middle East, the Arab
Spring was followed by demands for more traditional piety and the
revival of the shari῾a.11 The growth of ‘urban piety’ also creates addi-
tional problems within the public domain. Although the secularization
thesis in the sociology of religion in the 1970s predicted the decline of
religion in the West, there has in fact been significant religious reviv-
alism across many societies. This revivalism is often associated with
reformed Islam, but the manifestations of such piety are global.12 Puri-
tanical forms of religiosity are associated with the rapid urbanization
of traditional communities and the growth of literacy among the urban
lower and middle classes. This tendency can be seen in the develop-
ment of urban piety in Southeast Asia among newly urbanized Muslim
populations.13

These piety movements tend to create religious enclaves by sharp-

ening the differences between the pious and the outside world.14 Reli-
gious differences are often reinforced by in-group marriages, separate
educational institutions, and various exemptions from public services
and institutions (occasionally involving exemptions from taxation and
military service). Such developments tend to create cultural and reli-
gious fissures in the public domain, in which religious groups become
socially and geographically separate. The result is growing social frag-
mentation.
This argument can be challenged, of course. In the United States it
is often claimed that inter-racial marriages have increased, suggest-
ing that the racial divisions of American society in the past have been
repaired, and hence sociologists such as Jeffrey Alexander have argued
that the civil sphere in the United States is relatively successful and har-
monious.15 More recently, Robert Putnam and David Campbell, in their
report on the ‘Faith Matters’ surveys in 2006 and 2007, noted that three
religious groups in America – Buddhists, Mormons and Muslims – are
viewed unfavourably, and that certain religious groups have strong feel-
ings of mutual solidarity.16 Nevertheless, between one-third and half of
all Americans are in interfaith marriages, and the majority of Ameri-
cans feel comfortable in a pluralistic religious world. For example, some
80 per cent of Americans believe that ‘there are basic truths in many
religions’.17 They conclude their study with the observation that ‘Geo-
graphic segregation by religion has largely ended, while social segrega-
tion along religious lines is also mostly a thing of the past’.18
Islam in America: A Historical Summary
Before examining the shari῾a in America in more detail, we offer a brief

sketch of the situation regarding Islam in America. Muslims first came
to America as African slaves.19 Black American Islam developed into a
radical political movement under the Nation of Islam, and various radi-
cal leaders emerged from this anti-white political protest, most notori-
ously Malcolm X.20 While black African-American Islam is a signifi-
cant social group, very little research has been undertaken on the role
of shari῾a within this community. However, in this chapter we are con-
cerned mainly with recent Muslim migrants. Unlike both Britain and
France, Muslim migrants to America in the second half of the twenti-
eth century were typically well educated, and they quickly assimilated
into American society, at least in economic terms. By the late 1980s,
Muslim intellectuals had come to the conclusion that America was no

america 51
longer incompatible with Islamic belief and practice, but a ‘place of or-
der’ or dar-al-aman, signifying that Muslims could comfortably live in
the United States while also recognizing that it is a place of outreach.
The majority of pious Muslims – like pious Christians – see America as
a corrupt and immoral society in which Muslims have a responsibil-
ity to call people back to Islam, a practice known as da’wa. However,
many Muslims from minority traditions such as Isma’ilis see America
as democratic and pluralist, and therefore a society in which they can
flourish and enjoy religious freedom. This argument about successful
assimilation has received further support from a significant ethno-
graphic study of Muslims in America by Mucahit Bilici (2012), enti-
tled Finding Mecca in America. Despite discrimination and prejudice,
Muslims are settling successfully in America, where they find freedom
to practise their faith without draconian interference from the state.21
In fact, for many Muslims, America has now become Dar-al Islam (the
Abode or House of Islam). This phrase is often contrasted with Dar al-
Harb or the House of War, but a better and less controversial translation
might be the arena of struggle against those things that threaten the
integrity of Islam.22 Another term, as we have seen, is dar-al-aman, or a
place of stability and proper order where people can peacefully practise
their religion. Thus Bilici suggests that ironically, Muslims find they are
better able to practise Islam in America than in many Muslim-majority
societies with authoritarian governments.23
In this environment, a new leadership emerged from within the Mus-
lim middle classes. Unlike the traditional imams of an earlier period,
the new professional leadership was not trained in the traditional reli-
gious literature, and approached the shari῾a from the perspective of
Western training. This initially resulted in some tension and competi-
tion between the traditional leadership and the new professional class.
Many of these legal professionals came to believe that shari῾a from
outside America did not satisfy the needs of educated Muslims living
in a multicultural and secular environment. One example is Khaled
Abou El Fadl, professor of Islamic Law at ucla.24 He complained, for
example, that the shari῾a Scholars Association of North America meet-
ing in Detroit in November 1999 was composed of fiqh scholars (legal
experts) who had typically never lived in America, knew nothing about
actual conditions, and came from totalitarian and corrupt regimes in
the Middle East.25
While this ‘import’ of foreign scholars and scholarship was an
important problem, the American Muslim community was also faced
by the uncontrolled and often badly informed on-line debate about fat-
was where the discussants have no real legal training or legal sophistica-

tion. As one young American Muslim of Indian background exclaimed,

‘The Internet has made everyone a mufti’.26
Several attempts were made early on to improve this situation. In the
1970s, a fiqh council was set up by the Muslim Students Association,
but it was mainly concerned with narrow issues like the appropriate
dates for fasting. In 1988 the Fiqh Council of North America was cre-
ated, but its critics claim that it was dominated by ‘naturalized Muslims’
who knew little about American laws relating to the family, property and
divorce. Because Islam is a devolved religion and consensus comes from
the community, such organizations rarely have much authority. It is also
very important to realize that the shari῾a is not state law and historically
could not automatically depend on the state to enforce qadi justice (that
is, judge-made law). The situation is also complicated by the diversity of
legal traditions in Sunni Islam, of which there are four dominant schools.
One outcome of these developments is that much of the richness of tra-
ditional teaching has been lost in the United States, where there remains
a dearth of scholars trained in the full breadth of Islamic law.
As we have noted, one interesting development in the West con-
cerns Islamic banking and finance. Many Muslim financiers argue that
there is no serious incompatibility between Islamic norms relating to
investment, banking and profit sharing, and American laws relating to
finance.27 To take one example: the American financial house lariba
(the Los Angeles Reliable Investment Bankers Association) called itself
a ‘faith-based financing’ business in response to President Bush’s call for
faith-based initiatives.28
Growing Fears Concerning Islam
By the beginning of this century, it would be reasonable to claim that

second or third-generation American Muslims had become success-
ful American citizens and were well integrated.29 This positive situation
was transformed by the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. After the
tragic event, Muslims were often identified as un-American outsiders
who were fundamentalists and dangerous. While Muslims struggled in
the majority of cases to re-affirm their loyalty and American identity,
right-wing elements have attacked Muslim customs (such as veiling)
and have more recently led a specific attack on what is seen as the sig-
nificant advance of shari῾a in American courts, alongside the growth of
halal-certified goods, even including Thanksgiving Day turkeys.30
Thus the positive picture of ‘American Grace’ presented by Putnam
and Campbell and of Americanized Islam by Bilici appears to be con-

america 53
tradicted by the response of the American public to the rise (alleged or

otherwise) of religious radicalism, especially Islamic radicalism. Since
9/11, the possibilities for pluralism and tolerance have been severely
tested and constrained by a discourse focused on terrorism and secu-
rity. In particular, Islam as a civilization has come to be defined as fun-
damentally incompatible with Western values. Muslim communities
have thus been marginalized by a mixture of official processes of secu-
ritization and popular hostility.
Moreover, the argument that America now has a benign social envi-
ronment of religious and racial tolerance is questionable given the
widespread hostility to the proposal to build a Muslim cultural cen-
tre close to Ground Zero,31 the religious standpoint of the Tea Party
movement (demonstrated by reluctance to endorse Mitt Romney as
the Republican candidate because he is a Mormon), and the persistent
notion that President Obama is a Muslim, among other things. There
also is growing opposition to the idea that the shari῾a could be referred
to in American court proceedings.
While there is evidence that Muslims in America have been quite
successful in terms of social mobility and their integration into Ameri-
can culture,32 growing concern about the shari῾a is indicative of divi-
sions in modern America that may not have been obvious in the Faith
Matters surveys on which Putnam and Campbell based their argument.
Various lobby groups opposed to the shari῾a, such as act for America
and the Society of Americans for National Existence, now operate in
the United States to warn people about the spread of shari῾a.33 Many of
these groups operate on the margins of mainstream politics, and it is
possible that their animosity to Islam as a cultural threat will not have
any long-term consequences. However there is a more fundamental
issue being raised by the shari῾a, namely the growth of legal pluralism.
On 11 November 2011 (the Veterans Day holiday in America), nearly
one thousand people attended a conference in Tennessee with the
theme, ‘The Constitution or shari῾a’. The conference, organized by the
shari῾a Awareness Action Network, which is a coalition of religious
liberty and national security groups, focused on the alleged perils of
shari῾a and efforts to promote the ‘Islamatization of America’.34 The
conference was held at a large fundamentalist Protestant church after
the hotel that was to be the original venue cancelled due to ‘security
concerns.’ The conference attracted participants from across America
and several other countries, who were told about efforts of the Mus-
lim Brotherhood to infiltrate the government, as well as the concept of
‘lawfare,’ by which was meant the use of the judicial system to fight the
spread of shari῾a and its ‘stealth jihad.’

The moral panic about Islam and the shari῾a is being fostered by
some prominent politicians in America, including several Republican
presidential candidates. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (Repub-
lican from Minnesota) has spoken of the ‘threat’ of Muslims bringing
shari῾a law into the United States and has claimed that Muslims want to
‘usurp’ the Constitution. Herman Cain has said he would not appoint a
Muslim to his administration, and former Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich has also expressed concern about Muslims in the govern-
ment.35 Earlier in 2011, New York Congressman Peter King sponsored,
despite vehement protests, a hearing of the Homeland Security Com-
mittee he chairs on the alleged threat of Muslim radicals in America.
The hearing, held on 10 March 2011, attracted widespread attention
both in the United States and overseas.36
Legal Plurality and the Spread of Shari῾a
The idea of ‘legal pluralism’ was originally associated with anthropolog-

ical research into the continuity of customary law in colonial societies,
where it often existed alongside Anglo-Saxon common law. We may
describe legal pluralism as a situation in which there are competing
‘bodies of law’ within a given sovereign territory. It is often thought to
be a problem emerging in the modern state, where the unified sover-
eignty of the state is challenged by different competing, and occasion-
ally overlapping, systems of law. Although legal pluralism is often asso-
ciated with both globalization and post-colonialism, legal pluralism in
fact existed in Europe throughout the medieval period in terms of ius
commune, commercial law (lex mercatoria), and ecclesiastical or canon
law.37 Modern Muslims also like to imagine a time when the shari῾a
had dominant and exclusive authority, but this notion also turns out
to be mythical.38 We do not intend in this chapter to seriously engage
with the technical literature surrounding the anthropological study of
legal pluralism, and for our purposes it may be less problematic to use
the term ‘legal plurality’ to describe modern societies grappling with
diverse legal traditions.
While the ideas of state sovereignty and a unified legal code may be
political fictions, they are useful fictions: any functional system of law
would have to have some minimal agreement about a final umpire who
could arbitrate between competing legal claims. The growth of legal
pluralism becomes a problem in societies where a common citizen-
ship is fragmenting under the impact of globalization and the decline
of shared culture.

america 55
In some societies, such as the United Kingdom, there is evidence of

the development of religious arbitration, but these ‘courts’ are confined
to private disputes (typically around marriage, divorce, adoption and
so forth).39 If accepting religious law means in practice accepting third-
party arbitration, then legal plurality might not in itself pose a direct
threat to state sovereignty. However for some critics, such as the pop-
ular press in the United Kingdom, which expressed almost hysterical
concern over a lecture in which the Archbishop of Canterbury seemed
to endorse the shari῾a, arbitration is merely the ‘thin end’ of the legal
wedge, raising the problem of whether an arbitration hearing is in fact
a ‘court’.
Many of these debates are concerned with the formal use of the
shari῾a in the West, where judges may refer to marriage contracts made
under shari῾a norms in disputes over inheritance or the care of chil-
dren. However, there is also informal and unregulated use of shari῾a,
for example, through the spread of ‘online fatwas’ providing informal
legal judgements and opinions about matters relating to how Muslims
should live in a secular society. With the global spread of the Internet,
some degree of informal but popular opinion formation is taking place
between individuals in ways that may be compatible with shari῾a as a
consensus-seeking legal tradition. This development involves the infor-
mal growth of religious codes in everyday life.
The informal spread of shari῾a tribunals in America and else-
where and appeals to online shari῾a judgements can be defined as ‘the
sharia-ization of the everyday world’.40 From the perspective of reli-
gious orthodoxy, however, there are some important questions sur-
rounding such online legal opinions. The first is that Internet religious
opinions can no longer be controlled by traditional religious authori-
ties, and there is therefore an erosion of religious authority.41 The sec-
ond related issue is what we might call ‘fatwa shopping’, namely the
search for a particular religious opinion that will satisfy an individual’s
specific requirements.
The prospect of shari῾a courts operating in formally secular socie-
ties has given rise to acrimonious public debate in America, as well
as Britain, Australia, and Canada. Recent protests, as we have noted,
against the Archbishop of Canterbury’s public lecture on ‘Civil and
Religious Law in England’,42 and the public dispute over the introduc-
tion of shari῾a into arbitration courts in Ontario, Canada, are exam-
ples of the moral panic concerning shari῾a.43 In both episodes, practical
objections were raised about how women’s rights could be protected
and how arbitration could be enforced.

American Legal Exceptionalism and Shari῾a
Having considered various examples of the spread of the shari῾a, there

is one simple objection to our argument, namely that the American
Constitution in fact prohibits the spread of legal plurality by defending
the central authority of the Supreme Court as the sole arbiter of law in
the United States. However, a report from the Center for Security Policy
(2011) claims that it has discovered fifty significant cases of the shari῾a
in American courts, and fifteen Trial Court Cases and twelve Appel-
late Court Cases where it was found to be applicable in the case of the
bar.44 The claims made in this report are, however, greatly overblown,
as noted by University of Windsor law professor Julie McFarlane and
by Wajahat Ali and Matthew Duss, writing for the Center for Ameri-
can Progress.45 MacFarlane states that a closer examination of the cases
cited in the csp report shows that American judges usually reject any
interpretation or ruling based on Islamic law. Most of the cases dealt
with family matters (marriage contracts, divorce, child custody and in-
heritance), and judges assumed jurisdiction because of questions about
basic fairness to the parties involved and other concerns, such as the
‘best interests of the child’ in custody disputes. MacFarlane concludes
that American courts take an exacting approach to contracts that refer
to Islamic law principles. Ali and Duss point out the many internal con-
tradictions in the csp report, and note that, since most Muslims oppose
terrorism, the report alienates them from those trying to stop terrorism
fostered by a small minority of Muslims.
There have been several efforts to preclude the use of the shari῾a
in legal proceedings in states in the United States, and more are being
developed. In 2010 the State of Oklahoma passed a constitutional
amendment with a 70 per cent voter approval precluding use of the
shari῾a in its court system. A suit was brought immediately by the
Council on American-Islamic Relations (cair) on the grounds that
the amendment was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the
us Constitution, which precludes the favouring of one religion over
another by the government. A federal judge in Oklahoma granted an
injunction delaying implementation of the amendment, and that rul-
ing was affirmed by the 10th Circuit court of Appeal in Denver.46 Court
documents filed in the appeal by the cair and the American Civil Lib-
erties Union, as reported in a television newscast, state:47
The measure tramples the free exercise rights of a disfavoured minor-

ity faith and constrains the ability of Muslims in Oklahoma to execute
valid wills, assert religious liberty claims under the Oklahoma Reli-
gious Freedom Act, and enjoy equal access to the state judicial system.

america 57
Julie MacFarlane claims that following the Oklahoma example, two

other states (Tennessee and Louisiana) passed similar constitutional
amendments, and similar efforts were underway in nineteen other
states as of March 2011.48 These efforts demonstrate a high degree of
concern about the shari῾a in America that might be characterized as a
‘moral panic’, given how little reference to the shari῾a is actually occur-
ring in courts in the United States.49 Furthermore, there is little evi-
dence that the majority of Muslims want the full implementation of
the shari῾a as an alternative to secular common law, and certainly there
is no evidence suggesting that Muslims want access to Islamic crimi-
nal law in the West. When the Western media discuss the shari῾a, they
often equate it with the hudud rules specifying what are often horren-
dous punishments, such as stoning and cutting off the hands of thieves.
Such reports neglect the reform of criminal law in Pakistan, for exam-
ple, where the conservative legacy of Syed Mawdudi has been chal-
lenged by younger scholars and political activists.50
Relevant Research on Muslims
Although there has been little recent systematic research directly fo-
cused on the shari῾a as a comprehensive system of norms and laws in
the West, an earlier study by Haddad and Lummis did survey Mus-
lims in five sites in the United States on the basic values of Muslims in
America.51 They found that most Muslims were supportive of American
values, and that they were finding ways to make their religious practices
mesh with other aspects of their life. There have also been a few recent
studies of specific issues that relate to aspects of the shari῾a, particu-
larly family matters such as marriage, divorce, and custody of children
(see below). The Pew Foundation has also published considerable re-
search on Muslim social status, views, and attitudes, but none to date
dealing directly with the shari῾a.52 The aforementioned professor Julie
MacFarlane has done perhaps the most relevant research for this chap-
ter, with her four-year in-depth study of divorce within Islamic com-
munities in the United States and Canada.53 Her research, motivated
by the controversy that erupted in Ontario, Canada, in 2003, involved
interviews with over 100 highly-educated divorced Muslim women and
men (80 per cent women), as well as over 110 others (about 40 imams
and 70 others working with divorce issues) from Muslim communities
in selected cities in the United States and Canada (75 per cent from the
us). She pointed out that many Muslims desire a religiously sanctioned
marriage, which is achieved through a contractual marriage agreement

referred to as a nikah. This is easily accomplished and usually also ac-

companied by a formalized civil marriage. However, getting a divorce is
much more complicated if the persons involved want it to be religiously
sanctioned. This is the case because Islamic law and tradition allow the
male much more power to end a marriage, and on terms that are more
advantageous to him than to the female in the marriage. This imbal-
ance of power and rights has been noticed by many commentators, and
is the subject of considerable controversy.
MacFarlane’s research reveals that informal processes of apply-
ing shari῾a elements to marriage and divorce in the United States are
occurring, even though there is no formal recognition via statute in any
state. Such informal processes are occurring because they are desired
by those involved in important family-oriented rituals. However, Mac-
Farlane reports that none of those interviewed advocated establish-
ing a formal legal status for Islamic family law, preferring to retain the
use of the civil law system as well as informal shari῾a-based processes
when desired. She also says that there is little agreement among Ameri-
can and Canadian Muslims about what shari῾a means in terms of its
application, noting that there is much debate among Muslim scholars
and leaders about its core principles. MacFarlane describes the con-
cern over shari῾a as a ‘moral panic’, and laments that so much misinfor-
mation is being promulgated by the mass media and some politicians
regarding what Muslims are doing and what they want when they live
in Canada and the United States.
Inger Furseth has done research on Muslim women’s views concern-
ing arranged marriages.54 She interviewed a sample of Muslim women in
Los Angeles, and found that they were divided on the value of arranged
marriages. Some thought such marriages important as a way to have the
young person remain in touch with his or her culture and family’s coun-
try of origin. Others were much more flexible, and had accepted more
Western norms about marriage, allowing the young person more choice,
or at least the right to veto an arrangement for a marriage that they did
not like. Her research demonstrates that American Muslim women are
not of one mind on this issue, a finding that perhaps should not sur-
prise anyone, but which has implications for applications of the shari῾a
when a marriage results in a divorce. As noted above, there is consider-
able controversy about the issue of divorce within Muslim communi-
ties, and the issue of religious versus civil divorce is quite contested.
Furseth also did interesting research on the clothing worn by some
Muslim women in America, an issue that some assume is derived from
the shari῾a, and which has caused major controversies in some Western
societies.55 If controversy erupts in America about the garb of Muslim

america 59
women, this research will be quite germane. Furseth studied Muslim

women in Los Angeles (the same sample as for her work on Muslim
women’s views of marriage) on the issue of their dress code, and what
it means to wear traditional Islamic clothing. She points out that there
has been a growing emphasis on wearing a headscarf among Muslim
women in recent decades, especially since the tragic events on 9/11. She
attributes this to the women who wear the garb’s efforts to emphasize
their religious identity. Furseth’s work emphasizes that Muslim women
who cover themselves are exercising human agency, and disputes the
idea that they are being coerced by Muslim males to do so. Indeed, she
notes instances from her sample where the husband was opposed his
wife’s wearing of the headscarf. While the role played by social net-
works in the decisions to cover oneself is acknowledged, the impor-
tant networks are female ones. In her conclusion, Furseth suggests that
‘wearing the hijab has increasingly become a symbol of Muslim’s wom-
en’s courage to represent Islam in the public sphere and show solidarity
with co-Muslims.’56 One conclusion to be drawn from this research is
that American Muslim women are beginning to challenge and modify
the practice of Islam. For example, in many traditional Muslim socie-
ties, women do not attend the mosque, and when they do, women are
typically segregated from men. However, in many American mosques,
women are gradually undermining these norms by claiming a space
within the mosque with or alongside men.57
Conclusion
Legal pluralism or plurality, while viewed positively by some, can con-

tribute to the ongoing erosion of citizenship as a shared cultural, social
and political framework. Legal pluralism and multiculturalism require
a lively and effective framework of active citizenship if they are to be
successful. The weakening of common ties, establishment of separate
religious schools, growth of legal pluralism, wearing of distinctive re-
ligious dress in public spaces, ethnic segregation and development of
symbolically segregated communities such as the proliferation of eruv
in the Jewish world, and the consequent if unintended creation of par-
allel communities, can promote an acute differentiation of identity and
have a divisive effect on society, leading to ‘the enclave society’.58
Religious differences and identities are often championed in the
name of human rights, namely freedom of conscience. The paradox of
these individual rights is that we need effective and viable states if rights
are to be enforced, and the enforcement of rights is a necessary condi-

tion of political life. Hence, despite much of the contemporary com-

mentary on the decline of the state and the growth of porous political
boundaries, we need to be concerned that any decline in the authority
and coherence of the state – associated with neo-liberal globalization
– will in fact undermine the political foundations that are necessary to
sustain legal pluralism and multiculturalism, and lead to the decline of
participatory citizenship.
Our argument is that the real political issue behind the possible
growth of shari῾a arbitration is not (or not just) the conventional femi-
nist anxiety about equal treatment, but a broader concern about the
current state of citizenship in democracies such as in the United States.
The notion that citizens have a right to choose the legal systems under
which they are to be ruled in the name of cultural difference and mul-
ticulturalism makes questionable political sense, and could destroy
the very institutions that protect our cultural diversity. In Genealogies
of Citizenship, Margaret Somers provides a vigorous and passionate
defence of citizenship as the necessary foundation of democracy and
our best hope of sustaining social solidarity, equality and mutual trust.
Her basic argument is that ‘democratic citizenship regimes (including
human rights) can thrive only to the extent that egalitarian and solidar-
istic principles, practices, and institutions of civil society and the pub-
lic commons are able to act with equal force against the exclusionary
threats of market-driven politics’.59
We find some solace in the empirical research reported above,
based on studies of American (and Canadian) Muslim communities.
The research reported by Pew and that reported by MacFarlane and
by Furseth shows strong support among most Muslims for the values
of American society, and little support for any extremist ideas or pro-
grammes. As Pew states in one of its recent reports, ‘Muslim Americans
have not become disillusioned with the country. They are overwhelm-
ingly satisfied with the way things are going in their lives (82 per cent)
and continue to rate their communities very positively as places to live
(79 per cent excellent or good).’60 Indeed, Pew reports that Muslims are
more satisfied with the situation in America than non-Muslim mem-
bers of American society (56 per cent vs. 23 per cent). MacFarlane’s
finding that no one in her study was promoting or desired the estab-
lishment of formal shari῾a tribunals or courts is also of note. Furseth’s
research also demonstrates that, while the Muslim women she stud-
ied are seeking ways to identify with their faith, they are not trying to
force Islamic values upon others. Indeed, her work shows that there
is some tension within Muslim communities over such issues as dress
and arranged marriages, suggesting that there is no monolithic Islamic

america 61
set of cultural values that is invading American society and attempting

to make others accept those values. Bilici also argues that debates are
occurring about Muslim dress codes and the shari῾a within Muslim
communities.
Obviously, more research is needed, but based on what is available
so far, we would suggest that, while there are grounds for some concern
about the implications for the potential development of legal pluralism
and the spread of the shari῾a in America and elsewhere, those fears may
be groundless, given the apparent fact that the vast majority of Muslims
in America are finding ways to adjust to American secularism, while
also expressing their religious identity in various ways.
Notes
1 See James T. Richardson (ed.), Regulating Religion: Case Studies from around
the Globe, New York: Kluwer, 2004.
2 Stuart Wright and James T. Richardson (eds.), Saints under Siege: The Texas
State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, New York: New York Uni-
versity Press, 2011.
3 Cardell Jacobson and Lara Burton (eds.), Modern Polygamy in the United States,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
4 James A. Beckford and Sophie Gilliat, Religion in Prison, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2008.
5 Jack Barbalet, Adam Possamai, and Bryan S. Turner (eds.), Church and State. A
Comparative Sociology, London: Anthem Press, 2011.
6 Brian Barry, Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.
7 Michael Nazir-Ali, ‘Islamic law, fundamental freedoms, and social cohesion’
in: Rex Ahdar and Nicholas Aroney (eds.), Sharia in the West, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011, pp. 71-89. And Jamila Hussain, Islam: Its Law and Soci-
ety, 3rd edition, Sydney: Federation Press.
8 Jeff Spinner-Halevy, ‘Hinduism, Christianity and liberal religious tolerance’,
Political Theory, 2005 (Vol. 33, No. 1), pp. 28-57.
9 David O. Ogungbile, ‘Tradition and Response: Islam and Muslim Societies in a
Nigerian City’, in: Tugrul Keskin (ed.), The Sociology of Islam. Secularism, Econ-
omy and Politics, Reading, uk: Ithaca Press, 2011, pp. 319-342.
10 Farhan Bokhari and Borzou Daragahi, ‘Protests across Pakistan over anti-Islam
film claims 20 lives’, The Financial Times, 2012 (September 22-23), p. 3.
11 Maaike Voorhoeve (ed.), Family Law in Islam. Divorce, Marriage and Women in
the Muslim World, London: I.B. Taurus, 2012.
12 José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994.

13 Joy Kooi-Chin Tong and Bryan S. Turner, ‘Women, piety, and practice: A study
of women and religious practice in Malaya’, Contemporary Islam, 2008 (Vol. 2),
pp. 41-59.
14 Bryan S. Turner, ‘The enclave society: Towards a sociology of immobility’, Euro-
pean Journal of Social Theory, 2007 (Vol. 10, No. 2), pp. 287-303.
15 Jeffrey C. Alexander, The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006,
p. 453.
16 Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion
Divides and Unites Us, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
17 Putnam and Campbell, American Grace, 2010, p. 543.
18 Putnam and Campbell, American Grace, 2010, p. 550.
19 Robert Dannin, Black Pilgrimage to Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002.
20 Manning Marabel, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, New York: Viking, 2012.
21 Mucahit Bilici, Finding Mecca in America. How Islam is becoming an American
Religion, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
22 Ian Richard Netton, A Popular Dictionary of Islam, London: Curzon Press,
1992, p. 67.
23 Bilici, Finding Mecca in America, 2012.
24 Khaled Abou El Fadl, Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, Princeton, nj:
Princeton University Press, 2004.
25 Also see Yvonne Haddad and Adair Loomis, Islamic Values in the United States,
New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
26 Karen Isaksen Leonard, Muslims in United States: The State of Research, New
York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003, p. 125; Emily Wax, ‘The Mufti in the chat
room: Islamic advisers are just a click away from ancient customs’, Washington
Post, July 13, 1999.
27 Nazir-Ali, ‘Islamic law, fundamental freedom, and social cohesion’, 2011.
28 Leonard, Muslims in the United States, 2003, p. 105.
29 Pew Research Center, ‘Muslim Americas: Middle class and mostly mainstream’,
available at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/483/muslim-americans accessed
11/11/2011.
30 See Jillian Rayfield, ‘This Thanksgiving beware the shari῾a turkey’, for a strange
story about fear of eating halal turkey and ‘stealth shari῾a’ food in America.
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/8567-this-thanksgiv-
ing-beware-the-sharia-turkey, accessed Oct. 26, 2012.
31 See Voice of America,’ Ground Zero mosque controversy puts many Muslims
in defensive’, August 31, 2010 for one discussion of the controversy and its after-
math. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Ground-Zero-Mosque-Contro-
versy-Puts-Many-us-Muslims-on-Defensive--101960113.html accessed Oct. 26,
2012.
32 Pew Research Center, ‘Muslim Americas: Middle class and mostly mainstream’,
2011.
33 See Ali Wajahat, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz
Shakir, ‘Fear Inc.: The roots of Islamaphobia network I America’ August 26,
2011 for a discussion of the funding sources for organizations promoting Islam-

america 63
aphobia in American and elsewhere available at http://www.americanprogress.

org/issues/2011/08/islamophobia.html accessed Oct. 24, 2012.
34 See Christian News Wire, ‘Constitution or shari῾a conference a huge success’,
Nov. 15, 2011. Available at http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/7318718270.
html (accessed Oct. 26, 2012) for more details on this conference, and see http://
shariafreeusa.com/available-now-the-constitution-or-sharia-preserving-free-
dom-dvd-set/ for a dvd of this conference.
35 See Policy Mic, ‘gop could sway Muslim vote if it weren’t for hateful rheto-
ric’, September, 2011 available at http://www.policymic.com/articles/2396/gop-
could-sway-muslim-vote-if-it-weren-t-for-hateful-rhetoric (accessed Oct. 24,
2012) for details and for a lament that this rhetoric is driving Muslims away
from the Republican party, where many might find a political home given their
relatively high incomes and views on such issues as homosexuality.
36 See John Feffer, ‘u.s. islamophobia: Chicken a la king’, available at http://www.
voltairenet.org/U-S-Islamophobia-Chicken-a-la-King (accessed Oct. 26, 2012)
for a fuller discussion of the hearing and related events that have promoted the
rise if Islamaphobia in America.
37 Brian Z. Tamanaha, ‘Understanding legal pluralism: Past to present, local to
global’, Sydney Law Review, 2008 (Vol. 30), pp. 375-411.
38 An-Na’im, Islam and the Secular State, 2008.
39 Erich Kolig, ‘To Shari’aticize or not to Shari’aticize: Islamic and secular law in
liberal democratic society’, in: Ahdar and Aroney (eds.), Sharia in the West,
2010, pp. 255-278. Also see chapters 1 and 4 in this volume.
40 Kolig, ‘To Shari’aticize or not to Shari’aticize’, 2010.
41 Frederick Volpi and Bryan S. Turner, ‘Making Islamic authority matter,’ Theory
Culture & Society, 2007 (Vol. 33, No. 1), pp. 28-57.
42 Rowan Williams, ‘Civil and religious law in England: A religious perspective’,
Foundation Lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice, available at Archbishop of
Canterbury homepage, www.archbishopofcanterbury.org, 2008; also see vol-
ume focusing on this presentation by Ahdar and Aroney (eds.), Shari’a in the
West, 2011.
43 Natasha Bakht, ‘Were Muslim barbarians really knocking on the gates of
Ontario? The religious arbitration controversy – another perspective’, Ottawa
Law Review, 2006 (Vol. 40), pp. 67-82.
44 Center for Security Policy, ‘Shari῾ah law and American state courts: An assess-
ment of state appellate court cases. Occasional Paper Series, May 17, 2012. Avail-
able at http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/search.xml?search-clause=shari
῾ah+law+and+American+state+courts&x=49&y=4 accessed Oct. 27, 2012.
45 Julie MacFarlane, ‘Shari’a law: Coming to a courthouse near you? How Mus-
lim Americans understand and use Shari’a in marriage and divorce’, Washing-
ton, D.C.: Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. December 2011. Avail-
able at http://www.ispu.org/GetReports/35/2459/Publications.aspx accessed
Oct. 27, 2012. Wajahat Ali and Matthew Duss, ‘Understanding shari῾a Law:
Conservative’s skewed interpretation needs debunking.’ Center for American
Progress. Accessed December 2, 2011 at http://www.americanprogress.org/
issues/2011/03/sharia_law.html

46 See Andrew Cohen, ‘In Oklahoma case another legal obstacle to banning
Shari’a law’, available at http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/
in-oklahoma-case-another-legal-obstacle-to-banning-sharia-law/251190/
accessed Oct. 27, 2012.
47 Quote obtained from: Ariane de Vogue, ‘Federal appeal court considers Shari’a
law’, Sept. 12, 2011, available at http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/
federal-appeals-court-considers-sharia-law/accessed on November 14, 2011.
48 Julie MacFarlane, Islamic Divorce in North America: A Shari’a Path in a Secular
Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
49 us District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange blocked the measure in Novem-
ber 2010, ruling that any harm that would result from a delay in certifying the
election results would be ‘minimized’ because the defendants were ‘not aware
of any situation where shari῾a Law has been applied in an Oklahoma court.’
Obtained from Ariane de Vogue, ‘Federal appeal court considers Shari’a law’,
2011.
50 Javed A. Ghamidi, Islam. From Revolution to Implementation, Lahore: Al-Maw-
rid, 2006.
51 Haddad and Loomis, Islamic Values in the United States, 1987.
52 Pew Research Center, ‘Muslim Americans: No signs of growth in alienation
or support for extremism’, Available at http://people-press.org/2011/08/30/mus-
lim-americans-no-signs-of accessed 11/11/2011.
53 McFarlane, Islamic Divorce in North America, 2012.
54 Inger Furseth, ‘Competing and changing ideals of motherhood: Views on
arranged marriage among middle class immigrant Muslim women in the Los
Angeles area.’ Forthcoming in: Fariha Khan (ed.), Global Islam in Everyday
America, 2012.
55 Inger Furseth, ‘The hijab: Boundary work and identity negotiations among
immigrant Muslim women in the Los Angeles area’, Review of Religious Research
2011 (Vol. 52), pp. 365-385.
56 Furseth, ‘The hijab: Boundary work and identity negotiations among immi-
grant Muslim women in the Los Angeles area’, 2011, p. 382. For an in-depth dis-
cussion of Muslim women establishing their identity in the American context
see Yvonne Y. Haddad, Jane Smith, and Kathleen Moore, Muslim Women in
America, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
57 See Haddad, Smith, and Moore, Muslim Women in America, 2006.
58 Turner, ‘The Enclave society’, 2007.
59 Margaret Somers, Genealogies of Citizenship. Markets, Statelessness and the
Right to Have Rights, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 8.
60 Pew Research Foundation, ‘Muslim Americans: No signs of growth in aliena-
tion or support for extremism’, 2011, p. 4.

3 Australia
The Down-Under Approach and Reaction to Shari῾a:
An Impasse in Post-Secularism?
Jamila Hussain and Adam Possamai
The Socio-Cultural Heterogeneity of Muslims and the Implication

for Shari῾a
A recent report1 based on a research project on the Convention on the

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women reviewed
official documents from 44 countries with a Muslim majority. It discov-
ered that among these countries, there were significant differences with
regard to Muslim family law. The document concluded that there is no
single functioning worldwide Islamic law. Islamic family law, wherever
it is practised, is based on the laws and principles set out in the Qur’an
and Sunna. However, because there are multiple schools of law and dif-
ferent family law provisions that are influenced by local cultures where
Islamic law operates, no single tradition can claim ownership of it.
Through various migration patterns, Muslims in Australia have
come from over seventy different nations. Thus they come from various
local cultures that have different legal provisions. This makes Muslims
the most ethnically diverse religious group in Australia. Some Muslims
came from countries where Islam is the religion of the majority, and
others from religiously diverse countries. And, of course, we now have
a growing population of Muslims born in Australia. Ethnically speak-
ing, this is a religious group that has a wide range of experiences of
Australian society, and Muslims in Australia are divided along ethnic
and ideological lines.2
The shari῾a is a devolved law, sensitive to local traditions, and in this
sense unlike so-called Roman continental law. Unsurprisingly there-
fore, the detail of provisions about marriage, marital property, alimony,
divorce, inheritance, custody and guardianship of children differs
among the different Islamic countries and ethnic groups. The under-
standing of the practice of shari῾a, or parts of it, in a secular society
such as Australia, must thus be nuanced, taking into account the multi-
ethnic composition of its Muslim community.

While shari῾a is not officially recognized in Australia, it informs the

ideas and conduct of Australian Muslims in various ways. The opera-
tion and regulation of shari῾a in Australia is essentially ‘underground’
for Black,3 or what we prefer to call an unofficial parallel system.
Although shari῾a has not been integrated into the legal system in Aus-
tralia, it continues to be applied at a local level in Muslim communities
and mosques4 in certain ways and in areas of law that we will elabo-
rate upon below. Sometimes, because of the lack of a formal mecha-
nism of Islamic adjudication in Australia and because of the shortage
of trained Muslim scholars, some women travel to their country of ori-
gin to apply to a shari῾a court.5 Muslims may feel more comfortable
combining shari῾a norms and Australian laws in their understanding
of the law. Further, given the ethnic diversity of the Australian Muslim
community, there is no dominant shari῾a authority that can act as an
overarching system and no dominantly authoritative person.6 As there
is no hierarchy in Islam, and as there is a divergence of opinion as to
whom should administer a shari῾a court,7 each Muslim is free to seek
guidance from any scholar of his or her choice, leading to what is called
‘fatwa or forum shopping’. This shopping-around has also extended to
the Internet. In 2009, Black and Hosen pointed out that requests for fat-
was from Australia on the ‘Islam q&a’ website were so numerous that
Australia ranked seventh out of 128 countries in terms of the number
of these demands.8
As there is no formal process for Islamic adjudication in Australia,
Muslims consult imams to settle issues relating to divorce and other
private disputes. Islamic legal processes seek consensus rather than the
adversarial environment typical of Western (common) law traditions.
The overriding concern of most imams is to save the marriage and
to avoid expensive and often bitter conflicts within a divorce court.
However, when a marriage has broken down, many Muslims believe
that an appropriate way must be found to divorce, which fits with their
faith and cultural values. Some Australian Muslims report that they
would not accept the authenticity of a divorce unless it was conducted
according to their religious norms.9 At the same time, other Muslims
are satisfied to have divorce procedures conducted according to secu-
lar law. In the past, many Muslims were confronted by a range of dif-
ficulties, including their lack of familiarity with the legal systems of
their adopted countries, the previously adversarial nature of the courts
administering these systems, the unsympathetic nature of some judi-
cial officials, and the differences of law relating to property, domestic
violence and custody. Recent changes to the Family Law Act and the
encouragement of greater cultural sensitivity have made the Austral-

australia 67
ian family law system more ‘user friendly’ for all ethnic groups,10 as we
will discuss below.
Shari῾a in Australia
Since 9/11, and the Bali bombings in 2002 which killed 202 people, in-
cluding 88 Australians, the role of Islam in Australian society has been
the subject of much discussion in the public and political domain. Cen-
tral to the debate about Muslim identity has been the issue of women’s
rights under Islam, and the role of shari῾a. The debate has also concen-
trated on issues such as permission to establish Islamic schools, contro-
versy about ‘gang’ rapes,11 and shari῾a as regards family law matters. The
debates were occasionally sparked by controversial remarks by Muslim
clerics, often involving disparaging comments about women. All these
factors have resulted in some Muslims becoming victims of discrimina-
tion, harassment and racial profiling.12 Debates over national security
have brought into focus issues of multiculturalism and acceptance of
diversity,13 and, as argued below, issues of post-secularism.
While the Archbishop of Canterbury’s speech in the United King-
dom14 was widely reported in Australia, a full national debate about
shari῾a never really developed. The notion of the adoption or assimi-
lation of shari῾a was rejected outright by government ministers and
spokespersons, with no explanation or discussion as to its particular
attributes or how it actually operated in practice. When the Coalition
Government (comprising the Liberal and National Parties) was in office
in Australia from 1996 to 2007, Prime Minister John Howard attempted
to gain political support by publicly condemning shari῾a.15 In the post-
9/11 atmosphere, Howard seemed to consider that it would be unwise
to be associated with Islamic values and that, in any event, it would go
against his strong political lines on ‘law and order’ and ‘Islamic threat’
to say anything positive about shari῾a. On assuming office in 2007, the
new Labor government of Kevin Rudd was likewise not prepared to
engage in a public dialogue about recognizing shari῾a, or parts of it.16
Black and Sadiq17 have observed mixed responses to shari῾a in Aus-
tralia, predominantly by non-Muslims, and they have made reference
to ‘good and bad shari῾a’. For instance, it could be noted that while there
is a public outcry over family law (see recent case studies below), there
has been support for legislative change in Australia to facilitate Islamic
banking and financial services. It seems that Islamic banking and
finance laws are ‘good’ shari῾a worthy of adoption, whilst personal sta-
tus laws (marriage, divorce, separation, custody of children and inher-

itance) are not.18 In the following paragraphs we will investigate what

could be seen as bad in these latter cases of ‘bad’ shari῾a.
The Relationship Between Shari῾a and Australian Law
Muslims are required by their religious law to obey the laws of the
country in which they live, provided that those laws do not oblige them
to do something contrary to Islam. Therefore, for the vast majority of
Muslims, there is not much conflict between shari῾a and secular law.
For the most part, Muslims are free to follow the shari῾a in their private
lives, while at the same time adhering to Australian law in all the areas
it covers.
This is true of family law, as well as of other aspects of life. The
requirements of the Commonwealth Marriage Act 1961, which gov-
erns all marriages in Australia, are broadly expressed. Provided that
the required notice is given,19 the correct forms are filled in and the
marriage is performed by an authorized marriage celebrant, there is
no restriction at all on the time,20 place,21 or type of ceremony22 a cou-
ple may choose to conclude their marriage. Many imams are author-
ized marriage celebrants and can conduct a marriage ceremony that is
valid in both Islamic and Australian law. Imams cannot validly conduct
polygamous marriage ceremonies, since polygamy is forbidden in Aus-
tralian law. However, since the shari῾a permits, but does not require,
polygamy, this issue does not create any tension.
The requirements for concluding a marriage under shari῾a can
therefore be met within the framework of Australian law. A contract,
whether oral or written, can be made. The mahr, an essential part of
an Islamic marriage, can be paid in whatever form the parties choose.
Muslims can choose not to marry anyone who is not a Muslim, or, for
men, a woman who is not a Muslim, Jew or Christian.23
Traditionally, the common law in Australia did not regulate rela-
tionships within the family to any great extent. In recent times, how-
ever, laws have been introduced as deemed necessary for the protection
of children, and to criminalize domestic violence. The shari῾a does reg-
ulate family life to a greater extent but, as mentioned, observing Mus-
lims can adhere to shari῾a requirements in their private lives without
offending against Australian law.
In the area of divorce, on the other hand, there are more zones of
conflict between shari῾a and Australian law. There are several different
forms of divorce in Islamic law. A man may divorce his wife by pro-
nouncing talaq. This option is available only to men (unless they cede

australia 69
this right to their wives), and traditionally did not require any over-
seeing by a court. Today, many Muslim countries require some official
processes to regulate talaq divorce.
It is not so easy for a wife to secure a divorce unless she has it pro-
vided in her marriage contract that she retains the right to divorce her-
self. In Muslim countries, the wife may apply to the shari῾a court for a
divorce by khul‘, in which case she normally agrees to return her mar-
riage gift (mahr) to her husband in exchange for his divorce by talaq.
Another form is divorce by fasakh, which is more in the nature of an
annulment and depends upon establishing grounds for fault. Accepted
grounds differ among the various schools. The parties may also mutu-
ally agree to divorce.
Since the introduction of the Family Law Act in 1975, divorce under
Australian law has not required proof of fault, and has become a sim-
ple procedure. Muslims do obtain dissolution of civil marriages from
the Family Court but must resort to shari῾a to dissolve their marriages
also according to religious law. This alternative can be required when
a person has property or inheritance rights in an overseas country (for
example, Lebanon) which does not recognize civil divorce. It is also
of importance for those men and women who regard their religion as
a vital part of their lives and who would not wish to depart from its
teachings in matters concerning their family life.
Some Muslim women find themselves in a ‘limping marriage’ after
a civil divorce. When a woman cannot persuade her husband to grant
her a religious divorce as well, she is then divorced according to civil
law but still married according to religious law. There is no shari῾a
court in Australia to grant a religious divorce to such a woman, nor
any central Islamic authority that might confirm her divorced status.
Some imams feel that they are qualified to grant a divorce in these cir-
cumstances, but this is entirely at the discretion of the imam. There is
some anecdotal evidence that some men who have promised to pay
extravagant amounts of deferred mahr sometimes refuse their wives
a religious divorce in order to avoid the obligation to make this pay-
ment. The result is that the wife cannot re-marry within her commu-
nity since she is still married according to her religion, but since Islam
allows polygamy for men, the husband is under no such constraint
and can re-marry at will without sanction from either Australian or
Islamic law.
A further problem for women is that until very recently, there had
been no instance of Australian courts enforcing the mahr, which left the
divorced wife without the financial provision she would have expected
from the terms of her marriage contract. However, in May 2012, the

nsw Supreme Court ordered a husband to pay his former wife the sum
of aus$ 50,000 which in their marriage contact he had promised her in
the event that he initiated divorce. The court applied principles of con-
tract law. The couple had married according to religious law only and
the Family Law Act 1975 did not apply to their case.24
Rules concerning the custody of children vary considerably between
shari῾a and Australian family law. Under shari῾a, the mother is enti-
tled to the care and control of small children (the right of hadhanah).
The father retains guardianship and may assume care and control of
children at various ages, which vary according to different schools of
thought (madhabs). However, in practice, it seems that these rules are
not always implemented.
Australian Family Law and Islamic Arbitration
Alternative types of dispute resolution are now well recognized in Aus-

tralian family law. The Family Law Act introduced a greater emphasis
on counselling in cases concerning children. In 2004, the Family Court
Rules were amended to adopt a new system of case management, with
greater emphasis on counselling, conciliation and arbitration in fam-
ily law disputes. Parties are now obliged to explore avenues for dispute
resolution before commencing proceedings in court. This procedure is
in line with shari῾a law, and is regulated accordingly in many Islamic
family laws in Muslim countries.
The Jewish community has for many years maintained a Beth Din,
a Jewish religious tribunal, in both Sydney and Melbourne, where Jew-
ish people can seek resolution of problems involving family law. Simi-
larly, the Catholic Church maintains its own tribunal, with power to
declare annulment of marriages that are not in accord with the Cath-
olic faith, and there are tribunals for other Christian denominations
in Australia. These bodies allow those who approach them to obtain
a mutually agreed settlement of their family problems, in accordance
with their religious beliefs. At present, there is no national shari῾a fam-
ily law council or tribunal like those of the Jewish and Christian com-
munities. The services of individual imams or groups of imams are
available in this field, but these are uncoordinated and unsupervised
at present.

australia 71
Recent Attempts to Bring Shari῾a into the Public Sphere:

Two Case Studies
Case study 1:
Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (Ikebal Patel)
On 4 April 2011, in response to an inquiry into multiculturalism held

in that year by the Federal government, Ikebal Adam Patel, the presi-
dent of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (afic), made a
submission titled ‘Embracing Australian Values, and Maintaining the
Rights to be Different’. In this document he underlined the fact that
Muslim countries differ in their use of shari῾a. In his submission Is-
lamic law is viewed as being able to change according to the require-
ments of different places and times. It is thus implied, without being
specific enough, that Australian Muslims can adopt and adhere to the
same values shared by all Australian people. Using the active involve-
ment of the Australian government with regard to Islamic finance and
halal food as examples of positive sites of cooperation (for example, the
exportation of au$1.5 billion worth of halal frozen meat to Indonesia),25
Patel recommended that multiculturalism in Australia should lead to
‘legal pluralism’.
The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, rejected the submission
and claimed that there was no place for shari῾a in the Gillard govern-
ment’s debate about multicultural policy or in Australian society. This
claim led to the publication in The Australian on 17 May 2011 of an arti-
cle titled ‘Muslims to push for shari῾a’, and in the following week, thir-
teen articles on the topic were published in three leading newspapers,
The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Of these articles, eight portrayed a neutral view on the issue, four were
somewhat negative, and one was somewhat positive. Of the 262 read-
ers’ comments published on the Internet sites of The Australian and The
Daily Telegraph, 78 per cent were pro-secular and/or against shari῾a,
6 per cent were pro-shari῾a, and the rest tended to be off-topic state-
ments without any clear meaning. Of the negative comments, 34 per
cent were virulent comments and/or expressed racist tensions. Exam-
ples of comments of that type were: ‘[w]e have our laws in Australia to
protect anyone who lives in Australia. If you don’t like our laws leave,
it’s that simple’, and ‘[i]f Muslims want shari῾a law, they should go back
to Saudi Arabia’.26
On 17 June 2011, after an interview with The Australian,27 Ikebal Patel
claimed that it was a mistake to have mentioned shari῾a law and legal
pluralism. He pointed out that there had also been criticism from inside

the Muslim community, which was concerned by the lack of consulta-

tion with regard to his submission, and he underlined that in family
matters, civil law should always take precedence.
On 24 November 2011, Luke Simpkins, Liberal mp for the Cowan
electorate, claimed in the House of Representatives that a poll con-
ducted in his electorate in Western Australia had found that almost all
animals raised for meat, apart from pigs, are killed according to Islamic
requirements. He argued that every business involved should clearly
label halal meat. He stated:
So, when you go to Coles, Woolworths, iga or other supermarkets,

you cannot purchase the meat for your Aussie barbecue without the
influence of this minority religion. You have no choice. And the point
is that almost no Australians are aware of this, because it is not la-
beled. … By having Australians unwittingly eating halal food we are
all one step down the path towards the conversion, and that is a step
we should only make with full knowledge and one that should not be
imposed upon us without us knowing.28
Case study 2:
Divorce in Australia: from an Islamic law perspective29
In 2011, an article written by Essof, a solicitor and migration agent,

sparked a national debate on Islamic divorce. According to Essof, the
current informal Muslim divorce process in Australia, combined with
civil law divorce requirements, allows men to distort and abuse the cul-
tural system.30 Essof does not advocate a separate legal system for Aus-
tralian Muslims, but rather argues for the incorporation of the single
aspect of Islamic divorce law. Islam, he argued, does not condone this
behaviour. Rather, it is a consequence of the current inconsistency be-
tween civil and religious law in Australia, and of the recalcitrance of
husbands who decline to finalize their religious divorces with their es-
tranged wives. Essof acknowledges that Islamic law operates on an in-
formal basis via imams, or community religious leaders, especially with
regard to family law matters.
He points out that there are no existing formal structures in the Fam-
ily Law Act to deal with individuals or couples seeking divorce accord-
ing to an Islamic perspective. Although a Muslim man who receives
only a civil divorce would be at liberty to re-marry, a Muslim woman
receiving only a civil divorce, and not an Islamic one, would not, within
her religion, have that same right to re-marry, even though she would
be allowed it under Australian law.

australia 73
To address this issue, Essof proposes the establishment of a council

of recognized imams and legal practitioners who have knowledge and
understanding of divorce under both Islamic and Australian law, and
the formalization of the divorce process in a way that it can be recog-
nized under Australian law. The final recommendation of his article is
the inclusion of an extra criterion in the divorce application: the appli-
cant should be asked if he or she was married through a religious Mus-
lim ceremony. If the applicant responds in the affirmative, then s/he is
required to prove to the Registrar that the couple has been divorced
under shari῾a law. Contrary to Patel’s retraction, wherein he stated that
civil law should take precedence in family matters, the case presented
here seems to advocate the reverse.31
Shortly after the publication of Essof ’s article, a newspaper article
entitled ‘Local Islamists draw on British success in bid for sharia law’,32
written by the same journalist who reported the retraction by Patel,
claimed that Essof ’s article was the latest move to give shari῾a priority
over Australian divorce law under the guise of helping Muslim women,
and pointed out that this would mean that Muslims would not be able
to obtain a civil divorce unless they were first divorced under Islamic
law. In this article the journalist argued that Australia had entered
an ‘ambitious new phase that draws on the tactics that have handed
success to Islamists in Britain’, thus claiming that there was a hidden
agenda behind Essof ’s argument.
The two case studies we have discussed offered a moderate approach
to legal pluralism in the public sphere. Although we are not discussing
the nature of their arguments here, we want to underline the fact that
in Australia and especially in the Australian media, there has not been a
public dialogue of the Habermasian type (that is, engaged in communi-
cative action; see below) concerning the application of legal pluralism,
specifically as it applies to shari῾a.
The New Australian Conservative Modernity

and Its Obstacles to Post-Secularism
The social scientist Jakubowicz33 uses the expression ‘the new Austral-
ian conservative modernity’ to refer to the country’s resurgent social
values of Christian conservatism, the active government priorities of
disengagement and a rapidly expanding culture of surveillance and
obedience. In this new phase of modernity, there is a process of de-
legitimization of diversity, especially concerning Muslims – meaning
that the process ‘does not deny diversity, but rather seeks to reassert a

traditional hierarchy of cultural power within which diversity is only

acceptable within the dominant moral order’.34 In this process, Fozdar35
sees a retreat from multiculturalism resulting from the policies of the
conservative Howard government (1996-2007). In this new Australian
modernity, political leaders portray ‘Christianity as the norm, as a non-
migrant religion, and as the taken-for-granted foundation for the na-
tion’s values and laws’.36
However, one must be aware of the current situation in Australia
with regard to its Christian heritage. Randell-Moon37 and Maddox38
recently demonstrated that in the Australian case (a secular liberal
society where a strong division between church and state is supposedly
definitive), religion still has a part to play in politics. In this ‘secular’
liberal culture, where religion is often actually a significant factor in
voting decisions and has increasingly intruded into the public sphere
since the beginning of the 21st century, one should not be surprised to
witness the many social and cultural bleeds across the border between
state and religion. Granted that Christianity was for many years a silent
backdrop to Australian national identity, Fozdar39 observes that there
is now an even stronger sense of the legitimacy of the public status of
Christianity, and one of the illegitimacy of other religious traditions.
Bearing in mind the relationship between the mass media and the
way political agendas are constructed,40 this new religious project of
the ‘new modernity’ also affects (and/or is affected by) the media. Black
and Sadiq41 cite the national newspaper, The Australian, as highlight-
ing ‘differences’ between Muslims and non-Muslims in some Muslim
countries (with topics such as stoning for adultery, forced marriages
and female genital mutilation), and as feeding into the fear of what
shari῾a family law would be in Australia if a dialogue on the subject
were allowed. While there are demands from some groups in Australia
for the adoption of full shari῾a,42 Saeed43 states that the large majority
of Muslims advocating the use of shari῾a are only seeking its recog-
nition in a few areas (such as marriage, burial practices, and interest-
free financing) and are working towards a compromise between the
demands of their religion and the Australian legal system.
Their detractors tend to present the religion of Muslims as unchang-
ing and as representing a pre-modern and patriarchal value system.44
These detractors also tend to characterize the Muslim community as
bounded, fixed and stable.45 This, of course, is far from being the case.
Akbarzadeh and Roose46 discuss three ideal types of Muslims in Aus-
tralia, in order to provide a lens through which to look at this religious
group. These are: an Islamist type who would embrace shari῾a in line
with the historic experience of the caliphate; a moderate Muslim type

australia 75
who engages with the secular West; and a cultural Muslim type – those
who define themselves as Muslims but do not actively follow Islamic
principles. Cultural Muslims often have a pragmatic approach to reli-
gion. Islam is celebrated when it helps consolidate a community, but is
not allowed to interfere and interrupt the daily routine of life, which to
all intents and purposes may be called secular.47
In Australia, these cultural Muslims are the silent majority of the
Muslim minority group, not much engaged with advocacy for legal
change. Those Muslims mainly engaged in working out shari῾a in Aus-
tralia in line with (and not in opposition to) the Australian legal system
are of the moderate type. Some moderate Muslims are already working
within a type of unofficial parallel legal system (as detailed above) in the
private sphere. But when some moderate voices attempt to discuss, in
the public sphere, how the two legal systems could interact, it appears
the dialogue is not allowed to proceed. The ‘extreme right’ is already
seeing the moderate Muslim as a ‘Trojan horse’ for radical Islamists, as
if they were harbouring a hidden Islamic agenda.48 It might be argued
that in the public sphere, debate about the partial use of shari῾a leads its
detractors (who are not necessarily from the extreme right) to believe
that this might be a first step towards implanting full shari῾a law, as
if shari῾a were a homogenous and timeless law straight from the cali-
phate. This belief is not conducive to a fruitful dialogue about the future
of religion in Australia that would be helpful in advancing a post-
secular project.
By post-secularism, we refer to the process of the de-privatization
of religion, and to the current dialogue about managing the presence
of religious groups within secular frameworks in the public sphere. As
Habermas49 has underlined, the challenge today is to draw the ‘delimi-
tations between a positive liberty to practise a religion of one’s own and
the negative liberty to remain spared from the religious practice of the
others’. In other words, how do we work with post-secular societies’
religious toleration in ways that celebrate religious diversity but that
do not preclude the freedom to be atheist? And, more specifically to
this chapter, how far should our own and others’ religious practices be
implicated within the legal system?
However, as already indicated in this chapter, one should be aware
of the difficulties of entering into such a dialogue. Michele Dillon, in
her 2009 presidential address to the Association for the Sociology of
Religion, stated quite sharply that ‘independent[ly] of whether an indi-
vidual is religious or not, tolerance of otherness does not come easily’,50
that openness to alternative beliefs is more complicated than Haber-
mas might have us believe, and that the idea that all religious and athe-

ist groups can live in a self-reflective manner ‘is attractive but hard to
imagine’.51 Part of the solution for Habermas is to have neutral and sec-
ular governments that can ensure that communities of various beliefs
can coexist on an equal basis. His post-secular project is based upon the
notion that the state is neutral and objective,52 yet we know from stud-
ies in sociology how the state usually and instrumentally serves certain
groups over others, as has already been alluded to in the above discus-
sion of Australia and its new conservative modernity.
It appears that in Australia, one aspect of the trend towards post-sec-
ularism, that is the focus on religious and legal pluralism, is not allowed
to be fully aired in the public sphere, unless to be shown in a negative
light. On that point, it can be argued that Australia is failing to meet or
implement the post-secular project. The issue here is not solely about
including shari῾a in the legal system or preventing its use in the private
or public sphere, but about having a fruitful dialogue of the Haberma-
sian type in the public sphere. This is not happening in Australia’s new
conservative modernity.
Notes
1 Z. Anwar, cedaw and Muslim family laws: In search of common ground, Selan-
gor, Malaysia: Musawah, 2011.
2 J. Ali, ‘A dual legal system in Australia: The formalisation of Sharī’ah’, Democ-
racy and Security, 2011 (Vol. 7, No. 1).
3 A. Black, ‘In the shadow of our legal system: shari῾a in Australia’ in: R. Ahdar
and N. Aroney (eds.), Sharia in the West, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010,
pp. 239-254.
4 Ahdar and Aroney (eds.), Sharia in the West, 2010, pp. 239-254; J. Hussain, Islam:
Its law and society (3rd ed.), Sydney: Federation Press, 2011; A. Saeed, ‘Reflec-
tions on the establishment of shari῾a courts in Australia’ in: Ahdar and Aroney
(eds.), Sharia in the West, 2010, pp. 223-238.
5 Hussain, Islam: Its law and society (3rd ed.), 2011; Ahdar and Aroney (eds.), Sha-
ria in the West, 2010, pp. 223-238.
6 A. Black and N. Hosen, ‘Fatwas: Their role in contemporary secular Australia’,
Griffith Law Review, 2009 (Vol. 18, No. 2), pp. 420.
7 Ahdar and Aroney (eds.), Sharia in the West, 2010, pp. 223-238.
8 Black and Hosen, ‘Fatwas’, 2009, pp. 422.
9 Black and Hosen, ‘Fatwas’, 2009, pp. 423.
10 Hussain, Islam (3rd ed.), 2011.
11 S. Dagistanli, ‘“Like a pack of wild animals”: Moral panics around “ethnic” gang
rape in Sydney’, in: G. Morgan and S. Poynting (eds.), Outrageous! Moral panics
in Australia, Hobart, Tasmania: acys Publishing, 2007, pp. 181-196.

australia 77
12 See: S. Poynting and G. Noble, Living with Racism: The experience and reporting
by Arab and Muslim Australians of discrimination, abuse and violence since 11
September 2001. Report to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commis-
sion, 19 April 2004, Sydney: hreoc, 2004.
13 A. Jakubowicz, ‘Anglo-multiculturalism: Contradictions in the politics of cul-
tural diversity as risk’, International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 2006
(Vol. 2, No. 3), pp. 249-266; F. Fozdar, ‘The “choirboy” and the “mad monk”:
Christianity, Islam, Australia’s political landscape and prospects for multicul-
turalism’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2011 (Vol. 32, No. 6), pp. 621-636.
14 R. Williams, ‘Civil and religious law in England: A religious perspective’, Arch-
bishop’s home page, 2008, http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org.
15 David Humphries, ‘Live here and be Australian, Howard declares’, Sydney
Morning Herald, 25 February 2006, http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/
live-here-be-australian/2006/02/24/1140670269194.html.
16 P. Osborne and J. Turnbull, ‘Government rejects call for Islamic courts’, Sydney
Morning Herald, 8 February 2008.
17 A. Black and K. Sadiq, ‘Good and bad sharia: Australia’s mixed response to
Islamic law’, The University of New South Wales Law Journal, 2011 (Vol. 17,
No. 1), pp. 383-412.
18 Black and Sadiq, ‘Good and bad sharia’, 2011, p. 388.
19 Section 42 Marriage Act 1961.
21 This is different from the situation in the United Kingdom, where marriages
must take place in a registered building and only some mosques meet this
requirement.
23 Jews and Christians are considered ‘People of the Book’ who may legitimately
marry Muslim men.
24 Mohamed v Mohamed, 2012, nswsc 852.
25 Hussain, Islam (3rd ed.), 2011.
26 The authors would like to thank Morgane Dupoux who analysed these articles
and comments while undertaking an internship, in 2011, at the Centre for the
Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, University of Western Sydney.
27 C. Merrit, ‘It was a mistake to mention sharia law, admits Australian Islamic
leader’, The Australian, 17 June 2011.
28 L. Simpkins, ‘Cowan Electorate: Halal foods’, Commonwealth of Australia Par-
liamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 24 November 2011, p. 75.
29 I. Essof, ‘Divorce in Australia from an Islamic law perspective’, Alternative Law
Journal, 2011 (Vol. 36, No. 3).
30 Essof, ‘Divorce in Australia’, 2011.
31 Research from Bano (2007) in the United Kingdom points out that in processes
of dispute resolution, women are encouraged to reconcile and to conform to
cultural dictates and acceptable patterns of behaviour if they are to be issued a
divorce certificate. Drawing on a sample of ten women, her study found a pro-
cess of marginalization of women.

32 C. Merrit, ‘Local Islamists draw on British success in bid for sharia law’, The
Australian, 7 October 2011b.
33 A. Jakubowicz, ‘Hard shell and soft centre: Australia as a truly modern nation’,
International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities and Nations,
2003 (Vol. 3), pp. 337-350.
34 Jakubowicz, ‘Hard shell and soft centre’, 2003, p. 344. Discussion of shari῾a and
the thesis of multiple modernity is extended in M. Voyce and A. Possamai,
‘Legal pluralism, family personal laws and the rejection of shari῾a in Australia:
A case of multiple or “clashing” modernities?’, Democracy and Security, 2011
(Vol. 7, No. 4), pp. 338-353.
35 Fozdar, ‘The “choirboy” and the “mad monk”’, 2011, pp. 621-636.
36 Fozdar, ‘The “choirboy” and the “mad monk”’, 2011, p. 632.
37 H. Randell-Moon, ‘Tolerating religious “others”: Some thoughts on secular
neutrality and religious tolerance in Australia’, The Australian Religion Studies
Review, 2009 (Vol. 22, No. 3), pp. 324-344.
38 M. Maddox, ‘An argument for more, not less, religion in Australian politics’, The
Australian Religion Studies Review, 2009 (Vol. 22, No. 3), pp. 345-367.
39 Fozdar, ‘The “choirboy” and the “mad monk’, 2011.
40 P. Van Aelst and S. Walgrave, ‘Minimal or massive? The political agenda-set-
ting power of the mass media according to different methods’, The International
Journal of Press/Politics, 2011 (Vol. 16, No. 3), pp. 295-313.
41 Black and Sadiq, ‘Good and bad sharia’, 2011.
42 Black and Sadiq, ‘Good and bad sharia’, 2011.
43 Ahdar and Aroney (eds.), Sharia in the West, 2010, pp. 223-238.
44 S. Akbarzadech and J. Roose, ‘Muslims, multiculturalism and the question of
the silent majority’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2011 (Vol. 31, No. 3),
pp. 309-325.
45 S. Bano, ‘Islamic family arbitration, justice and human rights in Britain’, Law,
Social Justice & Global Development, 2007 (Vol. 1), http://www.go.warwick.ac.uk/
elj/lgd/2007_1/bano.
46 Akbarzadech and Roose, ‘Muslims, multiculturalism and the question of the
silent majority’, 2011, pp. 309-325.
silent majority’, 2011, p. 320.
silent majority’, 2011, pp. 309-325.
49 J. Habermas, Religion in the public sphere. European Journal of Philosophy,
2006 (Vol. 14, No. 1), p. 4.
50 M. Dillon, ‘2009 Association for the Sociology of Religion presidential address:
Can post-secular society tolerate religious differences?’, Sociology of Religion,
2010 (Vol. 71, No. 2), p. 149.
51 Dillon, ‘2009 Association for the Sociology of Religion presidential address’,
2010, p. 152.
52 J. Barbalet, A. Possmai and B. Turner, Religion and the state: A comparative sociol-
ogy, New York: Anthem Press, 2011.

4 United Kingdom
An Early Discussion on Islamic Family Law
in the English Jurisdiction1
Jørgen S. Nielsen
Background
In 1975 the Union of Muslim Organisations of the United Kingdom and

Eire (umo) called a conference in Birmingham to discuss the place of
shari῾a family law in England. In January 1977 the umo, together with
the Anglo-Conservative Society, held a further meeting, this time in
the House of Lords. The meeting discussed a number of practical issues
facing Muslims, in particular those relating to schooling. But the main
item on the agenda was a demand for the ‘domestication’ of Islamic
family law for Muslims in Britain.2
In 1975 the Muslim case for the demand had been formulated by
Sheikh Syed M. Darsh, an Azhar-educated Egyptian who had recently
been seconded by the Egyptian authorities to the Regent’s Park Mosque
in London:
When a Muslim is prevented from obeying this law he feels that he is

failing a religious duty. He will not feel at peace with his conscience or
the environment in which he lives…. They firmly believe that the Brit-
ish society, with its rich experience of different cultures and ways of
life, especially the Islamic way of life which they used to see in India,
Malaysia, Nigeria and so many other nations of Islamic orientation,
together with their respect for personal and communal freedom, will
enable the Muslim migrants to realize the identity within the freedom
of British society. When we request the host society to recognize our
point of view we are appealing to a tradition of justice and equity well
established in this country. The scope of the family law is not wide
and does not contradict, in essence, the law here in this country. Both
aim at the fulfillment of justice and happiness of the members of the
family. Still, there are certain Islamic points which, with understand-
ing and the spirit of accommodation, would not go so far as to create
difficulties in the judiciary system. After all, we are asking for their

application among themselves, the Muslim community, as our Chris-

tian brothers in Islamic countries are following in the family tradition
and the Christian point of view. The Qur’an itself has given them this
right.3
At the time, the umo initiative attracted only fleeting interest in

the media, and within the legal institutions there was no significant
response. Dr Zaki Badawi, the then director of the Islamic Cultural
Centre, part of the Regent’s Park Mosque complex, while not support-
ive, decided to test popular demand. In English law there was no reason
why someone could not write a will requiring that his or her property
be disposed of according to Islamic principles. It just had to be clear as
to which version of Islamic law (or shari῾a) to use, so that there was no
room for ambiguity. Such a will would be valid unless a relative con-
tested it. Dr Badawi had a will form prepared by competent lawyers and
made it available to worshippers. No one took advantage of the service.4
Perhaps this was not all that surprising, as the Muslim community in
Britain, as in the rest of Europe, was at the time still relatively young
of age. Only a decade later did questions of disposition of property at
death start to become a practical issue for a growing number of peo-
ple. Thus, we saw tensions begin to be recorded in France between the
expectations of Algerians and the demands of French law with regard
to the disposition of immovable property.5
At the time, evidence of Muslim demand for the application of
Islamic family law was patchy and remained so until the end of the
1980s. A quick check through a few Islamic magazines published in
Europe during the 1980s found little evidence of interest in the sub-
ject. The Straight Path, published in Birmingham from the Green Lane
Mosque, and closely associated with the Ahl-i-Hadith movement, only
mentioned an interest in Islamic family law in response to external
events. During this same period, the question of Islamic family law did
not feature in the pages of Al-Fadschr, published by the Shi’ite Islamic
Centre in Hamburg, nor was it raised in the Dutch monthly Qiblah,
published in The Hague. Even the journal of the network of German-
speaking Muslims, Al-Islam, published in Munich, did not deal with
the question, even though it regularly carried general articles about
shari῾a. In the late 1980s the umo’s initiative remained, to the best of
my knowledge, the only one.
The impression was that the demand for implementation of Islamic
family law for Muslims in Europe was usually only expressed by Mus-
lim leaders when offered an opportunity to do so, or when reacting
to particular events. Much attention was paid to the overarching role

united kingdom 81
of the shari῾a, but when interpreted in practical terms, the magazines

concentrated on the core ritual practices (the ‘five pillars’), economic
life and the ethics rather than the law of family life, especially as regards
the position of women.
However, a Muslim ‘demand’ for the implementation of Islamic fam-
ily law can be registered in ways other than direct expressions by lead-
ers and in their media. Throughout this early period, it was clear that
the practice of paying a dower, mahr, remained commonplace. English
legal expertise suggested at the beginning of the 1980s that English law
would condone it when it appeared in a Muslim marriage contract.6
Rude-Antoine, writing in the mid-1980s, indicated that over three-
quarters of marriages between North Africans living in France involved
payment of mahr.7 The recurring problem in Britain of so-called limp-
ing marriages (that is, where a civil divorce has taken place but the
absence of a religious divorce prevents the woman from remarrying
in a form acceptable to her community) was another indicator, as was
the high proportion of Muslim marriages that were formalized both
in civil law terms and in Islamic terms. The breakdown of marriages,
in particular, was an early matter of concern. Unpublished research
conducted in the Birmingham family courts in the early 1980s showed
that four out of five divorce applications from parties with Muslim-
sounding names were initiated by women, and the two most common
grounds for divorce applications were the husband’s violence against
the wife or his abandoning or deserting her.8
That there was a growing demand for some kind of shari῾a-related
provision, or at least a perception that there was such a demand, was
indicated by the formation in the early 1980s of the first two – rival –
United Kingdom Islamic Sharia Councils, both located in London.
These councils made themselves available to advise individuals on cor-
rect shari῾a solutions to personal and family problems and, if necessary,
to issue a decision which, at least in the community if not in civil law,
might have the weight of authority. There were also other, more visible
indications that Muslims were expecting the institutions of the coun-
tries of residence to adapt to some of their religious requirements, other
than those of family law. The issue that had been most common was
that of access to halal food. Furthermore, English schools were in the
main adjusting well to Muslim girls wearing some form of Islamically
acceptable dress, while the question of the hijab in mainland Europe
was still a few years off. Also, local governments in the United King-
dom were beginning to meet requests for burial facilities, and employ-
ers and local planning authorities were being faced with requests for
prayer facilities.9

Seeking clarification
It was the question of family law in particular that contributed to set-

ting the agenda for a three-year project which had been instigated by
the Brussels-based Churches’ Committee for Migrant Workers in Eu-
rope (ccmwe) to consider the significance of the shari῾a for Muslim
communities in Europe.10 The working group started work in 1983 and
consisted of four members nominated by the ccmwe: Jan Henningsson
(Sweden), Michael Mildenberger (West Germany), Jan Slomp (Nether-
lands), and myself (United Kingdom). Two Muslim members were in-
vited to join the group, namely Syed Darsh (uk) and Mehdi Razvi (West
Germany).
Given the limited resources of a European (Protestant) church net-
work working in this field, the possibility of a study that would meet
academic criteria was never considered. Instead, the project was con-
ducted as a ‘listening exercise’ consisting of three parts: a question-
naire sent to interested ‘experts’ known to the members of the working
group; a series of four seminars, two each at the Quaker Woodbrooke
College, Birmingham, United Kingdom, and at the Evangelische Aka-
demie, Arnoldshain, West Germany; and correspondence with invited
religious and academic experts at the drafting stage of the final report.
In this way, by the end, the exercise had involved a total of 95 individu-
als. Most were from Germany and the United Kingdom, but a few were
also from France, the Netherlands and Sweden. They included not only
Muslim and Christian religious leaders and scholars, but also practising
lawyers and local and national government officials.
The first stage of the work was to draft a questionnaire to be sent to
a number of significant Muslim individuals and organizations around
Western Europe to get their views on shari῾a generally and, more specif-
ically, its family law dimensions. The questionnaire asked five questions:
1 What does shari῾a mean for you personally?
2 What does shari῾a mean for your community in this country?
3 What do you see as the function of shari῾a in your home country
and in the Muslim world generally?
4 Does your understanding of shari῾a create problems for yourself
and your community in this country? If so, which?
5 What contributions do you see shari῾a making to European society?
The questionnaire was answered by sixteen persons, of whom eleven

were Muslims from three different European countries (the United
Kingdom, West Germany and the Netherlands) and originating from
eight different Muslim countries, and with a variety of different back-

united kingdom 83
grounds and occupations. There is no space here to analyse the

responses in detail,11 but they covered a broad spectrum of views,
ranging from those that required a comprehensive implementation of
shari῾a to those that suggested that it cannot apply in a non-Muslim
environment such as that of Western Europe, or that shari῾a needs a
thorough rethink in relation to the modern world before any consid-
eration of its implementation. Many of the respondents preferred to
talk of shari῾a as an ethical system rather than something with legal
implications.
Worth noting is that none of the respondents wanted to define
shari῾a as a legal code, although the implications of some of the answers
to the subsequent questions suggested that in an ideal world this might
be close: shari῾a to one respondent meant ‘the Law of God which
was revealed by Him to mankind through His Prophet and Apostle
Muhammad in order to be observed by them in every time and place
as any individual (or group) with faith in Islam as his (its) religion.’
But others simply equated it with religion, giving ‘the direction to life
and formulating one’s disposition’. Many of the respondents pointed out
that the implementation of shari῾a should take account of the context,
and some particularly stressed the necessity of this in the context of
modernity, not least in the minority situations of Europe: ‘new fiqh has
to be written for the Muslim countries themselves and much more so
for Muslim minorities living now in non-Muslim countries.’
One response described the process of a growing consensus among
the manifold Muslim community which ought to be brought about by
concentrating upon the essentials of shari῾a and carefully adjusting them
to the new situation, according to methods provided by the Islamic tra-
dition. Such processes may suffer from the confusion ‘between the per-
manent divine law … and the human elaboration’ and, consequently,
by ‘some hasty and mistaken judgments’ hinder the ‘healthy mutual
interaction with the society’ of the host-country. It should be kept in
mind that ‘Islam indicates its basics and characteristics, but it does
not meanwhile reject any other intellectual or social outcome which
is not against its principles’. Moreover ‘a clear distinction may be kept
between the application of shari῾a in a Muslim country and society, and
its application among a Muslim community which lives as a minority
in a non-Muslim country.’ Accordingly, two answers emphasize that in
such a case, shari῾a can only be applied within a scope determined by
the constitution and the laws of the host country. By contrast there is a
group of Muslims (among them mainly converts) which ‘will take the
shari῾a “lock, stock and barrel” … and defying British law where they
don’t feel it is Islamic, e.g. marriage and divorce laws’.12

A significant concern was voiced by a number of the respondents

who pointed to secularization as the big challenge; the ‘real prob-
lem’, however, is ‘far more serious and fundamental’. Western Europe
is increasingly becoming a ‘non-religious and even irreligious society
with norms which a Muslim finds difficult to comprehend, let alone
accept’. This is a second level of problems that Muslims – as they remind
us – share with their Christian brethren and sisters. ‘The secular society
emits values which a Muslim does not share or accept’.13
As a next step, the working group organized four seminars, two in
Germany and two in Birmingham. The participants comprised Muslim
and Christian intellectuals and community leaders, legal experts, and
government officials. Given that the issue had been raised in the United
Kingdom and at that time was not really exciting any interest outside the
United Kingdom, the following account will be limited to the discus-
sions at the two seminars that took place in Birmingham over two week-
ends in February and September 1985. The first event was attended by
about twenty people, who had been personally invited, while the second
attracted thirty people following a public announcement. The first semi-
nar focused on family law, while the second one looked at implications
for legal institutions and processes, as well as at broad, practical issues
of integration in a multi-faith society (including education and reli-
gious practice in the workplace) which I will not deal with further here.
Considering family law, this was examined in the first seminar
under the standard headings of marriage, divorce, inheritance, and the
maintenance and custody of children. The participants first surveyed
the general principles of English law as it stood at the time and of the
Islamic legal tradition, before going on to an item-by-item comparison.
As an example, the participants compared the principles of the Hanafi
tradition of divorce as it was being applied in Pakistan after the Muslim
Family Law Ordinance of 1961, and the English Matrimonial Causes
Act of 1973 (see Table 1). A similar exercise was conducted on the basic
principles of marriage (see Table 2). They concluded that in general
terms, there was little dispute in principle between the two sets of prin-
ciples. But there remained two major tensions.
With reference to divorce, Muslim participants wanted the collec-
tion and evaluation (‘due consideration’) of the facts required by Eng-
lish law to be conducted by a Muslim panel for Muslim litigants. The
panel, it was argued, could function under the existing law as an exten-
sion of the Family Division of the High Court. This was an option on
which the non-Muslim participants were divided.14
In the case of marriage, it was the Muslim participants who were
divided, in that some did not wish to give up the age of puberty as

united kingdom 85
being sufficient to enter into a marriage, while others, following the

legislation of most Muslim countries, were happy to accept the mini-
mum age set down in English law. The question of marriage guardians
for women, required by the traditional shari῾a though under varying
conditions depending on the school, was quietly ignored.
table 1 Grounds for dissolution of marriage

England Pakistan
Grounds:
Irretrievable breakdown of marriage Incompatibility
Facts:
- unreasonable behaviour - unreasonable behaviour
- adultery/intolerable - intolerable
- desertion - imprisonment for 7 years or more
- separation for 2 years (consent) - disappeared for 4 years or more
- separation for 5 years - husband’s inability to maintain
Grounds for nullity:
- physical/mental disorder - physical/mental disorder
- lack of consent - lack of consent
- under age - under age
table 2 Conditions for marriage

England Pakistan
- free consent - free consent
- sound mind - sound mind
- public announcement - public announcement
- witnesses - witnesses
- age 16-18 (parental or court consent) - age: puberty
- unmarried - unmarried if woman:
husband max. 4 wives
- dower (mahr)
Interestingly, the issue of polygamy was not one that raised tempers.
There was consensus among the participants that ‘polygamy is, of
course, impermissible in English law.’ However, looking at the prac-
tice of English law relating to cohabitees (‘common law spouses’), the
participants did ‘not feel the discrepancy between English and Islamic

family law in this regard is insurmountable.’15 Other Muslim partici-

pants took the view that since polygamy is not obligatory in Islam, liv-
ing in a system in which it is banned should not be a problem for Mus-
lims.
A practical problem on both sides, Muslim and non-Muslim,
seemed to be the general popular ignorance of the law of Islam. In the
Muslim community this manifested itself typically in a popular equa-
tion of social custom, often very strongly held, with shari῾a. What are
often broadly perceived by the English population as strongly male-
dominant practices are, as often as not, just as much in conflict with
shari῾a as they are with English law and expectations. A point made
with some effect by the Muslim participants was that the application
of Islamic family law to the Muslim community would lead to a major
improvement in the actual social status of women within many Muslim
communities. Of course, this is, on the whole, correct, but by European
standards of gender equality it would be insufficient, as some basic dis-
tinctions and inequalities would be retained in the fields of divorce and
inheritance.
The issue of how to introduce some form or other of shari῾a into the
English legal system revolved around two main approaches. For some
Muslims, the nature of the shari῾a as a total, integrated system based on
sources divinely revealed makes it extremely difficult to accept anything
other than a separate system of family law, with its own autonomous
judiciary. Parliament’s role would be to make the space in the country’s
law and to establish the necessary courts. But the specific content of
the law could not be under the control of Parliament, nor could there
be appeal to higher, non-Muslim courts. The system envisaged would
be much like that which functions in countries like Lebanon, Syria and
Israel, which still retain elements of the old Ottoman millet system,
with its self-governing confessional communities. At the other extreme
is the model of a continuing unified system, but with the law opened
up in a number of directions so as to create a generally permissive legal
context in which different groups could voluntarily live according to
their particular wishes. An example could be the theoretically possible
legalization of polygamy, within which framework a Muslim could, if
he so wished, enter into a polygamous marriage.
Another view expressed by some Muslim participants looked to the
contents of the law, rather than its theologically overriding nature. In
their view it was possible to build on the identified convergence of le-
gal principles and look to some method of building consideration of
Islamic rules and expectations into the existing system of law. The con-
cept of a tribunal became central in the discussions, although clearly,

united kingdom 87
different kinds of tribunal were intended by different participants. Some

saw potential in distinct Islamic family tribunals before which Muslims
could opt to appear. It was accepted by some, but not all, that the deci-
sions of such tribunals could be subject to appeal into the general Eng-
lish system. Another view of such tribunals was one of a quasi-judicial
body that would deal with cases with the purpose of presenting to the
English family courts a settlement which takes into account considera-
tion of Islamic rules. It was felt that one of the advantages of some form
of tribunal was that it could be seen as a method to be utilized by other
communities, such as Jews and Catholics, with a similar attachment to
religious family law.
The possibility that a reform of the adversarial court procedures,
which in the mid-1980s still prevailed in the family courts but were
under discussion, was seen as providing a context in which some vari-
ation of the tribunal approach might become practicable. In a uni-
form system of family courts based on arbitration and reconciliation,
a particular bench might be identified as Muslim, and parties could
opt to appear before a bench of their choice. This might ensure that
Muslim expectations were taken into account within a legal system that
remained essentially unified.
Issues and implications
Despite the passing years, the discussion then, just as similar discus-
sions now, raises a number of substantial questions. For a start, ques-
tions can be raised about the degree of consensus needed to be able to
reach a unified Muslim family code. In fact, it depended on a number
of assumptions: first, that the discussion of philosophical and ideologi-
cal foundations was suspended; second, that both sides accepted the
context of a plural and diverse society with room for all; and third, that
the Muslim participants, although generally traditionalists, did not feel
bound by the results of classical jurisprudence (fiqh) and were prepared
to exercise their personal judgment (ijtihad) in the light of the current
environment.
Some observers might argue that such assumptions by themselves
contribute to making the results of no operational interest, because
such assumptions will generally not be met in actuality. The second
assumption, that of living together in a diverse society has, I would sug-
gest, become broadly accepted, despite the recent attacks on multi-cul-
turalism from certain political quarters. The arguments today are more
about concepts and ideological polemics than about the ordinary prac-

ticalities of everyday life in the cities. The third assumption, the Muslim
readiness to use ijtihad, is one that has a sound classical foundation and
is one of the key characteristics of most contemporary Islamic move-
ments, even when they are of the more conservative kind.
More problematical is the first assumption, namely that the discus-
sion of philosophical and ideological foundations of a unified Muslim
family code is suspended. The apparent contradiction is between a sec-
ularized Europe, whose legislative and judicial processes are primarily
empirical in nature and rest on the foundations of popular sovereignty
(although the historical foundations are clearly Christian), and on the
other hand an Islamic system which is founded on the revelation of the
word of God in the Qur’an and on the guiding behaviour and sayings of
an inspired prophet, a system in which the law rests on the sovereignty
of God. In fact, I would suggest that the difficulty here is more apparent
than real. Even though God is the sovereign lawgiver, his authority still
has to be interpreted, and this is a human process. This issue lies at the
very centre of much current Muslim discussion about the role of Islam
in the state. The real difficulty is not to be found in the clash between
secularism and divine sovereignty but in the question of the identity of
the judicial authority and its legitimacy. This is a dimension of an area
of Islamic thinking which has undergone a radical transformation in
recent generations – and which is still contested.
This transformation can be briefly described as follows. In the classi-
cal tradition the shari῾a and its institutions had been the primary field
of confrontation between the political power and the Islamic authori-
ties, the former in the shape of an often militarized state and the latter
in the shape of the religious scholars, or ‘ulama, and their institutions.
The conception that God was the lawgiver in a polity or community
defined primarily by its shared religion was the focal point of public
legitimacy. Early attempts by the political leadership in the shape of
the Umayyad and then the early Abbasid caliphs to present themselves
as the representatives of that divine legislative power failed. It was the
‘ulama who came to be accepted as those who held the authority to
interpret, develop and refine the human understanding of the divine
will. One of the most remarkable aspects of developments in shari῾a in
the modern period has been the extent to which the state has succeeded
in gaining control of legislation, including family law. It has done this
partly by manipulating the various instruments of power, hard and soft,
and partly by pursuing the one technique that had traditionally been
available, namely control over the incomes of the ‘ulama. In the mod-
ern period this has been done by co-opting them as judges and experts
in family law in the now government-controlled courts and by spon-

united kingdom 89
soring training in the Islamic religious sciences, including law/fiqh in

government-funded universities. In historical terms, this intrusion of
the state in the field of shari῾a is truly radical. This contributes to com-
plications in Europe, where some Islamic tendencies will refuse to lend
the state legitimacy, at least in core sectors of the shari῾a such as family
law, while others will seek to co-opt the official institutions to legitimize
practices whose validity in the community rest on a reference to the
shari῾a.
Other significant changes have taken place in the practice and think-
ing of shari῾a, all in one way or another related to that basic revolu-
tion. One is the culmination of a long process whereby the shari῾a had
been increasingly restricted to the domain of family law. However, there
was a shift around the 1960s, when Islamic thinkers and movements
began to try to regain ground. In various instances, one saw attempts
to reintroduce aspects of shari῾a beyond the family chapters, as is illus-
trated by the growth of Islamic banking and economics both in practice
and as an intellectual discipline across the Muslim world and into the
major international banking centres outside the Muslim world.16 In all
of these innovations, the state has been an active partner. In some cases
the political leadership has been the initiator, and in other cases the
innovators have made what are often great efforts to get the state on
board. In such an environment, it is the more radical-puritanical move-
ments17 which have marked out their claims to legitimacy by distanc-
ing themselves from the state, reasserting the independence of Islamic
teaching, above all the shari῾a, from the control of the political authori-
ties.
But these radical movements themselves also represent a revolu-
tionary break with the classical tradition’s division of the world into
the ‘territory of Islam’ (dar al-islam) and the ‘territory of war’ (dar al-
harb). Generally this division of the world lost its significance, except
for possibly a symbolic dimension, in the course of the 20th century,
as traditional Islamic states were first colonized and then replaced by
modern national states (although the national substance of such states
has tended to remain weak). In the classical tradition it was generally
agreed that shari῾a only applied in dar al-islam where there was a legiti-
mate Islamic authority, and where there were Islamic courts that could
adjudicate disputes in the correct manner and legitimately. This meant
that when Muslims travelled outside the Islamic lands, they were no
longer subject to shari῾a, or at least not to those parts which had to do
with human and social relations. If possible, the religious rituals were
still to be performed, although a few voices suggested that even this was
not necessary.

The main difference between the majority of Muslims and the

minority of radical-puritans today is that the latter regard the modern
state as irrelevant and lacking legitimacy.18 They have often discarded
the traditional geographical distinctions of dar al-islam/al-harb and
personalized them: dar al-islam is where they are, while dar al-harb is
the fallen world around them.19 The authors of the ccme project report
were perhaps being premature when they concluded that, ‘Most Mus-
lim leaders in Europe today regard the old concepts of dar al-harb and
dar al-islam as outmoded and irrelevant.’20 Although the terminology
is mainly used in small, mostly politically extremist circles, elements
of such thinking can be found more widely. With the shift from a ter-
ritorial towards a personal paradigm, it has become possible to argue
within the traditional Islamic frameworks that shari῾a (or perhaps
more correctly here, fiqh) potentially applies to Muslims wherever they
are, thus making possible claims that Muslims in new minority con-
texts should also strive to practise the shari῾a, not only in rite but also
in other chapters. First and foremost, this includes family and personal
status law, but also economic law – and, the hard-liners would argue,
also in such areas as tort and possibly criminal law.
In the context of such a discussion, it is the authority under which
a judicial process functions, rather than the substance of the law itself,
which becomes a key consideration. This partly accounts for the inter-
nal Muslim disagreement in the 1985 seminars about the nature of a
tribunal or a court that might be asked to adjudicate Muslim family
law disputes. For some participants it was clearly not enough that the
existing English family court system takes Islamic expectations into
account. The court dealing with Muslim family disputes should itself
be Muslim in its character and staffing. There was further disagreement
on the matter of appeal among those who took this view, some insist-
ing that an appeal either not be allowed or be allowed only to a higher
Muslim tribunal. In fact, this view was probably also a reflection of the
experience of Muslim family courts under British rule in India before
1947. Muslim family cases, like all other cases, could in those days ulti-
mately be appealed to the Judiciary Committee of the Privy Council in
London. There were instances of the higher courts in India, and of the
Privy Council, either over-ruling a decision with reference to common
law principles of equity or holding to a decision which was in effect
a misunderstanding of rulings in the classical Hanafi tradition.21 Such
unhappy results for Muslim scholars should be avoided, if possible.
Such lack of trust in the intent of European authorities can clearly
be traced back to colonial experiences. The suspicions vary in strength
and character in different parts of the Muslim world and are probably

united kingdom 91
stronger among, for example, Algerians than among Muslims from the
Indian subcontinent. Basically this leads to the conclusion that Euro-
pean authorities cannot be trusted to consider Muslim practices fairly
and correctly. This suspicion is mirrored from the European side. The
implementation of Islamic family law is often interpreted as a politi-
cal manoeuvre with a variety of purposes. There is little doubt that the
demand for shari῾a has been voiced from some quarters as part of an
internal rivalry for leadership among the Muslim minorities. Equally
there is little doubt that the demand is also part of the process of cul-
tivating links between European Muslim communities and major for-
eign Muslim sponsors, some but not all of them being states.
The Discussion Continues
The seminars of 1985 and the project of which they were part have not
lost their relevance. The issues that were identified then are still with
us today:
- What is meant by Islamic family law?
- How compatible are shari῾a family law rules with European prac-
tice?
- Who decides what Islamic family law rules are in a particular coun-
try?
- Who would be responsible for implementation?
- Who might be subject to it?
- How far is the demand driven by sectional interests?
- How do European democratic and human rights traditions deal
with this issue, especially with regard to gender equality?
Most of these questions are far more technical than can be dealt with in
the remainder of this chapter, but several of the other chapters in this
volume touch on them. Let me here elaborate on the current disagree-
ments among Muslims regarding the legitimacy of the authority seek-
ing to implement family law.
Just as it was in England that the issue was first raised, so it is in
England that it has remained most acute, and certainly where it has
attracted most attention. Not long before the 1985 seminars were held,
the first two uk Islamic Sharia Councils were established in London.
They reflected both political and doctrinal differences, although a few
of the members served on both councils. One represented a modern-
izing approach to the field and was an initiative of Dr Zaki Badawi,
well-known for looking for constructive ways of integrating Islam into

the European environment. The other was sponsored by the Muslim

World League, representing a line close to Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi ver-
sion of Islam. Numerous anecdotal accounts indicate that they were
primarily engaged with cases of women seeking an ‘Islamic’ approval of
a divorce. Since then, there has been a multiplication of Sharia Coun-
cils and, in the most recent decade, also the innovation of the Muslim
Arbitration Tribunal.22 Whereas the legal status of the decisions of the
Councils is unclear, the Tribunal explicitly operates under English law,
particularly the Arbitration Act of 1996. The issue of contention is the
following.
Since an Islamically conducted marriage (nikah) has no legal stand-
ing in England, it follows in principle that such a marriage cannot be
dissolved in the usual way through the family courts. In effect, it is up
to the parties to decide how seriously to take their nikah if they decide
to end the relationship. It appears that a majority of Muslim couples
who get married in the civil process also get married by nikah. Among
many of the Muslim cultural traditions, the civil marriage is regarded
as something akin to an ‘engagement’ which only becomes a full mar-
riage with the nikah.23 It is with respect to this background that prob-
lems arise with divorce, as many will regard a divorce by the normal
civil procedure to be inadequate. They will therefore want an Islamic
divorce both for their own satisfaction and for the divorce to be rec-
ognized in the community. Traditionally such a divorce can be pro-
nounced unilaterally by the husband (talaq), while the wife needs to go
through some form of judicial process (khul‘).
Different Islamic bodies have different views on this. According
to research carried out at Cardiff University, the Birmingham Sharia
Council accepts a civil divorce as valid and simply offers confirmation,
if the parties so wish:
… the shari῾ah Council regard the obtaining of a civil divorce as clear

evidence of the parties’ view that the marriage is over, and for the
shari῾ah Council, this is conclusive, such that it does not deem it nec-
essary to grant a religious divorce to enable the parties to remarry
under shari῾a (although it will do so to reflect the parties’ wishes for
‘recognition’ by the Council of the ending of their marriage).24
This degree of accommodation is unusual. Much more common is the

view that for a divorce to be valid in Islamic terms it needs to be con-
ducted under an Islamic authority, particularly if it is initiated by the
wife in the form of a khul‘. This is stated unequivocally in a fatwa on
the Internet:

united kingdom 93
I would like to affirm that the divorce issued by the civil court in re-
sponse to the wife’s request is neither a valid divorce nor legitimate
marriage dissolution. This means that such a wife remains a wife and is
not free to marry another man. Marrying another man while the origi-
nal marriage is still in place is a violation of Islamic law and a crime.25
The uk Islamic Sharia Council takes a similar view but is more careful
in its invitation to Muslims to use its services:
The Council conducts Islamic divorces only: it does not conduct cases
as part of the uk legal or judicial systems: for advice regarding a civil
divorce, please consult a qualified, legal representative.26
The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (mat), established in 2007, has set

out to solve the problem of tensions between shari῾a expectations and
the English judicial process by seeking to operate under the terms of
the 1996 Arbitration Act. Ultimately its decisions are therefore subject
to the English courts, should a party be dissatisfied with the process or
the result. The language used by the mat is ambiguous. Its description
of its procedures refers to ‘the Tribunal’.27 However, in a recent docu-
ment on forced marriages it regularly uses the term ‘Judges’.28 It is also
clear from this document that the mat sees itself not just as a forum for
Alternative Dispute Resolution,29 but also a potential partner or advisor
to the authorities in solving difficult problems, in this case forced mar-
riages.30 mat has thus formally located itself under the ultimate judi-
cial authority of the English (non-Muslim) courts. This lies close to the
main option suggested by the participants in the 1985 seminars, namely
an attempt to create a judicial forum, in the mat case a quasi-judicial
one, which would have Islamic authority while situated within the for-
mal English system, although one step removed by seeking to function
as arbitration. For the same reason, the mat project is opposed by the
various shari῾a councils for theological reasons – mat is simply not suf-
ficiently independent of the non-Islamic state – although one is entitled
to suggest that political rivalries also have a role to play.
But England is no longer alone in facing this challenge. In his recent
study on Muslims in France, John Bowen refers to French Muslim
debates about halal and haram marriages.31 At one end of the spectrum
are those Muslims who refuse to have anything to do with ‘kafir mar-
riage’ and live together solely with a nikah. At the other end of the spec-
trum is a practice pursued by many imams, also in Belgium, namely
agreeing to perform a nikah, so long as a civil marriage has already
been conducted32 – thus accepting to operate within the civil legisla-

tion. There is also evidence that a number of imams give in to parties

who insist on having what they call a halal marriage, and then possibly
going on to a civil marriage at some time later, a practice which carries
a possible prison sentence for the imam. Some French Muslim scholars
argue that the conditions for a valid French marriage are quite valid
also in Islamic terms, so there should not be a problem – but again it is
the question of whether the authority formalizing the marriage can be
regarded as Islamically legitimate.
Recently conducted research in Denmark (unfortunately only in
Danish) shows that these questions are also relevant there.33 The most
common practice in all generations and across the ethnic groups,
according to this report, is that an Islamic marriage is conducted. Many
of these are not formalized as valid civil marriages, although here there
are substantial ethnic differences, with the absence of civil marriages
being most common among Somalis and least among Turks. Dissolu-
tion of such nikah marriages, with or without an accompanying civil
marriage, is usually conducted through some form of informal arbitra-
tion involving family members and/or an imam. This can be particu-
larly difficult for women, especially in cultural contexts that are often
very unhappy about divorce of any kind. This situation is encumbered
by a Danish political-legal environment which is much more reluctant
than that of England to countenance cultural flexibility in this area.
In conclusion, it could be argued that the tensions regarding the wish
for some form of shari῾a family law principles to apply among Muslims
living in Europe are – yet another – consequence of Europe’s past impe-
rial adventures. The shift of political, legal and cultural primacy to the
European imperial centres from the mid-18th century until the late 20th
century contributed, firstly, to the freezing of the historically natural
evolution of family law with changes in Muslim society and, secondly,
to Islamic family law becoming the symbol par excellence of Islamic
resistance to the imperial projects and their consequences. The argu-
ments over the place of shari῾a in Europe therefore have deep symbolic
meanings associated with minority identities, which we can only hope
to overcome during a long period of negotiation and trial and error.
Notes
1 An early version of some parts of this chapter have previously been published
in my paper ‘‘Il diritto familiare nelle rivendicazioni dell’inserimento nei paesi
europei’, in J. Waardenburg (ed.), I musulmani nella societa europea, Turin: Fon-
dazione Giovanni Agnelli, 1994, pp. 79-89.

united kingdom 95
2 Pasha, Syed Aziz, ‘Muslim family law in Britain’, unpublished paper presented
at a meeting at the House of Lords, 20 January 1977, p. 1.
3 Ibid, p. 2.
4 Based on the account given to me by the late Dr Badawi himself in 1980.
5 E. Rude-Antoine, ‘L’héritage et les familles maghrébines en France’, Hommes et
migrations, 1097 (15 November 1986), pp. 34-42, originally published in Italian
in Sociologia del dritto, 1 (1986).
6 D. Pearl, ‘Islam in English family law’, Research Papers: Muslims in Europe, 9
(March 1981), pp. 6-10.
7 Rude-Antoine, ‘L’héritage’, p. 41.
8 The research was conducted by one of my ma students for a thesis that was
never completed. It was based on a survey of the court case files covering 1982
and 1983.
9 See J.S. Nielsen, ‘Muslims in Britain and local authority responses’, in T. Ger-
holm and Y.G. Lithman (eds.), The new Islamic presence in Europe, London:
Mansell, 1988, pp. 53-77.
10 I was the rapporteur of the final report ‘Islamic law and its significance for the
situation of Muslim minorities in Europe’, Research Papers: Muslims in Europe,
35 (September 1987). It was also published in German as ‘Das islamische Recht
und seine Bedeutung für die Lage der muslimischen Minderheiten in Eur-
opa’, Evangelische Pressedienst, 34/87 (3 August 1987), and in French as ‘La
loi islamique et son importance pour la situation des minorités musulmanes
en Europe’, Brussels: Comité des églises auprès des travailleurs migrants en
Europe, 1987.
11 This was done in an unpublished five-page paper by Michael Mildenberger,
dated 31 August 1983. The full file of all this material was never published but I
have a copy in my personal possession.
12 Mildenberger, p. 3.
13 Mildenberger, p. 4.
14 See further below.
15 From the unpublished ‘Report of a seminar held at Woodbrooke College, Selly
Oak, 22-24 February 1985’, p. 3.
16 In the United Kingdom, Islamic banking has gone into the retail market. See for
example, the Islamic accounts at Lloyds tsb Bank: http://www.lloydstsb.com/
current_accounts/islamic_account.asp, accessed 11 November 2011.
17 Here I refer particularly to those trends which are often referred to as Wahhabi
or Salafi, rather than to political-radicals sympathetic to networks such as Al-
Qa’ida.
18 In this, of course, they follow in a minority tradition within Islamic political
thought that has often been opposed to the state, whether in the form of Khari-
jism and its successive ‘rejectionist’ cousins or in the form of the refusal of
‘ulama’ to take public employment.
19 This can be seen as a spiritualized and pietistic version of the political dualism
of people such as Syed Qutb and Abu’l-A’la Maududi.
20 Nielsen, ‘Islamic law and its significance’, p. 19.

21 A classic example of this, in the area of gifts and endowments, is referred to in

N.J. Coulson, A History of Islamic Law, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1964, pp. 167-170. A similar situation prevailed in Bosnia-Hercegovina after it
became a protectorate of Austria in 1878, see Fikret Karčić, ‘Secular state and
religion(s): Remarks on the Bosnian experience in regulating religion and state
relations’ in European Abrahamic Forum, Religion and Secular State: Role and
Meaning of Religion in a Secular State from Jewish, Christian and Muslim Per-
spectives, Zürich: European Abrahamic Forum, 2008, pp. 15-25.
22 www.matribunal.com, accessed 28 November 2011.
23 For a similar understanding in France see John Bowen, Can Islam be French?
Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State, Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2010, pp. 160f. For England see Samia Banno, ‘Muslim women,
divorce and Shari’ah councils in Britain’ in Rubya Mehdi et al. (eds.), Interpret-
ing Divorce Laws in Islam, Copenhagen: djøf, 2012, pp. 259-288.
24 Gillian Douglas et al., Social Cohesion and Civil Law: Marriage, Divorce and
Religious Courts Report of a Research Study funded by the ahrc, Cardiff Uni-
versity: Cardiff Law School, 2011, pp. 47f., accessed 28 November 2011 at http://
ssrn.com/abstract=1940387. I am grateful for the steady feed of relevant infor-
mation provided by colleagues on the mailing list ‘Accommodation in Pluri-
Legal Europe’ (pluri-legal@jiscmail.ac.uk).
25 http://www.islam21c.com/islamic-law/912-fatwa-a-civil-divorce-is-not-a-
valid-islamic-divorce, accessed 27 November 2011. The author, Sheikh Haitham
al-Haddad, is a member of the uk Islamic Sharia Council but is here writing
in his personal capacity, http://www.islamic-sharia.org/about-us/about-us-4.
html, accessed 28 November 2011.
26 http://www.islamic-sharia.org/how-it-works/how-the-isc-works-3.html,
accessed 28 November 2011.
27 http://www.matribunal.com/procedure_rules.html, accessed 1 December 2011.
28 http://www.matribunal.com/downloads/mat%20Forced%20Marriage%20
Report.pdf, accessed 27 November 2011. On its main page (see next note) it is
more careful when it says that its ‘arbitrators act like judges.’
29 The mat explicitly associates itself with this concept; see http://www.matribu-
nal.com/alt_dispute_res.html, accessed 27 November 2011.
30 http://www.matribunal.com/downloads/mat%20Forced%20Marriage%20
Report.pdf, especially section 6; accessed 27 November 2011.
31 John Bowen, Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secular State,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, pp. 158-165.
32 To conduct a religious marriage before the civil marriage is a criminal offence
in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
33 Annika Liversage and Tina Gudrun Jensen, Parallelle Retsopfattelser i Dan-
mark, Copenhagen: sfi, 2011, also accessible at http://www.sfi.dk/rapportoplys-
ninger-4681.aspx?Action=1&NewsId=3144&pid=9267.

5 The Netherlands
Applying Shari῾a to Family Law Issues in the Netherlands
Susan Rutten
Introduction
According to the latest official count, there were 837,000 Muslims in

the Netherlands in 2007.1 Muslims therefore make up between 5 and 6
per cent of the entire population. The majority still possesses a foreign
nationality, often in addition to their Dutch nationality.2
When considering the application of shari῾a to matters of family law
in the Netherlands, a distinction may be made between the application
of shari῾a by the authorities under the Dutch national legal order, on
the one hand, and application of shari῾a among Muslims themselves
within the informal social legal order, on the other hand. In the for-
mer situation, Muslims are subjected by the State to shari῾a family law;
in the latter, Muslims are subjected to Dutch secular law, but observe
shari῾a principles within the informal social legal order.
Formal application of Shari῾a
With regard to the first category, application of shari῾a under the na-
tional legal system, two features of the Dutch legal order must be taken
into account. The first is that religious legal systems, which may ex-
ist and co-exist in other countries, are not allowed in the Dutch legal
order, as Dutch law is secular law. There is separation of Church and
State, meaning that State law cannot be based on religious principles
and State authorities may not impose religious norms on citizens. The
second feature concerns the way in which the law governing family is-
sues is organized in the Netherlands, whereby family disputes may be
resolved at different levels.
First, they may be resolved according to the rules of private interna-
tional law. Rules of private international law apply where a case relat-
ing to family law is considered to have an international character. As
a result, foreign law may enter into the Dutch legal order in two ways:
either through recognition of relationships or decisions established

abroad or through application of foreign law by the Dutch authorities.

Quite often, Dutch rules on private international family law still refer
to the law of a person’s nationality. If that foreign law still observes, or
is based on, shari῾a law, the Dutch authorities apply shari῾a rules indi-
rectly.
The second level at which family law is applied is that of foreign
diplomatic authorities. These can be consulted by foreign nationals in
relation to all kinds of matters, such as the conclusion of a marriage and
the establishment of a marriage contract, including agreement between
the spouses on such matters as the dower, the establishment of parent-
age, reconciliation attempts, other family disputes, and matters of suc-
cession. The fact that diplomatic authorities can intervene in all kinds
of family affairs and mediate or, to a large extent, indirectly decide in
accordance with the principles of shari῾a, seems to diminish the need
among Muslims to have their disputes resolved by Islamic religious
authorities in informal settings.
The third level is the level of Dutch substantive law, which in itself
offers a variety of possibilities for introducing shari῾a concepts.
Informal application of Shari῾a
With regard to the informal application of shari῾a among Muslims

themselves, there is no general legal impediment to this practice. So
long as the limits set by the national legal system are respected, peo-
ple are free to conduct themselves as they wish. Acting in accordance
with shari῾a law is therefore permitted, on condition that Dutch law is
observed. Muslims are even permitted to consult religious authorities,
providing that Dutch law is not violated. Only in relation to a very small
number of issues does Dutch law prescribe a certain sequence of ac-
tions, in the sense that religious activities may only take place after ob-
ligations under civil law have been fulfilled. The most explicit rule is the
one governing marriage: a religious marriage may not take place unless
a civil marriage between the spouses has already been concluded.3
However, acting in accordance with shari῾a principles may give rise
to legal disputes. In that event, the informal and the national legal order
may converge. Although shari῾a rules respected within the informal
social order will not be officially recognized under the national legal
system, the fundamental rights of Muslims, such as women’s rights,
may be at stake. Protection of these fundamental rights might be disre-
spected within the informal social order. The question arises as to what
role human rights can play in protecting the social position of Muslims
within their informal social order.

the netherlands 99
In this article, the application of shari῾a as a legal system will not

be discussed. In what follows, I focus on describing the legal instru-
ments that may be used to either accept or reject shari῾a as rules of
conduct for Muslims in their daily life. As a result, I will reflect neither
on issues of private international law, nor on the application of shari῾a
law by foreign consular authorities. In the following I will therefore first
discuss the application of shari῾a concepts within Dutch substantive
law and, second, the legal attitude towards the use of shari῾a in infor-
mal social settings. After having described the legal framework and the
legal instruments available, I will conclude the article by briefly discuss-
ing the relevance of the political climate and political policy towards
migration and integration, and the way in which this may affect the
issue of applying shari῾a in the Netherlands.
Applying Shari῾a Under the Dutch Legal System
In this section, I will discuss the extent to which Dutch law enables
Muslims to apply shari῾a to family law issues. This will be explained
by describing the legal instruments available to accommodate religious
family law values. The following instruments will be discussed: 1. party
autonomy; 2. the favour-principle; 3. the use of open norms by the leg-
islator; 4. express legal provisions to accommodate expressions of reli-
gion; and 5. the fundamental right to freedom of religion.
Party autonomy
Many family disputes may be settled by the parties themselves, either

by bilateral agreement or unilateral declaration, or by merely fulfill-
ing religious obligations, for example within the context of bringing up
children. However, the formal requirements set by Dutch law must be
met. For instance, divorce can only be pronounced by a court of law,4
and marriage can only be concluded before the civil authorities.5 The
divorce or marriage of Muslims carried out by an imam in the Nether-
lands will not be recognized by law. Where there are no formal require-
ments set by law, the parties are free to organize their family issues as
they wish, with or without the involvement of an Islamic authority.
A second restriction is found in the applicable substantive legal rules
themselves. It must be borne in mind that the applicable substantive
law will often be determined by rules of private international law. Since
many Muslims in the Netherlands still possess a foreign nationality,
private international law will always come into play in matters of fam-

ily law. For the purposes of this article, I will only discuss Dutch sub-
stantive law. Agreements governed by private law are usually valid as
long as they are not in contravention of the law, public policy, or good
morals.6 Future spouses are free, in principle, to agree for instance on
the dower the man will have to pay to the woman according to shari῾a
law.7 Only where the agreement violates public policy will the auton-
omy of the parties be limited. Another example is the following: people
are free to determine how their property should be disposed of after
their death. Under the rules of private international law, the applicable
substantive law will either be the law of the nationality of the deceased
or the law of his last habitual residence.8 Should the conflict rule refer
to Dutch inheritance law, only a few restrictions must be taken into
account and the disposition may not be contrary to good morals or
public policy.9 So long as these restrictions are observed, distribution of
the estate according to shari῾a law is enforceable.
The favour-principle
In some instances, the parties may choose which one of several alterna-
tives is to be applied. In these situations, a choice may be made for the
alternative that mostly favours shari῾a principles. An example is found
in the law governing names. The free choice of a child’s first name is
given to the parents.10 They are allowed to choose ‘one of the 99 beau-
tiful names of Allah’11 if they so desire. Parents are also afforded the
possibility of opting for either the mother’s or the father’s family name
as their child’s family name.12 Thus, in order to demonstrate the child’s
legal descent and to show its observance of Islamic religion, its parents
may opt for the name of the Muslim father.
Express provisions and open norms
Dutch family law does not include provisions that expressly accom-
modate the application of shari῾a or other religious principles.13 On the
other hand, the Dutch legislator has deliberately laid down open norms
in several family law provisions, so that the specific circumstances of
each case, changing circumstances and other developments may be
taken into account.14 The ‘interest’ or the ‘best interest’ of the child is
such a concept. It is used in all custody cases and in cases of child pro-
tection and needs to be construed depending on the factual circum-
stances of the case. It is debatable whether a child’s upbringing in ac-
cordance with shari῾a would be in its interest, or whether circumcision
is in the interest of the Muslim child concerned. It follows from Dutch

the netherlands 101
case law that, if parents disagree on the circumcision of their child, cir-
cumcision is not readily considered to be in the interest of a Muslim
boy.15 However, the Dutch courts will only arrive at such a conclusion
after having weighed up the various interests and circumstances in-
volved in the case. One consideration is the religious and social inter-
ests of the parents and the child in having him circumcised.16
Freedom of religion
Freedom of religion and the practice of religion are fundamental

rights, guaranteed, inter alia, in Article 9 of the European Convention
on Human Rights. Although the provisions of this article are applica-
ble in the Netherlands, invoking freedom of religion has hardly ever
been successful in matters of family law. In family law issues, freedom
of religion usually has to be balanced against other interests at stake,
such as the gender equality principle, the interest of the child and pub-
lic interests. Since it is common sense that the gender equality princi-
ple in Europe is of fundamental value and that the interest of a child
should be given predominant weight as far as children are involved,
balancing the interests often results in attaching more weight to these
latter interests.17
The Use of Shari῾a in Informal Social Settings

and the Role of Human Rights
Human rights may have a variety of functions where the application

of shari῾a is concerned. On the one hand, human rights may serve as a
shield against the application of certain shari῾a family law rules. Where
shari῾a violates the principle of gender equality, the principle of equal-
ity between spouses, the principle of equality on the basis of birth, or
the principle of equality on the basis of religion, its application is not
accepted as a rule. In this event, application and recognition of for-
eign shari῾a family law rules may be refused. These grounds are also
invoked in the debate about shari῾a councils (see discussion below).
Furthermore, they impede the operation of shari῾a in all other areas
of domestic law, for example where shari῾a condones violence or pre-
scribes circumcision.
On the other hand, human rights, primarily the right to freedom of
religion, may be used to accommodate the application of shari῾a. How-
ever, as we have seen above, this freedom of religion is rarely success-
fully invoked in Dutch family disputes.

And finally, human rights may be used as a tool to offer protection

against human rights violations brought about in the informal social
religious order. This last function of human rights will be discussed in
more detail in the next section.
The example of the ‘chained wife’
The example of the ‘chained wife’ concerns the following situation: a

Muslim wife has married a Muslim husband in both a religious and a
civil ceremony. Only the civil marriage is legally valid in the Nether-
lands. In the case of divorce, it is the Dutch court, and the Dutch court
only, which can rule on the divorce. The court will only dissolve the
civil marriage, not the religious one. The latter can only be dissolved in
religious proceedings. To obtain such a divorce, Muslims must apply
to religious or consular authorities. To acquire a religious divorce, the
cooperation of the husband is usually required. If the husband refuses
to cooperate, the wife will remain in her religious marriage. As a result,
she will not be free to enter into a new relationship. Her right to marry,
her right to start a (new) family, and her right to develop and partici-
pate freely in society (her right of self-determination), are some of the
rights that may be thwarted. The phenomenon of the ‘chained wife’ first
emerged within Jewish communities, where it is presumably better
known. The term ‘chained wife’ stems from the aguna, the chained wife
under Jewish law who was not able to receive her get, the Jewish letter
of divorce her ex-husband had to hand over to her. Nowadays, this issue
has been extended to Muslim women.
In fact, Dutch case law does permit women to apply to the court for
an order to force the ex-husband to cooperate with a religious or con-
sular divorce. Already in 1982, the Netherlands Supreme Court recog-
nized the possibility of ordering a Jewish ex-husband to deliver a get to
his ex-wife before rabbinical authorities in the Netherlands.18 In 1989,
the same Court recognized the possibility of ordering a Muslim ex-hus-
band to cooperate with a consular divorce so that the divorce would be
valid in the state of origin as well.19 In a case in 2010, a Pakistani Mus-
lim woman, who applied to a Dutch Court of First Instance to force her
husband to cooperate with an Islamic divorce carried out by an imam,
was granted her request.20
In all these cases, the application was based on tort: depending on
the circumstances of the case and the interests involved, failure to coop-
erate with a religious divorce after a civil divorce has been obtained may
be regarded as a civil wrong (negligence) committed against the ex-
wife. The issue was thus resolved in accordance with the provisions of
Dutch substantive private law.

the netherlands 103
The question may arise as to whether the wife, to have the matter
resolved, could also have successfully invoked human rights and thus be
released from her marriage.21 It can be argued that the human rights of
a chained wife, as summed up previously, had been violated. However,
at least three dilemmas would have to be overcome. The first dilemma
is that, since shari῾a represents informal law, the wife is only informally
chained to the marriage. Legally, she is divorced; formal impediments to
entering into a new relationship no longer exist. Should human rights
be invoked for the sole purpose of resolving the social problems women
face within the informal legal order? My answer would be in the affirma-
tive. Human rights protect real-life situations regardless of how these
have come about. In a democratic, pluralist society, authorities should
recognize that problems may exist within the informal legal order. Rec-
ognition of the existence of informal religious marriages and the social
results of such marriages is a precondition for the will to have it solved
by legal means. In a case concerning a Jewish aguna decided by the
Canadian Supreme Court in 2007, the Court considered the following:22
Recognizing the enforceability by civil courts of agreements to dis-

courage religious barriers to remarriage, addresses the gender dis-
crimination those barriers may represent and alleviates the effects
they may have on extracting unfair concessions in a civil divorce. This
harmonizes with Canada’s approach to equality rights, to divorce and
remarriage generally, to religious freedom, and is consistent with the
approach taken by other democracies.
The second dilemma concerns the following question: should a secular

state and secular courts intervene in religious disputes? My answer to
this question would again be in the affirmative.23 Although States must
exercise restraint in intervening in religious affairs, secular authorities
may intervene if human rights are not observed in the application of
religious rules. This was the argument used by the European Court of
Human Rights in the case of Pellegrini v Italy, where the procedural
fundamental rights of one of the spouses had been violated during the
Christian Court proceedings,24 and more recently in two cases where
churches were not allowed to dismiss one of their employees because
they maintained an extramarital relationship. 25
The third dilemma reads as follows: must the parties themselves
respect human rights in their private relationships? Not the State as
public authority, but the ex-husband himself, is ordered by the court
to cooperate in a private legal act, that is, a divorce, within the private
marital relationship. Of the three dilemmas, the last one may be the

hardest to solve. Although human rights are primarily invoked against

State authorities, there is a tendency to accept that human rights are
enforceable in private relationships as well.26 Direct application of
human rights in the situation of the chained wife is an interesting
option that deserves to be examined more thoroughly. Should direct
application not yet be accepted, human rights could at least be used to
support the wife’s civil claim aimed at having her chained position ter-
minated. For one could at least argue that neglecting the fundamental
rights of the wife would easily constitute an act of tort.
Application of Shari῾a: Politically Sensitive
Application of shari῾a in the Netherlands does not seem to be merely

a legal question that can be answered by legal reasoning alone. Rightly
or wrongly, it seems to be inextricably intertwined with policies on mi-
gration and integration. In the course of time, however, these policies
have taken different forms. In the 1970s, the presence of migrants in the
Netherlands was supposed to be temporary.27 Since it was assumed that
migrants would return to their countries of origin, they were allowed
to fully keep their identities.28 From the end of the 1970s onwards, there
was growing awareness that migrant residency had assumed a perma-
nent nature. The objective then became for minorities to participate
fully in society.29
The integration of migrants required mutual adaptation and recog-
nition of existing diversity. In the Integration Memorandum 2007-2011,
social cohesion, social integration and participation are deemed essen-
tial conditions for integration.30 Very diverse ideas on ethnic, cultural
and religious differences within society would have to be bridged. Soci-
ety realized that integration would be a long process spanning several
generations. On several occasions, the European Court of Human Rights
stressed the importance of tolerance and acceptance of religious plural-
ism in present-day democratic pluralist societies.31 But by 2010, the gov-
ernment’s patience suddenly seems to have run out. Multicultural society
has failed, a Dutch Minister has proclaimed.32 Specific integration policy
was put on hold. It was felt that many aspects of foreign cultures ham-
per the process of integration. The political majority’s policy of that time
seems to be barring foreign elements from society.
In June 2011, in a paper entitled Integratie, binding, en burgerschap
(Integration, bonding, and citizenship), the Dutch Minister of Internal
Affairs launched the government’s new perspective on integration.33 In
this paper, the government endeavours to establish a common and rec-

the netherlands 105
ognizable basis for all its citizens. This common basic foundation is first
of all shaped by the social achievements of Dutch society and by such
fundamental values as freedom, equality, equal respect for all citizens,
tolerance and solidarity. However, according to the Minister, existing
unwritten codes of conduct also form part of this common basis. The
Minister furthermore states that the Dutch government is also aware
of the concerns about the incompatibility between the Western and the
Islamic way of life among the traditional population,34 and its attitude
towards symptoms of radicalization, violence, and other antidemocratic
acts.35 The government also states that it considers itself responsible for
allaying these concerns.36 This is a crucial, but worrisome point, as policy
is no longer determined by existing incompatibilities and real dangers,
but by fear; the fear that incompatibilities and dangers will be the decisive
factor, whether such fears have a basis in reality or not.
Measures are to be developed in the area of family law in relation to
foreign marriages. Marriage immigration is blamed as one of the rea-
sons for migrants’ failure to integrate. In particular, marriages entered
into abroad with spouses not prepared for Dutch society are deemed to
cause problems of integration and oblige society to make costly efforts
to overcome the disadvantaged position of women and children. The
government therefore intends to tighten the rules on marriage immigra-
tion, in particular as regards forced and polygamous marriages. In this
respect, the government is pursuing a multidisciplinary approach, opting
for both legal and non-legal, often social, measures. The intended legal
measures are in the areas of family law,37 private international law,38 and
criminal law,39 as well as in the area of migration law.40
It is interesting to see that the issue of forced and polygamous mar-
riages is nowadays approached from a totally different angle than pre-
viously. In the past, the issue was regarded as either a gender or human
rights issue, or from the perspective of multiculturalism. As a gender
and human rights issue, the most important goal used to be the provi-
sion of legal instruments to protect the interests of the wife in a forced
or polygamous marriage. These instruments were found in family law
(marriage impediments), in private international law (refusal to recog-
nize such marriages), and sometimes in criminal law (penalization of
such marriages). Nowadays, what seem to have become of paramount
importance are the consequences of such marriages for migration and
integration. This change in attitude is to be regretted, since it implies a
high risk of overlooking the specific interests of the parties concerned
and of attaching too much weight to public interest. If the proposals are
implemented and prove to be successful, the result will be less accept-
ance of shari῾a in the Netherlands.

Conclusion
The Dutch legislator has expressly and deliberately allowed the applica-
tion of foreign law – by rules of private international law and by accept-
ing the competence of foreign diplomatic authorities – and the practice
of religion. Furthermore, legal instruments are employed, such as party
autonomy, open norms, and the favour-principle, so that all kinds of in-
terests may be taken into account. By means of these techniques, shari῾a
has been formally included in the Dutch legal order. At the same time,
the Dutch legal system offers a number of principles restricting the use
of shari῾a: the secular nature of the Dutch legal system, the prevalence
of human rights, and the legal constraints of ‘good morals’ and ‘public
policy’, which function as ‘shields’.
Although the Dutch legal system may be well equipped to cope
with legal and religious pluralism and consequently with shari῾a, some
issues remain to be resolved. There is room for improvement in the
application of existing legal instruments, which could be refined. The
question is how to achieve this. If shari῾a manifestly infringes human
rights or public policy, shari῾a may not be applied. Where the applica-
tion of shari῾a does not violate Dutch legal standards, it may be read-
ily accepted. From a legal perspective, less clear situations, such as the
question of whether Muslim parents are allowed to have their sons cir-
cumcised, are the most challenging and open to debate. The instru-
ments provided by Dutch law to cope with these situations seem to
be appropriate. However, correct application of the instruments often
requires more understanding of the relevance and significance of
shari῾a principles for those Muslims concerned.
Another problem results from the way in which the gap between the
application of Dutch laws and the application of shari῾a family law to
Muslims and their observance of shari῾a family law within the informal
legal order is to be bridged. A precondition for resolving this dilemma
is recognition of the informal legal order as a social reality. Legal rec-
ognition of this social reality, in the sense of legitimizing informal con-
duct, is not necessary, however, nor is it desirable in general. However,
denial on principle of any legal relevance of the informal setting would
entail not taking into account genuine, existing interests. Dutch secular
rules already allow a certain degree of observance of shari῾a.
In addition, human rights are a potential instrument for coping with
difficulties ensuing from the informal application of Islamic family law.
These often concern the position of women and that of related persons in
non-marital relationships, such as partners and their children. Human
rights could be an interesting instrument in protecting the position of

the netherlands 107
women and children against unfair consequences of their observance of

shari῾a. Thus far, human rights have rarely played such a role, and the
further development of this role should thus be encouraged.
Notes
1 http://www.cbs.nl/ NR /rdonlyres/ ACE 89 EBE -0785-4664-9973-A6A00

A457A55/0/2007k3b15p48art.pdf.
2 http://www.cbs.nl/nl- NL /menu/themas/bevolking/publicaties/artikelen/
archief/2012/2012-3578-wm.htm.
3 Article 68 of Book 1 of the Dutch Civil Code.
4 Article 55 of Book 10 of the Dutch Civil Code (in force since 1 January 2012).
In earlier jurisprudence: Netherlands Supreme Court (hr) 31 October 1986,
Nederlandse Jurisprudentie (nj) 1987, 924.
7 Agreements on a dower often gave rise to questions of characterization. Should
such an agreement be classified as a marital agreement, a maintenance agree-
ment or a contract sui generis? For a more extensive discussion of these ques-
tions, see the contribution by N. Yassari in chapter 9 of this volume.
8 Articles 145 and 146 of Book 10 of the Dutch Civil Code and the 1989 Hague
Convention on Succession.
11 K.M. Sharma, ‘What’s in a Name? Law, Religion, and Islamic Names,’ Denver
Journal of International Law and Policy 1997-1998 (Vol. 26, No. 2), pp. 151-207;
A. Schimmel, Islamic Names, Edinburgh University Press 1989 (series: Islamic
Surveys).
13 The last provisions that expressly referred to religious interests were repealed
on 1 January 2005. These articles prescribed that the religious character of a
foster institute and the religion of the child should be taken into account when
placing a child in a foster family.
14 R.J.S. Schwitters, Recht en samenleving in verandering. Een inleiding in de rechts-
sociologie, Deventer: Kluwer, 2008 (2nd ed.), pp. 56-57.
15 S.W.E. Rutten, ‘Besnijdeniszaken voor de Nederlandse rechter,’ in: Pauline
Kruiniger (ed.), Recht van de Islam 24, Den Haag: Boom Juridische Uitgeverij,
2010, pp. 67-78.
16 Court of Appeal ’s-Hertogenbosch, Judgment of 26 November 2002, ljn:
af2955.
17 Supreme Court 1 July 1982, Nederlandse Jurisprudentie (nj) 1983, 201 (child
protection measure); Court of Appeal ’s-Hertogenbosch 26 November 2002,
ljn: AF2955 (circumcision of a male child); ecthr 29 November 2007, appl.nr.
37614/02 (Ismailova t. Rusland) (upbringing by Jehovah’s Witness and award-
ing of custody); Supreme Court 9 November 2001, nj 2002, 279 (unilateral

repudiation); Court of First Instance Rotterdam 27 January 2010, ljn: bl1502

(unequal positions of men and women with regard to denial of paternity).
18 Supreme Court 22 January 1982, Nederlandse Jurisprudentie 1982, 489. More
recently: Court of First Instance Amsterdam 10 April 2012, ljn: bw3800.
19 Supreme Court 10 November 1989, Nederlandse Jurisprudentie 1990, 112.
20 Court of First Instance Rotterdam 8 December 2010, ljn: bp8396.
21 See also Susan Rutten, ‘Protection of spouses in informal marriages by human
rights,’ Utrecht Law Review 2010, 2 (Special Issue: Human Rights Law as a Site of
Struggle over Multicultural Conflicts. Comparative and Multidisciplinary Per-
spectives), pp. 77-92.
22 Canadian sc 14 December 2007, No. 31212, Bruker v. Marcovitz.
23 I wrote extensively about this question in a Dutch-language article entitled ‘Het
recht van de gescheiden vrouw om verlost te worden uit het huwelijk’, njcm-
Bulletin 2008 (33)/6), pp. 755-769.
24 ecthr 20 July 2001, appl.no. 30882/96 (Pellegrini v Italy).
25 ecthr 23 September 2010, appl.no. 425/03 (Obst v Germany) and ecthr 23 Sep-
tember 2010, appl.no. 1620/03 (Schüth v Germany).
26 See, for example, article 16 cedaw. More extensively on this point: Susan Rut-
ten, ‘Het recht van de gescheiden vrouw’, 2008, ‘Protection of spouses’, 2010.
27 Report of the Wrr (Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid), 2001,
p. 168; Report of the Tijdelijke Commissie Onderzoek Integratiebeleid “Brug-
gen bouwen”, tk 2003-2004, 28689, nrs. 8-9, p. 28.
28 Idem.
29 Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, 1983, Minderhedennota, tk 1982-1983,
16102, nrs. 20-21, Den Haag; Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, 1994, Integra-
tiebeleid etnische minderheden; contourennota, tk 1993-1994, 23 684, nrs.1-2.
30 Integratienota 2007-2011, tk 2007-2008, 31268, nrs. 1-2, pp. 11-18.
31 See: Eva Brems, ‘Human Rights as a Framework for Negotiating/Protecting
Cultural Differences – An Exploration of the Case-Law of the European Court
of Human Rights’, M-Cl. Foblets et al. (eds.), Cultural Diversity and the Law,
Bruxelles Bruylant 2010, pp. 663-715.
32 tk 2010-2011, 32824, nr. 1, p. 3.
33 tk 2010-2011, 32824, nr. 1.
34 41% of these citizens.
35 No numbers are given.
36 Integratienota 2011, pp. 5-6.
37 Attributing authority to the Public Prosecutor to suspend a forced marriage,
facilitating the nullification of forced marriages, extending the persons who
may nullify a forced marriage by attributing this competence also to the Public
Prosecutor, prohibiting marriages between nieces and nephews unless the part-
ners can prove that there is no forced marriage, and increasing the marital age
to 18 years.

the netherlands 109
38 Forced marriage as an express ground for invoking public policy, in case of

a threat: Dutch law always applies where there is a ground for invoking pub-
lic policy; removing the attributive rule that refers to foreign law, listing age
as a ground for invoking public policy, strengthening recognition policy with
regard to polygamous marriages.
39 Increase in the number of prosecutions, instituting extraterritorial criminal
authority; penalizing forced marriages abroad, not only when committed by
own nationals but also by foreigners with durable residence in the Netherlands,
extending the period of prescription.
40 Refusal of residency permits in case of forced marriages, arranged marriages
between nieces and nephews, child marriages, polygamous marriages, and
marriages of convenience.

6 Albania and Kosovo
The Return of Islam in South East Europe: Debating Islam
and Islamic Practices of Family Law in Albania and Kosovo
Besnik Sinani
Introduction
Albania emerged at the end of the communist era in Eastern Europe as

the only country where the communist regime had completely banned
and penalized the practice of religion. It is also the only Balkan coun-
try to have emerged from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire with a
mainly Islamic population: an estimated 70 per cent of Albanians are
Muslims. Following the fall of communism, Albania has been seeking
integration in the European Union and it is often feared that any revival
of its Islamic identity will be an impediment to that endeavour.
Kosovo, the other Albanian-populated country in the Balkans,
declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and has been seeking
Western support and European integration. Although religion was
not banned in Kosovo under the Yugoslav Federation, as happened in
Albania, the communist regime discouraged the practice of religion.
Nevertheless, Kosovo is facing dilemmas very similar to those faced by
Albania regarding its religious tradition.
In both these countries, the Albanian Muslim Community (amc)
in Albania and the Islamic Community of Kosovo (ick) in Kosovo
represent Islam in relation to the governments and hold control and
ownership of the mosques and educational institutions. Both these
institutions have suffered from inherited weakness due to the long sup-
pression of religion in Albania during the communist regime and the
strict control of religion in Kosovo under the Yugoslav Federation. It is
believed that this weakness created the conditions for the presence of
Middle Eastern charity organizations in the 1990s that were instrumen-
tal, among other things, in providing scholarships for a new genera-
tion of Albanians to study at Middle Eastern Islamic universities. Upon
their return, many of them questioned the legitimacy and the religious
credentials of representatives of the older generation who led the rep-
resentative institutions.

In more recent years, however, both these institutions have become

stronger, due to a number of factors: first, governments in both Alba-
nia and Kosovo have preferred to negotiate with these institutions than
with other Muslim organizations; second, Muslim activists in various
Muslim civil society organizations, even those critical of the leadership,
seem to have recognized that the strength of these institutions is ben-
eficial for the whole community; and a third factor in Albania relates to
representatives of the Gülen Movement, an organization with Turkish
roots, having taken control of the leadership of the amc. Despite criti-
cism from other Muslims, followers of the Gülen Movement in Albania
have concentrated their efforts on strengthening the amc and on tak-
ing control of mosques and other religious institutions in the country.
Today, in both of these countries with Albanian majority popula-
tions, questions are often raised in public debates regarding the way
Western Europe perceives the Islamic identity of Albanians and whether
Islam is a hindrance to integration in Europe. These questions are part
of a common debate in Kosovo and Albania on identity, perceptions of
the Ottoman past, and political and cultural orientation.1 These con-
cerns have affected attitudes towards Islamic practices and particularly
the novelty of women wearing headscarves and men growing beards is
perceived as tarnishing the image of Albanians in the West.
This chapter will discuss some of the debates that have emerged from
the political elites regarding Islam in both Kosovo and Albania; debates
that are mutually informed and influenced by one another. Further-
more, I will examine some examples of practices in matters of Islamic
family law, whereby I will limit myself to those from Albania.
Under the Gaze of Europe
On 15 October 2011, the President of the newly independent Republic of

Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, gave a speech in a remote region of her coun-
try, near the border with neighbouring Albania, in honour of Shtjefën
Gjeçovi (1873-1929), a Catholic priest of the Franciscan order who is
known for having recorded the tribal code that governed the highland
regions, known as the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini. Speaking about the
Kanun and the role of the Catholic Church in the forefront of the strug-
gle for freedom and progress in the history of the Albanian people, she
added:
Through the Kanun of the Mountains, known as the Kanun of Lekë

Dukagjini, the descendants of Scanderbeg in their national resistance

albania and kosovo 113
against the Ottoman invasion regulate the lives of people and this
made it impossible for the implementation of shari῾a in these lands
and among our people of the Catholic or of the Muslim faith. In our
lands it was unconceivable for the Ottoman authorities to cut off the
hand of someone accused of stealing or to apply fifty lashes to some-
one’s body in public. So this Kanun preserved the honour and dignity
of the individual and the national dignity for over five hundred years.2
Anti-Ottoman rhetoric is common in Albanian nationalist discourse

and Albanian nationalism considers mountains ‘as sanctuaries of the
nation’ where national values were preserved. The Kanun is perceived
as a particularly Albanian institution instrumental in this preservation
of the national character.3 Juxtaposing Christianity and particularly
Catholicism as the opposite ‘other’ of Islam – one representing Europe,
progress, liberty and an indigenous religious experience, and the other
representing a backward, eastern, foreign threat – has also been part of
Albanian political rhetoric since the fall of communism. This situation,
in which the leaders of a Muslim-majority country reject Islam and
allude to Christianity as the true legacy of the people of Albania and
Kosovo, has occurred repeatedly in recent years.
Six years earlier, in 2005, addressing an audience at the Oxford
Union in the United Kingdom, the former President of Albania (2002-
2007), Alfred Moisiu, declared that in essence, Albanians are Christians
and Islam is not an original religion of the Albanians.4 In a similar vein,
former deputy Prime Minister of Albania, Gramoz Pashko (1991-1995),
stated in a paper he wrote on Christianity that the only hope for Alba-
nia is its young generation, ‘which has loved European Civilization and
Christian values.’ Commenting on Mr. Pashko’s writing, the scholar
Maria Todorova points out that ‘[this] frank appeal to Christian values
from a country that before it became atheist was 70% Muslim bespeaks
the naiveté and straightforwardness of the Albanian political discourse
that has not yet mastered the ennobling façade of the pluralist vocabu-
lary.’ She further adds: ‘It is, however, also a tribute to the sound polit-
ical instincts of the new Albanian political elites who have not been
duped by the pretence of supra-religious, non-racial, and non-ethnic
universalism and pluralism of the European or Western discourse.’5
In her speech on the Kanun, Kosovo President Jahjaga has joined
other representatives of the Albanian political elites in Kosovo and
Albania in affirming a self-designation of European-ness permeated by
Christian values and distancing itself from, if not completely rejecting,
Islam.6 The novelty of President Jahjaga’s speech, however, is the refer-
ence to shari῾a law. The Ottoman past and Islam are often blamed for

the backwardness of the Albanians, for being the cause of historical

misfortunes and for keeping Albanians away from their natural fam-
ily of European nations. Shari῾a law, however, has not been part of
this tradition of nationalist discourse. The images of the cutting off of
hands and flogging in public seem to have been transported from cur-
rent events in distant territories into threats in the Albanian histori-
cal imagination and into the current political discourse, as part of this
politically engendered identity construction of being European.
As Talal Asad has pointed out, since the last decades of the twen-
tieth century, Europe has witnessed a shifting of borders that aims to
represent what European Civilization is. ‘They reflect a history whose
unconfused purpose is to separate Europe from alien times (“commu-
nism,” “Islam”) as well as from alien places (“Islam,” “Russia”).’7 It is
under this configuration of the European identity map that Albanian
politicians position themselves in the ‘right place’ of the dividing line
between East and West, Islam and Christianity, where the affirmation
of European-ness comes with the rejection of Islam, the Ottoman past
and shari῾a law. President Jahjaga’s anti-shari῾a rhetoric does not relate
to shari῾a per se, since the draconian punishments that she refers to
were not part of the Albanian Ottoman experience, and we have not
witnessed any calls in Albania or Kosovo for a ‘return to shari῾a,’ the
cutting off of the hands of thieves or the flogging of adulterers. Her ref-
erence to shari῾a reflects the fears and anxieties of the West in relation
to its former colonial subjects and Muslim migrants, as projected in
the political profile of countries in the Balkans that seek to affirm their
place in Europe.
On the other hand, Albanian Muslims in their daily life and in their
religious practices make attempts to live according to the teachings
of their religion, teachings that are known to be part of the corpus of
Islamic law, or shari῾a. As I have attempted to show above, there are
important similarities, overlapping issues and mutual influences in the
discourse of the political elites in both Albania and Kosovo regarding
religion. Despite similarities, however, there are differences in religious
practices and discourse in Albania and Kosovo. In the next paragraph I
will illustrate this discussion with examples of Islamic family law prac-
tices, whereby I will restrict myself to the situation in Albania.
Certainly, there is another discourse on shari῾a law emerging in
Western Europe that seeks to accommodate aspects of shari῾a family
law in the framework of multicultural citizenship. 8 Albanian elites have
made clear, however, that their countries will follow a French model of
republicanism9 that sees multiculturalism as equal to a ‘balkanization’
of society. The dominant and unchallenged notion of citizenship in

post-communist Albania and newly-independent Kosovo is permeated

with the notion of national interest. However, Muslims are often chal-
lenged to answer whether their primary loyalty stands with the nation
or with the Ummah, the global Muslim community. The assumption
embedded in the question is that Muslim loyalties stand with a foreign
entity in opposition to the national interest and European identity. The
assumption is that young Muslims that embraced Islam after the col-
lapse of communism are loyal to religious agendas originating from the
Middle East.10
Muslim responses to these challenges have been diverse. Some have
appealed to an Anglo-Saxon understanding of secularism when argu-
ing for the right of women to wear the headscarf in public schools.
However, there have not been attempts to go as far as to claim separate
Muslim judiciary systems or to articulate a notion of similar forms of
‘privatized diversity.’11 Ayelet Shachar points out that ‘the main claim
raised by advocates of “privatized diversity” is that respect for religious
freedom or cultural integrity does not require inclusion in the public
sphere, but exclusion.’12 The dominant tendency of Muslims in Alba-
nia, however, has been one that seeks inclusion in the dominant soci-
etal paradigm and rather than claiming a distinctive place as a toler-
ated minority, they claim a place for Islam under the national umbrella.
Muslim practices related to shari῾a, including those practices that
incorporate matters of family law, have to be understood through the
lenses of a post-communist society that often perceives its Islamic past
and current Muslim practitioners as a liability in their bid to join ‘the
European family’; they have to be understood, also, in terms of a Mus-
lim community that seeks a place for Islam in contemporary Albania,
rejecting marginalization.
Islamic Marriage and Divorce in Secular Albania
A question was presented to imam Ahmed Kalaja, imam of Dine Hoxha

Mosque in Albania’s capital, Tirana, during a question and answer ses-
sion in the mosque: ‘Am I permitted to hit my wife? Although I haven’t
got married yet, I have performed the nikah.’13 The imam criticized the
questioner, advising the congregation to lead a marital life of common
understanding and affection, and to overlook shortcomings. He af-
firmed the permission granted in the sacred texts for such punishment,
but he clarified that physical punishment is only allowed in extreme
cases when the behaviour of the spouse is posing a threat to the religion
and the wellbeing of the children and the family in general. He stressed,

however, that the Prophet Muhammad advised against hitting women

and mentioned the example of the Prophet who is reported to have
never hit a woman or a child.
Next, he addressed the rather awkward situation of the questioner’s
status of being engaged but not married, although he had performed
the Islamic contract of marriage, the nikah. A number of couples that
intend to build a family and a home together are often, mostly for eco-
nomic reasons, unable to have their own house and, by consequence,
are unable to have a wedding, which is customarily the event after which
a couple will live together. The performance of a religious marriage –
nikah – rather than a civil marriage, however, enables the partners to
be in each other’s company without the presence of a chaperone. This
distinction between being married and not being married, but having
performed the nikah, seems to worry many imams. First of all, it leads
to an understanding of nikah as somehow less than ‘a real marriage.’
In these cases, nikah seems to resemble what is customarily known in
contemporary Albania as the status of being engaged.
The imam who answered the question, therefore, emphasized that
once the nikah has been performed, the couple is considered married
and that prior to this, the couple is not allowed to be secluded or have
any physical contact. The imam emphasized that nikah is marriage. A
number of imams that I interviewed in Tirana insisted that prior to the
act of nikah, the couple ought to present the marriage certificate from
the municipal office. There seem to be two main reasons for taking this
approach. According to imam Ferid Piku, hatib of the Medrese Mosque
in Tirana, Islamic law recognizes marriage contracts conducted by
non-Muslim entities. If a couple that has been married in a Christian
church, for example, later becomes Muslim, they don’t have to repeat
the marriage, since their marriage is considered valid in Islamic law.
Similarly, if a couple is married in the municipal office according to
secular law, the marriage is still valid according to Islamic law. There-
fore, a couple that is married in the municipal office of a secular state
is also considered married by the community of Muslims.14 According
to imam Tahir Zeneli, who served as deputy head of the amc in the
1990s, the Islamic validity of civil marriage contracts is the reason why
the amc did not take any steps to ritually recognize the marriages con-
ducted during the communist regime, as was done by other religious
communities, since those marriages were deemed legal and acceptable
from an Islamic point of view.15
Another important reason, however, why Muslim imams in Alba-
nia insist that a couple should present a marriage certificate from the
municipal office prior to performing the nikah contract, is to do with

the potential for divorce. According to the abovementioned imams,

under current conditions, the act of nikah or the marriage contract
according to Islamic law is more of a religious ritual. An imam that
concludes a nikah has no power in the case of divorce to enforce the
consequences of such a divorce, such as the conditions of the financial
obligations on husbands as envisioned by Islamic law. In the case of a
marriage contracted in the municipal office, however, the divorce liti-
gation can be taken to court. Indeed, the result of such litigation could
be very different from that which would be envisioned in Islamic law.
However, according to the imams that I interviewed, this is preferable
to not having any legal recognition of the marriage or any legal protec-
tion at all. While quite often, when discussing marital conflicts, these
imams exposed a gendered view of the relations within the family,
when discussing divorce, their main concern was related to securing
legal protection for women. Their concern relates to an understanding
that in the case of divorce, women are in a position of disadvantage and
that the court can provide legal and financial protection.
Certainly, shari῾a religious law retains moral strength, but these
imams argue that matters of marriage and divorce should not depend
on the strength of the participants’ religious convictions at the time of
the marital conflict. In the absence of a system in which Islamic law can
impose the obligations ensuing from a divorce settlement, they instead
have the laws of the secular state impose a system of safeguards and
obligations in the case of divorce, even though these legal obligations
do not reflect or otherwise refer to Islamic family law.
According to these imams, in almost all cases of marital conflicts
where they were asked to serve as mediators, the process of mediation
was requested by women. This process of mediation is not recognized
by the courts and has no legal weight. The imams themselves referred
to these processes as ‘offering advice;’ that is, advice that the couple
was free to follow or reject. The approach taken in these mediation
processes also differed. Some imams preferred to remind the couple
of the words of God in the Qur’an and the teaching of the Prophet,
the Sunna, in matters of marriage, reminding the couple that although
Islam recognizes divorce, ‘it is the most hated of the matters that have
been allowed.’ Other imams, however, insisted that the best approach
is to counsel on the basis of the standard ethical norms in society for
maintaining a healthy marriage. Regarding the models offered in con-
temporary Albanian society, these imams were referring to ‘traditional’
norms, and they envisioned a gendered understanding of the obliga-
tions of women and the responsibilities of men.

It is interesting to note that while traditionally in Islamic law and in

many Muslim societies around the world today, the question of divorce
is often discussed in relation to the deferred mahr, or dowry, and the
financial settlements, particularly when the mahr amounts to a consid-
erable sum of money and valuable assets, the mahr does not seem to
carry an equal weight among Albanian Muslims. The concept of mahr
was abandoned in Albania with the abolition of religion in 1967, but was
reintroduced in the 1990s with the re-emergence of religion. The first
generation of imams that graduated from Islamic universities in the
Middle East favoured and preached an idea of mahr that avoided large
sums of money. Even in conversations with devout Muslims, the idea
of large sums of money as mahr is scorned as indicating greed, mon-
etizing marriage and as standing in contradiction to the religious prin-
ciples of Islamic marriage. Albanian imams have quoted the prophet
Muhammad as stating that even a ring can be given as mahr. In most
cases, giving a ring as mahr has given an additional meaning to the
custom, followed by most Albanians regardless of religious affiliation
or lack of it, of offering the ring during the engagement party, known as
‘the exchange of rings.’
During the early years of the re-introduction of religion in post-
communist Albania, one would often hear about conflicts between a
young generation of devout Muslims who had discovered a new reli-
gious identity and their parents and relatives, who had grown up under
communism. The way in which the ‘exchange of rings’ has been trans-
formed to also represent the offering of mahr is one of the ways in
which some of these conflicts have been resolved.16 It is quite common,
however, for the mahr to constitute the groom’s promise to provide for
the bride’s expenses when performing Haj, the Muslim pilgrimage to
Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Since this journey is to be undertaken under the
condition that it is financially possible, it is understood by the imams
in Albania to be a deferred mahr. Contrary to the stipulations of the
deferred mahr, however, it is unheard of for a divorced wife to request
that the sum of money needed to pay for the pilgrimage be given to her
as part of a divorce settlement.
When it comes to child custody, imams in Albania seem to encour-
age accommodation, arguing that there are no major differences
between Islamic law and the secular law that favour the mother, par-
ticularly in regard to female children. Certainly, these imams are aware
that the discussion in Islamic law, particularly regarding male children,
is more complex (at a certain age, the custody switches from the mother
to the father), yet this position seems to be motivated by the personal
conviction that the interests of children will be better served under the

care of their mothers – reflecting a gendered view of the role of women

as caregivers – as well as by reluctance to take a stance against the law
of the land.
This accommodating attitude to the laws and customs of a deeply
secularized society is not articulated in religious treatises as a response
to living in the context of a secular state. It is in the religious answers to
individual cases reflecting the complex realities of devout Muslims that
one can see a general tendency to avoid a confrontation with the laws
and norms of Albanian society.
There has been more prominent confrontation between religious law
and secular state law in matters of political participation. Some imams
argue against participating in elections, since this amounts to recogniz-
ing and supporting a system that is not founded on the laws of God.17
These voices, however, constitute a very small minority that carries lit-
tle weight in the community. This stance is even more striking when
one considers that the majority of imams in Albania were educated in
Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, where the religious establishment insisted on
preaching an apolitical approach to politics in response to the political
opposition of the Sahwa movement in Saudi Arabia, following the first
Gulf War.18 Politically active imams explain their political engagement
in terms of maslaha, or public interest, arguing that it is in the commu-
nity’s best interest to be politically active as a way of combating margin-
alization and achieving better integration in society.19
In an interview given to the us-based Slate magazine, imam Ahmed
Kalaja of the Tirana mosque is quoted as saying that ‘he tries to “adapt
to the peculiarities of the Albanian tradition.” He says Albania will
always be a society of tolerance, where religion and state are separate.’20
In arguing for the right of Muslim school girls to wear the headscarf,
for example, Albanian Muslims have not argued against the principles
of secularism, but have instead appealed to those models of secularism
that allow for more religious freedom.21
The latest debates between Muslim groups and the governments
of Albania and Kosovo have focused on the very same topics: Muslim
groups demanded permission to build new mosques22 in the centres
of the capitals of Kosovo and Albania, Prishtina and Tirana, protested
against the state’s promotion of Mother Teresa, the former Catho-
lic nun and Noble Peace Prize laureate, and also protested against the
ban on Muslim female students wearing headscarves in public schools.
The building of new mosques was debated in relation to new Chris-
tian cathedrals recently built in both capitals. Muslims in both Albania
and Kosovo feel that their governments are favouring and supporting
Christianity at the expense of Muslims, as part of their attempt to show

a more European face. In the view of many Muslims in Albania and

Kosovo, the debate over the headscarf is motivated by the same con-
cerns.23 As shown by the debate about the state’s promotion of the leg-
acy and missionary activities of Mother Teresa, Muslims in both Alba-
nia and Kosovo have argued that the governments in both countries are
acting contrary to the principles of secularism. Many have questioned
the sincerity of these Muslim appeals to the principles of secularism
and have interpreted them as indications of Islamic fundamentalism
and intolerance. What people tend to overlook, however, is that Muslim
activists regard secularism as protection from those government poli-
cies that they believe favour other religious communities.
Despite the similarities and parallel debates in both countries, Mus-
lims in Albania have not followed the example of Muslims in Kosovo,
who, on numerous occasions, have taken to protesting in the streets,
sometimes leading to violent confrontations with the police. Imams
and Muslim activists in Albania seem to have found their numerical
strength to be the most suitable basis for addressing their concerns.
The head of one of the major Muslim non-governmental organiza-
tions (ngos) in Albania told me about his conversation with a political
candidate in the most recent municipal elections. After the politician
had promised support for the building of a new mosque in the capital,
the head of the Muslim ngo had responded that the building of the
mosque is not the most important priority for Muslims. What Mus-
lims want is not to be made to feel like foreigners in their own country.
The common complaint of many Muslims is that many politicians have
adopted the European right-wing rhetoric about Muslim immigrants
and are using it against Muslims in Albania.24
The Reflection of Europe
In October 2011, Albania completed a controversial census of the popu-

lation that included an optional question on religion. Many people have
questioned the results of this census, particularly with regard to the
matter of the self-declaration of ethnicity. The census is largely believed
and openly celebrated, however, as an opportunity to remove, in the
eyes of the outside world, the stigma of Albania as an Islamic country.
The amc called upon the government to remove the questions relating
to ethnicity and religion from the census.25 In October 2011, the amc
restated its reservations regarding the process, but also called on Mus-
lims to freely and proudly declare their ethnic and religious identity.26

At the time of writing the results have not been announced, and they
are expected to be made public some time in February 2013.
In any case, the manner in which the Albanian Muslim commu-
nity will deal with the challenges of a society still uneasy about its cul-
tural identity will depend much on how Western Europe deals with its
own Muslim communities, on the rhetoric that its leaders adopt when
addressing issues related to the Muslim presence in Europe, and on the
kind of image Europe reflects for countries such as Albania and Kos-
ovo, that want to emulate Western political and economic systems.
As shown by many debates on social media networks, Muslims in
Albania will have to address a number of issues that are today being
debated within the community. The place of women in the mosques
and their representation in community institutions are only some of
the contemporary concerns of devout Muslims. They are also looking
for ideas and answers from the West, as is shown by increased interest
in the translation and the study of the works of Western Muslim think-
ers such as Timothy J. Winter and Tariq Ramadan, who recently vis-
ited Kosovo and Albania.27 There is an increased awareness that Mus-
lim identity and practices will have to reflect the national consensus of
modelling their society on the European model. The question remains,
however: will Europe reflect a vision that represents its Muslims?
Notes
1 In 2006, a debate on the identity of Albanians between Dr. Rexhep Qosja, a

political activist and member of the Academy of Science of Kosovo, and Ismail
Kadare, the best-known Albanian writer and many times candidate for the
Nobel Prize for Literature, dominated the headlines in the media for four
months. Dr. Rexhep Qosja held the view that the cultural identity of the Alba-
nians has been influenced by both Eastern and Western cultures and that this
experience has enriched Albanian cultural identity (Dr. Qosja’s main contri-
bution in this debate was later published in a book titled Realiteti i Shperfillur
[The Neglected Reality], Toena: Tirana, 2006). Ismail Kadare held that Albani-
ans are solely Europeans and that any ambiguity in this regard is detrimental
to the interests of the Albanians (his main contribution to this debate was also
published that same year as a book titled Identiteti Evopian i Shqiptareve [The
European Identity of the Albanians] Onufri: Tirana, 2006).
2 “Bashkohu: Presidentja të kërkojë falje, ofendoi Sheriatin.” [Join us: the Pres-
ident should apologize, she offended the shari῾a]. Express. 18 October 2011.
http://www.gazetaexpress.com/?cid=1,15,65319.
3 See Ulf Brunnbauer and Robert Pichler. “Highland Values and Nation-Building
in the Balkans.” Balkanologie vi [1-2], December 2002, pp. 77-100.

4 Alfred Moisiu, “Fjala e mbajtur ne Unionin e Oxfordit.” [Speech presented at

the Oxford Union]. http://www.president.al/english/pub/info.asp?id=1089 (the
speech cannot be currently accessed from this link. Last accessed in January
2006).
5 Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, Oxford University Press: New York,
2009, pp. 45-6.
6 The President of Albania, Bamir Topi, added his weight to this recent debate.
In a visit to a remote region of Albania, Mirdita, hometown of Shtjefën Gjeçovi,
the Franciscan Priest, Mr. Topi said that, ‘Mirdita … symbolizes the most pre-
cious Albanian tradition, the autochthon laws that inspired Father Shtjefën
Gjeçovi, the cultural monument of the Kanun and the resistance to whoever
attempted to violate it. Mirdita symbolizes the strong and unwavering faith
and the European Identity… [and the people of Mirdita] built the positive and
modern cult of the Albanian cleric.’ See “Vizita e Topit në Mirditë.” [Topi vis-
its Mirdita]. Top Channel Web Page. 6.12.2011. http://top-channel.tv/artikull.
php?id=224425.
7 Talal Asad, ‘Muslims and European Identity’ in Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Idea
of Europe: From Antiquity to European Identity. Washington dc: Woodrow Wil-
son Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 218-9.
8 See the speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, at the
Royal Courts of Justice. Dr. Rowan Williams, ‘Civil and Religious Law in Eng-
land,’ and Tariq Modood, ‘Multicultural Citizenship and the shari῾a Contro-
versy in Britain,’ in Rex Ahdar and Nicholas Aroney (eds.), Sharia in the West,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 293-308 and 33-42.
9 Arsim Bajrami, Head of the Commission for the Amendment of the Constitu-
tion, declared recently that Kosovo will follow a French model of republican-
ism. See ‘Kosova me modelin francez te republikes.’ Telegrafi 19 November 2011.
http://www.telegrafi.com/lajme/kosova-me-modelin-francez-te-republikes-
2-18431.html.
10 Piro Misha. Arratisja Nga Burgjet e Historise: Cdo te thote sot te jesh Shqiptar.
[Escaping the prison of history: What does it mean today to be an Albanian?],
Tirana: Toena, 2008, pp. 306-9.
11 By ‘privatized diversity’ Ayelet Shachar means ‘the request by members of reli-
gious minorities on the territory of a secular state to privatize diversity. By this
I refer to the recent proposals raised by self-proclaimed “guardians of the faith”
to establish private arbitration tribunals in which consenting members of the
group will have their legal disputes resolved in a binding fashion – according to
religious principles – under the secular umbrella of alternative dispute-resolu-
tion.’ In Sharia in the West, 2010, pp. 118-9.
12 Ayelet Shachar, Sharia in the West, 2010, pp. 118-9.
13 Ahmed Kalaja. ‘Sjellja me Gruan.’ [Behavior with the spouse], 19 January 2010,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuMhgJRD5zg.
14 Interview with the author, November 2011.
15 Interview with the author, November 2011.
16 For most Albanians, the marriage party is an event that takes a long time to
prepare for, and a lot of drinking is expected. This is obviously contrary to the

ethical concerns of a young generation of devout Muslims. In recent times,

however, many such parties have been organized using non-alcoholic beer.
17 Besnik Sinani, From Students of Knowledge to Hoxhas, unpublished ma the-
sis, Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies, New York University, New
York, 2010.
18 Stephane Lacroix, ‘Between Revolution and Apoliticism: Nasir al-Din al-Albani
and his Impact on the shaping of Contemporary Salafism,’ in Roel Meijer (ed.),
Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement, New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 2009, p. 76.
19 Besnik Sinani, ‘From Students of Knowledge to Hoxhas.’
20 See Nathan Thrall, ‘Albania, the Muslim World’s Most Pro-American State,’
Slate, 3 September 2009. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/
dispatches/features/2009/albania_the_muslim_worlds_most_proamerican_
state/the_muslim_worlds_most_tolerant_nation.html.
21 Besnik Sinani, ‘Ajatollahet e Sekularizmit [Ayatollahs of Secularism],’ Shekulli,
29 April 2009.
22 See Kerem Oktem, ‘New Islamic Actors After the Wahabi Intermezzo: Turkey’s
Return to the Muslim Balkans,’ European Studies Center, University of Oxford,
December 2010, http://balkanmuslims.com/.
23 Mark Lowen, ‘Headscarf ban sparks debate over Kosovo’s identity,’ bbc News,
24 August 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11065911.
24 Field notes from interviews with Muslim congregants in Tirana, winter 2010
and autumn 2011.
25 amc, ‘Deklarate per Shtyp e Keshillit te Pergjithshem te kmsh-se. [Press
announcement of the General Council of amc],’ March 2011. http://www.kmsh.
al/aktualitet/410-deklarate-per-shtyp-e-keshillit-te-pergjithshem-te-kmsh-se.
html.
26 The census was largely debated because it was perceived as the result of Greek
pressure to artificially inflate the size of the Greek minority in Albania. For
the second press announcement of amc see amc: ‘Mblidhet Keshilli i Pergjith-
shem i Komunitetit Mysliman. [Meeting of the General Council of amc],’
October 2011. http://www.kmsh.al/component/content/article/15-faqja-e-pare
/616-mblidhet-keshilli-i-pergjithshem-i-komunitetit-mysliman-te-shqiperise.
html.
27 Tariq Ramadan in a speech held in Tirana, Albania, in June 2011, with Alba-
nian translation, titled ‘Muslimanet ne Evrope: Sfida dhe Perspektiva. [Muslims
in Europe: Challenges and Perspective].’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k
QY8zQrq10s&feature=player_embedded. See also Tariq Ramadan’s interview
on Albanian television during the same visit: Interviste ne tv Al Sat: Studio
e Hapur me Eni Vasili. [Interview on tv Alsat: Open Studio with Eni Vasili],
June 2011. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ziPox-5XPU&feature=player_
embedded).

7 Greece
Debate and Challenges
Angeliki Ziaka
Introduction
Within Greece today, the Muslim community makes up almost 2 per

cent of the total population and can be found mainly in the region of
Western Thrace. It is the legacy of the long-lasting co-existence be-
tween Greeks and Ottoman Muslims, along with certain historical situ-
ations created both in Greece and the rest of South East Europe. This
Muslim community, which is officially recognized by the Greek state,
enjoys a unique legal status with regard to familial, hereditary and reli-
gious matters, along with a right to implement shari῾a law, particularly
in accordance with the school (madhhab) of Hanafiya.
Perhaps the only example of the implementation of shari῾a in
Europe, this situation has existed for many years in Greece, but has
only recently (that is, in the last few decades) begun to spark discussion
between Greek and European jurists, as well as supporters of human
rights.1 For its part, the Muslim community in general seems to be sat-
isfied with this particular status, although they sometimes appeal to the
Greek civil courts for relief from decisions by Islamic court function-
aries (muftis) that are based on the principles of shari῾a, usually ones
involving family or inheritance.
In order to further our understanding of the particular situation of
the Muslim community in Greece, we need to look at its historical cir-
cumstances, as well as the legal and social problems that have arisen
from these. We also need to consider the perspectives and possible
challenges resulting from the implementation of shari῾a in the region
of Western Thrace. For many observers, the special status of Muslims
in Greece should be regarded as a kind of Ottoman ‘neo-milletism’, in
that it is not only anachronistic, but also contrary to the wording of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in terms of religious-legal
decisions. For others, however, it represents a positive acceptance of
religious diversity and constitutes an effective paradigm of skilful co-
existence. In the latter case, though, it may be argued that legislators

from both sides (from both the Greek-secular and the Muslim-religious
sphere) need to modernize and harmonize this situation with regard to
current conceptions of human rights, especially in matters that involve
family law, the relations between husbands and wives, divorce, inherit-
ance and gender equality.
Geographical, Historical and Legal Overview
A survey of the history and emigration background of Muslims in

Greece reveals that Greece, as well as the neighbouring Balkan coun-
tries, has a longstanding relationship of co-existence with Islam, mainly
because of the special historical conditions in the region and the Greeks’
subjugation to the Ottoman Empire from the late fourteenth to the first
half of the twentieth century. In other words, nearly five centuries of
co-existence have occurred. Independence was a gradual process that
started in 1821 with the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Empire,
resulting in the establishment of the first independent nation state in
South East Europe (1829-1831).
Ever since the Greek state was established, the Orthodox Christian
religion has been predominant and therefore recognized as the offi-
cial state religion. Christians of other confessions, as well as Muslims
and Jews, were recognized as religious minorities in the protocols that
were successively signed in London in 1829, 1830 and 1832, reflecting the
Great Powers’ interest in protecting religious minorities living within
the borders of the first independent Greek state.2 In this Greek state
(which covered one-third of the area of modern Greece) there were
only a few Muslims, and they were subject to the general Greek leg-
islation without any special legal provisions. Their number rose with
the annexation of Thessaly by Greece in 1881. The first international
legal document that gave a detailed definition of Greece’s obligations
towards the Muslim community was the Convention of Constantino-
ple, signed between Greece and the Sublime Porte on 2 July 1881.3 Tsit-
selikis notes that ‘For the first time, a Muslim minority was protected as
a legal entity enjoying religious and educational autonomy.’4
After the end of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), when Greece’s borders
were extended, the number of Muslims rose again and the legal sta-
tus of the Muslim minority was regulated by the Convention of Peace
between Greece and Turkey (1-14 November 1913 in Athens).5 Arti-
cle 11 of the Convention provided additional rights to Muslims with
Greek citizenship, such as equality before the law, religious freedom
and religious autonomy, and guaranteed their legal status as a commu-

greece 127
nity. Article 9 of the Convention also recognized their religious leaders

(muftis, imams, hatibs and muezzins), and provided special administra-
tive autonomy regarding Muslim property (waqf or vakf). Τhe Conven-
tion safeguarded the freedom to practice Islamic worship, and institu-
tionalized communication between the religious leader of Thrace and
the higher Muslim religious leader, Sheikh al-Islam of Constantinople.
Several years later, in 1920, when the Kingdom of Greece acquired large
portions of Ottoman territory (including Eastern Thrace up to 30 kilo-
metres from Constantinople, and Smyrne [Izmir] and its wider admin-
istrative area), it confirmed its obligations concerning the protection of
minorities under the Treaty of Sèvres of 10 August 1920.6
The legal status provided by the Convention of Athens lasted until
1923, when at the end of the Greek-Turkish War (1919-1922) the Laus-
anne Conference7 created a new geographical map for Greece and Tur-
key. The first issue discussed at the Conference was the final settlement
of Greek-Turkish borders. The concept of a homogenous nation state
dominated the Conference and resulted not only in a re-affirmation
of the previous massive and compulsory exchanges of population
between the two states, but also the implementation of a final exchange
that had no precedent throughout the geographical extent and history
of the area.8 The massive Greek-Turkish exchange meant a permanent
uprooting of the Greek population of Turkey, and in particular of Asia
Minor and Eastern Thrace, from ancestral homelands that they had
inhabited since the 8th-6th centuries bc. It also resulted in the obliga-
tory expatriation of Muslims who resided in Greece; that is, indigenous
peoples (Greeks Valaades or Vallahades, Muslims of Crete, Pomaks
and Roma) who had converted to Islam under the Ottoman Empire, or
Turks who had resided in the area since the end of the 14th and begin-
ning of the 15th century.9 The Muslims of Western Thrace were exempt
from this exchange, and later, when Greece annexed the islands of the
Dodecanese from the Italian occupation in 1947, a small Muslim popu-
lation of Turkish origin was allowed to remain on the islands of Rhodes
and Kos.10
The migration of the Muslims of Greece to Turkey and of the Chris-
tian Greeks from Turkey to Greece altered the demographic map of the
two countries. This migration also caused Greece to change its legisla-
tion to accommodate the needs of the Muslims of Western Trace, who
were guaranteed security by the Convention of the Treaty of Lausanne,
according to which they received the official status of a ‘Muslim minor-
ity’. According to the Proceedings of the Acts of the Conference,11 the
Turkish delegation objected to the use of ‘racial’ or ‘ethnic’ categories,
instead emphasizing the religious character of the Greek minority in

Turkey.12 Despite the Turkish delegation’s arguments, the Convention

of Lausanne (30 January 1923) made explicit reference to Greek inhab-
itants of Constantinople and Muslim inhabitants of Western Thrace.13
Likewise, the Greek Christians of Constantinople, Imbros, and Tene-
dos, referred to by the Turkish State as the ‘non-Muslim minority-Rum
Orthodox Christians,’ were protected by the Treaty of Lausanne.14 Τhe
minority provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne remain in force today.
Consequently, the faith, worship, customs, traditions, and education
of Muslims of Greek citizenship are protected by the Greek Constitu-
tion and by special Greek legislation in accordance with the Treaty of
Lausanne.15
In order for an outsider to understand what took place and what
continues to take place at a political, legal and educational level in
Greece, one has to consider the position of the minorities (both Chris-
tian and Muslim) that remained in Greece and Turkey in accordance
with the Treaty of Lausanne.16 It is very important to point out that, on
top of the charged historical background, there is also a constant debate
over the ethnic as opposed to religious identity of the minorities.17 With
regard to the Muslim minority of Western Thrace, recent decades have
seen many appeals from formerly Muslim associations in the area to
the European Court of Justice, in order to claim their right to be char-
acterized as Turkish associations.18 The Greek state insists on character-
izing them as ‘Muslim associations’, based on the Treaty of Lausanne,
emphasizing that these associations are not exclusively Turkish, but
also include Pomaks and Roma. The fact remains, however, that the
other ethnic groups, Pomaks and Roma, have been and still are forced
to learn the Turkish language in the minority schools, which has led to
their ‘Turkification.’19 Regardless, though, of the dispute about religious
and ethnic identity, the vibrant Muslim community of Thrace (which
is estimated to have between 100,000 and 130,000 residents) certainly
shares all the privileges enjoyed by every Greek citizen, while at the
same time, its religious identity is protected by the Treaty of Lausanne.
This is not entirely the case for the Greek minority that remained in
Istanbul after the events of 1955. The prosperous Greek community in
Istanbul, which then numbered 80,000 to 100,000, has today dwin-
dled to approximately 2,000 to 4,000 people, mainly because they are
denied their minority rights under the Lausanne Treaty.20

greece 129
The Mufti and So-Called Neo-Milletism
The faith, worship, customs, traditions, and education of Muslims of

Greek citizenship are protected by the Greek Constitution and by spe-
cial Greek legislation in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne. This
regulation of the relation between Greece and its Muslim citizens of
Western Thrace is largely based on the ancient Ottoman system of mil-
lets. In effect, this system continues to create a kind of ‘neo-milletism.’
The Muslim community, which has been recognized by the Greek state
since 1881 and which is defined by its religion, has retained certain priv-
ileges. This is the reason why certain regulations of shari῾a – in particu-
lar, religious rituals and family and inheritance law – remain in effect in
Greece. These aspects of shari῾a are applied by the mufti, the religious
leader and judge of the Muslim community.21
The Greek state has special provisions for the religious needs of
the Muslims of Thrace, although the legal decisions of their religious
courts are restricted in this area. Muslim Greeks in Athens, for exam-
ple, who wish to be married in a Muslim marriage, must go to the mufti
appointed for their region. Muslim marriage is thus recognized by the
Greek state.22 Muslim Greeks have approximately 300 mosques and
metjitia (from masjid), smaller mosques for daily prayer (except for
Fridays), and approximately 400 spiritual leaders (imam, hatib, muez-
zin). The mufti-ship is divided over three muftis, in Xanthi, Komotini
and Didymotikhon, who together have the highest religious authority
in Thrace. In addition, on the islands of Rhodes and Kos, there are three
mosques with two imams and one mufti. The individual mufti-ship of
Kos ceased to exist on 1948, and that on the island of Rhodes in 1974.
The mufti is the religious leader of the Muslims of Greek citizenship
of Western Thrace; he also has the jurisdiction of qadi, that is, a judge
who also acts as the highest religious teacher and interpreter-judge
of Islamic Law, or shari῾a. He presides over special courts, Religious
Courts, where he rules on familial, inheritance, and religious matters
(including marriages, divorces, tutelage, alimony, emancipation of
minors, Islamic wills, and intestate succession) of the Muslim com-
munity according to the Hanafi school of shari῾a. The mufti must be a
graduate of Muslim Studies in theology and law, usually from the cities
of Mecca or Medina, and be versed in the old Ottoman language, in
which the decrees (fatwa-fetva) are written and redacted (which makes
Thrace one of the few places where this old language from the Otto-
man Empire is still practised). Other prerequisites for his appointment
are that he must have served as an imam for at least a decade, be the
epitome of morality, and possess excellent theological qualifications.

In his capacity as qadi (judge and religious teacher), the mufti is a civil
servant of the Greek state. According to article 11 of the Convention
of Athens, the mufti is appointed by the Greek state with a Presiden-
tial Decree after nomination by the Greek Ministry of Education and
Religion. He receives a salary from the Greek Treasury, with the rank
of General Director. The rulings of the mufti in the religious court are
translated from Ottoman into Greek and are then validated by the
Greek Courts of Law.23
Due to the constant antagonism between Greece and Turkey on the
issue of the Muslim minority, the issue of the election of the mufti of
the Muslim community has remained prominent, primarily since 1980.
Correspondingly, there are two views concerning the selection of the
mufti. The first one is that the mufti is nominated by a committee of
experts and is appointed by the Greek state.24 This procedure follows
the custom of Muslim states in which the mufti is appointed by the
state. The other view is that the mufti should be elected. According to
the second opinion, which is expressed by a number of Muslims, the
election of the mufti should be a matter for the Muslim community.
This latter view represents the new political tendencies of Islam, which
are influenced by Turkish policy in the area.25 Some contemporary legal
scholars are in favour of the Muslim community electing their mufti.
However, these researchers also suggest that the election would entail
the abolition of shari῾a. The rationale behind the claims of these legal
experts is that Greece is the only European country in which shari῾a is
applied. In many cases, the application of shari῾a is not compatible with
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and modern views, such as
those concerning the equality of the sexes. What seems to be the main
problem for these legal scholars is the fact that shari῾a is considered
antiquated, and the articles of the Convention of the Treaty of Lausanne
should be modernized to benefit the Muslim community and its equal-
ity before the law.26 The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly has
moved towards this perspective in reference to the Greek and Turkish
positions vis-à-vis minority issues. In regard to the issue of the imple-
mentation of shari῾a in Greece, a report produced by the Council of
Europe calls on Greece, among other things, to
“allow the Muslim minority to choose freely its Muftis as mere reli-
gious leaders (i.e., without judicial powers), through election or ap-
pointment, and thus to abolish the application of shari῾a law – which
raises serious questions of compatibility with the European Conven-
tion on Human Rights – as recommended by the Commissioner for
Human Rights.”27

greece 131
The problem, though, of the election of the mufti is complicated by the

broader political goals of the area’s political representatives and depu-
ties, who believe that the mufti’s spiritual and legal powers restrict and
undermine their authority. Depending on the region and political con-
text, whole areas of residents are split on the issue of the ‘election’ of
the mufti. The problem dividing the Muslims of the region is politi-
cal. Turkey supports the elected muftis and their proponents,28 while
Greece appoints those who recognize their judicial authority. A con-
sequence, therefore, of the proposed election of the mufti, rather than
his appointment, would be the Greek state’s refusal to recognize the
implementation of shari῾a.29 The paradox is that the muftis and those
advocating for their election do not seem willing to lose the legal rights
that are provided to them by shari῾a and to be deprived of their legal
jurisdiction.
Another issue is the interaction between the internal legal system of
shari῾a family law and the Greek legal system. As a matter of principle,
the civil courts do not have jurisdiction over cases that are under the
jurisdiction of the mufti, according to the current legislation.30 How-
ever, wherever there are cases involving the violation of basic human
rights, such as underage marriage (according to article 1350 of the Civil
Code, underage marriage is not allowed), divorce without both par-
ties being present, marriage through representatives, and so forth, the
mufti and the appointed judge in the area are obliged to find ways to
safeguard the individual rights of the members of the Muslim Commu-
nity (lex ferenda).31 The truth is, however, that the number of Muslims
of Greek citizenship who appeal to civil courts is small, and it is even
smaller for Muslim women of Greek citizenship, most likely for reasons
of stigmatization and social isolation.
Despite the existence for many decades of a special Muslim minor-
ity education system, the most appropriate way to empower new gen-
erations of Muslims in Western Thrace would be to once again discuss
issues concerning education, so that brave decisions could be made
in favour of the Greek Muslims.32 We should note that for the last ten
years, a pilot educational programme has been in place for the children
of the minority community, with positive results.33 Certainly, citizens
educated in a wider European framework, whether it be the ‘major-
ity’ or the ‘minority’, are more capable, at a psychological, political and
social level, of achieving self-determination for their community.
In the light of the aforementioned debates, however, we should note
that the majority of the Muslim community is generally satisfied with
the unobstructed functioning of shari῾a in Thrace. The people of the
Muslim community seem to appreciate their freedom to apply shari῾a

within European territory, especially when such a thing is impossible

in modern Turkey. Εven those who resort to elected and not appointed
mufti prefer to perform Islamic religious marriages and to settle other
family and inheritance matters according to the Muslim ethos, although
the judicial acts of the elected mufti are typically not recognized by the
Greek state. Through the application of shari῾a, the Muslims of Western
Thrace feel closer to their Islamic obligations and preserve the Islamic
umma and its justice.
Immigration and New Challenges
All of the above, of course, concerns the Greek Muslims of the ‘old’
Islam, that is, Muslims with Greek citizenship in Western Thrace. The
‘new’ Islam is that of Muslim immigrants who have come to the coun-
try more recently, particularly since the 1990s, and who originate from
all over the world (Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and so forth). They do
not enjoy any special religious legal status and they are subject to Greek
laws that apply, without any exception, to all immigrants.34 They are
not dealt with on the basis of their religion, but their nationality, and
as such fall outside the privileged measures for Muslims with Greek
nationality. Consequently, the special minority rights applying to ‘old’
Muslims do not apply to the ‘new’ Muslims, who are mostly concen-
trated outside Thrace. This has created a host of problems regarding
the lack of mosques and Islamic cemeteries in these areas (especially in
the city of Athens), and the Greek government has been slow in keep-
ing its promise to allow the construction of a mosque in Athens and
the creation of Muslim cemeteries. Consequently, there are now unoffi-
cial Muslim places of worship, which, according to the president of the
Muslim Union in Athens,35 number as many as a hundred; while there
is no provision for the education and training of their religious teach-
ers, the imams, as there is in other European countries, even though
‘their quality is sometimes put under question.’36 In some cases, such as
in relation to the issue of burial, services are performed by the muftis
of Western Thrace in Thrace, since there is no other place in Greece
for Muslim burial. The legal jurisdiction of the mufti on familial and
inheritance issues applies exclusively to Muslims of Greek citizenship
and especially to those of Western Thrace, although this aspect is under
consideration vis-à-vis article 13 of the Constitution regarding religious
freedom.37 Any other legal action between non-Greek Muslims can be
impugned.

greece 133
There is no special legislative accommodation for Muslim immi-

grants with regard to the teaching of Islam. In accordance with the
introductory report for the Law on Multicultural Education pre-
pared by the Greek Parliament’s Scientific Council in 1997, the focus of
modern multicultural education is not necessarily on support of reli-
gious difference, but on ‘strengthening the ethnic identity of the vari-
ous groups of foreigners living in the country.’38 Greek schools, which
found themselves unprepared in many areas, particularly in language
training for foreign students and the management of multiculturalism,
quickly began to adjust. Both legislators and the Ministry of Educa-
tion hastened to resolve these issues, to the extent that it was possible,
through the creation of so-called intercultural or multicultural schools
as early as 1996.39 At any rate, the children of all immigrants – regard-
less of their religion – study alongside Greek children in public schools
from kindergarten to high school, without exception.
The Greek case could represent not a retrogressive example but one
that expresses a smooth symbiosis and demonstrates respect for the
various religious expressions of minorities. The main challenges that
still exist are whether the implementation of shari῾a can operate as a
cohesive or a segregating bond between citizens, what European Mus-
lims desire for themselves (is there only one will?), and how secular
states can satisfy the many different tendencies within their societies.
Notes
1 The timing is not coincidental; parallel, intense and wide-ranging discussions

about the possibility of Muslims in Europe implementing shari῾a law are taking
place in various European countries.
2 On 30 August 1832, the London Protocol was signed to ratify and reiterate the
terms of the Treaty of Constantinople (21 July 1832) in connection with the bor-
der between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. See Paraskevas Konortas, Les
musulmanes de la Grèce entre 1821 et 1912 (Mémoire de dea), Paris: École des
Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1980, pp. 16-17.
3 According to article 3: ‘La vie, les biens, l’honneur, la religion et les coutumes
de ceux des habitants des localités cédées à la Grèce qui resteront sous l’ad-
ministration hellénique seront scrupuleusement respectés. Ils jouiront entiè-
rement des mêmes droits civils et politiques que les sujets hellènes d’origine.’
Article 8: ‘La liberté ainsi que la pratique extérieure du culte sont assurées aux
Musulmans dans les territoires cédés à la Grèce. Aucune atteinte ne sera portée
à l’autonomie et à l’organisation hiérarchique des communautés musulmanes
existantes ou qui pourraient se former, ni à l’administration des fonds et des
immeubles qui leur appartiennent. Aucune entrave ne pourra être apportée aux
rapports de ces communautés avec leurs Chefs spirituels en matière de reli-

gion. Les Tribunaux du Chéri locaux continueront à exercer leur juridiction en

matière purement religieuse.’ Retrieved from the Greek Ministry for Foreign
Affairs: http://www.mfa.gr/ (accessed June 10, 2011).
4 Konstantinos Tsitselikis, ‘The Legal Status of Islam in Greece’, Die Welt des
Islams, 2004 (Vol. 44, No. 3), pp. 402-431.
5 The Convention of Peace between Greece and Turkey, also known under the
name The Treaty of Athens, was ratified by the Law (ΔΣΙΓ΄) 4213/1913.
6 Article 2 states: ‘Greece undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life
and liberty to all inhabitants of Greece without distinction of birth, nationality,
language, race or religion. All inhabitants of Greece shall be entitled to the free
exercise, whether public or private, of any creed, religion or belief, whose prac-
tices are not inconsistent with public order or public morals.’ The mentioned
minorities are Jews, Vlachs and Muslims. See Traité concernant la Protection
des Minorités en Grèce, signé à Sèvres le 10 Août 1920, Recueil des Traités de la
Société des Nations, No. 711, pp. 243-265. Retrieved from http://untreaty.un.org/
unts/60001_120000/14/30/00027489.pdf (accessed December 29, 2011).
7 13 November 1922 – 24 July 1923.
8 The majority of the Muslim populations of the Balkan Peninsula were forced
to abandon the region during the Balkan wars (1912-1913). The persecution
of non-Turkish populations, who had lived for centuries on the coast of Asia
Minor and the Black Sea, began at the dawn of the First World War (1914) on
the pretext of the security of the collapsing Ottoman Empire and the emerging
Turkish State of the Young Turks.
9 ‘Following the defeat of the Greek Army in 1922 by nationalist Turkish forces,
the Convention of Lausanne in 1923 specified the first compulsory exchange
of populations ratified by an international organization. The arrival in Greece
of over 1.2 million refugees and their settlement proved to be a watershed with
far-reaching consequences for the country’; See Elisabeth Kontogiorgi, Popula-
tion Exchange in Greek Macedonia, Oxford: Clarendon Press (Oxford Historical
Monographs), 2006.
10 Treaty of Peace with Italy, section v, article 14.
11 Proceedings of the Acts of the Conference No 6, 1922, p. 445.
12 ‘En Turquie, il existe des minorités de religion, non des minorités de race. La
délégation turque n’accepte donc pas le principe de la protection des minorités
de races ou de langue.’ Retrieved from Photini Pazartzis, ‘Le Status des Mino-
rités en Grèce’, Annuaire Français de Droit International, 1992 (issue xxxviii),
pp. 377-391, here 388 (58). The Treaty of Lausanne brought into force the Treaty
of Sevres (1920) on the topic of ‘minorities in Greece’, that regulated the legal
obligations of Greece towards ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities. See
Tsitselikis, ‘The Legal Status of Islam in Greece’, p. 5: ‘Μuslims of Greece and
non-Muslims of Turkey were granted special legal protection’ according to arti-
cles 37-45 of the Treaty.’ Cf. also fek 238/25.9.1923.
13 See article 2 of the Convention concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish
Populations and Protocol, signed at Lausanne, 30 January 1923. Retrieved from
http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/lntser/1925/14.html (accessed December 29,
2011).

greece 135
14 See article 14 of the Treaty: ‘The islands of Imbros and Tenedos, remaining
under Turkish sovereignty, shall enjoy a special administrative organization
composed of local elements and furnishing every guarantee for the native non-
Moslem population in so far as concerns local administration and the protec-
tion of persons and property. The maintenance of order will be assured therein
by a police force recruited from amongst the local population by the local
administration above provided for and placed under its orders. The agreements
which have been, or may be, concluded between Greece and Turkey relating to
the exchange of the Greek and Turkish populations will not be applied to the
inhabitants of the islands of Imbros and Tenedos.’
15 On the legal issues that have arisen from the application of the Treaty of Laus-
anne until now, and interpretations of its provisions during the intervening
period, see Vermund Aarbakke, The Muslim Minority of Greek Thrace, (Ph.D.
Thesis), Vol. 1 & 2, Bergen: University of Bergen, 2000; Tsitselikis, ‘The Legal
Status of Islam in Greece’, pp. 7-9; Konstantinos Tsitselikis, ‘Muslims in Greece’
in: R. Poz & W. Wieshaider (eds.), Islam and the European Union, Leuven-Paris-
Dudley: Peeters, 2004, pp. 109-132; Dimos Tsourkas, ‘Les juridictions musul-
manes en Grèce’, Hellenic Review of International Relations, 1981-1982 (Vol. 2,
No. ii), pp. 582-598; Pazartzis, ‘Le Status des Minorités en Grèce’, pp. 377-391.
16 Here we should also add the Istanbul Pogrom (or September riots) of 1955 and
the Cyprus issue. See Speros Vryonis, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turk-
ish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek Community
of Istanbul, New York: Greekworks, 2005. On the Cyprus issue, the September
riots and their effects on the Muslims of Thrace (1955-1957), see the work of
Kostis Tsioumis, Η Μουσουλμανική μειονότητα της Θράκης (1950-1960) (The
Muslim Minority of Thrace [1950-1960]), Thessaloniki: Stamoulis, 2006, pp. 127-
193.
17 According to Kostis Tsioumis, ‘The case of Greece could not be excluded from
the attitude of modern-nation states of the Balkans, where ethnic identity devel-
oped as opposed to the identity of the “other” and this reality has affected also
the management of minority educational policy […] This criterion, adopted
by governmental and educational institutions, regarding the management of
minority identity, was that of national security rather than its integration into
the Greek society […] The influence of the Cold War and the newly formed
political and global circumstances (u.s. and nato influence) were a catalyst […]
In this context can be understood the use of the terms “Muslim” and “Turk”, the
attitude of the Greek state and other social institutions on the issue of ethnic
formation, and finally, the dynamics of the minority of Thrace and its identity
management from the various ethnic components of the minority.’ See Kostis
Tsioumis’ paper entitled “Η διαχείρηση της μειονοτικής ταυτότητας στον ελλη-
νικό χώρο και η διαμόρφωση της εκπαιδευτικής πολιτικής: Η περίπτωση των
μουσουλμάνων της Θράκης 1923-1974” (“The management of minority identity
in the Greek milieu and the formation of educational policy: the case of the
Muslims of Thrace, 1923-1974”), at the 4th Conference of the European Soci-
ety of Modern Greek Studies (Granada, 9-10 September 2010). Retrieved from
http://www.eens.org/?page_id=1761 (accessed December 29, 2011).

18 See the Report by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of

the Council of Europe, following his visit to Greece on 8-10 December 2008.
Issue reviewed: Human rights of minorities, Retrieved from https://wcd.coe.int/
ViewDoc.jsp?id=1409353 (accessed December 29, 2011).
19 Photini Pazartzis, ‘Le statut des minorités en Grèce’, pp. 388-389. For a detailed
description of a) Turkish nationalism in Western Thrace, b) the Greek policy
towards the educational function of the Muslim minority and c) the competi-
tion between old-Muslims and Kemalists in the region of Western Thrace in
1954, and the Kemalists’ dominance in imposing the Latin rather than Ara-
bic system of writing the Turkish Language as well as their reinforcement of
the Turkish national identity, see Tsioumis, Η Μουσουλμανική μειονότητα της
Θράκης (1950-1960) (The Muslim Minority of Thrace [1950-1960]), pp. 112, 117-
118, 121. See also Aarbakke, The Muslim Minority of Greek Thrace, pp. 139-140.
20 See the Minority Rights Group International report on Rum Orthodox Chris-
tians in Istanbul, Retrieved from http://www.minorityrights.org/4412/turkey/
rum-orthodox-christians.html (accessed December 29, 2011).
21 The special courts applying the jurisdiction of the mufti were organized in
detail by Law 2345 of 1920.
22 Only Greek Muslims residing in Thrace can, according to the prevailing opin-
ion, bring their case before the mufti. See Aspasia Tsaoussi, Eleni Zervogianni
‘Multiculturalism and Family Law: The Case of Greek Muslims’, in: K. Boele-
Woelki and Tone Sverdrup (eds.), European Challenges in Contemporary Family
Law, Antwerp-Oxford-Portland: Intersentia, 2008, pp. 209-239, esp. 213 (20).
However, according to other opinion, Muslim religious law can be applicable
to all Greek Muslim citizens hailing from Thrace. See Ioannis Ktistakis, Ιερός
Νόμος του Ισλάμ και Μουσουλμάνοι Έλληνες Πολίτες (Sacred Islamic Law and
Greek Muslims), Athens: Sakkoulas, 2006, p. 36 (3).
23 Law 1920/1990 (on Muslim Religious Functionaries), especially article 5, para-
graphs 1-3.
24 As part of the implementation of the Convention of Constantinople of 1881
between Greece and the Ottoman Empire, the Law (ΑΛΗ΄) 1038/1882 was pro-
mulgated, concerning the spiritual leaders of the Mohammedan (sic) communi-
ties, according to which the mufti is recognized as a public servant of the Greek
state. The provisions of this law were abolished in accordance with article 15,
paragraph 1 of the Law 2345/1920. The 24.12.1990 legislative act (fek a’ 182),
which was ratified by the Law 1920/1991, introduced a procedural law rule by
specifying the mufti’s legal jurisdiction. Thus, the decisions of the mufti in cases
that are contested within his jurisdiction become applicable and create a res
judicata, if declared applicable by the local pertinent First Instance Court, in
the process of the voluntary jurisdiction. Here, the court investigates whether
the decision was issued within the geographical limits of the mufti’s jurisdiction
and whether the provisions that were applied were contrary to the Constitu-
tion. George Doudos, ‘Η shari῾a, ένα σύστημα δικαίου με δυναμική και μέλλον
(“shari῾a, a legal system with dynamics and future), Azinlikça, 2009, (Vol. 53), avail-
able online at  http://www.azinlikca.net/ellinika-arthra/2010-01-07-15-30-25.
html.

greece 137
25 Alexis Alexandris, ‘Religion or Ethnicity. The Identity of the Minorities in

Greece and Turkey’, in R. Hirschon (ed.), Crossing the Aegean, Oxford, n.y.:
Berghahn Books, 2003, pp. 117-132, esp. 123-124.
26 See some related articles: Ioannis Konidaris, ‘Greek-Turkish sacred (issues)’,
newspaper to vima (27/6/2010): http://www.tovima.gr/opinions/article/?aid
=340293; Report on Religious Freedom of the coe: http://assembly.coe.int/
main.asp?Link=/documents/workingdocs/doc09/edoc11860.htm (§55). Lina
Papadopoulou, ‘Trapped in History: Greek Muslim Women Under the Sacred
Islamic Law’, Annuaire International des Droits de l’Homme, 2010 (Vol. 5), pp.
397-418. Retrieved from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=
1877048 (accessed June 13, 2011).
27 Par. 18.5 of Working Document 11860, titled “Freedom of religion and other
human rights for non-Muslim minorities in Turkey and for the Muslim minor-
ity in Thrace (eastern Greece)”, April 21, 2009 (The Reporter was Michel
Hunault). Retrieved from http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefViewHTML.
asp?FileID=12681&Language=EN (accessed June 13, 2011).
28 turkey-greece – Turkish foreign minister visits Xanthi Turkish Associa-
tion and Xanthi’s elected mufti. Retrieved from http://www.thefreelibrary.
com/TURKEYGREECE+Turkish+foreign+minister+visits+Xanthi+Turkish..
.-a0251124226 (accessed December 29, 2011).
29 Ilhan Ahmet, ‘Ilhan Ahmet’ten Ksinidis’in müftü kanunuyla ilgili sözlerine
cevap’ (Ιlhan Ahmet replies to Xynidis’ statements for the Muftiship), in the
bilingual journal azinlikca (Turkish-Greek), 17 Ocak 2012; retrieved from
http://www.azinlikca.net/eidhseis/ilhan-axmet-ksinidis-mouftidwn-1252012.
html (accessed October 5, 2012).
30 Article 4 of Law 147/1914, act of legislation 24.12.1990 which has been in effect
with the enactment 1920/1991.
31 George Doudos, “Tο υποστατό των μουσουλμανικών γάμων που τελούνται
δια πληρεξουσίου στα πλαίσια της ελληνικής έννομης τάξης” (“Muslim Mar-
riages by Proxy in the Greek Legal system”), Nomokanonika, April 2004 (Vol. 3),
Athens: Sakoulas, pp. 331-337. For the opposing legal opinions, see the Report
by Thomas Hammarberg, on Human Rights of Minorities, (Strasbourg 2009);
retrieved from https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1409353 (§ 31) (accessed
December 29, 2011).
32 Minority education does not refer only to religious education, but also to gen-
eral education.
33 For the diplomatic-political processes and the educational policy concerning
the Muslims of Western Thrace from 1923 onwards, see the submentioned works
by Kostis Tsioumis. The directors of this programme, which is entitled Pro-
ject Enhancing Education for Minority Children (pem), are Anna Frangoudaki
and Thaleia Dragona. See the Programme for the Education of Muslim Chil-
dren 1997-2008: Retrieved from http://www.museduc.gr/en/index.php?page=1
(accessed June 10, 2011). For further details on the Muslim minorities issue,
see my article: A. Ziaka, “Muslims and Muslim Education in Greece”, in
Ednan Aslan (ed.), Islamic Education in Europe, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2009,
pp. 141-179.

34 See the related Laws: 4310 (6/16 of August 1929), 1975/1991, pd 358 & 359/1997,
Law 2910/2001 and 3536/2007. The issue of immigration was sudden and mas-
sive and the Greek state, despite the measures taken, has so far been unable to
satisfactorily resolve the problem which is growing due to the daily influx of
immigrants in the country.
35 Naim Elghadur, president of the Muslim Association of Greece, in a recent
interview conducted by the reporter Georgia Dama for the Eleftherotypia news-
paper (1 November 2011) notes the following concerning our topic: ‘[…] The
Muslim Union is very concerned because it fears that the radical groups on
the one hand and the extreme rightwing fanatics and Islamists on the other
can agitate the social peace. And if the Muslims are aroused they will not be
able to be restrained, because they are hopeless, unemployed and because they
believe that if you are killed defending your right, you will go to heaven. This
is why those who want the implementation of shari῾a ought to immigrate to
countries where it is implemented.’ He concludes with a very interesting per-
sonal remark on the issue: ‘today, shari῾a cannot be in effect in any country,
because there is no social protection and justice. Some,’ he says characteris-
tically, ‘are forced to steal because they are hungry. It is unthinkable to cut
off their hand.’ Retrieved from Eleftherotypia: http://www.enet.gr/?i=news.
el.article&id=219088 (accessed June 1, 2011).
36 Jean-François Husson, Training Imams in Europe. The Current Status, Belgium:
King Baudouin Foundation, 2007, p. 30; retrieved from King Baudouin Foun-
dation: www.kbs-frb.be (accessed October 13, 2012).
37 On religious freedom in Greece, see Ch. Papastathis, ‘Η Θρησκευτική Ελευ-
θερία στην Ελλάδα’ (‘Religious Freedom in Greece’), Charalambos Papastha-
this & Rev. Gregory Papathomas (eds.), Πολιτεία, Ορθόδοξη Εκκλησία και
Θρησκεύματα (The State, the Orthodox Church and Religions in Greece), Ath-
ens: Epektassi, 2006, pp. 289-326 (the same article has also been published in
the Revue L’Année Canonique 45 (pp. 295-309).
38 George Mavrommatis and Konstantinos Tsitselikis, ‘Η Εκπαίδευση των Μετα-
ναστών στην Ελλάδα (1999-2003). Πολιτικές και Πρακτικές’ (‘The Education
of Immigrants in Greece (1999-2003). Policies and Practicies’), in: Pavlou M.
and Christopoulos D. (eds.), Η Ελλάδα της Μετανάστευσης (Greece of Migra-
tion), Athens: Kritiki, Series of Studies ΚΕΜΟ, 2004, pp. 121-140, esp. 135-136.
39 Ziaka, “Muslims and Muslim Education in Greece,” pp. 163-165; Konstantinos
Tsioumis, “Εκπαιδευτική Πολιτική για τη διαπολιτισμική Εκπαίδευση στην
Ελλάδα,” (Educational Policy towards Intercultural Education in Greece), in:
D. Syrri (ed.), Συμβιώνοντας με τη Μετανάστευση (Living Together with Migra-
tion), Athens: Ianos, 2011, pp. 143-150.

section ii
law versus culture

8 Unregistered Islamic Marriages
Anxieties about Sexuality and Islam in the Netherlands1
Annelies Moors
Introduction
Both in Europe and the Middle East, unregistered Islamic marriages

cause a great deal of anxiety. Whereas the men and women who enter
into these marriages consider them permissible under Islam, they are
not registered according to the law of the country where they are con-
cluded. In the Netherlands since 2005, such marriages (which are often
referred to as ‘Islamic marriages’) have drawn the attention of the secu-
rity services, and have become a topic of debate in both the media and
in parliament. These marriages are seen as an indication of radicaliza-
tion and as a means through which salafi imams are trying to build a
parallel society, while the women involved are defined as the victims
of men using them for their own dubious purposes. In Muslim major-
ity countries, such as in Egypt, these marriages (often called ‘urfi mar-
riages) were already the focus of public debate a decade ago.2 In these
countries, the state authorities often consider the women involved to
have been duped by unscrupulous men who want to engage in sexual
relations and then simply leave them, or deny that a marriage ever took
place. In the following, I argue that the portrayal of the women who en-
gage in such marriages as victims of irresponsible men is, at best, only
part of the story. Instead, I investigate how the categories of ‘urfi and ‘Is-
lamic’ marriages have been produced in Muslim majority countries and
the Netherlands respectively, and how they circulate through fields of
power. Whereas the state authorities consider these unregistered mar-
riages illegal and some religious scholars hold them to be irregular, if
not void, the multiple and varied ways in which these marriages are
concluded and lived indicate that the participants themselves draw on
multiple discourses of permissibility.3
In the first section of this chapter, I discuss the shifting meanings of
‘urfi marriages in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East. Start-
ing with a brief reflection on the conclusion of marriages in classical
Islamic law, I discuss how the emergence of the nation state and the

concomitant codification and reform of Muslim family law have turned

‘urfi marriages into unregistered marriages. Next, I analyse how the
meanings of ‘urfi marriages further diversified in the course of recent
decades and become the topic of public debate. In the second section,
I analyse how ‘Islamic marriages’ have emerged as a category of con-
cern in the Netherlands, and investigate the highly diverse motivations
young women have for concluding such marriages and the multiple
meanings these may hold for them. Whereas in both contexts, state
authorities are particularly concerned about the effects of such mar-
riages on women, different issues underlie their anxieties about unreg-
istered marriages. In Muslim majority settings, the main concern is
undesirable forms of sexuality, while in the Netherlands, the major tar-
get is undesirable forms of Islam.
Muslim Majority Countries: Towards the Registration of Marriages
Prior to the emergence of the modern nation state, unregistered (‘urfi)

marriages, widely known in the community through various rituals
and celebrations, were the norm. According to Islamic law, marriage is
a contract that makes sexual relations permissible (halal); pre- or extra-
marital relations are considered zina (unlawful sexual intercourse). The
marriage contract is similar to other contracts in that it is concluded
through offer and acceptance; for it to be valid, two male Muslim wit-
nesses (two women may replace one man) need to be present. Fathers
can conclude such a contract for minors, while according to most
schools of law adult women entering their first marriage should have
their marriage guardian conclude the marriage for them. The Hanafi
school of law, in contrast, holds that a woman who has reached her legal
majority has both the right to refuse a marriage and to arrange for her
own marriage.4 The presence of a religious functionary is not necessary
for a marriage to be valid, a written document is not required, and the
marriage does not need to be registered to be valid under Islam. Public-
ity is required, however.
Whereas for most schools of law, the obligation of publicity is ful-
filled through the presence of two witnesses,5 in social practice, the
normative requirements are both more gradual and more extensive. A
publicly celebrated engagement (a commitment to marry which has no
legal effects) often precedes the conclusion of the marriage contract.
Whereas according to Islamic jurisprudence, once the marriage con-
tract is concluded, the couple can no longer be accused of zina, from
a social perspective, the consummation of the marriage (dukhul) and

unregistered islamic marriages 143
cohabitation are only considered licit after the wedding ceremony has
taken place, which may be months or even years later. The new couple
often use the period between the contracting and the celebration of the
marriage to get to know each other better and to prepare for the wed-
ding and marital life.
Marriage entitles men and women to different rights and obliga-
tions. A husband is obliged to maintain his wife (in terms of hous-
ing, food and clothing), independent of the latter’s own means, and
to pay a dower. Women are required to obey their husbands, at least
as far as cohabitation is concerned. The relation between maintenance
and obedience is evident in the ruling that if a wife leaves the marital
home against her husband’s wishes (and has no valid reason for doing
so), the husband is no longer obliged to maintain her. However, some
schools of law allow for a modification of gender relations through the
inclusion of conditions in the marriage contract.6 With the family law
reforms of the past decades, in many Muslim countries marriages are
only registered above a minimum age, while in some, the presence of
the marriage guardian is no longer necessary and the requirement of
obedience has been removed.7
There are some differences between Sunni and Shia Islamic law in
concluding marriages. According to Shia jurisprudence, a marriage
without witnesses is also valid, and it is possible to conclude a marriage
for a specific period of time.8 In the case of such a ‘temporary marriage’,
a man needs to pay a dower to his wife, but he is not obliged to pay
maintenance and the partners do not inherit from each other. Children,
however, have the same rights as in a permanent marriage. Whereas
temporary marriages are often called mut‘a or sigheh (terms referring
to sexual enjoyment), it is also possible for the partners to conclude a
non-sexual temporary marriage. Especially in settings of strict gender
segregation, non-sexual temporary marriages allow men and women to
interact more freely.
Historically, religious authorities were rather flexible in recognizing
marriages, using the notion of shubha; that is, assuming that the parties
concerned thought they had concluded a valid marriage. In some cases,
a child was even recognized as legitimate if a marriage was concluded
up to one month before delivery.9 Regulations about the need to register
marriages have come with the emergence of the modern nation state.10
The concomitant centralization of authority has engendered the codifi-
cation and reform of Muslim family law. Also under the statutory obli-
gation to register marriages, however, unregistered marriages that ful-
fil Islamic conditions are considered irregular rather than invalid. Still,
religious authorities often argue that registering a marriage is desirable

on Islamic grounds. Registration functions as a means to publicize a

marriage and is beneficial for women, as only then can their rights be
guaranteed. It is a means of checking whether the marriage meets the
state regulations in question, such as the minimum age, the consent of
both parties, and conditions for polygamy.11
In the course of the twentieth century, registration of a marriage
has been normalized, as bureaucratic states increasingly require official
documents for access to resources. Many countries have also devel-
oped means to register a marriage post facto through the ‘confirmation
of an existing marriage’, especially in those cases where both partners
act in unison. However, if one of the parties, usually the man, denies
the marriage, the situation becomes far more complicated, and the reli-
gious establishment is particularly concerned about such cases. The
media attention attracted by such cases and the sense of crisis they
produce have engendered a trend towards stricter implementation of
the legal obligation to register marriages, with the authorities imposing
fines and other penalties to encourage the public to conform to statu-
tory law.12
Unregistered marriages: new variations
Whereas prior to the emergence of the modern nation state, unregis-

tered (‘urfi) yet widely publicized marriages were the norm, contempo-
rary ‘urfi marriages, by contrast, tend to be purposely concealed from
particular categories of people, be it the state authorities, the parents
or the husband’s first wife and her family. Whether the public consid-
ers these marriages to be licit or illicit depends largely on the extent to
which and from whom they are concealed.
The least controversial ‘urfi marriages are those that are widely
known about in the community, but not registered with the state. In
some cases, these marriages are not registered because registration is
not possible. A paradigmatic example is the case of underage girls. In
many countries, codification and family law reform have introduced
minimum ages for marriage; if girls have not yet reached that age, the
marriage cannot be registered. Sometimes, if families insist on such a
marriage, they will conclude a marriage contract, but only register it
once the girl reaches the minimum age.13 In other cases, women refrain
from registering their marriage because they consider it too disadvan-
tageous to do so. For instance, if they officially register a new marriage
after divorce, they run the risk of losing custody over their children,
while if they do so after being widowed, they may lose their right to
their deceased husband’s pension.14

Other ‘urfi marriages are characterized by a far greater emphasis

on secrecy and are thus more controversial. These ‘urfi marriages are
often considered to be evidence of ‘the family in crisis’, and are part
of a discourse that also includes concerns about single females and
delayed marriage.15 Some consider the great expense of getting married
– the dower, gifts of jewellery, the cost of housing, and wedding par-
ties, mostly paid for by men – as the main reason behind delayed mar-
riage.16 However, in the first decades of the twentieth century, Egyptian
men were already complaining about the high cost of marriage.17 Per-
haps more important for the rise in the average age at which someone
gets married is the spread of women’s education and formal employ-
ment, which has provided young women with a valid reason for avoid-
ing early marriage.18 Getting married later stretches the time period
between sexual maturity and married life. In a context in which sex-
ual relations outside of marriage are considered both Islamically and
socially illicit,19 this places young adults in a difficult situation.
Under such circumstances, young people may consider an ‘urfi mar-
riage as a means of making sexual relations permissible under Islam.
Such ‘urfi marriages are usually kept hidden from the couple’s fami-
lies and are only known to a small circle of friends.20 It is this type of
‘urfi marriage that the state and many religious scholars in Egypt are
particularly concerned about, both because they may be concluded in
a way that does not fulfil the statutory conditions for a valid Islamic
marriage (such as the agreement of the woman’s marriage guardian)
and because they transgress social norms of deference to one’s par-
ents.21 A common trope is that of an unscrupulous man who uses an
‘urfi marriage to trick a naive, young woman into a sexual relationship,
pretending that such a marriage is a legitimate marriage. As soon as the
woman is pregnant or once he has lost interest in her, he leaves her and
denies that a marriage has taken place.22 Equally challenging to paren-
tal authority is another motivation for concluding an ‘urfi marriage. If
a woman’s parents do not agree with her choice of partner, the couple
may then use an ‘urfi marriage as a means to force her parents to agree
with the marriage. This is similar to elopement, while remaining within
the boundaries of Islamic law.23
Interestingly, in Turkey, where according to statutory law the reg-
istration of a civil marriage needs to precede a religious marriage, a
very similar phenomenon is occurring. In the case that people first con-
clude an Islamic marriage, the levels of publicity or secrecy determine
whether such a marriage is considered to be licit or illicit. Religious
marriages that are not registered with the civil authorities, but that have
the approval of the couple’s parents and are publicly known in the com-

munity, are considered licit in the circles in which they occur.24 The
very same religious figures are, however, highly critical of gizly (secret)
marriages that are concluded without the knowledge of the parents and
that are only publicized to a very limited extent.25
Some unconventional non-registered marriages have, by contrast,
gained a measure of acceptance, and religious leaders have used ele-
ments from existing Islamic traditions in novel ways to legitimize cer-
tain kinds of contemporary ‘urfi marriages. Amongst Shia Muslims,
this is the case for temporary marriages. Whereas in Iran under the
Pahlavi Shahs, temporary marriage had come to be considered an out-
dated institution, the practice was revived after the Islamic revolution.
Moreover, within a decade, it was no longer only considered an instru-
ment for regulating male sexuality. During a speech in 1990, former
president Hashemi Rafsanjani redefined temporary marriages by also
recognizing women’s sexual desire, explaining that it is also legitimate
for women to take the initiative in concluding such a marriage. In his
view, a temporary marriage could function as a solution to the pre-
sent-day problem of young people becoming sexually mature yet only
being able to conclude a permanent marriage at a later age because of
longer periods of study.26 Rafsanjani was strongly criticized by the sec-
ular middle classes and by women’s organizations, who considered the
practice not only a relic of the past, but also a threat to the family and to
women in particular, and an institution resembling prostitution. Based
on her fieldwork in Iran, Haeri27 concluded that temporary marriage
could indeed enable poorer divorced and widowed women to engage
in affective relations. Still, she also pointed to the risks such marriage
entailed for young women who had not been married before. Because
of the cultural value attached to virginity for a woman entering her first
(permanent) marriage, these women may face great difficulties finding
a respectable husband.
Unconventional forms of marriage have also emerged amongst
Sunni Muslims. In Egypt, there are indications that the number of mar-
riages in which the wife is older than her husband, and sometimes in
a stronger financial position, is growing.28 Whereas such marriages are
commonly registered, under specific conditions, such as when foreign
women are involved, they frequently remain unregistered. According
to Karkabi,29 when Western women and younger Egyptian men in the
tourist resort of Dahab engage in a relationship, they often opt for an
‘urfi marriage.30 For the men, such a marriage functions as a means to
legitimize a longer-lasting sexual relationship, while the women con-
cerned do not aspire to a ‘real’ marriage.31 Another case is that of Rus-
sian-speaking female migrants in Hurghada, who, according to Walby,32

are often better educated, slightly older, and more mobile than their
partners. Also in this case, an ‘urfi marriage is a convenient solution, as
neither of the parties concerned is interested in a state-registered mar-
riage contract that limits women’s freedom of movement and imposes
the duty of maintenance on men.
Another form of marriage that has engendered much public con-
troversy is the misyar (ambulant or visiting) marriage. In the case of a
misyar marriage, the partners do not live together and the wife does not
claim her right to maintenance and accommodation. Such marriages,
which may or may not be registered, are often concluded by men who
are already married. In that case, they are often kept secret from the first
wife, but are publicly known amongst the family, friends and neigh-
bours of the woman engaging in a misyar marriage. Debates about this
form of marriage emerged in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. The Grand
Mufti (Ibn Baz) issued a fatwa in 1996 which considered misyar mar-
riages permissible, but also stated that they needed to be made public.33
In 1998 Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent scholar aligned to the
Muslim Brotherhood, stated in Qatar that he considered such marriages
licit, as long as the women involved agreed with the conditions.34 In the
following years, the debates continued. Some considered these mar-
riages an infringement of the rights of women, while others saw them
as a possibility for women who might not otherwise find a suitable hus-
band with whom to enjoy marital relations and perhaps motherhood.
References were made to well-educated women who could easily forego
the right to maintenance.35 In 2006, the Saudi Arabian Fiqh Council not
only deemed misyar marriages licit, but also the so-called ‘friend mar-
riages’ aimed at Muslim men and women who study in the West. These
make sexual relations legitimate, but do not oblige men to cohabit with
and provide accommodation and maintenance for their wives.36
Whereas such misyar marriages are often presented as a new phe-
nomenon emerging in the Gulf, there are indications that they may
have a longer history and wider geographical presence. For instance,
Granqvist37 describes some cases in rural Palestine in the 1920s in
which women with some economic independence, usually widows
with their own houses, opted for similar polygamous marriages. Also
in poorer countries, such as in present-day Egypt, divorced women
engage in such partially secret marriages. According to Sonneveld,38
for them it is a way of dealing with the societal pressure they expe-
rience to re-marry. A divorced woman is usually only considered an
acceptable wife for a man who has already been married. Rather than
marrying a widower or a divorced man, which often comes with the
obligation of caring for his children, they may prefer to become the

second wife in a misyar marriage, which enables them to keep some of

their autonomy. While they ensure that their own social circle, includ-
ing their neighbours, is well-informed about the marriage, the first
wife is not usually told. If such a misyar marriage is not officially regis-
tered, it can be kept hidden from the first wife more easily, especially in
countries where the first wife is to be officially notified of her husband’s
subsequent marriages.
Another kind of marriage that frequently goes unregistered is some-
times referred to as a ‘visiting marriage’. These are the marriages con-
ducted during the summer vacation by older men from wealthy Gulf
States with young girls from poorer families in countries such as Egypt,
Morocco, India and Indonesia. Whereas such transnational marriages
have a long history, it was after the oil boom, which created new and
very stark inequalities between these oil economies and poorer coun-
tries, that such marriages became particularly exploitative, with young,
sometimes underage girls forced into such marriages by their fathers
and discarded by their husbands after the summer holidays when the
latter had returned home. Such marriages have become a topic of debate
and have also drawn the attention of government officials.39
In short, present-day unregistered marriages differ considerably
from pre-modern ‘urfi marriages. The main point of difference is that
the new ‘urfi marriages are often kept purposely hidden from at least
some of the parties concerned, be it state officials, the couple’s parents,
or the first wife. Functioning as a means for young people to have sexual
relationships without concluding an officially registered marriage, they
are the topic of much anxiety, as there are disputes about their Islamic
validity, they challenge social conventions, and they may, in some cases,
be highly exploitative. For women who have previously been married,
or are past the acceptable age for marriage, such marriages may be a
means to acquire marital status while maintaining some measure of
independence. In turn, these various forms of ‘urfi marriages release
men from the responsibility to provide maintenance and accommoda-
tion. How such marriages affect women depends to a large extent on
the resources women can draw on.
‘Islamic Marriages’ in the Netherlands: Gender and Securitization
Not only in Muslim majority countries, but also in the Netherlands, un-
registered Islamic marriages have become a topic of debate and policy-
making. According to the Dutch Civil Code, ‘religious functionaries’
are only allowed to conclude a religious marriage after a civil marriage

has been concluded (Article 68 Book 1 Civil Code).40 This regulation

emerged in the course of contestations between state authorities and
the Roman Catholic Church in the early nineteenth century. Except for
occasional discussions about a possible infringement of the freedom of
religion, this regulation hardly drew any public attention until it was
revitalized in the course of the debates in 2008 about imams who con-
cluded Islamic marriages prior to civil marriages.41 This then raises the
broader question of how such Islamic marriages have become a social
and legal problem. Who are the main actors in this field, and when and
under which conditions did this happen?
As a starting point for analysing how this issue emerged as a topic of
public debate and contestation, I performed a search on ‘Islamic mar-
riages’ in a number of Dutch dailies, covering the period from 1992 until
2010.42 During the first thirteen years, very few articles were published
referring to Islamic marriages. Moreover, these covered a wide range
of topics and mainly concerned such marriages abroad. This stands in
stark contrast to 2005 and 2008, when there were two distinct peaks in
media attention (ebbing away in the following years), which related to
two specific issues, the round-up of an alleged terrorist organization
called the Hofstad network in 2005 and the debate on salafi imams con-
cluding Islamic marriages prior to their civil registration in 2008.
The sudden hype about Islamic marriages in 2005 emerged in the
context of the trial of the members of the Hofstad network, when jour-
nalists reported on the Islamic marriages that were concluded in the cir-
cles around this network. Not only were these marriages unregistered,
but they were also concluded in a highly informal manner, with the
parents of the young women concerned unaware of their involvement
in such marriages. Many of the newspaper articles referred to informa-
tion provided by the two Dutch civil security services, the Algemene
Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (aivd) and the Nationaal Coördina-
tor Terrorismebestrijding (nctb).
Islamic marriages have indeed become a security issue. They are not
only regularly and publicly referred to in the reports of the security ser-
vices, but in February 2006, the nctb also published a special report
asserting that Islamic marriages formed a threat to national security.43
The main arguments presented in this report were that these marriages
may function as a means to recruit women for violent jihad, that they
can be considered an indication of a man entering the last phase prior to
dying as a martyr in a terrorist attack, and that they may in time be con-
sidered as a threat to the democratic rule of law. Whereas little evidence
was provided to support these statements, they were regularly referred
to in the press.44 In fact, whereas journalists refer to information pro-

vided by the security services, the nctb report, in turn, used newspaper
articles as one of its sources. In this way, in a closely-knit web of mutual
referencing, Islamic marriages – a phenomenon previously unknown to
the large majority of the population – were linked to violent jihadism.
In 2008, Islamic marriages again became a topic of public debate
and contestation. This time the target was salafi imams, who were
accused of concluding an Islamic marriage between partners who had
not yet performed a civil marriage. In this case, members of parliament,
including the social democrats (PvdA), the Christian democrats (cda),
the right-wing liberals (vvd) and Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam party
(pvv) played a pivotal role in turning Islamic marriages into a mat-
ter of public concern. The press extensively reported on the parliamen-
tary questions they posed and the investigations of salafi imams and
mosques they requested. These Islamic marriages were first and fore-
most considered as evidence of and an instrument for the development
of a strictly orthodox Islamic ‘parallel society’ that purposely distanced
itself from Dutch society. As had been the case with the newspaper
articles in 2005, the arguments presented by members of parliament
resonated strongly with those of the reports produced by the Dutch
security services (especially aivd).45 By contrast, little media attention
was paid to later reports, commissioned by the security services and by
the Ministry of Justice, which employed a more empirically grounded
approach and came to less alarmist conclusions, at least as far as Islamic
marriages were concerned.46
Although two different categories of Muslims were the target of
these two periods of hype, first violent jihadist and later salafi imams,
the women entering into these marriages were framed in similar terms.
They were first and foremost defined as victims. During the first period
of hype, it was argued that they were recruited by unscrupulous male
extremists, who employed ‘loverboy-like’ practices to mobilize them
for jihad.47 In the case of salafi imams, they were considered the vic-
tims of those who intended to institutionalize the shari῾a in the field of
family law in the Netherlands and hence propagate gender inequality.48
In addition to this dominant discourse that defined women as vic-
tims and as devoid of agency, the media also employed an alternative
discourse that centred on sexuality. In some cases, these media debates
give space to Islamologists, who describe Islamic marriages in neutral
terms as a means to Islamically legitimize a sexual relationship. Journal-
ists themselves have also picked up this theme, but tend to use a more
normative, and at times sensationalist, tone, presenting these forms of
sexuality as somewhat dubious. Especially in articles about the Hof-
stad network, Islamic marriages were often linked to polygamy, with

the women involved described as playing an active role in arranging

such polygamous marriages.49 Journalists used normative terms such
as ‘loose marital morale’,50 while the nctb commented in its report that
it had the impression that ‘behind the pious way in which the Hofstad
network presents itself publicly, there is a world of unlimited licentious-
ness’.51 Adopting a moral tone and also highlighting the fact that the
parents of the young women were often unaware of these marriages,
this alternative discourse on sexuality seems closer to the more con-
servative views of an older generation than to that of the young people
involved. This is remarkable, because in mainstream Dutch society, the
sexual autonomy of young adults is generally valued.
In short, it is evident that the sudden interest in Islamic marriages
has been driven by the securitization of Islam, with the young women
involved mainly considered to be victims of jihadist or salafi imams
or, alternatively, as engaging in dubious Islamic sexual relations. This
public attention has led to the criminalization of the imams involved
in concluding these marriages. This raises a number of questions. Are
these Islamic marriages a new phenomenon that emerged in 2005 with
violent jihadism and then in 2008 with the growth of salafi Islam?
Are the women who enter into such marriages indeed the victims of
unscrupulous men and driven by ideological motivations to reject a
civil marriage?
Dutch Islamic marriages in practice: multiple motivations

and meanings52
As the discourse about the women involved in Islamic marriages un-

derlines that they are ‘the weaker party’ (and therefore in need of le-
gal protection), what might be their motivations for entering into such
marriages? Before 2005, engaging in an Islamic marriage was not con-
sidered a societal problem or a legal concern, and hence, little attention
was paid to such questions. Still, there are indications that the ways in
which many migrants from Muslim majority countries concluded their
marriages were rather similar to those they would have used in their
country of origin. Also in the Netherlands, it was quite common for
migrants from Muslim countries to use the gap between the conclusion
of the marriage contract (whereupon the couple was married accord-
ing to Islam) and the actual wedding (after which the couple would live
together) as some kind of dating period.
There were a number of options as to where to conclude an Islamic
marriage contract. If neither party had Dutch nationality, they could
conclude the marriage contract at the consulate, and they also could opt

for marriage in their country of origin. In countries where some form

of Muslim family law was codified, such as in Morocco, for instance,
marriages at the consulate, as in the home country, fulfilled both the
conditions for an Islamic marriage and were recognized and registered
by the state. These marriages were then also valid according to Dutch
law.53 When one of the parties had also acquired Dutch nationality, only
marrying at the consulate was no longer an option. In this case, a Dutch
civil marriage was required before the couple in question could be mar-
ried at the consulate.54
The situation for those holding Turkish nationality is different,
because in Turkey a distinction is made between a civil and a reli-
gious marriage, whereby the state only recognizes the former. As in the
Netherlands, a civil marriage is required before a religious marriage
can be concluded. For those who married at the consulate, the ques-
tion was whether and when to conclude the religious marriage. As has
been the case in parts of Turkey, some couples decided to conclude a
religious marriage (imam nikah) before entering into a civil marriage
(resmi nikah). In more conservative circles, where there was little space
for the young couple to date before concluding the Islamic marriage
contract, the main motivation for doing so was that the young couple
would then be able to get to know each other better without having to
commit themselves to an official state-registered marriage.55 With the
criminalization of Islamic marriages in the Netherlands, imams have
become more hesitant to become involved in such marriages. As there
is no Islamic ruling that an imam needs to be involved in the conclu-
sion of an Islamic marriage, people who are aware of this may simply
decide to marry in the presence of two witnesses.56 In other cases, they
try to find a middle way. Rather than looking for ‘an imam’, couples
involve someone with ‘enough Islamic knowledge’ about how to con-
clude such a marriage. In some sense, this may be considered a way in
which Islamic marriages are becoming more informal.
The above indicates that one reason for women to enter into an
Islamic marriage before engaging in a civil marriage is that the tradi-
tional sequence of the arrangement and conclusion of a marriage is
thereby followed, with the period between entering into the contract and
the wedding itself, allowing for a degree of intimacy, for the preparation
of the wedding and for setting up a new household. However, there are
also more specific reasons why women in the Netherlands decide to first
conclude an Islamic marriage. Below, I start by examining those cases
in which the couple is not able or willing to conclude a civil marriage.
Then I turn to the question that seems to haunt the Dutch authorities
most: if no civil marriage is concluded, why enter into an Islamic mar-

riage that has no legal effects in the Netherlands? Is it because the parties
concerned are not aware of this? Are they perhaps under pressure to do
so, or do they actively desire to enter into such a marriage?
Obstacles to concluding a civil marriage
In the course of the last thirty years, the Netherlands has witnessed a
trend towards increasingly informal marriages. A growing number of
couples simply cohabit without entering into a civil marriage or con-
cluding another form of contract.57 Some couples that conclude an Is-
lamic marriage, however, would actually have preferred to register their
marriage, but they face the problem that they are not able to enter into
a civil marriage. For in order to conclude such a marriage, a number of
documents are needed, such as a legalized birth certificate, valid proof
of identity and proof of civil status (that is, evidence of not being mar-
ried). Sometimes people do not have the required documents and are
not able to acquire them, for instance if they are refugees. In other cases
they do not have legal resident status and are thus very hesitant to even
enter into the process of concluding a civil marriage, although this may
be legally possible.
People are not only unable to conclude a civil marriage because
they do not have the documents needed, however. Concluding a mar-
riage may also be impossible because they do not fulfil the conditions
for a civil marriage. In the Netherlands, marriages between relatives
in the first or second degree are forbidden (which is also the case in
Islamic law), forced marriages are forbidden, neither party may already
be married, and both need to be eighteen years or older (unless the
woman has already given birth or is pregnant; then the minimum age is
sixteen and the permission of the parents is needed). Statutory Muslim
family laws have also often emphasized the need for consent to marry,
institutionalized minimum ages for marriage (for instance, in Morocco
the minimum age is also eighteen years), and have curtailed polyga-
mous marriages, although usually short of outright forbidding them.
With respect to Muslim minorities in Europe, some Islamic scholars
have argued strongly in favour of concluding a civil marriage contract,
because only in that case are women’s rights guaranteed.58
If one of the parties is underage or already married, couples can-
not conclude a civil marriage in the Netherlands. How often couples
conclude an Islamic marriage for such reasons is hard to say. A few of
the women with whom I discussed marriage arrangements had entered
into an Islamic marriage when they were sixteen years old. Polygamous
marriages were occasionally mentioned, but only involved marriages

abroad. Roex59 also states that some of her salafi respondents married
very young and that a few of her respondents were polygamously mar-
ried, but most of them were eighteen or older and the number of polyg-
amous marriages was very small.
An Islamic marriage has no legal effects under Dutch law, hence the
parties concerned are seen as engaging in a sexual relationship out-
side of marriage, which is of no concern to the law.60 Yet, the ques-
tion remains whether such Islamic marriages may be unwanted by
the women who enter into them. It is true that Islamic marriages may
be used to bind youngsters at a young age, but there is no reason to
assume that there is a direct relation between forced marriages and
Islamic marriage.61 Civil marriages as well as sexual relations outside
of marriage may be unwanted, while Islamic marriages may be strongly
desired. The underage girls entering into an Islamic marriage who
were involved in the Hofstad network, those mentioned by Roex and
those whom I interviewed, were not pushed into such marriages by
their parents, but rather did so without asking their opinion or for their
approval. The same seems to be the case with the women who enter into
a polygamous marriage.
Legal obstacles are not the only reason why Muslims refrain from
civil marriage. Some are able to conclude a civil marriage, yet prefer
not to do so, because they would find such a situation disadvantageous.
Entering into a state-registered marriage may, for instance, cause the
loss of social security benefits and other financial entitlements. Such
considerations may also be found amongst non-Muslims in the Neth-
erlands as well as in Muslim majority countries, as the previous exam-
ple of Egyptian widows indicated. There is also a category of women
that faces no legal impediments to entering into a civil marriage, but
that, at least for the time being, refrains from doing so for very different
reasons. These are ethnic Dutch women (often, but not always converts
to Islam) who want to marry a Muslim partner, usually from a migrant
background, who face strong resistance from their own family. In order
not to antagonize their families or hurt their feelings, they may opt to
enter into an Islamic marriage only. Their parents do not need to be
involved in such a marriage, or even know about it, as it does not have
legal effects, while by concluding an Islamic marriage they themselves
engage in a licit sexual relationship according to Islam.
Opting for an Islamic marriage
If some Muslims in the Netherlands are unable or unwilling to con-

clude a civil marriage, this still begs the question, why opt for an Islamic

marriage? The narratives of women who enter into Islamic marriages

point to two different lines of argumentation. Some do so in response
to social pressure; to them, Islamic marriages are of little importance.
Others, by contrast, actively desire to conclude an Islamic marriage.
Due to their religious convictions, having an Islamic marriage is what
counts most for them.
In more conservative Muslim circles in the Netherlands, parents may
find it hard to accept that their son, or especially their daughter, has a
relationship that is not quickly legitimized in the form of a marriage.
Once some sort of relationship becomes apparent, the parents expect
that marriage will soon follow. As a result, the couple may feel strong
social pressure to enter into a marriage for which they themselves do
not feel ready. In such cases, concluding an Islamic marriage may be
a convenient solution. By doing so, they can show their consideration
for the concerns of their parents, who consider an Islamic marriage to
be crucially important, and avoid offending them. Having grown up
in the Netherlands and being aware of mainstream Dutch ideas about
relationships and marriage, they themselves may hold quite different
ideas and may value the civil marriage as the real marriage. To them,
concluding an Islamic marriage is a means to appease their parents and
the larger Muslim community, while they consider the period between
concluding the Islamic marriage and, if things work out well, register-
ing a civil marriage as a ‘try-out’ period that is quite similar to dating.
However, these youngsters are faced with the criminalization of
imams who conclude such Islamic marriages. While some will either
do without an imam or find someone ‘knowledgeable’ about Islam to be
involved in the Islamic marriage, others opt to marry in the country of
origin. Often having spent most, if not all, of their lives in the Nether-
lands, they do not always take such marriages very seriously. However, as
such a marriage in the country of origin is often officially registered, it is
legally valid, not only there, but also in the Netherlands. If the marriage
does not work out, and especially if the husband subsequently refuses to
cooperate in the dissolution of the marriage, the wife may discover that
it can take a lot of effort, time, and money to arrange a divorce.
An Islamic marriage may also function as a means for a woman to
convince her family to agree to a marriage to a man of her own choos-
ing. Although family pressure in Muslim migrant circles, especially
those who have been in the Netherlands for a long time, has gradu-
ally diminished, and most parents would not push their children into a
marriage they actively resisted, parents may refuse to accept the choice
a daughter has made. Some families are, for instance, hesitant about
a partner from another ethnic background, or one who is not a born

Muslim but has converted to Islam. If the couple can find an imam who
is respected by their families and who is willing to conclude an Islamic
marriage, this may solve the problem. Once they are married according
to Islam, the parents may well decide that it will be of little use to exert
further pressure.
Actively desiring an Islamic marriage
If for some couples, engaging in an Islamic marriage is simply a con-

venient solution to mediate between the normative ideas of older and
younger generations of Muslims from migrant backgrounds, then
those who enter into an Islamic marriage out of conviction follow very
different lines of argumentation. Expressing a strong commitment to
Islam, they tend to experience their religion in more strictly orthodox
ways. Some of them may be part of the salafi Muslim circles that have
been the focus of much public debate and political concern. For these
Muslims, an Islamic marriage is their first priority, as it makes their re-
lationship permissible under Islam.
Rather than a means to enable a form of dating (during the period
between concluding the marriage contract and the public wedding),
amongst women who actively desire an Islamic marriage, dating is often
purposely rejected. This category, which includes both born Muslimahs
and also a relatively large number of new Muslimahs (women who have
converted to Islam), holds different convictions about the preferred way
to conclude a marriage, from the moment of getting acquainted to the
wedding ceremony. Their preferences differ not only from mainstream
Dutch conventions, but also from those of many Muslims from migrant
backgrounds. They often strongly support the normative notion of gen-
der segregation. Before the marriage contract is concluded, the man
and the woman only meet each other a limited number of times, and
always in public; that is, in the company of others or in a public setting.
They use these meetings to exchange ideas about how they would like
to organize their marital relations, what they expect from each other,
and sometimes write this down in the form of marital conditions. Then
they search in their own circles for someone with Islamic knowledge
to be involved in the conclusion of the marriage contract. This is espe-
cially important for a new Muslimah, because her non-Muslim father
cannot function as her marriage guardian; this becomes the responsi-
bility of an imam. Such Islamic marriages are not only very different
from the Dutch notion of dating; born Muslimahs from migrant back-
grounds also emphasize that such marriages differ greatly from tradi-
tional arranged marriages, where parents are also strongly involved in

the choice of partner, but which focus more on family relations and
material matters than on character and religiosity. The wedding itself
is also often celebrated in a different way. With more gender segrega-
tion and with music that is limited to the singing of religious hymns
(anashid), often by the female friends of the bride, the wedding fes-
tivities are generally smaller-scale and far less commercialized than is
common in Muslim migrant circles.
Still, a commitment to an ‘Islamic marriage and wedding’ does not
imply that the women concerned reject civil marriage. Rather, they
deal with civil marriage in a pragmatic manner. At some point in time,
they may well conclude a civil marriage, because it is the most con-
venient way to safeguard financial rights, such as entitlements to one’s
husband’s pension, inheritance rights, and the relationship with their
children. Such considerations are very similar to those made by non-
Muslim Dutch when dealing with the question of whether to officially
marry or not.
Temporary Shia marriages
Shia Muslims only make up about 10 per cent of the Dutch Muslim
population. Mainly coming from Iranian, Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani
backgrounds, there are great differences in their level of commitment
to Islamic law. For those who came to the Netherlands from Iran, often
as refugees after the Islamic revolution, following the shari῾a is often
not a major concern in everyday life. To those who came from South-
ern Iraq, fleeing Saddam Hussein’s regime after the failed uprising in
1991, Islamic law is often an important guideline.62
When Shi῾ites in the Netherlands conclude a temporary marriage,
this is a highly informal affair. Many of these marriages are concluded
between Shia men and ethnic Dutch women, who are non-Muslim
at the time of marriage. For the men involved, such a marriage has a
strong religious meaning.63 Whereas in a country such as Iran, some
couples conclude a temporary marriage simply to avoid the accusation
of zina and the risk of prosecution, in the Netherlands, pre-marital sex
is not a concern of the legislature. If a Shia man in the Netherlands
concludes an Islamic marriage with an ethnic Dutch woman, he does
so because he does not want to engage in a relationship with a woman
(which may well mean any kind of dating) with whom he has not con-
cluded an Islamic marriage. The women involved in such marriages,
who tend to be unfamiliar with the concept of a temporary marriage,
may simply agree to them because they sense that such an arrangement
is important to their partner. These temporary marriages are concluded

in a highly informal manner, not only without a religious functionary,

but also without witnesses, and the dower demanded by the woman –
on the request of her husband – is usually insignificant. In fact, many of
the women involved would not agree to conclude a more formal form
of marriage, let alone a civil marriage, as it would be far too early in the
relationship for them. It is precisely because a temporary marriage is
so informal and has no legal effects that they agree to such marriage.
The risks Haeri sees for women who engage in unregistered Shia mar-
riages in Iran, where rights to maintenance are more important and
non-virginity is culturally more problematic, are far less relevant in the
Dutch context.64
Some Dutch women who initially conclude a temporary marriage
for the sake of their partners gradually start to see its value and take it
more seriously, especially when they feel attracted to Islam and convert.
However, they may also express some ambivalence about this institu-
tion, because of their concerns that men may abuse it as an easy means
to engage in a large number of sexual relationships with few obliga-
tions. Socializing in circles of born Shia women, they become aware of
the fact that women from countries such as Iraq are far more hesitant
to conclude a temporary marriage, as for them, temporary marriages
often have negative connotations.
Conclusion
Both in Muslim majority settings and in the Netherlands, women who

engage in unregistered Islamic marriages have been defined as the vic-
tims of men. It is true that some of these marriages do not work, or may
even be highly exploitative, but this is not necessarily a consequence
of how these marriages are concluded. Women have a wide variety of
motivations for entering into and consenting to unregistered Islamic
marriages prior to, or even instead of, a registered or civil marriage.
They may be simply unable to officially register a marriage, find it too
disadvantageous, or feel that they and their partner are not yet ready
for an official marriage in either a material or an emotional sense. In-
stead, they may opt to conclude an unregistered Islamic marriage to
legitimize their relationship. In some cases, women may enter into an
Islamic marriage as a means to force their parents to agree with their
choice of partner. For others, especially more strictly orthodox or salafi
women, an Islamic marriage is what really counts.
In mainstream public discourse, however, unregistered Islamic mar-
riages are considered to be highly undesirable. In Muslim majority

countries, the main issue at stake is that such unregistered marriages

undermine established structures of authority. Unregistered marriages
amongst young people are a particular source of concern, as they chal-
lenge a whole set of strongly intertwined authority structures. They do
not simply defy the state authorities, but also go against the grain of
gender and generational hierarchies. They challenge the authority of
the parents, which is especially problematic in the case of daughters,
and go against the opinions of at least some religious figures. Unreg-
istered marriages such as those conducted by older single women or
women who have previously been married tend to be deemed less
problematic, as these simultaneously function as a solution to social
concerns about a ‘woman without a man’. For these women, unregis-
tered marriages may entail a level of autonomy that is not recognized in
the conventional marriage contract, while men are not burdened with
the obligations that such a contract brings. Whereas religious authori-
ties are very hesitant about unregistered marriages and may consider
them a threat to societal stability, they may also recognize that there
are grounds for considering them permissible under Islam. Moreover,
some also recognize that changing societal conditions, such as the ten-
dency to delay marriage, require unconventional solutions.
The concerns in the Netherlands about Islamic marriages are very
different. In this case, state authorities do not object to the fact that
the couple does not conclude a civil marriage. Instead, they consider it
problematic that they enter into an Islamic marriage, considering this an
indication and instrument of radicalization and an attempt to develop a
parallel society based on the shari῾a. As has become evident, rather than
finding themselves in the position of passive victims, young women
often actively partake in the arrangement of an Islamic marriage, and
may well enter into a civil marriage later. They have a great variety of
reasons to do so. For some, it is because they consider the civil marriage
‘the real marriage’ that they do not yet want to conclude a civil marriage.
Moreover, amongst those for whom an Islamic marriage is of para-
mount importance, there is no indication that they actively refuse a civil
marriage for ideological reasons (or would do so more consistently than
non-Muslim Dutch). After all, the Roman-Catholic Church also only
recognizes Roman Catholic marriages as real marriages, and considers
civil marriage to be a merely administrative act. In fact, these women
deal with civil marriage in a way that is very similar to that adopted
by their non-Muslims: they follow a pragmatic approach. The paradox
is thus that whereas the Netherlands has witnessed a strong tendency
towards more informal marriages in the last four decades, in the case
of Muslims, an ideological commitment to civil marriage is required.

Notes
1 The research for this article was commissioned and funded by the forum Insti-
tute for Multicultural Affairs. forum is an independent knowledge institute. Its
mission is to contribute towards social stability in the Netherlands on the basis
of knowledge.
2 Mona Abaza, ‘Perceptions of urfi marriage in the Egyptian press’, isim, 2001
(Newsletter 7), p. 20.
3 These marriages are part of the wider field of acts that are considered illegal
but licit. See Willem van Schendel, ‘Illegal but illicit: Transnational flows and
permissive polities in Asia’, iias Newsletter, 2005 (Vol. 58, No. 32); Barak Kalir,
Malini Sur and Willem van Schendel, ‘Introduction: mobile practices and
regimes of permissiveness’ in: Barak Kalir and Malini Sur (eds.), Illegal but licit:
transnational flows and permissive polities, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Press, 2012. See also Oussama Arabi, Studies in modern Islamic law and juris-
prudence, Den Haag/London/New York: Kluwer, 2001, pp. 147ff, who explains
how non-conventional marriages emerged amongst the general public, provok-
ing the religious and state authorities to respond.
4 Judith E. Tucker, In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic law in Ottoman
Syria and Palestine, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, p. 51.
5 Arabi, Studies in modern Islamic law and jurisprudence, 2001, pp. 160ff.
6 Such as, for instance, the option to divorce themselves and to determine where
to live. See Lynn Welchman, Women and Muslim Family Laws in Arab States:
A Comparative Overview of Textual Development and Advocacy, Amsterdam:
Amsterdam University Press, 2007, pp. 99ff.
7 Welchman, Women and Muslim Family Laws, 2007, pp. 62ff; 70; 94. Statutory
laws no longer allow a woman’s marriage guardian (usually her father) to exert
coercion with respect to her marriage, but in some cases they still require his
consent or allow for his objection to her marriage. See Lynn Welchman, ‘Mus-
lim family laws and women’s consent to marriage: Does the law mean what it
says?’, Social Differences Online, 2011 (Vol. 1), p. 68. Reforms have given women
also a greater say with respect to divorce and custody, but have in some cases
also burdened them with new obligations (contributing towards maintenance
of the family) and have made it more difficult to claim paternity.
8 Shahla Haeri, Law of desire: Temporary marriage in Iran, London: I.B. Tauris,
1989.
9 Tucker, In the House of the Law, 1998, pp. 164; 173. In addition, the Maliki school
of law allowed a claim of paternity for up to five years after a woman was wid-
owed or divorced. See Willy Jansen, ‘Sleeping in the womb: protracted preg-
nancies in the Maghreb’, The Muslim World, 2000 (Vol. 90, No. 1-2), pp. 218-237.
10 The Ottoman Empire started to require registration by the end of the nine-
teenth century. J. Anderson, ‘Recent developments in shari’a law iii. The con-
tract of marriage’, The Muslim World, 1951 (Vol. 4, No. 2), p. 113; Welchman,
Women and Muslim Family Laws, 2007, p. 53.
11 Welchman, Women and Muslim Family Laws, 2007, pp. 53ff.

12 For a discussion about registration on the West Bank, see Welchman, Women
and Muslim Family Laws, 2007, p. 375;, for Morocco see Leila Jordens-Cotran,
Het Marokkaanse familierecht en de Nederlandse rechtspraktijk, Utrecht: Forum,
2000, pp 87ff; for Indonesia see Adriaan Bedner and Stijn van Huis, ‘Plurality of
Marriage Law and Marriage Registration for Muslims in Indonesia: A Plea for
Pragmatism,’ Utrecht Law Review, 2010 (Vol. 6, No. 2), pp. 186ff; for Turkey see
Ihsan Yilmaz, ‘Non-Recognition of Post-modern Turkish Socio-Legal Reality
and the Predicament of Women’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2003
(Vol. 30, No. 1), p. 34; and for Egypt see Shahreena Shahrani, The social (re)con-
struction of ‘urfi marriage, ma Thesis: Ohio State University, 2010, p. 68).
13 For the British Mandate period in Palestine see A. Moors, Women, Property
and Islam. Palestinian Experiences 1920-1990, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1995, p. 96).
14 Abaza, ‘Perceptions of urfi marriage’, 2001, p. 20; Shahrani, The social (re)con-
struction of ‘urfi marriage, 2010, p. 32.
15 Frances Susan Hasso, Consuming Desires: Family Crisis and the State in the Mid-
dle East, Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2011.
16 (See Diane Dingerman and Barbara Ibrahim, ‘The Costs of Marriage in Egypt:
A Hidden Dimension in the New Arab Demography’, Cairo Papers in Social Sci-
ence, 2003 (Vol. 24, No. 1). Some ngos have attempted to intervene and provide
financial support for young people in order to enable them to marry. See Jad
Chabaan, ‘Youth and Development in the Arab Countries: The Need for a Dif-
ferent Approach’ Middle Eastern Studies (Vol. 45, No. 1) 2009, pp. 33-55; Frances
Susan Hasso, Consuming Desires: Family Crisis and the State in the Middle East,
Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2011.
17 Hanan Kholoussy, For Better, For Worse: The Marriage Crisis that made Modern
Egypt, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010, pp. 24ff.
18 Hoda Rashad, Magued Osman and Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi, Marriage in the
Arab world, Washington: Population Reference Bureau, 2005
19 Bahgat, Hossam and Wesal Afifi, ‘Sexuality Politics in Egypt’ in: Richard
Parker, Rosalind Petchesky and Robert Sember (eds.), Sex Politics: Report from
the Front Lines, 2008, available online at http://www.sxpolitics.org/frontlines/
book/pdf/sekspolitics.pdf.
20 Abaza, ‘Perceptions of urfi marriage’, 2001, p. 20; Saher el-Tawila and Zeinab
Khadr, Patterns of marriage and family formation among youth in Egypt, 2004,
Cairo: National Population Council and Cairo University, 2004.
21 However, the couple may find recourse in the Hanafi ruling allowing adult
women to conclude their own marriages.
22 As in the paradigmatic case of Hind al-Hinnawy and the famous television
star Ahmad al-Fishawi (Hasso, Consuming Desires 2011, pp. 1ff; Bahjat and Afifi,
‘Sexuality Politics’, 2008, p. 53).
23 Jordens-Cotran, Het Marokkaanse Familierecht, 2000, p. 93) makes this argu-
ment for the case of Morocco.
24 Ihsan Yilmaz, ‘Marriage solemnization among Turks in Britain: The emer-
gence of a hybrid Anglo-Muslim Turkish law,’ Journal of Muslim Affairs, 2004
(Vol. 24, No. 1), pp. 62-3.

25 Yilmaz, ‘Non-recognition of post-modern Turkish socio-legal reality’ 2003,

p. 39.
26 Haeri, ‘Temporary marriage and the state in Iran: An Islamic discourse on
female sexuality in Iran’, Social Research, 1992 (Vol. 59, No. 1), pp. 201-2.
27 Haeri, Law of Desire, 1989.
28 Magued Osman and Laila Shahd, ‘Age discrepant marriages in Egypt’ in: Nich-
olas Hopkins (ed.), The new Arab family, Cairo: The American University in
Cairo Press, 2003.
29 Nadeem Karkabi, Couples in the global margins: sexuality and marriage between
local men and western women in Dahab (South Sinai), ma thesis, University of
Haifa, 2008.
30 In spite of the great economic inequality between the partners, Karkabi does
not define this simply as exploitation or sex tourism, as, according to him, this
may also entail an affective, romantic relationship.
31 Many marriages were polygamous, as the men often married younger Egyptian
women with whom they had children.
32 Joanne Walby, ‘Extended holiday in Hurghada: Russian migrant women and
“urfi marriage”’, Surfacing, 2010 (Vol. 3, No. 1), pp. 39-70.
33 Arabi, Studies in modern Islamic law, 2001, pp. 164ff.
34 Abaza, ‘Perceptions of urfi marriage’, 2001, p. 21.
35 Arabi, Studies in modern Islamic law, 2001, pp. 147-67.
36 Welchman, Women and Muslim Family Laws, 2007, p. 103.
37 Granqvist, Hilma, Marriage conditions in a Palestinian village ii, Helsingfors:
Akademische Buchhandlung, 1935, pp. 312ff.
38 Nadia Sonneveld, Khul’ divorce in Egypt. Public debates, juridical practices, and
everyday life, PhD thesis: University of Amsterdam, 2009.
39 Nadia Abou el Magd, 2009, ‘Outcry in Egypt over “marriage tourism”’, The
National 17 August 2009. http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/africa/
outcry-in-egypt-over-marriage-tourism; Riham Adel, 2009, ‘Married, or maybe
not’, Al-Ahram Weekly Online. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/976/feature.
htm.
40 See also Joanne van der Leun & Avalon Leupen, Informele huwelijken in Neder-
land; een exploratieve studie. Leiden: Universiteit Leiden, Faculteit der Rechts-
geleerdheid, 2009, p. 7; Susan Rutten, ‘Protection of spouses in informal mar-
riages by human rights’, Utrecht Law Review 2010 (No. 2), pp. 77-92.
41 This in spite of the differences between a Roman Catholic marriage (which
requires a priest as it involves a sacrament) and an Islamic marriage (which is
a contract, the conclusion of which does not require the presence of an imam).
Van der Leun and Leupen, Informele huwelijken in Nederland, 2009, p. 8ff)
describe debates in the field of law about the relation between civil and reli-
gious marriages.
42 I counted the number of articles that were published each year in four daily
newspapers (nrc, Trouw, de Volkskrant and De Telegraaf), using the search
term ‘islamitisch! huwelijk!’.
43 nctb, Informele islamitische huwelijken. Het verschijnsel en de (veiligheids)risi-
co’s, Den Haag: nctb, 2006.

44 A non-specified hadith about the higher status of married over single men is
mentioned as evidence for the willingness to die as a martyr, and the threat to
the democratic rule of law is substantiated with the argument that ultra-ortho-
dox Muslims refuse to register a civil marriage on ideological grounds nctb,
Informele islamitische huwelijken, 2006, pp. 26-7.
45 aivd, De radicale da’wa. De opkomst van het neo-radicalisme in Nederland, Den
Haag: aivd, 2007.
46 C. de Poot and A. Sonneschein, Jihadistisch terrorisme in Nederland. Een
beschrijving op basis van afgesloten opsporingsonderzoeken, Den Haag: nctb,
2009; Ineke Roex, Sjef van Stiphout and Jean Tillie, Salafisme in Nederland.
Aard, omvang en dreiging, Amsterdam: imes (commissioned by the nctb),
2010.
47 nctb, Informele islamitische huwelijken, 2006, p. 22.
48 aivd, De radicale da’wa, 2007, p. 68.
49 Groen and Kranenberg also included some of these articles in their book Strijd-
sters for Allah, 2006 (later translated as Women warriors for Allah. An Islam-
ist Network in the Netherlands, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2012).
50 De Volkskrant 11 November 2006.
51 nctb, Informele islamitische huwelijken, 2006, p. 24.
52 The remainder of this chapter is based on explorative qualitative research con-
ducted among young Muslims, focusing on the conclusion of Islamic mar-
riages, which was started in 2009. It includes the gathering of topical life sto-
ries as well as many informal conversations about this topic with both born
Muslimahs and new Muslimahs (converts), and information publicly available
on the Internet (such as discussion fora). I thank Vanessa Vroom-Najem, Eva
al-Haidari (also for allowing me to use her ma thesis), Khadija Amatallah, and
Loubna al-Mourabet for sharing their insights with me.
53 That is, if there were no issues of public order, such as polygamy. See Van der
Leun and Leupen, Informele huwelijken in Nederland, 2009, p. 16.
54 Van der Leun en Leupen, Informele huwelijken in Nederland, 2009, p. 31.
55 See Nathal Dessing, ‘Continuiteit en verandering in de huwelijkssluiting bij
Turkse, Marokkaanse en Surinaamse moslims in Nederland’, Recht van de
Islam, 1999 (Vol. 16), pp. 59-81.
56 However, Dutch models of the governance of religion that build on Christianity
have given more weight to the position of imams than may be the case in Mus-
lim majority countries. This has also influenced Muslims in the Netherlands,
some of whom assume that the presence of an imam is required.
57 Jan Latten, ‘Trends in samenwonen en trouwen. De schone schijn van burger-
lijke staat’, cbs Bevolkingstrends, 2004, (Vol. 52, No. 4), pp. 46-60; Van der Leun
en Leupen, Informele huwelijken in Nederland, 2009, p. 10.
58 John Richard Bowen, A new anthropology of Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012, p. 165ff.
59 Roex a.o. Salafisme in Nederland, 2010, pp. 147-8.
60 In the Netherlands, sexual relations may become a legal concern if one of the
two parties is below the age of sixteen.

61 Forced marriages are generally decreasing in the Netherlands. See Oka Storms
and Edien Bartels, De keuze van een huwelijkspartner. Een studie naar partner-
keuze onder groepen Amsterdammers, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2008.
62 Tayba Sharif, Resistance and remembrance: History-telling of the Iraqi Shi’ite
Arab refugees women and their families in the Netherlands, PhD thesis: Univer-
sity of Amsterdam, 2003.
63 See also Eva Al-Haidari, Vernuftige verhoudingen.Opvattingen over het tijdelijk
huwelijk in West-Europa, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2001.
64 Haeri, ‘Temporary marriage and the state in Iran’, 1992.

9 Understanding and Use of Islamic Family
Law Rules in German Courts
The Example of the Mahr
Nadjma Yassari
Introduction
This chapter will address the question of how domestic courts may ac-
commodate foreign legal institutions within the scope of their own le-
gal system. The example chosen is the Islamic dower (mahr), as it is the
most prominent institution of Islamic family law adjudicated in Ger-
man courts for over forty years.1 For this purpose, the following ques-
tions will be raised: first, what is the mahr, and second, how is the mahr
understood and interpreted by German courts?2 These questions will
be discussed by focusing on two aspects: first, the legal techniques at
hand in order to fit the mahr into German law, and second, the ways
parties argue their cases.
Generally speaking, the mahr is a legal institution of Islamic fam-
ily law, consisting of an asset of monetary value that the husband gives
his wife upon marriage.3 Usually the payment of the mahr is split into
two halves: one part, the so-called proper dower, is due at the time the
marriage is concluded, and the other part, the so-called deferred mahr,
is due at the time the marriage is dissolved. It may also be that the full
payment of the mahr is deferred to the time of the dissolution of the
marriage. The mahr can appear in a domestic court essentially by two
means. First, in cases involving foreigners, the rules of private interna-
tional law may point to the application of a foreign law under which
the mahr has been contracted. In these cases, the German courts have
to apply the applicable law and decide on the mahr according to those
foreign rules. There are many examples of such cases in German courts.
However, the conflict of laws rule may also point to the application of
German domestic law. These cases particularly concern parties who
are citizens of different (Islamic) countries, so that, according to the
German conflict of laws rules, the law of habitual residence (that is,
German law) applies. Additionally, cases have occurred where German
Muslims had agreed on a mahr, which the wife then claimed under the

provisions of German family law. As the mahr is foreign to German

domestic law, courts often struggle to understand and appropriately
accommodate it within their own legal framework.
The common thread running through the struggle to accommodate
the mahr in a German setting is – in accordance with the German the-
ory of functional approach (funktionale Qualifikation)4 imported from
the field of private international law – the search for the function of
the mahr. In doing so one must, as a first step, determine the func-
tion and aims of the foreign institution according to its native law (the
law under which it has been contracted) in order to be able, in a sec-
ond step, to accommodate it within similar legal instruments available
under domestic law.
In the following, we will first discuss the function of the mahr. This
will be done in great detail, which is necessary to get a proper under-
standing of the problems we encounter in the German court rulings
on this matter. In these rulings, we will limit ourselves to an analysis of
the judicature of the German Federal Supreme Court, with a focus on
its legal techniques as well as the cultural and religious arguments put
forward by the parties.
Function of the Mahr
When analysing the many purposes and aims that have been attributed
to the mahr, two categories can be distinguished: material and immate-
rial functions.
Immaterial functions
The mahr is said to be a token of the husband’s respect for the wife and a
sign of his commitment to marriage.5 It furthermore touches upon the
idea of prestige, as the mahr is considered to correspond to the level of
desirability of the wife and the financial potential of the husband.6 In
addition, it is argued that a high mahr may deter the husband from a
quick and thoughtless repudiation and prevent him from engaging in
polygamy, since a new mahr is due for all subsequent marriages.7 These
functions are meant to influence the behaviour of the parties to act in
a specific manner or are expressions of a certain status of the wife and/
or the husband. As such, the mahr is seen as a bargaining tool in the
negotiations of spouses of Islamic origin.8

islamic family law rules in german courts 167
Material functions
Additionally, there are material or economic aspects to the mahr: it is

supposed to ensure financial security when paid as a prompt mahr at
the time of the conclusion of the marriage, by providing the wife with a
certain degree of economic independence and enabling her to build up
her own property.9 It has also been seen as a financial cushion after di-
vorce, since in most Islamic countries, there is no substantial post-mar-
ital support for the wife.10 And finally, it has also been argued that the
mahr is conceived to counterbalance the lesser inheritance rights of the
wife in the case of the husband’s death.11 This last function is particu-
larly raised in view of the husband’s potential polygamous marriages, as
the inheritance portion of the wife will have to be divided between all
wives. In the words of Indian scholar Asaf Fyzee, in a nutshell, the mahr
is ‘a provision for a rainy day’.12
The Mahr in the Classical Works of the Fuqaha’
A look at the fiqh works of classical Islamic scholars, on the other hand,
reveals that none of these functions of the mahr has been really dis-
cussed in depth. Instead, the mahr is dealt with as a contract of ex-
change, governed by the rules of the contract of sale.13 In this context,
some have interpreted the mahr as being the counter value for the sex-
ual submission of the wife in marriage.14 This interpretation has been
taken up by some German courts to designate the mahr as the ‘price for
the sexuality of the wife’.15
Evaluation of the Mahr
In evaluating the aforementioned functions, it will be shown that the

economic function of the mahr is predominant. As will be explained
in the paragraphs below, the interpretation of the mahr as being the
price for marital cohabitation is not sustainable. It is true that, in cer-
tain cases, the mahr has a symbolic value and that, in other cases, it
has deterred husbands from thoughtless repudiation. However, today,
the mahr is mostly a significant financial instrument of family law in
Islamic countries.

The mahr as a counter value for marital cohabitation?
If the mahr were to be considered the counter value for marital cohabi-
tation, its implementation in German courts could become difficult in
view of the principle of public policy. According to this principle, a for-
eign legal provision shall not be applicable if the result of its application
is obviously incompatible with essential principles of German law. This
is particularly the case when the foreign rule is incompatible with the
German Basic Law, the Grundgesetz. Putting a monetary value on mari-
tal cohabitation would therefore be a matter of public policy. The read-
ing of the mahr as such a monetary counter value is, however, the result
of a misinterpretation of the mahr. Generally, the advocates of such a
theory base their view on two arguments: first, the nature of the mahr
as a contract of exchange and the application of the rules of the contract
of sale on the mahr agreement; and second, the fact that the mahr is
forfeited when a marriage is dissolved before its consummation. Both
arguments are – as will be shown below – unsustainable.
First, the fact that the mahr is considered a contract of exchange
governed by the rules of the contract of sale does not necessarily justify
the conclusion that the mahr is a ‘purchase price’ for marital cohabita-
tion. It is true that, in the literature, the agreement on mahr is called
a reciprocal exchange contract (Arabic mu‘āwada), to which the rules
of the sales contract are applicable.16 This has a specific background,
however: Islamic law does not know any general theory of contract.17
General rules are derived from the regulations of model contracts, such
as the contract of sale.18 Thus, the link to the sales contract does not
reflect the nature of the mahr being a sales or leasing contract of female
sexuality, but is derived from the structure of Islamic contract law.19
It highlights that the regulations of the sales contract can be applied
as general rules to certain aspects of the mahr.20Accordingly, anything
that can be the subject of a contract of sale can be chosen as the subject
of the mahr. Additionally, the conditions of a valid purchase price must
also be observed for the mahr: the mahr should have a monetary value,
be determinable and its performance has to be possible and legal.
Second, it is true that under certain circumstances the mahr is for-
feited when a marriage is dissolved before its consummation. There-
fore, there is a connection between the mahr and marital cohabitation.
These regulations, however, do not offer a consistent picture: whereas
the wife is entitled to half of the mahr if her husband divorces her prior
to consummation,21 this is not the case when the spouses die before
consummation. In this case, the wife keeps her right to the full mahr,
and that right will be inherited by her heirs.22 On the other hand, the

wife may refuse to comply with her marital duties as long as the mahr
has not been given to her.23 However, this right of retention is a uni-
lateral right of the wife; the husband cannot refrain from paying the
mahr because the marriage has not been consummated: he must pay
the mahr prior to consummation.24 Thus, there is no reciprocity in this
right. If the mahr were really the counter value for marital cohabitation,
its regulations would have to be much more stringent and comparable
to the purchase price in a contract of sale. This is, however, not the
case. The wife is still entitled to the mahr, even if she has not ‘fulfilled
her duty’. As a matter of fact, many of these regulations are explicable
by their historical context. Very often, there would be a considerable
gap between the time when the marriage was contracted and the time
when the marriage was actually consummated. This was particularly
the case when minors were married, or in marriages by proxy where
the husband-to-be was absent. If, in the meantime, the marriage was
dissolved by the husband, half of the mahr became due. Some argue
that this amount was meant to compensate the girls for their reduced
chances of remarriage. In other words, it constitutes some kind of dam-
ages awarded to the girl for the delay or the shortfall of a financial pro-
vider. Others argue that half of the mahr was due in order to compen-
sate the husband for the expenses incurred in view of the marriage.25
Finally, one has to consider the marriage, its consummation and the
mahr as a unity. It is true that the consummation of the marriage is not
a condition for its validity. However, marriage is considered to be the
only legal framework within which sexual activities are allowed and
even a duty. Thus, some authors hold that only by the consummation
of marriage, the process of marrying is ‘completed’.26 Consequently, the
reduction of the mahr in case of a repudiation before consummation is
not so much linked to the concept of the mahr as the ‘price for marital
sexual cohabitation’, but is rather connected to the not yet completed
process of marrying.
The mahr as an economic factor
The predominance of the economic function of the mahr is very well

illustrated by the immaterial functions attributed to it. All aforemen-
tioned immaterial functions will only materialize if the mahr is of a
substantial financial value. What kind of prestige or seriousness would
be expressed by a low mahr? How could a low mahr deter the husband
from repudiating his wife or prevent him from entering into a second
marriage? Furthermore, a look at the practice of mahr reveals its eco-
nomic importance: in Iran, for example, 80 per cent of divorces are

khul῾ divorces, whereby, in the absence of legal or contractual grounds

for divorce, the wife can gain the consent of her husband to divorce in
return for some kind of consideration.27 This consideration is usually a
part or the whole of her mahr. According to a survey conducted by the
magazine zanān, Iranian women often try to negotiate a high mahr in
order to exit an unwanted marriage more easily while at the same time
keeping some parts of the mahr for financial security.28
New legislation in some Muslim countries also highlights the eco-
nomic importance of the mahr. The regulations in Iran, Iraq and the
United Arab Emirates illustrate this very well. In 1998, the Iranian leg-
islator enacted a new law, the ‘Act on the Adaptation of the Value of the
Mahr to the Inflation Rate’, according to which a mahr contracted in
Iranian currency must be adjusted by the inflation rate at the time it is
claimed (which, as we have seen, can be many years after the mahr had
been agreed).29 Under Iranian law, the agreement on the mahr figures
in the standardized marriage contract as prompt mahr, meaning that
it must be handed to the wife upon her request. In general, as long as
the marriage is working and the couple lives happily together, hardly
any woman claims her mahr during the marriage. In most cases, the
mahr is claimed, like the deferred mahr, upon dissolution of the mar-
riage, whereby the time gap between these two moments can be cru-
cial, implying a substantial deflation of the monetary value. In order
to secure the stability of the mahr and to ensure that women are not
deprived of their rights, the amount of the mahr must be adapted to the
inflation rate.
Based on similar grounds, in 1999, a decree was issued in Iraq,30
ordering the value of the deferred mahr, expressed in Iraqi currency,
to be adapted to its gold value at the time of the conclusion of the mar-
riage.31 Earlier, in 1997, the United Arab Emirates enacted a federal law,
the ‘Act on the Limitation of the Amount of the Mahr in the Marriage
Contract and the Expenses Incurring for Marriage’, to limit the amount
of the mahr.32 This law contrasts with the two previous laws in that it
puts a ceiling on the amount of the mahr. Accordingly the prompt mahr
is limited to 30,000 dirhams and the deferred mahr to 50,000 dirhams
(roughly 6,000 and 10,000 euros, respectively). The explanatory mem-
orandum33 of the Emirati Personal Status Act34 makes clear that this law
was enacted to limit the extremely high marriage expenditure, which
has led to a substantial age gap between the spouses, with Emirati men
taking foreign wives and men incurring debts to afford the expenses of
marriage.35 This also points to the economic importance of the mahr.
To sum up, today, the primary – though not only – function of the
mahr is to provide economic security for the wife.36

German Case Law
With this background in mind, we now turn to German case law. So

far, the German Federal Supreme Court (bgh) has decided on the mat-
ter on three occasions.37 The case law will be analysed under the two
abovementioned aspects of the court’s legal techniques and the argu-
mentation brought forward by the parties.
Decision of the Supreme Court of 28 January 198738
In this case, the parties had married in 1976 in Munich. The wife was
a Muslim Palestinian with an Israeli passport. The husband was Ger-
man. Both were students. They had a civil marriage first and, for the
sake of the religious wedding, which took place afterwards, the hus-
band converted to Islam. In the certification of their religious marriage,
the spouses agreed on the payment of 100,000 Deutschmarks (dm) as a
mahr. Four years later, in 1980, the parties were divorced by the judge-
ment of a German court under the application of German law. Addi-
tionally, the husband, in the absence of the wife, pronounced an Islamic
divorce in the mosque where they had married. In the certification of
the religious divorce witnessed by the imam, the husband included in
handwriting the sentence that there were no financial claims between
the parties. The wife contested this and petitioned for the payment of
the mahr. The Court of First Instance recognized the wife’s claim as an
agreement on post-marital maintenance and ordered the man to pay
the dower of 100,000 dm.39
The Court of Appeal overturned the judgement and rebutted the
validity of the wife’s claim. It argued that an agreement for the payment
of a mahr that had been made in the course of a religious marriage
was not valid, since religious marriages as such had no effect under
German law. However, the Court conceded that even in the case that
the agreement on the mahr was to be considered valid, it had to be
qualified under German law as a stipulation of a marriage contract, that
is, an agreement on the matrimonial property regime. These kinds of
agreements had to be authenticated by a notary. Thus, it did not recog-
nize the mahr because of the lack of these formalities.40 The wife finally
sought the revision of the decision at the Supreme Court.
What arguments did the parties make, and how did the Supreme
Court respond? The husband argued that he had not been aware of the
fact that he was committing himself legally and binding himself when
signing the agreement. He argued that he had believed the agreement
to be just a ‘formality’ without legal effects, that is, some kind of folklor-

istic addition to the wedding. The wife, on the other hand, argued that
both had meant the agreement to be binding and that the husband had
been fully aware of this, since extensive negotiations on the mahr had
been conducted between him and her father beforehand. In evaluating
these arguments, the Supreme Court held, first, that the reservation of
the husband would only be legally relevant if the wife had been aware
of it. A secret reservation on the binding character of the commitment
is not relevant under German law. Second, if the husband really had
not been serious about this commitment, he would have had to contest
the agreement for error within the legal time frame, which had already
expired. Finally, the court held that a person who, for the sake of a reli-
gious marriage, had converted to another religion, could not claim to
not have been aware of the effects of such marriage, and in particular
that a mahr was due in a Muslim marriage.
As far as the validity of the mahr agreement was concerned, the
Supreme Court held that, although the religious marriage did not have
any effect under German law, this did not affect the validity of the mahr.
It suffices that the religious marriage was valid under considerations of
religious/Islamic law as perceived under the law applicable to Muslim
Israelis. As there was no obstacle to the validity of the marriage, the
agreement on the mahr had to be considered valid. The court did not
consider the aspect of public policy or raise the question as to whether
the mahr did or did not exist in German law. It considered it a valid
agreement and went on to its interpretation.
The Supreme Court, however, did not decide on the categorization
of the mahr within domestic family law. The Court objected to both
interpretations of the lower courts, since it held that the lower courts
had failed to consider the intention of the parties when agreeing on the
mahr. However, it gave some indications as to how this intention had to
be sought. Within the framework of German rules governing the inter-
pretation of contracts, due respect was to be awarded to the principle
of good faith and good morals. Furthermore, the circumstances of the
case, such as the duration of the marriage, had to be considered to dis-
cover the real intention of the parties. As a result, the Supreme Court
recommitted the case to the Court of Appeal for further investigations.
The parties finally settled the case outside the court.
Decision of the Supreme Court of 14 October 199841
In the second case, the parties, a German woman and a Syrian man,
had married in 1976 in Germany. The husband later acquired German
citizenship. Before their civil marriage, the parties concluded a German

marriage contract which was authenticated according to German law. In

the marriage contract, the husband agreed to pay his future wife a mahr
of 20,000 dm; 10,000 on the conclusion of the marriage and 10,000 if
the husband’s behaviour entitled the wife to ask for the dissolution of
the marriage. The marriage contract explicitly enunciated the cases in
which the wife would be entitled to ask for the dissolution of the mar-
riage. Those cases included the grounds for divorce under German law.
In 1995, the couple was divorced by a German court. The wife remar-
ried two months later and sued her ex-husband for the payment of the
mahr shortly afterwards. He refused to pay either the prompt mahr he
had not honoured at the time of marriage or the deferred mahr due at
the time of divorce. The Court of First Instance ruled that the woman
had forgone her right to the prompt mahr since she had not claimed it,
but ordered the ex-husband to pay the deferred mahr, which was due at
the moment of the divorce.42 The ex-husband objected, but the decision
was upheld on appeal. The Court of Appeal did not try to fit the agree-
ment on the mahr into any of the German categories of family law. The
court rather considered the agreement to be an independent acknowl-
edgement of debt (German Schuldversprechen), which, under German
law, was valid and had to be honoured.43 The Court of Appeal looked at
the terms of the agreement and concluded that the parties had intended
the wife to be able to claim the deferred mahr if she had a reason under
the marriage contract to get a divorce. Since this held true, the wife was
entitled to 10,000 dm.
The husband petitioned for revision at the Supreme Court. The
Supreme Court rejected the assumption that the mahr was an inde-
pendent acknowledgement of debt, since this kind of agreement does
not mention the reason for the payment. In the case of the mahr, how-
ever, the reason, that is, the mahr, was explicitly mentioned. Again, the
Supreme Court criticized the lower courts for not taking into account
the intentions of the parties. In particular, the Supreme Court criticized
the lower courts for failing to consider whether the agreement on the
deferred mahr was intended to be a post-marital claim. This was of par-
ticular importance, as the wife had re-married soon after her divorce
and post-marital maintenance is only due as long as the ex-wife does
not have a new spouse.
Decision of the Supreme Court of 9 December 200944
The third and most recent case involved an Iranian couple who had
married in 1992 in Tehran with a mahr of 15 million Iranian rials pay-
able at any time at the demand of the wife. In 1993, the spouses left

Iran and settled in Germany, where both acquired German citizen-

ship. The couple divorced in 2006 in Germany, according to German
law. Later on, the wife petitioned for the payment of the mahr. One of
the main problems in this case was the characterization of the mahr
and its submission to one of the available conflict of laws rules.45 This
choice and the resulting law applicable had a considerable effect on the
outcome of the trial. The wife argued that the mahr had to be governed
by Iranian law and, in application of Iranian law, the amount that was
due had to be adapted to the inflation rate, according to the aforemen-
tioned ‘Act on the Adaptation of the Value of the Mahr to the Inflation
Rate’. As a result, the sum of 15 million Iranian rials would amount
to approximately 15,000 euros, whereas without such adaptation, the
counter value of 15 million rials would be only 1,500 euros, thus ten
times less.
The husband, on the other hand, argued that the mahr had been
agreed in Iran under the presumption that the spouses were to live
there. Now that they had changed their domicile, this change of cir-
cumstances defeated his reasons for agreeing on a mahr. As the circum-
stances had changed, the mahr agreement had to be considered void.
According to him, the applicable law was German law. As this law did
not know any such institution as the mahr, there was no legal basis for
its award. In any event, when applying German law, Iranian law was to
be considered in so far as the wife had forfeited her right to the mahr,
because it was she who had petitioned for the divorce. Her petition for
divorce was thus to be seen as a request for a khul῾, in which she had to
waive her right to the mahr. The husband also argued that the function
of the mahr was to deter husbands from divorcing their wives. In the
case that the wife herself had petitioned for divorce, she had forgone
this protection herself and could thus not claim for a mahr.
The Court of First Instance decided in favour of the husband. It
argued that the main function of the mahr was the financial protection
of the wife in case of divorce. Since the parties had moved to Germany
and had got a divorce under German law, the wife had profited from the
post-marital protection awarded to her under German law, which had
improved her financial post-marital position considerably as compared
to Iranian law, which hardly knows any post-marital financial claim.
The mahr had thus lost its raison d’être. However, in contradiction to its
own arguments, it upheld that the agreement on the mahr as a contrac-
tual obligation had to be fulfilled, even if only with its counter value at
the time of the claim, which was 1,500 euros.46
The Court of Appeal overturned the case by choosing a differ-
ent characterization of the mahr under the conflict of laws rules. In

doing so, it submitted the case to Iranian law and adapted the sum of
15 million rials to the Iranian inflation rate, awarding the wife a sum of
roughly 15,000 euros.47 The Court of Appeal did not address the ques-
tion of whether she had lost her claim because she had petitioned for
divorce, that is, the question of whether the fact that the wife had asked
for divorce led automatically to the loss of the mahr.
The husband challenged the decision at the Supreme Court and won
the case. The Supreme Court first decided the question of the charac-
terization of the mahr. His decision led to the applicability of German
law. Within German law, the Supreme Court recognized the validity
of the mahr agreement as a valid contractual commitment that had to
be honoured by the husband. It refused, however, an adaptation to the
inflation rate according to Iranian law, since that law was not applica-
ble. Again, the Supreme Court emphasized that the intention of the
parties was to be consulted in order to understand the nature of their
agreement. Obiter dictum, the Supreme Court rebutted the argument
that the wife had lost her claim to the mahr, because it was she who
had petitioned for divorce. However, as in this case, the amount of the
mahr was not considerable, the Supreme Court did not find it necessary
to expand more on the nature of the mahr agreement or any problem
which might occur under German law, in particular the embedding of
the mahr within the institution of German family law. This question
still remains open.
Evaluation of the Cases
The arguments of the parties
In evaluating the legal and cultural argumentation of the parties, one

can distinguish three layers of argumentation. First, the legal and the
cultural religious arguments are intermixed and these aspects are high-
lighted according to the position taken. The religious background and
motivation for concluding such an agreement is evident. The legal basis
for the award of the mahr in German courts, however, remains the con-
tractual agreement by the spouses. The basis on which German courts
approach such agreements is from the perspective of contract law,
hence the general rules for the conclusion of contracts and the principle
of freedom of contract in family law in particular. The cultural and re-
ligious arguments are then put forward by the parties to underpin their
respective positions: the wife claims that the mahr is her religious right,
even outside the socio-legal and religious framework within which

the agreement was made in the first place. The husband equally raises
the cultural and socio-legal aspect of the mahr when claiming that, in
another legal and social setting than the one under which the mahr
was conceived, the mahr loses its raison d’être and therefore should no
longer be upheld and honoured.
The question of whether the mahr is contrary to public policy and
good morals also falls within the ambit of this layer. Men often argue
that the mahr, in its presumed concept as counter value for marital
cohabitation, infringes the rule of domestic public policy. Women, on
the other hand, emphasize that the mahr is an instrument of empower-
ment in a family law system which is intrinsically patriarchal: consider-
ing the mahr as an equalizer of the bargaining powers of the spouses,
the mahr must, therefore, pass the barrier of public policy. The social,
cultural and religious backgrounds of mahr agreements are thus picked
up when convenient and dropped when they fail to strengthen the indi-
vidual position of the party.
Second, one can observe a mixing of the applicable domestic and
displaced foreign law. Both spouses try to import that from the for-
eign, Islamic-based family law which is favourable to them. This is quite
visible in the 2009 case, where the wife attempts to have the amount
of the mahr raised through the application of the Iranian ‘Act on the
Adaptation of the Value of the Mahr to the Inflation Rate’, whereas the
husband, while rebutting the application of that act, pleads within the
application of German law for the taking into account of the khul῾ rules
under Iranian law to see the wife lose her right to the mahr.
Finally, there is a mixture of foreign and domestic procedural law.
Whereas Iranian procedural law accords different rights and duties to
the spouses, depending on who petitioned for the divorce, German
procedural law is gender-neutral. Accordingly, German divorce law
generally does not take into account who demanded the divorce first
or whether that party is at fault. Under Iranian and Islamic-based fam-
ily laws in general, on the other side, the legal implications of a divorce
differ according to the gender of the plaintiff: whereas the husband
does not need any reasons to petition for divorce, the wife has to argue
her case on the basis of legal or contractual divorce grounds. In both
cases, the wife is entitled to her mahr and any post-marital claim, as
far as available. If, however, the husband does not apply for divorce or
the wife is unable to prove her divorce grounds, she can only base her
divorce petition on a khul῾ divorce, in which she has to forego to a cer-
tain extent her right to the mahr and/or other financial entitlements. By
blending German procedural and Iranian substantive law, the husband
attempted to suppress the wife’s claim to the mahr.48

The arguments of the Supreme Court
None of the three decisions of the Supreme Court explicitly gives an

answer to the question of how to accommodate the mahr in German
law. In fact, the decisions are all formulated very prudently. A first basic
statement is the acknowledgement of the validity of mahr agreements
in general. Thus, the Supreme Court dismissed the argument that mahr
agreements must be void, since the institution as such is alien to Ger-
man law, or that mahr agreements are contrary to public policy, like
some lower courts had argued before.49 Instead, the Court established
the validity of mahr agreements as a contractual agreement between
spouses, covered by the principle of freedom of contract in family law.
As such, the mahr agreement needs to fulfil the basic requirements of
a contractual agreement, that is, the consent of the parties and the ab-
sence of duress and error. Furthermore, the Court rightly considered
the mahr to be a specific feature of marriage law, which presupposes a
valid marriage.
The question of whether a religious marriage alone would suffice as
grounds for claiming the mahr was not directly answered. It is, however,
hardly conceivable that a purely religious ceremony, which according
to German law is not considered a valid marriage, may be legitimate
grounds for a mahr claim.50 Even if one considers the 1987 case where
the court had based its decision on the validity of the religious mar-
riage, the court kept in mind that the parties had also had a civil mar-
riage in Germany. One must thus conclude that a mahr agreement will
only be honoured if the parties are considered validly married under
German law.
The question as to the nature of the mahr agreement and its categori-
zation under German law was, however, not answered by the Supreme
Court. Instead, the Supreme Court stated that the mahr agreement had
to be interpreted according to the intention of the spouses while con-
tracting the mahr. The Supreme Court thus suggests that each mahr
agreement has to be considered in each individual case on its own mer-
its. In doing so, due account must also be taken of the underlying con-
cept of the institution of the mahr under its native law.
Testing the Mahr in German Family Law Categories
To categorize the mahr agreement within German law, the courts thus
need to interpret the intention of the parties while simultaneously bear-
ing in mind the functions and nature of the mahr in its native law. The

categories that can then be used are either the agreement on post-mari-
tal maintenance or the agreement on the matrimonial property regime.
Can the mahr be interpreted as an agreement on maintenance?
Under German Law, spouses may contractually agree on their recip-

rocal post-marital maintenance duties and derogate from statutory
law.51 Interpreting the mahr agreement as a maintenance agreement52
allows the court to make use of all adjustment instruments offered by
German law: accordingly, if the marriage was of short duration, the
court can adapt the amount of the mahr on the basis of the German
rules on maintenance53 and in accordance with the theory of change
of circumstances, according to which a change in the economic, legal
and business realities underlying a contractual agreement can invali-
date or modify the terms of a contract. Moreover, a very high mahr
can be adapted to the financial capability of the husband54 and a very
low mahr can be raised according to the needs of the divorcee.55 In-
terpreting the mahr as a maintenance agreement, however, generally
does not match the intention of the parties.56 If, at the time of the mar-
riage and the agreement on the mahr, the parties had the intention to
move to Germany or if one of the parties was a German citizen, it is
doubtful whether, with the acceptance of the mahr, the wife intended
to waive her maintenance rights awarded to her under German law. But
even if both parties are of foreign origin, such an intention is difficult
to presume,57 since in Islamic countries, the mahr and the maintenance
claims stand next to each other. Thus, mahr is hardly interpretable as an
equivalent of maintenance.
Can the mahr be interpreted as an agreement

on the matrimonial property regime?
As with maintenance, the statutory provisions on the matrimonial

property regime may be modified by the spouses. These modifications
must be inserted in a marriage contract (German Ehevertrag) that needs
official notarization.58 The German matrimonial property regime is the
separation of property with an equalization of surplus (Zugewinnaus-
gleich) after the dissolution of marriage. In principle, each spouse owns
and administers his or her property independently.59 Upon termination
of the marriage, however, the accrued gains, that is, the additions to the
assets of each of the spouses achieved during the marriage, are equal-
ized. This means that the spouse with the higher surplus has to pay the
partner with the smaller increase one half of the excess.60

In Muslim countries, on the other hand, the concept of matrimonial

property is generally ignored.61 Based on the general freedom of the
wife to own and administer her assets independently, the properties of
the spouses are completely separated: each spouse remains the owner
of his or her assets before, during and after marriage. If the mahr were
to be understood as an agreement on the matrimonial property regime
under German law, one could read it as a modification or supplemen-
tation to the statutory regime, whereby the parties exclude the equali-
zation of surplus and install a regime of separation of goods with the
mahr being a lump sum to be paid to the wife upon divorce.62
However, this interpretation is hardly arguable, since in most cases,
it will not match the intention of the parties. If both parties are Muslims
living and marrying in Germany and additionally contracting a mahr,
this agreement might be made out of respect for their religious back-
ground rather than as an expression of their intention to exclude the
regime of surplus upon divorce.63 This is even more so when one of the
spouses is German and the other is of foreign origin. Finally, when the
parties are both foreigners who married in their country of origin, then
such an interpretation is still improbable, as there is hardly any aware-
ness on the part of the parties regarding the possibilities for arranging
for other forms of matrimonial property regime in Muslim countries.64
Therefore, here again, this interpretation does not fit.
Evaluation and Conclusion
Although the guiding principles developed by the Supreme Court to

come to a true determination of the meaning of the mahr are certainly
valuable, their implementation reveals difficulties. There is no doubt
that the intention of the parties must be sought to understand what
they had in mind when contracting the mahr to translate their percep-
tion into German law. Such a translation is, however, not easy, as the
intention of the parties is hardly detectable. In most cases, the spouses
agreed on a mahr without mentioning further reasons or giving explicit
explanation as to its relation to maintenance or matrimonial property
regime. They simply contracted the mahr because in their view, it was
an integral part of the act of marrying. This becomes quite apparent
when looking at the arguments and ways parties argue and negotiate
their cases. Legal, social and religious arguments and explanations are
used at will to strengthen the respective positions.
The recourse to the national law of the countries of origin of the
spouses may also bring major obstacles. For example, the question

arises as to how far the rules of the displaced law must be consulted.
What is to be done in mixed marriages between citizens of different
Muslim countries that have different regulations on the mahr? The
problem is quite apparent in cases involving, for example, Emirati and
Iranian couples: shall the court be more lenient towards Emirati law,
which limits the amount of the mahr, or Iranian law, which adapts the
sum to the inflation rate, and thus raises its amount? A change in the
amount of the mahr in terms of reduction or increase must then also
be compatible with German interpretation rules, that is, by analogy to
similar situations under German law. And finally, what about the many
cases where the parties are German Muslims and no underlying law of
origin is detectable? One can think of the many Turkish cases, since
Turkish family law, as a reception of Swiss family law, does not regulate
the mahr anymore.
The way out of these kinds of evaluative problems is to abandon
the fitting of the mahr into the existing categories of German family
law; that is, the maintenance and matrimonial property regime. As the
Supreme Court sees it, the mahr is a valid agreement and German law
generally accepts that the spouses make agreements on their financial
obligations.65 If one considered the agreement on the mahr as a specific
kind of family law contract unknown to statutory law, but still valid
under the concept of freedom of contract, it could exist next to the
established German categories. Liberating the mahr from the exigen-
cies of German family law categories would also release the court to a
considerable extent from exploring the ratio of a non-applicable law or
from making sense of the cultural and religious arguments put forward
by the parties for the sake of fitting the mahr into preconceived catego-
ries that are not suitable.66 The court would have to judge the agree-
ment alongside the claims for maintenance and matrimonial property
issues and navigate through its own familiar legal notions.
Nevertheless, the mahr must be contextualized within the setting of
German family law and the available family law instruments to make
sure that none of the spouses is disadvantaged. If the award of the mahr
would stand as a contract sui generis next to the statutory rules of a valid
maintenance claim and the equalization of surplus as regulated under
German matrimonial property law, it would have a significant effect on
their respective amounts: the payment of the mahr to the wife would
increase her assets and thus influence the amount of surplus that would
have to be equalized. Additionally, a substantial mahr would decrease
the wife’s need for post-marital maintenance, so that, here again, a fair
financial balance is achieved between the parties. It must, after all, be
borne in mind that the mahr is conceived to provide a certain economic

security for the wife in systems which hardly know any financial (post-)
marital solidarity between the spouses. It is a tool to protect the wife
in specific legal surroundings. Whenever this situation changes to the
benefit of the wife, her need to be protected will diminish.67 This is also
why the mahr must be accounted for within the new legal context in
which it is being evaluated. However, this does not change its character
as an independent contract sui generis and the fact that the parties must
honour their contractual obligation. Only when giving the mahr a place
of its own, a fair distribution of the financial burden of the ex-spouses
will be achieved and due respect given to the mahr agreement to finally
bring legal certainty to the appraisal of the mahr under German law.
Notes
1 The first legal opinions on the mahr were commissioned by German courts in
the late 1960s and early 1970s, see Murad Ferid, Gerhard Kegel, and Konrad
Zweigert (eds.), Gutachten zum internationalen und ausländischen Privatrecht
1965 und 1966, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1968, legal opinion No. 15,
pp. 150-166 (Iraqi law), and Murad Ferid, Gerhard Kegel, and Konrad Zwei-
gert (eds.), Gutachten zum internationalen und ausländischen Privatrecht 1970,
Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1971, legal opinion No. 38, pp. 374-386
(Jordanian law). The first judgements date from 1979 and 1980, see Court of
Appeal (hereinafter: olg) Bremen, decision of 9 August 1979, Zeitschrift für das
gesamte Familienrecht, 1980, pp. 606-607; Court of First Instance (hereinafter:
lg) Cologne, decision of 27 October 1980, in: Max-Planck-Institut für auslän-
disches und internationales Privatrecht (ed.), Die deutsche Rechtsprechung auf
dem Gebiete des Internationalen Privatrechts im Jahre 1980, Tübingen: J.C.B.
Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1982, case No. 83, pp. 248-249.
2 For an account of the mahr, particularly in Canadian and North American
courts, see Pascale Fournier, ‘Flirting with God in Western Secular Courts:
Mahr in the West’, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 2010
(Vol. 24, No. 1), pp. 67-94; Pascale Fournier, Muslim Marriage in Western Courts:
Lost in Transplantation, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010; Lindsey Blenkhorn, ‘Islamic
marriage contracts in American Courts: interpreting mahr agreements as pre-
nuptials and their effect on Muslim women’, Southern California Law Review,
2002-2003 (Vol. 76, No. 1), pp. 189-233; Richard Freeland, ‘The Islamic Institu-
tion of Mahr and American Law’, Gonzaga Journal of International Law, 2000-
2001 (Vol. 4), www.gonzagajil.org/‌content/‌view/85/26; on the mahr in Euro-
pean courts, see Rubya Mehdi and Jørgen S. Nielsen (eds.), Embedding Mahr
(Islamic dower) in the European Legal System, Copenhagen: djøf Publishing,
2011; on the mahr in English courts, see Mohamed Jindani, ‘The Concept of
mahr (dower) in Islamic Law: The need of Statutory Recognition by English
Law’, Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, 2004-2005 (Vol. 11), pp. 219-
227; on the mahr in Spanish courts, see Ma Del Pilar Diago Diago, ‘La dot isla-

mique à l’épreuve du conflit de civilisations, sous l’angle du droit international

privé espagnol’, Annales de Droit de Louvain, 2001, pp. 407-442; on the mahr
in Belgian courts, see Moustapha El Karouni, ‘La dot: une institution contraire
à l’ordre public international belge?’ Revue trimestrielle de droit familial, 2002,
(No. 3), pp. 403-423; on the mahr in Swedish courts, see Mosa Sayed, ‘The Mus-
lim Dower (Mahr) in Europe – with Special Reference to Sweden’ in: Katharina
Boele-Woelki and Tone Sverdrup (eds.), European Challenges in Contemporary
Family Law, Antwerp: Intersentia, 2008, pp. 187-208; on the mahr in Danish
courts, see Rubya Mehdi, ‘Danish Law and the Practice of mahr among Mus-
lim Pakistanis in Denmark’ in: Rubya Mehdi (ed.), Integration & Retsudvikling,
Copenhagen: Jurist-og Økonomforbundets Forlag, 2007, pp. 101-118; on the
mahr in Italian courts, see Lorenzo di Ascanio, ‘Il Mahr tra diritto musulmano
e contesto non islamico’, Rivista di diritto internazionale privato e processuale,
2009, pp. 387-406.
3 See. O. Spies, ‘mahr’ in: C.E. Bosworth et al. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed.
Vol. 6, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991, pp. 78-80.
4 See German Federal Supreme Court (hereinafter: bgh), decision of 22 March
1967, Entscheidungen des Bundesgerichtshofes in Zivilsachen, 1967 (Vol. 47),
pp. 324-339; see also Jan Kropholler, Internationales Privatrecht, Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2006, p. 127.
5 Seyyed Hoseyn Safā’ī and Asadollāh Emāmī, Hoqūq-e khānevāde [Family Law],
Vol. 1, Tehran: Enteshārāte dāneshgāh-e tehrān, 2002, p. 166; Majid Enayat,
‘Länderbericht Iran’ in: A. Bergmann, M. Ferid, and D. Henrich (eds.), Inter-
nationales Ehe- und Kindschaftsrecht, Frankfurt/Main: Verlag für Standesamts-
wesen, 2004, p. 51; Hassan Hamidian, ‘Jurisdiction of Family Courts in Iran’ in:
Jürgen Basedow and Nadjma Yassari (eds.), Iranian Family and Succession Laws
and their Application in German Courts, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004, p. 89;
Djilali Tchouar, ‘Régime juridique de la dot en droit algérien’, Revue Algérienne,
1996 (Vol. 34, No. 4), p. 580: ‘[…] expression de la franchise, de la détermina-
tion et la preuve d’attachement de l’homme qui se lie légalement à la femme.
L’homme par l’intermédiaire de la dot manifeste son intention réelle en vue
de fonder un foyer solide et d’affronter un acte aussi sérieux que grave.’; Ziba
Mir-Hosseini, Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law, London: I.B.
Tauris, 2nd ed. 2000, p. 74, describes the mahr as ‘yardstick’ of the families’ ‘sin-
cerity’.
6 Susanne Dahlgren, ‘Women’s adah versus “women’s law”: the contesting issue
of mahr in Aden, Yemen’, Égypte/Monde arabe, 2005 (No. 1), side note 4, http://
ema.revues.org/index1045.html.
7 John L. Esposito, Women in Muslim Family Law, Syracuse: Syracuse Univer-
sity Press, 2001, 2nd ed., p. 23; Mir-Hosseini, Marriage, p. 73; Annelies Moors,
Women, Property and Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995,
p. 147; Katherine Spencer, ‘Mahr as Contract: internal Pluralism and external
perspectives’, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 2011 (Vol. 1, No. 2), p. 3.
8 See Pascale Fournier, ‘In the (Canadian) Shadow of Islamic Law: Translating
Mahr as a Bargaining Endowment’, Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 2006, pp. 649-
677; Mir-Hosseini, Marriage, pp. 72-83.

9 Lisa Wynn, ‘Marriage Contracts and Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia: Mahr,
Shurut and Knowledge Distribution’ in: A. Quraishi and F.E. Vogel (eds.), The
Islamic Marriage Contract: Case Studies in Islamic Family Law, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2008, p. 206.
10 Mir-Hosseini, Marriage, p. 73; Moors, Women, p. 147.
11 Safā’ī and Emāmī, Hoqūq-e khānevāde, p. 166; Hossein Safa’i, ‘Le Mariage et
le Divorce en Droit Iranien’ in: Jürgen Basedow and Nadjma Yassari (eds.),
Iranian Family and Succession Laws and their Application in German Courts,
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004, p. 75. For a critical view, see Nadjma Yassari,
‘The Reform of the Spousal Share under Iranian Succession Law: an Example
of the Transformability of Islamic Law’, Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und
internationales Privatrecht, 2009 (Vol. 73), p. 999.
12 Asaf Fyzee, Outlines of Muhammadan Law, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1993, p. 133.
13 Yvon Linant de Bellefonds, Traité de droit musulman comparé, Vol. 2, Paris:
Mouton & Co, 1965, p. 25.
14 With a summary of the Maliki literature: Georges-Henri Bousquet, L’Éthique
sexuelle de l’Islam, Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 1966, p. 108; for Shi’i law, see
Hassan Emamy, L’institution juridique du mahr (dot) en droit musulman du
rite chiite, Lausanne: Imprimerie C. Risold, 1933, p. 13 ff; Seyyed Hasan Emāmī,
Hoqūq-e madanī [Civil Law], Vol. 4, Tehran: Ketābforūshī-ye eslāmiyye, 2005,
p. 442. Modern authors are not unanimous about this interpretation, see Jamal
J.A. Nasir, The Islamic Law of Personal Status, Leiden: Brill, 3rd ed. 2009, p. 83:
‘It [the dower] has not been enjoined as a consideration like a price or a wage’;
similarly Emāmī, Hoqūq-e madanī, p. 442, and Chafik Chehata, Droit musul-
man – Applications au Proche-Orient, Paris: Dalloz, 1970, pp. 80-81; but see also
Colin Imber, ‘Women, Marriage, and Property: Mahr in the Behcetü’l-Fetāvā of
Yenişehirli Abdullah’ in: M.C. Zilfi (ed.), Women in the Ottoman Empire – Mid-
dle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era, Leiden: Brill, 1997, p. 88: ‘By the
payment of mahr the husband acquires ownership of his wife’s sexual parts’.
15 See lg Cologne, decision of 27 October 1980, in: Max-Planck-Institut für aus-
ländisches und internationales Privatrecht (ed.), Die deutsche Rechtsprechung
auf dem Gebiete des Internationalen Privatrechts im Jahre 1980, Tübingen: J.C.B.
Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1982, case No. 83, pp. 248-249, and more recently, olg
Hamburg, decision of 21 May 2003, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht,
2004, pp. 459-461, basing its views mainly on a book by anthropologist Shahla
Haeri, Law of Desire – Temporary Marriage in Shi’i Iran, Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, 1989.
16 Emāmī, Hoqūq-e madanī, p. 459; Nāser Kātūziyān, Hoqūq-e madanī: khānevāde
[Civil Law: Family Law], Vol. 1, Tehran: Enteshārāt-e bahman bornā, 1999, side
note 84; Linant de Bellefonds, Traité, p. 24, with an overview of the sources of
the Sunni schools of law.
17 Hilmar Krüger, ‘Vermögensrechtliches Privatrecht und Shari’a am Beispiel
der Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate’, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswis-
senschaft, 1998 (Vol. 97), p. 366; Yvon Linant de Bellefonds, ‘L’autonomie de la
volonté en droit musulman’, Revue algérienne, tunisienne et marocaine de légis-

lation et de jurisprudence, 1958 (Vol. 74), p. 88; Chafik Chehata, ‘Le contrat en

droit musulman’, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, 1968 (Vol. 70),
p. 81; M. Abdel-Gawad, ‘L’ autonomie de la volonté en droit musulman’, L’Égypte
contemporaine, 1963 (No. 54), p. 105; M. E. Hamid, ‘Islamic Law of Contract or
Contracts?’ Journal of Islamic and Comparative Law, 1969 (Vol. 3), p. 1; for a
deferring opinion, see Hassan Amin, Remedies for Breach of Contract in Islamic
and Iranian Law, Glasgow: Royston, 1984, p. 11.
18 Susan Rayner, The Theory of Contracts in Islamic Law, London: Graham &
Trotman, 1991, pp. 87-88; ‘Abd El-Wahab Ahmed El-Hassan, ‘Freedom of Con-
tract, the Doctrine of Frustration, and Sanctity of Contracts in Sudan Law and
Islamic Law’, Arab Law Quarterly, 1985-1986 (Vol. 1, No. 1), p. 51; Noel J. Coul-
son, Commercial Law in the Gulf States – The Islamic Legal Tradition, London:
Graham & Trotman, 1984, p. 27; Nabil Saleh, Unlawful Gain and Legitimate
Profit in Islamic Law, London: Graham & Trotman, 2nd ed. 1992, p. 63. The
Ottoman Civil Code, the majallat alahkām al-cadlīya, which contains 1851 arti-
cles, dedicated over 300 articles to the contract of sale (Articles 101-403).
19 Cf. also Linant de Bellefonds, Traité, p. 200, who calls this hypothesis ‘fonda-
mentalement fausse’.
20 Bousquet, L’Éthique, p. 109.
21 Based on the Qur’an sura 2, verse 237, and reflected for example in Article 1092
of the Iranian Civil Code (cc).
22 Linant de Bellefonds, Traité, p. 226.
23 See also Article 1085 Iranian cc.
24 See on this issue in detail Mohammad Javād Maghnīye, Ahvāle shakhsīye – tar-
jome va tabyīn-e joz’-e dovom-e al-fiqh calā al-madhāhib al-khamsa [Personal
Status in the Five Islamic Schools of Law], trans. M. Jabbārī and H.M. Sarā’ī,
Tehran: Enteshārāt-e qaqnūs, 2000, pp. 77-78; Kātūziyān, Hoqūq-e madanī,
side note 95, see on this point also Nadjma Yassari, ‘Zwei Bemerkungen zur
islamischen Brautgabe’, Das Standesamt, 2009, p. 367.
25 See the hadith to this end in Abu ‘Abdullah Malik ibn Anas, Al-Muwatta of
Imam Malik ibn Anas: The First Formulation of Islamic Law, trans. A. A. Bewley,
London: Kegan Paul International, 1989, hadith No. 11, 28.3, pp. 210-211.
26 Mona Siddiqui, ‘Mahr: Legal Obligation or Rightful Demand?’ Journal of
Islamic Studies, 1995 (Vol. 6, No. 1), p. 17; Werner Diem, Ein arabisches Rechts-
gutachten zum Eherecht aus dem 11.-12. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz,
2007, p. 29, footnote 36; similarly Nawel Gafsia, L’invention coloniale du mariage
musulman – Le cas tunisien, Paris: L.G.D.J., 2008, p. 48.
27 Eighty percent of divorces in Iran are petitioned by women on the basis of khul῾,
Hasan Hamīdiyān, ‘Farāz va neshībhā-ye mehriye be nerkh-e rūz’ [The Dower
Adapted to the Daily Exchange Rate], in: Hasan Hamīdiyān (ed.), Majmūce-ye
maqālāt-e hoqūq-e khānevāde, Tehran: Hāmūn, 2008, p. 211.
28 Nāzanīn Shāhroknī, ‘Darbāre-ye tasvīb-e t-arh-e mohāsebe-ye mehriye be
nerkhh-e rūz’ [On the Calculation of the Dower], Zanān 1997-98 (No. 33), p. 64.
29 Official Gazette, 1997 (No. 15278); Executory Decree of Article 1082 Iranian cc,
Official Gazette, 1998 (No. 15497).
30 Decree No. 127/1999 of 24 July 1999, Official Gazette, 1999 (No. 3785), p. 462.

31 Lynn Welchman, Women and Muslim Family Laws in Arab States – A Compara-
tive Overview of Textual Development and Advocacy, Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2007, p. 91.
32 Law No. 21/1997, Official Gazette, 1997 (No. 312); see also Hilmar Krüger, ‘Das
Recht der Eheschließung in den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten’, Das Stan-
desamt, 1999, p. 67.
33 Official Gazette, 2005 (No. 439), pp. 119-478.
34 Federal Law on the Personal Status, Law No. 28/2005, Official Gazette, 2005
(No. 439), pp. 9-118; see Hilmar Krüger, ‘Grundzüge des Privatrechts der
Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate’ in: H.-G. Ebert and Th. Hanstein (eds.), Bei-
träge zum islamischen Recht, Vol. 6, Frankfurt on the Main: Lang, 2007, pp. 121-
134.
35 Official Gazette, 2005 (No. 439), pp. 179 et seq.
36 This view has also been acknowledged by German courts, see most recently
bgh, decision of 9 December 2009, Entscheidungen des Bundesgerichtshofes in
Zivilsachen, 2010 (Vol. 183), pp. 287-299.
37 The cases in the lower courts are much more numerous, for a concise account
of theses cases, see Christina Jones-Pauly, ‘Marriage contracts of Muslims in the
diaspora: Problems in the recognition of mahr contracts in German Law’ in: A.
Quraishi and F.E. Vogel (eds.), The Islamic Marriage Contract: Case Studies in
Islamic Family Law, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008, pp. 299-330.
38 bgh, decision of 28 January 1987, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht, 1987,
pp. 463-464.
39 District Court (hereinafter: ag) of Memmingen, decision of 12 December 1984,
Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts, 1985, pp. 230-231.
40 olg Munich, decision of 26 November 1985, in: Max-Planck-Institut für aus-
Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1987, case No. 67, pp. 177-183.
41 bgh, decision of 14 October 1998, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht,
1999, pp. 217-218.
42 ag Obernburg, decision of 30 August 1996, reference No. F 224/96 (unpub-
lished).
43 olg Bamberg, decision of 13 February 1997, reference No. 2 uf 257/96 (unpub-
lished).
44 bgh, decision of 9 December 2009, Entscheidungen des Bundesgerichtshofes in
Zivilsachen, 2010 (Vol. 183), pp. 287-299.
45 For a detailed analysis of this judgement, see Nadjma Yassari, ‘Die islamische
Brautgabe im deutschen Kollisions- und Sachrecht. Anmerkung zu bgh,
9.12.2009 – xii zr 107/08’, Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrens-
rechts, 2011, pp. 63-68.
46 ag Hamburg-Barmbek, decision of 16 November 2006, reference No. 891
F 21/06 (unpublished).
47 olg Hamburg, decision of 29 May 2008, reference No. 10 uf 83/06 (unpub-
lished).

48 For a criticism of this approach, see Yassari, ‘Zwei Bemerkungen’, 2009, pp. 370-
371.
49 See lg Cologne, decision of 27 October 1980, in Max-Planck-Institut für aus-
Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1982, case No. 83, p. 248-249. This judgement was over-
turned in appeal, olg Cologne, decision of 29 October 1981, Praxis des Interna-
tionalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts, 1983, pp. 73-74.
50 In Germany, civil marriage is obligatory (Article 1310 I German Civil Code
(bgb)).
51 Article 1585c bgb. Since 1 January 2008, the provisions of Article 1585c bgb
have been amended insofar as agreements on post-marital maintenance are
subject to formal requirements and must be certificated by a notary, see Article
1585c bgb new version of 21 December 2007, Federal Official Gazette i, p. 3189.
The validity of the mahr agreement would then depend on the fulfilment of this
formality.
52 This interpretation was chosen for example by the Court of First Instance
(hereinafter: kg) Berlin, decision of 12 November 1979, Zeitschrift für das
gesamte Familienrecht, 1980, pp. 470-471; ag Memmingen, decision of 11 Janu-
ary 1984, Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrechts, 1984, p. 219;
ag Memmingen, decision of 12 December 1984, Praxis des Internationalen Pri-
vat- und Verfahrensrechts, 1985, pp. 230-231; kg Berlin, decision of 11 September
1987, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht, 1988, p. 296; olg Frankfurt, deci-
sion of 26 May 1989, Streit, 1989, pp. 110-111; ag Kerpen, decision of 29 January
1999, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht, 1999, pp. 1429-1430; ag Aachen,
decision of 7 February 2000, in: Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und
internationales Privatrecht (ed.), Die deutsche Rechtsprechung auf dem Gebiete
des Internationalen Privatrechts im Jahre 2000, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul
Siebeck), 2002, case No. 67, pp. 140-142; ag Fürth, decision of 10 April 2002,
Familie, Partnerschaft, Recht, 2002, pp. 450-451; olg Saarbrücken, decision of
9 March 2005, Neue Juristische Wochenschrift – Rechtsprechungs-Report, 2005,
pp. 1306-1308; on this issue see also Wolfgang Wurmnest, ‘Die Brautgabe im
Bürgerlichen Recht’, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht, 2005, p. 1880.
53 Article 1579 bgb.
56 Wurmnest, ‘Die Brautgabe’, 2005, p. 1880.
57 olg Hamm, decision of 30 June 1981, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht,
1981, pp. 875-877.
58 Articles 1408, 1410, 1558 bgb.
59 There are generally no common goods. However, in order to secure the com-
mon household and the material existence of the family, a spouse can only dis-
pose of household objects and the whole of his or her assets with the consent of
the other (Articles 1365-1369 bgb). Most married couples live under the statu-
tory matrimonial property regime.

61 On matrimonial property law in Islamic countries, see Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-

Sahlieh, ‘Les régimes matrimoniaux en droit arabe et musulman’ in: A. Bonomi
and M. Steiner (eds.), Les régimes matrimoniaux en droit comparé et en droit
international privé, Genf: Droz, 2006, pp. 279-305.
62 This interpretation was chosen for example by olg Bremen, decision of
9 August 1979, Zeitschrift für das gesamte Familienrecht, 1980, pp. 606-607; olg
Cologne, decision of 29 October 1981, Praxis des Internationalen Privat- und
Verfahrensrechts, 1983, pp. 73-74; olg Munich, decision of 26 November 1985,
in: Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht (ed.),
Die deutsche Rechtsprechung auf dem Gebiete des Internationalen Privatrechts
im Jahre 1985, Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1987, case No. 67, pp. 177-
183.
63 In this sense also olg Stuttgart, decision of 29 January 2008, Zeitschrift für das
gesamte Familienrecht, 2008, pp. 1756-1758.
64 For a detailed analysis of this issue, see Yassari, ‘Die islamische Brautgabe’,
2009, p. 67.
65 On freedom of contract in German family law, see Sibylle Hofer, Dieter Schwab,
and Dieter Henrich (eds.), From Status to Contract? Die Bedeutung des Ver-
trages im europäischen Familienrecht, Bielefeld: Gieseking, 2005; Meo-Micaela
Hahne, ‘Vertragsfreiheit im Familienrecht’ in: Dieter Schwab and Meo-Micaela
Hahne (eds.), Familienrecht im Brennpunkt, Bielefeld: Gieseking, 2004, pp. 181-
202.
66 On the dangers of multiculturalism for women, see Susan Moller Okin, ‘Is Mul-
ticulturalism bad for women?’ in: Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard, and Mar-
tha C. Nussbaum (eds.), Is Multiculturalism bad for women/Susan Moller Okin
with Respondents, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp. 8-24, who
argues that the multiculturalist accommodation and the consideration of cul-
tural elements from minority groups can be disadvantageous for the individual.
67 In a case in the early 1980s, the Court of First Instance held that an agreement
on a mahr was not enforceable under German law, as its function of safeguard-
ing the wife financially was perfectly fulfilled by the instruments of German
family law, lg Cologne, decision of 27 October 1980, in: Max-Planck-Institut
für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht (ed.), Die deutsche Rechtspre-
chung auf dem Gebiete des Internationalen Privatrechts im Jahre 1980, Tübingen:
J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1982, case No. 83, pp. 248-249.

10 A Language of Hybridity
Honour and Otherness in Canadian Law and Shari῾a
Pascale Fournier 1 and Nathan Reyes
Introduction
In Canada, as throughout most of the geopolitical West, honour crimes

have recently been the object of growing hostility. The federal govern-
ment sparked controversy when it indicated in a pamphlet given to
immigrants upon application for citizenship, that ‘Canada’s openness
and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate
spousal abuse, “honour killings,” female genital mutilation, forced mar-
riage or other gender-based violence’ (emphasis ours – pf and nr).2
Similarly, a recent public policy report underlined that honour crimes
are ‘proliferating without regards to Canada’s Criminal Code or Cana-
dians’ deep cultural revulsion from the very concept’ (emphasis mine
– pf).3 In many ways, this projection of a ‘civilized’ Canada simultane-
ously reifies the notion of shari῾a as inherently contrary, even antitheti-
cal, to Canadian law. It also contributes to a dichotic, binary vision of
law, culture and identity, through which West/East, secular/religious,
or public/private are never mutually constitutive.
Perhaps due to this (mis)perception of law, the ancient notion of
honour in law has sparked a perplexing resurgence in public debate in
Canada and in the West generally, fuelled by an international campaign
for women’s rights,4 but also by the other great legal issue of the last
decade: the widespread discussions on the limits of multiculturalism.
Yet honour is no foreign notion to Western law, including Canadian
law. Despite such vehement discourse around the otherness of honour
crimes in seeming opposition to Canadian law, an examination of the
latter reveals the existence of a defence of provocation, or ‘passion,’ that
mirrors the very nature of honour crimes. However this defence – the
roots of which may be found in the defence of honour of the French
and British Penal Codes of the nineteenth century – is never confronted
with the same apprehension, vehemence and perceived otherness as is
the notion of honour crimes.

In this chapter, we outline how socio-legal ‘hybridity’5 manifests

itself in the notion of honour in law. By outlining the complex trans-
plantation processes of Western notions of honour crimes onto Islamic
legal norms, our aim is to provide a descriptive basis for normative dis-
cussions on cultural diversity. In addition to challenging the perceived
otherness of various aspects of shari῾a (versus the familiarity of Cana-
dian law), the chapter attempts to illustrate the incoherence of the rig-
idly dichotic view of law and culture, all of which interact with, trans-
plant into and impact one another. This chapter approaches the hybrid-
ity of both the East and the West and stresses that negating the similar-
ity between Western and Eastern legal institutions has the potential to
considerably impair our understanding of cultural and legal diversity.
Law, a Language of Hybridity?
Multiculturalism6 has guided Canadian policy throughout recent his-

tory so as to account for the hybridity of identity, born of the intersec-
tion and interaction of innumerable cultures in a country founded on
immigration. Despite this reality, however, Canadian law is largely por-
trayed as minimally impacted by ‘other’ legal regimes;7 this portrayal
is exemplified by, amongst other things, an editorial that appeared in
the National Post in 2011, reporting that there have been twelve known
honour killings in Canada since 2002 and calling for community ac-
tion against minority ‘brutal traditions,’ stressing that honour killings
are ‘anathema to Western culture.’8 If Canadian law is depicted as West-
ern, secular, familiar, it can do so by conveniently positing itself on one
side of a binary, implicitly asserting that it is not Eastern, not religious,
not like other legal systems. Such implicit assertions often become, with
time and repetition, the unstated norms9 of the Canadian justice sys-
tem.
Allowing the focus of this chapter to shift back to that of a critically
comparative examination of legal regimes, it becomes apparent that
without turning the ‘ethnocentric gaze’10 back upon itself so as to per-
ceive the unstated norms at the heart of Canadian law, ‘other’ law – in
this case shari῾a – cannot in turn be properly perceived. The self must
recognize that, within itself, there is the other; only then can it recog-
nize that in the other, so there is some self. Law is inherently hybrid,
and Canadian law is no exception. It is hoped that the following exam-
ination of honour in both Canadian and Jordanian law may help to
illustrate that ‘the colonial binaries – of us/them, here/there, West/non-
West, colonizer/colonized – have long been mutually constituting.’11

a language of hybridity 191
Familiar Facts from West to East
In this section, an applied examination of the notion of honour is un-

dertaken in two apparently disparate legal regimes: Canadian law (sec-
ular law)12 and Jordanian law (shari῾a).13 Ultimately, the purpose of this
examination is to exemplify the hybridity of law, and the incoherence
of a binary vision of law, according to which the East and West are ir-
reconcilably separated, to the point of being defined in opposition to
one another. We argue that only by looking inwards to recognize the
otherness in Canadian law14 can one learn to see past the otherness of
the other.
The Other Within: (Dis)Honour in Canadian Law
Turning the gaze back upon itself, the legitimacy of the perceived oth-
erness of shari῾a (and familiarity of Canadian law) must first be ex-
plored within a Canadian legal and socio-political context. After trac-
ing the genesis of honour in medieval British law, this study exposes
some of the Canadian legal system’s concrete implications for honour,
in the guise of passion and provocation, as a discursive practice. We will
argue that this defence can be seen to amount, in some applications, to
a form of Western ‘honour’-tainted defence, and that it constitutes a
worrying source of legitimization of gender violence.
The defence of provocation is a British legal institution which can
be traced back at least to the seventeenth century,15 and whose pre-
modern articulation was grounded in honour-permeated value codes.
This defence was invoked when the accused, having been a witness to
his wife’s adultery, killed his paramour. Chief Lord Justice Holt worded
the rationale behind the defence in 1707 thus: ‘jealousy is the rage of
a man, and adultery is the highest invasion of property.’16 As put by
British criminal law scholar G.R. Sullivan, early provocation defence
amounted to a ‘hot-blooded yet controlled vindication of one’s honour
rather than spontaneous, uncontrolled fury.’17 The very foundations of
this legal institution seem tainted with notions of male honour upheld
by violence.
Contemporary forms of the defence of provocation in Canada have
been presented as possessing a wholly different normative foundation.
This defence was defined by the Supreme Court of Canada as com-
passion towards ‘human frailties which sometimes lead people to act
irrationally and impulsively.’18 The defence’s modern raison d’être is thus
said to have completely shifted from upholding a male-centric West-
ern honour code to accounting for the universal human weakness of

momentary ‘irrationality.’19 This is still defended by many scholars in

the common law world as a valid justification for the maintenance of
the partial defence today.20 In keeping with this universal, individual-
istic rationale, Canada’s Criminal Code outlines that murder may be
reduced to manslaughter ‘if the person who committed it did so in
the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation.’21 The Code further
establishes that ‘[a] wrongful act or an insult that is of such a nature
as to be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-
control is provocation for the purposes of this section if the accused
acted on it on the sudden and before there was time for his passion to
cool.’22
In Canada, a collective framework of honour such as that found in
many countries of the East is hard to fathom, as the sociological organi-
zation of gender violence within the family seems to forbid it. For the
period between 1978 and 1998 in Canada, 66 per cent of family femi-
cides23 were perpetrated by the woman’s partner, while only 26 per cent
were perpetrated by parents, siblings and other relatives.24 That being
said, Baker, Gregware and Cassidy note that ‘in the English-speaking
West, including the United States, the locus of honour has shifted from
the traditional extended family to the individual man.’25
This evidence of Canadian ‘honour’ seems to belie the claim that
‘honour values are exclusive and particularist and stand in sharp con-
trast to the universal and inclusive values of the West.’26 The otherness
of honour crimes and shari῾a may not be so foreign to Canadian values
and legal practices as one would imagine; the private forms that hon-
our takes and the West’s cultural violence that is sometimes unleashed
under the guise of universalistic passion must not be overlooked. It,
too, is concerned with some form of honour, however unseen and
pushed to the ‘private’ sphere. Intimate passion crimes – that is, crimes
committed in the intimacy of one’s private life – are thus a particu-
larly important locus of public policy and gender equality concerns.
After all, the often-denounced subjectivization of the defence in cases
like Supreme Court of Canada in R v Thibert27 arguably offers women
no more protection than the honour codes of the British medieval
provocation defence, as argued by Abu-Odeh.28 Furthermore, Western
‘crimes of passion’ may sometimes be more dangerous than the tradi-
tional Oriental honour crime, as they draw legitimacy from unstated
private honour codes.29 If it is true that honour and passion are two
different realities, it is only by acknowledging the West’s own cultural
demons that we will be able to begin to understand the ways in which
both passion and honour have been mixed and articulated in myriad
ways across the East/West divide.

Familiarity of the Other: perspectives from Jordan
Jordan, ‘the country most intensely under the international spotlight

when issues of “honour” are discussed,’30 is a most relevant case study,
seeing as it has, according to some accounts, the highest honour crime
rate per capita in the world.31 Furthermore, it underlines the partly
Western origins of honour crimes, despite the latter being recently
attacked as ‘antithetical to fundamental Canadian values’ by Ontario
Court of Appeal Justice Doherty.32 Article 340 of the Jordanian Penal
Code reads:
1. He who surprises his wife or one of his [female] marhams (‘unlaw-

fuls’) in the act of committing unlawful sexual intercourse with some-
body and kills, wounds or injures one or both of them, shall benefit
from the exonerating/exempting excuse (‘udhr muhill);
2. He who surprises his wife or one of his ascendants or descendants

or siblings with another in an unlawful bed, and kills or wounds or
injures one or both of them, shall benefit from the mitigating excuse
(‘udhr mukhaffat).33
There is scholarly consensus that this legislation was directly inspired

by the French Penal Code of 1810.34 As put by Janin and Kahlmeyer, this
provision ‘springs from French, i.e., Napoleonic, penal law, not from
shari῾a itself.’35 Article 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code received the
influence of French Napoleonic law through various channels, notably
through the regional influence of French Lebanese and Syrian penal
codes’ honour crime excuses, from which article 340 ‘derived most
of its language.’36 As a result, the similarities between French honour
crimes law and the Jordanian provision were glaring. Article 324 of the
French Penal Code of 1810 reads:
Whoever catches his spouse, female ascendant, descendant or his sis-

ter red-handed in the act of adultery or in an illegitimate sexual en-
counter with another person and commits homicide or causes injury
can benefit from an excuse of exemption. The author of the homicide
or injury can benefit from an excuse of reduction if he catches red-
handed his spouse, female ascendant, descendant, or his sister in an
‘attitude equivoque.’37
This direct transfer of one legal institution from the West to the East
can be analysed as a form of ‘legal transplant’ which has contributed to

the ‘globalizations of law and legal thought’ described by Duncan Ken-

nedy.38 Jordanian law also contains elements of ‘crimes of passion,’ such
as article 98 of the Jordanian Penal Code, which excuses murders com-
mitted in a ‘fit of fury.’39 This provision is said to have been ‘much more
useful’40 to the accused than article 340, though it has attracted less
media attention than the latter provision. Jordanian courts ‘frequently
apply article 98 of the Penal Code to honour killings,’41 effectively treat-
ing them as a form of ‘crime of passion.’ Thus, Jordan appears to have
crafted its ‘appalling’ honour crimes legislation at the confluence of
Western and Oriental traditions.
Fear and Marginalization of the ‘Other’ in Canadian Society
In this section, we attempt to illustrate how the combined unawareness

of unstated norms within Canadian law and overstated otherness of
shari῾a have given rise to differential treatment in Canadian courts
based on the otherness of the accused, seen as foreign to Canadian val-
ues and law. It is important to note that this section in no way condones
gender inequality and gendered violence, too often justified by a de-
fence of ‘honour,’ ‘passion’ or provocation. However, without consider-
ing the very unstated norms at the heart of Canadian law that inflate
the perceived otherness of shari῾a, the discrimination caused by such a
dichotic vision of law and culture will continue, and the internal flaws
of Canadian law will remain occulted.
A study undertaken by Pascale Fournier, Pascal McDougal and Anna
Dekker42 collected and analysed a series of Canadian cases, between
1990 and 2010, of intimate femicide where the male accused (the vic-
tim’s husband,43 brother or father) raised the provocation defence.44
Fifty-six cases were classified according to the ethnicity of the accused
and the success or failure of the defence claim,45 so as to examine the
sensitivity of Canadian courts to the legal hybridity heretofore discussed
in this chapter.46 Disconcertingly, this study revealed that the success
rate is differentiated and significantly higher for an accused identifiable
as ‘Western’ (25 per cent); indeed, it is nearly twice as high as that of
‘other’(sic!) accused (11 per cent). This study thus concurs with Côté,
Sheehy and Majury that there seems to be among Canadian courts ‘a
pattern of withholding “compassion” for a certain category of accused.’47
A differential treatment such as that seen above surely impacts Mus-
lim Canadians not only in the administration of justice in Canada, but
also throughout society. Katherine Bullock and Gul Joya Jafri point at
the potentially insidious influence of unstated norms upon society –

particularly as these norms are ignored by the very individuals and

institutions that perpetuate them – observing that ‘non-Muslim Cana-
dians are often not conscious of the general media bias against Islam and
Muslims, often having, in fact, their opinions of Muslim women shaped
by the negative stereotypes [...].’48 The overstated otherness attributed
to Islam, and specifically the notion of honour as it is perceived within
Islam, can be seen to be a symptom of a broader, subtle denigration of
Muslim identity within Canadian society, in turn furthering differential
treatment within and beyond the administration of justice.49
One of the cases analysed in the above study, R v Humaid,50 offers
interesting insight into the possible explanations for this differential
treatment. Adi Humaid, an Emirati, killed his wife Aysar Abbas by stab-
bing her ‘at least 19 times’ after she had made a comment which he inter-
preted as meaning that she had committed adultery. Humaid assigned
Dr Ayoub, an ‘an expert on the Islamic religion and culture,’51 to sup-
port his provocation claim. Dr Ayoub ‘testified that the Islamic culture
was male dominated and placed great significance on the concept of
family honour’52 and that this contributed to provoking Mr Humaid’s
violent outburst. The Court of Appeal found that there was no air of
reality to the defence and maintained the verdict of murder, refusing to
grant consideration to the appellants’ ‘beliefs’ to reduce the verdict to
manslaughter. As put by Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Doherty: ‘The
difficult problem, as I see it, is that the alleged beliefs which give the
insult added gravity are premised on the notion that women are infe-
rior to men and that violence against women is in some circumstances
accepted, if not encouraged. These beliefs are antithetical to fundamen-
tal Canadian values, including gender equality.’53
The Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision to unequivocally condemn
gendered violence is commendable; however, the way in which the
message is conveyed, and particularly the reasoning behind this judge-
ment, contrasts discerningly with cases such as Thibert and Stone.54 Isa-
bel Grant, law professor at the University of British Colombia, makes a
similar argument:
The Court of Appeal in Humaid is recognizing the importance of gen-

der equality in attributing qualities and characteristics to the ordinary
person. One would be hard pressed to argue that the kind of stereo-
typical misogyny, depicted in Humaid’s evidence as ordinary in his
culture, should be incorporated into an objective test in order to ex-
cuse spousal murder. What is not mentioned, however, is how courts
assume the ordinariness of the values demonstrated in cases like Thi-
bert and Stone.55

The unstated norm – that is, the ‘ordinary person’ so ambiguously

referred to above – would therefore appear to be grounded in cultural
notions of male dominion. Ironically, this same notion is what led the
Ontario Court of Appeal to so vehemently dismiss Humaid’s defence
plea, denouncing such a notion as ‘antithetical to fundamental Cana-
dian values.’56 Indeed, the objective ‘ordinary person’ component of the
defence is nothing but an ‘anthropomorphic expression of the standard
of conduct that our society expects of its members.’57 This ‘ordinary per-
son,’ the determination of which is inherently subjective, underscores
the courts’ role as ‘cultural apparatus[es],’58 for the definition and deter-
mination of such a person presents courts with the imperative of giving
substance to their legal conception of ‘ordinary.’
This is not to say that it is unfair to ‘punish a member of a minor-
ity culture under laws or norms reflecting those of the majority cul-
ture.’59 Such a defence in the context of honour/passion-related violence
would not only endorse essentialist views on the barbarism supposedly
inherent to ‘other’ cultures,60 it would equally condone acts of gendered
violence. Rather, the argument made here is that courts should treat
femicides committed by Westerners with the same scrutiny as those
committed by foreigners of ‘Oriental’ origin (the imperfect category
of ‘Other(ed)’ in our study) generally; this is why we very consciously
abstain from entering into the debate on the consideration of a defend-
ant’s culture in the case of a provocation defence as part of the objective
standard test.61
It remains necessary, however, to distinguish between condoning
gendered violence and denigrating or alienating a culture as a whole.
In the context of an inclusive and diverse Canada, respect and dialogue
between disparate groups are fundamental principles. Yet to condemn
the ‘other’(ed) as antithetical to Canadian values is to effectively ostra-
cize and silence this group, undermining the very values such a con-
demnation would seek to protect.62
Conclusion
In this chapter, we have attempted to illustrate that ‘culture’ and ‘hon-

our’ are not monolithic notions but rather historical hybrid constructs.
Recent debates on legal transplantation have focused on whether the
process leads to ‘a convergence of social orders and uniformisation of
law’63 or, inversely, to a ‘double-fragmentation of world-society … and a
multiplicity of global cultures.’64 In fact, law is becoming more homoge-
nous as well as more fragmented as a result of legal transplantation.65 A

form of exchange between legal regimes has led to the return of Western
transplants, now ‘other’(ed) in a sense, ready to intertwine themselves
subtly yet profoundly into Western societies. With this in view, Leti
Volpp’s assertion that ‘monoculturalism of transcendent values with a
“we” or “us” at an unwavering center of rationality [is] historically inac-
curate, relying upon distortions and marginalizations for its narrative
coherence’66 proves very relevant; this very misperception would none-
theless seem to lie at the heart of Canadian courts’ reasoning relative
to the notion of honour. Recently, in R. v. Tran, the Supreme Court of
Canada indicated that the defence of provocation must be informed by
‘contemporary norms of behaviour, including fundamental values such
as the commitment to equality provided for in the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms.’67 The Court unanimously established a newfound
stringency for the objective part of the provocation test:
[The] criminal law is concerned with setting standards of human be-

haviour. … It follows that the ordinary person standard must be in-
formed by contemporary norms of behaviour, including fundamental
values such as the commitment to equality provided for in the Cana-
dian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. ... [T]here can be no place in this
objective standard for antiquated beliefs such as ‘adultery is the high-
est invasion of property’ nor indeed for any form of killing based on
such inappropriate conceptualizations of ‘honour.’68
This development does not indicate a bright future for the provocation
defence. Hopefully, this judgement echoes the paradigmatic shift of
incorporating equality in the law of criminal responsibility advocated
by scholars such as Rosemary Cairns Way. On a deeper level, perhaps it
can also help us come to terms with the dark sides of ‘Western culture.’
Without perceiving the subtle yet inherent historical intertwining of
honour and provocation, it is hard to imagine how those (mis)percep-
tions that result in differential treatment may be overcome. Less diffi-
cult to imagine is the normative impact that such differential treatment
has on Canadian society as a whole. Whether such discrimination in
the administration of justice is symptomatic of a more deeply rooted
fear of the Other, or a catalyst of this, it likely remains indicative of a
troubling ostracism of minority citizens in Canadian society, includ-
ing Muslims. Let us hope that the trend towards equality reinforced by
the Tran ruling allows Canadian courts to better ‘turn the gaze back
on itself ’ and to grasp the far-reaching implications that globalization,
colonialism, and socio-legal métissage may have for the Western Self
and its many ‘Others.’

Notes
1 We thank Pascal McDougall and Anna Dekker: our co-authored article, ‘Dis-
honour, Provocation and Culture: Through the Beholder’s Eye?’, Canadian
Criminal Law Review, 2012 (Vol. 16) was a great inspiration for this chapter.
2 Study Guide – Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizen-
ship, available online at http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/ publications/
discover/section-04.asp. See also: Bryn Weese, ‘Honour killings term angers
Trudeau’, The Toronto Sun, 14 March 2011.
3 Aruna Papp, ‘Culturally Driven Violence Against Women: A Growing Problem
in Canada’s Immigrant Communities’, Frontier Centre for Public Policy, 2010,
p. 10 [emphasis added].
4 Yolanda Asamoah-Wade, ‘Women’s Human Rights and “Honor Killings” in
Islamic Cultures’, Buffalo Women’s Law Journal, 1999-2000 (Vol. 8, No. 21).
5 Used in this context to describe the transplantation of legal institutions into one
another, thus shaping new hybrid legal and social mores. See: Homi K. Bhabha,
The Location of Culture (London/New York: Routledge, 1994) for an analysis of
the concept.
6 See: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, art. 27.
7 See: Pascale Fournier, Aida Setrakian and Pascal McDougall, ‘No-Fault Talaq:
Islamic Divorce in Canadian Immigration and Family Law’, in: Rubya Mehdi
& Jørgen S. Nielsen (eds.), Anthology on Gender Equality and Muslim Law of
Divorce, Copenhagen: djøf Publishing, 2012.
8 Barbara Kay, ‘Communities Must Speak Out Against Brutal Traditions’,
National Post, 26 January 2011. This echoes the dominant media coverage of
European Muslim minorities and ‘honour’ violence: see: Anna Korteweg &
Gökçe Yurdakul, ‘Islam, Gender, and Immigrant Integration: Boundary Draw-
ing in Discourses on Honour Killing in the Netherlands and Germany’, Ethnic
and Racial Studies, 2009 (Vol. 32, No. 2), p. 218.
9 Brenda Cossman elaborates on the importance of unstated norms as she writes
that ‘the geopolitical location of the author becomes the unstated norm against
which the exotic “other” is viewed. It is a project that is perhaps inherently
ethnocentric – there is no way to escape or transcend the ethnocentric gaze.’
Brenda Cossman, ‘Turning the Gaze Back on Itself: Comparative Law, Feminist
Legal Studies, and the Postcolonial’, Utah Law Review, 1997 (Vol. 2), p. 525.
10 Cossman, ‘Turning the Gaze Back on Itself ’, 1997, p. 526.
11 Cossman, ‘Turning the Gaze Back on Itself ’, 1997, p. 526.
12 Despite often being defined in stark contrast to any form of religious law,
Canadian ‘secular’ law has not only been greatly influenced by religion in
the past – more predominantly Christianity – it furthermore continues to be
impacted and in some ways shaped by current-day practices of various reli-
gious legal regimes. See: Fournier, Setrakian & McDougall, ‘No-Fault Talaq,’
2012.
13 It is important to note that this chapter refers specifically to Jordanian family
law when speaking of the shari῾a legal regime in Jordan, as not the entire Jor-
danian legal regime is Islamic.

14 This is to say, the transplantation of elements of foreign or ‘other’ legal regimes

in present-day Canadian law. The term ‘legal transplant’ was first proposed by
Alan Watson in the 1970s to describe what he saw as the migration of legal rules
or practices ‘from one country to another, or from one people to another.’ Alan
Watson, Legal Transplants, 2nd ed, Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 1993,
p. 21.
15 United Kingdom Law Commission, Partial Defences to Murder, Consultation
Paper No. 173, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 2003, p. 6.
16 Regina v. Mawgridge (1708), Sir John Kelyng’s Reports of Crown Cases, No. 119,
pp. 1107ff at p. 1115, available online at http://www.commonlii.org/uk/cases/
EngR/1708/24.pdf.
17 G.R. Sullivan, ‘Anger and Excuse: Reassessing Provocation’ Oxford Journal of
Legal Studies, 1993 (Vol. 13), p. 422; see also: Bernard J. Brown, ‘The Demise of
Chance Medley and the Recognition of Provocation as a Defence to Murder in
English Law’, American J of Legal History, 1963 (Vol. 7, No. 4), p. 312.
18 R v Thibert, Supreme Court of Canada (scr), 1996, paragraph 4.
19 Joshua Dressler, ‘Rethinking Heat of Passion: A Defence in Search of a Ration-
ale’ Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology (Vol. 73, No. 2), 1982, p. 459; see
also: Graeme Coss, ‘“God is a righteous judge, strong and patient: and God is
provoked every day.” A Brief History of the Doctrine of Provocation in Eng-
land’, Sydney Law Review, 1991 (Vol. 13, No. 4), p. 604.
20 Wayne N. Renke, ‘Calm Like a Bomb: An assessment of the Partial Defence of
Provocation’, Alberta Law Review, 2010 (Vol. 47, No. 3), p. 729; see also: Jeremy
Horder, ‘Reshaping the Subjective Element in the Provocation Defence’, Oxford
Journal Legal Studies, 2005 (Vol. 25, No. 1) p. 126-127; Richard Holton & Ste-
phen Shute, ‘Self-Control in the Modern Provocation Defence’, Oxford Journal
of Legal Studies, 2007 (Vol. 27, No. 1), p. 49.
21 Canadian Criminal Code, 1985, s. 232(1).
22 Canadian Criminal Code, 1985, s. 232(2).
23 This chapter uses the term ‘femicide’ to broadly refer to the ‘killing of women,
regardless of motive or perpetrator status’ (Jacquelyn Campbell & Carol W.
Runyan, ‘Femicide: Guest Editors’ Introduction’, Homicide Studies, 1998 (Vol. 2,
No. 4), p. 348.) Though many feminist scholars have linked this term to a spe-
cific discriminatory intent, the killing of a woman because she is a woman, we
propose to suspend this otherwise important discussion to examine the contin-
uum of gendered homicides and the variety of cultural motives it can accom-
modate.
24 Daisy Locke & Valerie Pottie Bunge (eds.), Family Violence in Canada: A Sta-
tistical Profile, a publication by Canadian Center for Justice Statistics, Ottawa:
Minister of Industry, 2000, p. 39, available online at http://www.statcan.gc.ca/
pub/85-224-x/85-224-x2000000-eng.pdf.
25 N.V. Baker, P.R. Gregware & M.A. Cassidy, ‘Family Killing Fields: Honour
Rationales in the Murder of Women’, Violence Against Women, 1999 (Vol. 5,
No. 2), p. 166. See also: Sharon K. Araji, Crimes of Honor and Shame: Violence
against Women in Non-Western and Western Societies, Anchorage: University of
Alaska Press, 2000.

26 Halvor Moxnes (ed.), ‘Honor and Shame’, in: Richard Rohrbaugh, The Social
Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers,
1996, p. 28.
27 See: Rajvinder Sahni, ‘Crossing the Line: R. v. Thibert and the Defence of Prov-
ocation’, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review, 1997 (Vol. 55, No. 1), p. 143.
28 Abu-Odeh, ‘Honor Killings and the Construction of Gender in Arab Societies’
American Journal of Comparative Law, 2010 (Vol. 58).
29 See: footnote 14.
30 Reem Abu-Hassan & Lynn Welchman, ‘Changing the rules? Developments
on “crimes of honour” in Jordan’, in: Sara Hossain & Lynn Welchman (eds.),
‘Honour’: Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women, London: Zed Books,
2005, p. 199.
31 Kathryn Christine Arnold, ‘Are the Perpetrators of Honor Killings Getting
Away with Murder? Article 340 of the Jordanian Penal Code Analyzed under
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women’, American University International Law Review, 2001 (Vol. 16, No. 5),
p. 1347.
32 R. v. Hamid, Ontario Court of Appeal (oj No 1507/2006), 2006, paragraph 456.
33 Cited and translated in Abu-Hassan & Welchman, ‘Changing the rules?’, 2005,
p. 201.
34 Abu-Odeh, ‘Honor Killings and the Construction of Gender in Arab Societies’,
2010, p. 914; see also: Fadia Faqir, ‘Intrafamily Femicide in Defence of Hon-
our: The Case of Jordan’, Third World Quarterly, 2001 (Vol. 22, No. 1), p. 73;
Anahid Devartanian Kulwicki, ‘The Practice of Honor Crimes: A Glimpse of
Domestic Violence in the Arab World’, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 2002
(Vol. 23, No. 1), p. 83. The Lebanese honour crimes provision also comes from
the French Penal Code; see: Women Living Under Muslim Laws, Knowing Our
Rights: Women, Family, Laws and Customs in the Muslim World, Nottingham,
uk: The Russell Press, 2006, p. 17.
35 Hunt Janin & André Khalmeyer, Sharia: The Sharia from Muhammad’s Time to
Present, Jefferson, nc: McFarland, 2007, p. 146.
36 Ferris K. Nesheiwat, ‘Honor Crimes in Jordan: Their Treatment under Islamic
and Jordanian Criminal Laws’, Penn State International Law Review, 2004
(Vol. 23, No. 2), p. 274.
37 Émile Garçon, Code pénal annoté, Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1951, p. 151;
cited and translated in Abu-Odeh, ‘Honor Killings and the Construction of
Gender in Arab Societies’, 2010, p. 914. It should be noted that this provision
of the French Penal Code was repealed only in 1975; see: Danielle Hoyek, Rafif
Rida Sidawi & Amira Abou Mrad, ‘Murders of women in Lebanon: “crimes of
honour” between reality and the law’, in: Hossain & Welchman (eds.), ‘Honour’:
Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women, 2005, p. 115.
38 Duncan Kennedy, ‘Two Globalizations of Law and Legal Thought: 1850-1869’,
Suffolk University Law Review, 2003 (Vol. 36, No. 3), p. 631.
39 Rana Lehr-Lehnardt, ‘Treat your Women Well: Comparisons and Lessons from
an Imperfect Example Across the Waters’, Southern Illinois University Law Jour-
nal, 2002 (Vol. 26), p. 420.

40 Catherine Warrick, ‘The Vanishing Victim: Criminal Law and Gender in Jor-
dan’, Law & Society Review, 2005 (Vol. 39, No. 2), p. 337. See also: Lehr-Lehnardt,
p. 420.
41 Christina Madek, ‘Killing Dishonor: Effective Eradication of Honor Killing’,
Suffolk Transnational Law Review, 2005 (Vol. 29, No. 1), p. 62.
42 See: Fournier, McDougall & Dekker, ‘Dishonour, Provocation and Culture’,
2012, p. 183.
43 A large definition of ‘spouse’ was adopted, including men who killed not only
their wives but also their common law partners and even their girlfriends. The
many cases in which an angry/dishonoured man kills his paramour, or any
other man for that matter, were not included. However, this was neither due to
lack of interest nor of relevance to the ideas of honour and passion. As men-
tioned above, the phenomenon of men killing other men over the body of a
woman was at the core of Canadian provocation law, most notably in the semi-
nal Thibert case. A study that incorporates these killings, while falling outside
the ambit of this chapter, is necessary.
44 Reference to these cases is included in Appendix A to Fournier, McDougall
& Dekker, ‘Dishonour, Provocation and Culture’, 2012. Cases were researched
using Quicklaw, Westlaw Canada and CanL ii databases.
45 Cases where the accused raised not the provocation defence but only the anger
defence were not included. The latter was accepted by courts to negate the crim-
inal intent for murder until the Supreme Court rejected it in 2001’s R v Parent,
1 scr 761. See: Gary T. Trotter, ‘Anger, Provocation, and the Intent for Murder:
A Comment on R. v. Parent’, McGill Law Journal, 2002 (Vol. 47), p. 669.
46 See Christina Madek, ‘Killing Dishonor’, 2005.
47 Andrée Côté, Elizabeth Sheehy & Diana Majury, Stop Excusing Violence Against
Women, p. 16, available online at: National Association of Women and the Law,
http://www.nawl.ca/ns/en/documents/Pub_Report_Provoc00_en.pdf.
48 Katherine H. Bullock and Gul Joya Jafri, ‘Media (Mis)Representations: Mus-
lim Women in the Canadian Nation’, Canadian Woman Studies, 2000 (Vol. 20,
No. 2), p. 38.
49 Shahrzad Mojab observes this denigration of Muslim / Arab identity, illustrated
through the ascription of characteristics such as patriarchal male honour to
racial groups, thus becoming racism. Mojab, a professor at the University of
Toronto who acted as expert witness at the Shafia ‘honour killing’ trial in Can-
ada, notably wrote that ‘[t]he court case is about Canadians of Afghan – not
Arab – origin and I find mass media resort to Arabs and Islam as more than
an oversight or error of judgment. Is it by accident that most media coverage
“racialized” a crime allegedly perpetrated by Canadian citizens and has given it
a distinct Islamic and Arab character?’ See: Shahrzad Mojab, ‘The mass media
in Canada have rushed to ascribe the “honour” killing phenomenon to Arabs
and Muslims rather than recognize it as a product of patriarchy’, The Mark, 19
December 2011, available online at The Mark News, http://www.themarknews.
com/articles/7884-honour-killings-and-the-myth-of-arabness.
50 R. v. Hamid, Ontario Court of Appeal (oj No 1507/2006), 2006, paragraph 456.
51 R. v. Hamid, 2006, paragraph 67.


54 The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed in R. v. Stone that provocation
may be used as a sentencing mitigating factor in addition to having served to
reduce the verdict. See 1999 Carswellbc 1064, 1999 Carswellbc 1065, R. v. Stone,
scr, 1999, paragraph 237.
55 Isabel Grant, ‘Intimate Femicide: A Study of Sentencing Trends for Men who
Kill their Intimate Partners’, Alberta Law Review, 2010 (Vol. 47, No. 3), p. 813.
56 Locke & Bunge, Family Violence in Canada, 2000, p. 39.
57 Timothy Macklem, ‘Provocation and the Ordinary Person’, Dalhousie Law Jour-
nal, 1987 (11), p. 135.
58 John L. Caughey, ‘The Anthropologist as Expert Witness: The Case of a Murder
in Maine’, in: Marie Claire Foblets & Alison Dundes Renteln (eds.), Multicul-
tural Jurisprudence: Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural Defence, Oxford:
Hart Publishing, 2009, p. 323.
59 Kumaralingam Amirthalingam, ‘Culture, Crime and Culpability: Perspectives
on the Defence of Provocation’, in Marie Claire Foblets & Alison Dundes Rent-
eln (eds.), Multicultural Jurisprudence: Comparative Perspectives on the Cultural
Defence, 2009, p. 36.
60 For a still accurate if perhaps slightly dated argument on the essentialism pro-
moted by this defence, see: Pascale Fournier, ‘The Ghettoization of Difference
in Canada: “Rape by Culture” or the Danger of a Cultural Defence in Criminal
Law Trials’, Manitoba Law Journal, 2002 (Vol. 29, No. 81). See also: Daina Chiu,
‘The Cultural Defence: Beyond Exclusion, Assimilation, and Guilty Liberalism’,
California Law Review, 1995 (Vol. 82), p. 1053.
61 See: David M. Paciocco, ‘Subjective and Objective Standards of Fault for
Offences and Defences’, Saskatchewan Law Review, 1995 (Vol. 59, No. 2), p. 300;
Wayne N. Renke, ‘Calm Like a Bomb’, 2010, p. 747; Peter Westen, ‘Individualiz-
ing the Reasonable Person in Criminal Law’ Criminal Law & Philosophy, 2008
(Vol. 2, No. 2), p. 137.
62 Homa Hoodfar, a Canadian Muslim woman and professor at the Department
of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University, exemplifies this: ‘my
conversants listened to me, but they did not hear, and at the end of the conver-
sation they would reiterate their earlier views as if our discussion were irrel-
evant. More recently, however, they treat me as an Islamic apologetic, which in
fact silences me so that I can no longer argue.’ See: Homa Hoodfar, ‘The Veil in
Their Minds and On Our Heads: The Persistence of Colonial Images of Muslim
Women’, Resources for Feminist Research, 1998 (Vol. 22, No. 3/4), p. 5.
63 Gunther Teubner, ‘Legal Irritants: Good Faith in British Law or How Unifying
Law Ends Up in New Divergences’, Modern Law Review, 1998 (Vol. 61, No. 11),
p. 13.
64 Gunther Teubner, ‘Legal Irritants’, 1998, p. 13.
65 In this regard, we agree that transplantation does not present an empiri-
cally observable ‘linear path’; see: James Clifford, ‘Notes on Travel and The-
ory’, Inscriptions, 1989 (Vol. 5), p. 184. On the ‘travelling’ of ideas, see: Edward
W. Said, ‘Travelling Theory’, in: The World, the Text and the Critic, Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1983, p. 226; Edward W. Said, ‘Travelling theory
reconsidered’, in: Reflection on Exile and Other Essays, Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2000, p. 436.
66 Leti Volpp, ‘Blaming Culture for Bad Behaviour’, Yale Journal of Law & the
Humanities, 2000 (Vol. 12, No. 89), p. 112.
67 R v Tran, scr (58/2010), 2010, paragraph 34.
68 R v Tran, scr (58/2010), 2010, paragraph 34.

section iii
the need for accommodation

11 Accommodating Islamic Family Law(s)
A Critical Analysis of Some Recent Developments
and Experiments in Europe1
Introduction
In this article, I will focus on the treatment of Islamic family law in the
European legal order, in a context that is increasingly multicultural in
nature. My analysis will proceed through three stages. First, I will briefly
sketch the present situation, and explain why the status of Islamic fam-
ily law was for a long time – and still is – governed in most European
countries by the rules of private international law. Second, I will con-
centrate on situations that touch upon Islamic family law and that raise
a number of specific problems. In the third and final part, I will shift
the focus to the future: what pathways could a forward-looking analysis
envisage that combines pluralism in family matters – including Islamic
family law in particular – with respect for human rights, as defined
by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms? Three options can be identified, and my aim
is to open these up to debate. As a result, the conclusions drawn will
necessarily be fairly open-ended.
Limits to Private International Law in the Face of the Changing

Demographic Profile of Europe
In Europe in recent years, the pluralism of family lifestyles has been

increasingly linked to the migrations that took place in the post-war
period. This growing diversity is quite clearly also the result of an ever
more publicly supported sensitivity to the protection of individual au-
tonomy. It should nevertheless be acknowledged that this increasing
pluralism, in the sense of a juxtaposition of cultural models of family
life, is heterogeneous in nature. A not insignificant complication results
from the fact that migrations have, for the most part, come from coun-
tries where religious law constitutes a major source of law, particularly

in matters of personal status. In practice, so far it is private interna-

tional law and its techniques that have for the most part been invoked
to govern the lives of immigrant families.
Private international law is the branch of law that deals with private
relationships that are characterized by one or another form of inter-
action between different national legal systems that apply in a given
situation. This interaction may result from the mixed nature of a rela-
tionship between parties who do not share the same nationality. Alter-
natively, it may may arise from a situation of cross-border mobility: the
parties (or one of them) are living in a country other than that of their
nationality – whether temporarily or on a long-term basis – and reside
there as foreign nationals. For many years, therefore, questions relat-
ing to the personal status of people from countries where that status
is governed by religious law were treated as issues covered by private
international law.2 The techniques of private international law continue
to be important for all manner of questions relating to the reception,
within the domestic law of the country of the parties’ habitual resi-
dence, of situations relating to personal status that have arisen in a for-
eign country: marriages celebrated abroad, divorces granted by foreign
judges, and so forth.3 When dealing with personal status issues, the
rules of private international law often refer to religious law, since these
immigrants are often from countries where personal status is governed
by shari῾a.
Over the years, however, the demographic profile of European com-
munities of immigrant origin has undergone profound change. The
presence of these groups is no longer linked primarily to immigration,
but represents a permanent settlement in the country of habitual resi-
dence, that is, in Europe. It is true that there are still many instances of
family reunification that involve interaction between different national
legal systems: on the one hand, that of the country of origin of the
partner who is joining someone living in Europe, and, on the other
hand, that of the country where the family intends to settle.4 Yet family
reunification is now just one aspect of the reality of immigrant fami-
lies’ lives; increasingly, these family situations originate within Europe.
Moreover, in most cases the parties hold the nationality of the country
of residence, while also retaining the nationality of their country of
origin.5
These developments are changing the status quo: questions involv-
ing the legal treatment of personal status become, in such cases, first
and foremost matters governed by domestic law. The latter for the most
part does not allow one to take into account the religious convictions
of the persons involved, or, if it does, then only to a very limited degree.

accommodating islamic family law(s) 209
If we were to agree on the principle that it ought to be possible for the

religious dimension to maintain, in law, the importance that the parties
concerned attach to it, then dealing with religious phenomena in terms
of personal status would require devoting particular attention to the
new profile of the large numbers of such families and individuals cur-
rently living throughout Europe. Certainly the debate is of a sensitive
nature, as it raises the prospect of calling into question certain histori-
cal developments, such as the secularization of civil law. I will return
to this question below. We are in a sense witnessing a relatively new
type of duality as regards the legal position (and identity) of individuals
who, on the one hand, have become full-fledged citizens of their coun-
try of residence and are thus bound by its legal system, while, on the
other hand, placing that system alongside religious norms of foreign
origin that defy its capacity to integrate them. The sociological litera-
ture describes the situation of such people as ‘transnational’.6
Today it seems that Muslims even more frequently – in various
parts of Europe – are faced with the difficulty of combining respect for
the laws enacted by the state in their country of residence with Islam.
The values of the latter are often endowed, in their view, with particu-
lar legitimacy.7 Certain studies go so far as to warn that if this reality
is not taken seriously, it could threaten the social cohesion of contem-
porary society.
A highly revelatory source of information on this matter is the many
websites, based not only in Europe but also in Canada and the United
states, which for several years now have enabled Muslims to submit
questions relating to various aspects of their personal status.8 The que-
ries centre on the question of how to ensure that the different compo-
nents of personal status that fall under the provisions of the (secular-
ized) civil law of the country of residence can nonetheless be reconciled
with the requirements of Islam as regards family organization: religious
marriage occupies a prominent place here.
In Europe today, the vast majority of states have chosen to secularize
the laws governing the person and the family.9 This option gives priority
to non-confessional laws. The difficulty this represents for persons who
wish to combine the requirements of domestic civil law on personal
status with the treatment of the latter in accordance with (their) reli-
gious law should not be underestimated. The situation is all the more
complex for Muslims, since in Islam there is no unequivocal doctrinal
position on the question of which law applies to a devout Muslim resid-
ing in a country governed by secular law.10 In principle, such a person
is a legal subject bound by the rules of a non-confessional (state) legal
order, but the various schools of shari῾a differ amongst themselves with

regard to the effects of this principle which they are willing to recog-
nize on a religious level. This complicates matters for those concerned,
and in part explains the confusion on the part of certain people when
it comes to respect for the law of the state of their habitual residence;
this is the case even if very often, as we have seen, they are full-fledged
citizens of that country.11
One could of course retort that the situation for new religious minor-
ities – and in particular Muslim communities – is not substantially dif-
ferent from that of adherents of other religions, since the secular civil
law is in all cases the only one that is granted recognition by the state
authorities. This response strikes us, however, as too categorical when
it comes to Muslim communities. Not only because it circumvents a
major difficulty, namely, the close connection which many Muslims
continue to make between law and religion, but also because it fails to
explore the alternative pathways that may be available.
The aim here is not to provide an inventory of the numerous works
published in recent years on various aspects of personal status in coun-
tries where religious family law applies, or on the way questions of per-
sonal status are handled in the domestic law of European countries
– seen through the prism of private international law – whether con-
cerning the application of these statuses by judges in the country of
residence or the reception of situations created abroad and of personal
statuses governed by religious law. Several authors have, in the past few
years, analysed the various solutions offered by case law or legal theory
to the most common problems encountered in practice. These studies
for the most part present an admirable analysis of private international
law on questions relating to Islam, in particular: filiation, naming, con-
ditions for a valid marriage, the rights and obligations of the spouses,
the relations between parents and children, the dissolution of marriage
through divorce and, finally, the status of property as well as its distri-
bution upon death. I will limit myself here to referring to only a few of
these works.12
Instead, I take a different approach, focusing on future perspectives
and going beyond the limits of private international law to raise ques-
tions as to other potential approaches. This approach is an exploratory
one: the aim is first and foremost to remind us of a number of ques-
tions that at this point must remain open and that are linked to the
treatment, in civil law, of personal statuses that are religious in nature.
The approach unfolds in two stages: first, an examination of the rea-
sons why, in my view, we should not take comfort too readily in the
argument that the new religious communities living in Europe today
must necessarily behave like all others and accept the separation of law

and religion. In the second stage, I address the core of the problem and
look at the future perspectives mentioned above. The approach draws
in large part on the literature on the subject. The way in which reli-
gious status is handled in the context of secular state law has to date
been studied principally in Canada, Germany and England.13 In what
follows, I will look at the following three pathways toward a solution:
the incorporation into domestic (civil law) of religious rules, taking
the example of Islamic family law and in particular the marriage con-
tract; the autonomy of the will in private international law; and finally,
recourse to religious arbitration for certain types of family dispute. All
three of these will be addressed here in what is necessarily a summary
fashion and, as already suggested, departing to some extent from the
strict confines of the techniques of private international law.
The Close Connection Between Law and Religion in Islam
The historical response in Europe to the problem of a conflict between

loyalty to state law, on the one hand, and religious or confessional com-
mitments, on the other hand, is well known: this problem is deemed to
have been resolved by virtue of the separation of law and religion.14 In
Europe today, with the exception of a few very specific regulations, state
law is most often the only formal source that applies in matters regard-
ing personal status.
This solution, taking secularization for granted, does not completely
evacuate or dissolve, in the specific case of Muslim communities, the
close and indeed inseparable link that members of these communities
often continue to make between law and religion: shari῾a or Islamic law
is treated as the principal, and indeed the essential, source of law.15 One
may obviously obscure this reality by giving a response from a strictly
secularized legal perspective to any question regarding the personal
status of Muslims. Evidently, in practice, not everyone’s perspective is
the same, and the reference to religion will not be of equal importance
to each person. But in general it may be said that the common reference
to Islam as the source of law explains why Muslims often continue to
seek a sort of compromise or reconciliation between the requirements
of their religion and those of civil law.
To refuse to take into account this endeavour would be to risk elicit-
ing reticence on the part of these communities. In practice, such reti-
cence with regard to the requirements of civil law is indeed perceptible.
It manifests itself in various forms, as several studies on the patterns of
regulation of family relations within Muslim communities in Europe

have shown.16 At times this reticence can go so far as to simply displace

civil law and set up a parallel legal regime within the religious com-
munity, without seeking recognition under civil law for the situation
thus created: religious marriage, for example, is celebrated without any
concern for first entering into a civil contract, even if the law requires
that this be done. In other cases, individuals return to their country of
origin to seek justice, availing themselves of the rules of conflict of laws
which, in the private international law of most Islamic countries, allow
them to have recourse to those countries’ domestic laws regardless of
the number of years a person has lived abroad.17 In legal terms, and in
particular from the perspective of legal security, both forms of behav-
iour raise serious questions: religious (informal) marriages will not
be recognized by the authorities of the country of habitual residence,
leaving the spouses without protection under domestic (state) law and
hence vulnerable; as for the solutions reached in the country of origin,
these create a legal privilege that is reserved for the nationals of coun-
tries which confer upon religious (Islamic) law the status of personal
law. Such a privilege makes coordination among national legal systems
in their case difficult: religious law prevails over secular law exclusively
in the case of those who have retained the nationality of the country in
question. The situation is all the more unjustifiable because often the
factual connection to the law of the country of habitual residence has
grown strong over the years, through, among other things, acquisition
of citizenship and/or long-term residence; too strong for a person to be
permitted recourse to the rules of private international law.
In light of these observations, a search for alternatives is warranted.
Three types of legal solution may potentially be envisaged: (1) allowing
rules based on religion to be granted effect under civil law. Notably,
this could take the form of a (civil) contract, as in the case of mar-
riage; (2) applying the autonomy of the will in private international law;
and finally (3) recourse to religious arbitration for certain disputes. In
what follows, I will examine these three options in succession. As indi-
cated, these pathways draw inspiration from the doctrine and, in part,
from case law. To date, the question of drawing on domestic civil law
to find more suitable means of regulating the family life of Muslims has
attracted the attention mainly of authors whose work focuses on the
English-speaking world.

Future Perspectives: Three Alternatives
Incorporating religious rules into civil law:

the example of the marriage contract
At first glance, allowing the incorporation into domestic law of reli-

gious rules governing matters related to family law may be surprising,
given that this approach runs the risk of restoring to religion a scope
and an impact that secularized civil law has historically tried to limit.18
The risk may seem all the more serious in the case of personal statuses
which contravene fundamental principles of the equality of the sexes
and of non-discrimination based on religion that are now mandated by
the civil law in most European countries.19 Such principles, moreover,
are almost systematically met with the invocation by courts and civil
officials of a public order exception.
Yet, several equally important legal values may militate against such
a refusal and argue instead in favour of greater openness on the part of
state law in Europe to religious personal statuses of foreign origin. One
such argument is the extension in recent years of the principle of the
autonomy of the will – both in domestic civil law and in private interna-
tional law – which entails the possibility for adults (men and women) to
shape their family life by combining elements of mandatory law, which
do not suffer exemption, with elements of optional civil law.
The principle of the autonomy of the will supports the view that
civil law ought to be more inclined to accept norms of religious and/
or cultural origin that may differ from its own. One may disagree as
to the degree of openness that is desirable, and one may indeed disa-
gree profoundly with a thesis that would go so far as to attribute to
the autonomy of the parties an impact that overrides fundamental
civil rights such as the age of marriage, consent by the future spouses,
impediments based on consanguinity or on the undissolved bond of
a previous marriage.20 Nevertheless, the principle presents a number
of advantages that should not be underestimated when it comes to the
question of incorporating into civil law elements of family law based on
Islam. Shari῾a notably grants the spouses a surprising liberty to define
their relations, both in terms of personal and of patrimonial effects.21
In order to offer the wife, in particular, a maximum number of guar-
antees protecting couples against certain specific risks under shari῾a,
several authors in Denmark,22 Germany23 and England,24 in particular,
have been suggesting for several years that spouses should enter into a
valid and enforceable contract under civil law that contains the stipu-
lations necessary to enable couples to frame their union according to

their particular needs, without, however, overstepping the limits and

particularities of their religious law and without infringing on a funda-
mental right of either party.
This approach requires that each situation be subjected to careful
prior analysis of the needs of both spouses and of their connection to
the forum, both of their country of residence and of their country of ori-
gin: not only may the conditions for the formation of the contract vary,
but also the regime under which it is implemented. Surprisingly how-
ever, in continental Europe, the application of this solution has hitherto
been rare.25 It seems to us that, in view of protecting the spouses, pre-
nuptial agreements – well known to lawyers in North America – may
serve as an inspiration to practitioners in continental Europe. There is
indeed nothing to prevent them from providing more guidance to Mus-
lim couples – should they wish to avail themselves of it – in searching
for contractual solutions to, for example, problems of the management
and division of property that arise in their particular case. The matter
deserves to be examined in greater depth, all the more so since it seems
highly likely that, over the years, there will be increasing numbers of
cases where women in particular who have been excluded or discrimi-
nated against will, on grounds of non-discrimination, demand that their
interests be taken into account.
For stipulations that are mandatory under Islamic family law, the
problem presents itself somewhat differently. Some of these stipula-
tions are alien to the nature of a civil marriage contract. This is true,
for example, for the commitment by the future husband to pay a dower
or mahr to his future wife.26 The way in which such a clause is handled
differs according to the various approaches. The mandatory nature of
this provision has been the subject of several contradictory decisions
in case-law: certain judicial decisions refuse to sanction it, evoking the
religious and inadequately defined nature of the obligation, whereas
others, on the contrary, agree to sanction it. Within certain schools of
Islamic law, the obligation to pay the mahr is an imperative condition
for Islamic marriage, and is separate from the matrimonial regime. One
of its functions is to protect the financial interests of the wife by oblig-
ing the husband to pay her a sum of money or transfer property to her,
in order to guarantee her a degree of financial security and a certain
degree of independence. The mahr takes effect at the latest upon the
dissolution of the marriage. Nevertheless, for the mahr to be enforcea-
ble under secular civil law, certain authors suggest that couples residing
in Europe should enshrine it in a (secular) contract.27 This will allow
the civil courts to recognize it more easily, and if necessary the latter
will be able to rule that a civil contractual obligation is enforceable even

if that obligation is founded on a rule that is religious in nature. From

this perspective, a civil contract will be in a sense ‘added on’ to a mar-
riage agreement.
It is not clear, however, that a separate contract entered into in civil
law constitutes, in and of itself, a sufficient means for achieving the most
complete and comprehensive legal arrangement possible for protect-
ing a couple from the various risks to which their nuptial commitment
exposes them either in domestic law or in private international law. It
all depends on their specific situation. As I already mentioned above,
the pros and cons of prenuptial arrangements in legal practice within
the context of continental Europe would require further research.
Beyond the explicit designation of the matrimonial regime and cer-
tain provisions concerning the management and division of their prop-
erty, the spouses may also stand to gain from negotiating arrangements
concerning the personal effects of marriage that will protect them from
specific risks they may incur by virtue of provisions in force in Islamic
countries and that may quite possibly apply to them.28 As a general rule,
setting out the form of the obligations between spouses in terms of per-
sonal effects will mainly benefit the wife, since she is the one who incurs
the greatest risks. Two well-known risks are that of her husband taking
another wife, and the dissolution of the marriage on the initiative of
the husband alone (unilateral repudiation). Polygyny and repudiation
without the wife’s consent do not constitute a serious legal risk for a
woman living in Europe.29 Yet, the insertion of clauses stipulating that
the woman has the right to divorce her husband should he take another
wife or, for even greater protection, the right to leave the marriage for
reasons of discord, are likely to strengthen the woman’s position in the
event of her husband’s remarriage abroad in an Islamic country where
polygyny is authorized, or in case of unilateral repudiation. These
clauses, which strengthen the position of the wife, are perfectly admis-
sible in Islam, which leaves it up to the parties to incorporate religious
considerations into the contract in order to protect themselves.30
The question remains, however, as to the contract into which these
clauses are to be inserted: is it the marriage contract itself, or a sepa-
rate one? Muslim couples who marry civilly usually also celebrate their
marriage religiously. That is in fact the only way to validate the mar-
riage under Islam. The safest solution in such cases would be to include
those clauses that are unknown in civil law in the religious marriage
contract, for that way the risks incurred by virtue of their (religious)
personal status are mitigated and thus covered by a religious contract.
Much more could be said about the role of the civil contract in the
religious sphere.31 Certain provisions envisaged by the parties on the

grounds of their religion are not subject to legal definition under civil
law. What meaning will the civil courts assign them in that case? Will
the judge be disposed to enforce them as binding? The question may
legitimately be raised, since just because an obligation is of a religious
character does not mean that it cannot be recognized as valid under
civil law.32 The monogamy clause, for instance, simply confirms the
obligations undertaken by the spouses in civil law, and can therefore, in
my view, be included in a civil contract. The will of the spouses is in that
case to protect the wife, which in law is perfectly acceptable. As regards
the right to divorce, one might ask whether it is licit to make a commit-
ment to divorce. In this regard, it should be noted that a country like
Norway opted over twenty years ago now (1991) for a solution in which
all citizens contracting marriage, including non-Muslims, had to grant
the other spouse the right to divorce.33 That solution may seem surpris-
ing, as it applies to each person who engages in a marriage while such
clause makes sense only in the case of a women who risks being unable
to get out of the marriage if the law of a country where such a constraint
(still) exists should apply to her.
Obviously, all this is not easily put into practice. On the one hand,
because the contractual definition of certain aspects of religious mar-
riage cannot but raise difficulties: to what extent are certain obligations,
rooted in religious law, ‘fit’ for being the subject of a civil contract? On
the other hand, since the suggestions put forward here require several
conditions to be met simultaneously – something that will rarely be the
case in practice: the two spouses should be informed of the legal/con-
tractual options open to them, but above all, they should agree between
them on the exact content of the additional protections they envisage
for their own particular situation. They should also know how impor-
tant it is to them to protect themselves against certain risks that are
characteristic of the law by which they are bound as a result of their
marriage and which, in the case of Islam, leaves the wife particularly
vulnerable. Furthermore, this approach is a proactive one. The spouses
do not gain any immediate benefit from their agreement, but agree to
consider a future risk. Is it not asking too much that they should do so
at the time when they enter into their marriage? One could of course
imagine that a civil contract might be signed later on, after a few years
of marriage, or that the marriage contract might be amended after-
wards, but in that case it is necessary to do so before any serious disa-
greement should arise between them, for otherwise it will be too late to
negotiate with due serenity.
The intention in this paper is to invite reflection: despite the numer-
ous obstacles, it could be advantageous for some couples to incorpo-

rate clauses of a religious nature into their marriage contract in view

of bringing norms imposed by their religious conviction into harmony
with the requirements of civil law. It is true, however, that many ques-
tions remain and therefore professional and detailed guidance in these
matters is necessary if one wishes, in practice, to offer spouses greater
protection with regard to their rights and obligations which they take
upon them.
The autonomy of the will in family matters
The second potentially relevant pathway toward accommodating Is-

lamic family law within the European legal order is the autonomy of
the will in private international law. For the past few years, private
international law has, in an increasing number of countries, and es-
pecially in Europe, offered another approach which, as regards family
law, allows couples concerned by the interaction between secular civil
law and a religiously-inspired law in their country of origin to agree, to
a certain extent, on the way in which they envisage conflicts of law is-
sues that risk arising in their case. This approach relates to the exercise
of the autonomy of the will with respect to personal status. In Belgium,
for example, the 2004 Code of private international law34 allows for
the law of the country of habitual residence to be tempered for certain
matters, such as the dissolution of marriage by divorce and as regards
the matrimonial regime, by granting the parties a right to opt for the
national law.35 This approach is of interest only to the extent that the
couple does indeed retain a connection with the country of origin by
holding that country’s nationality, or that the spouses stand to benefit
from recognition, in the other jurisdiction, of the matrimonial regime
that they have chosen and any other future arrangements regarding
the division of property. The same is true for the dissolution of their
marriage by divorce, where applicable. In the 1980s, Jean-Yves Carlier
did pioneering work in Belgium in which he scrupulously investigated
the various advantages that persons who have kept a connection to a
foreign law may gain from being granted autonomy in respect of per-
sonal status.36 Belgian federal legislation has since moved in this di-
rection, albeit cautiously. This solution has its limits, which have been
identified in the first part of this paper. These include the fact that the
solution applies only to couples who have maintained a connection to
foreign law. It does not, therefore, offer a solution to persons who have
converted to Islam and who have no legal connection to a foreign legal
order that they would like to designate as the law that applies to their
situation.

The limitations do not stop there, however. There is lingering uncer-

tainty as to the question of whether autonomy plays a role in cases of
multiple nationality as well, which, as noted above, is the situation in
which immigrant couples increasingly find themselves. Where one or
both partners also hold the nationality of the country of residence, it
is not certain that the couple can still invoke the autonomy of the will,
which in their case would be the equivalent of allowing them to opt for
the application of the other national law. The question arises, notably, in
Belgian private international law. On the one hand, the Belgian Code
of private international law places persons with dual nationality under
the protection of Belgian law: in cases of multiple nationalities of which
Belgian nationality is one, Belgian law applies (Article 3, paragraph 2).
The right to choose the applicable law would cease, in that case, to be
seen as an alternative. But on the other hand, the Code does, in Arti-
cles 49, 50 and 55, grant couples a right to choose according to whether
they feel more affinity with the society of their habitual residence or, on
the contrary, with the country of the law of the nationality. The Belgian
Code of private international law in a sense leaves open the question of
couples with multiple nationalities. As a result, the answer will have to
come from case law.
In terms of private international law, it would be best if situations
of multiple nationalities were circumscribed by conventions – bilat-
eral and multilateral – that ensure that the legal order of the country
of which one of the persons holds nationality recognizes the situations
arising from the effects of the law in force in the country of the other
nationality, and vice versa, without this having to depend on measur-
ing the intensity of the ties – always difficult to do – which the persons
in question may or may not have with one or the other country. On the
other hand, as has been emphasized since the introduction, it would
be preferable not to continue to make ‘transnational’ family situations
exclusively dependent on solutions devised in private international law.
These solutions are intended primarily for situations that entail interac-
tion on an international level between different legal systems and that
seek to guarantee harmony at that level. Priority must henceforth be
granted, in my view, to offering sufficient legal protection to persons
who cannot make use of the techniques of private international law but
come, instead, under domestic law.
Recourse to religious arbitration for certain family disputes
The third and last option I will discuss here with regard to incorporat-
ing Islam into the domestic legal order of European countries is re-

course to religious arbitration for certain types of family disputes. The

quest for solutions, in domestic law, to questions raised by the need to
take into account by people’s religious convictions may be situated at
two different levels, although these are not mutually exclusive: either
the individuals seek for themselves – for their own sake – to accommo-
date material law within the spectrum of commitments made among
one another (for example, spouses), namely by enshrining those com-
mitments in a contract or in some other form of explicit initiative; or
potential adjustments are sought in terms of procedure, in particular
where a dispute has to be resolved. It is on this second type of adjust-
ment that I will focus here, in the last section of the forward-looking
analysis. Two countries with an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, Canada
and Great Britain, offer contrasting illustrations of this issue. It would
be risky on my part at this stage to suggest this route for other coun-
tries, but it deserves nonetheless to be mentioned.
In Canada, the question arose in relation to religious arbitration in
family law.37 That path was ultimately abandoned, with repercussions
for other existing religious family law arbitration tribunals, which were
to be abolished. There is no room here to go into the details of the (lively)
debate – not only among jurists, but also in the media – provoked by
the question, but simply to recall the stakes involved, since these were
not without relevance to the situation of other religious communities
established in countries with a secular civil law tradition.
The point of departure for the discussion in Canada was the right to
freedom of religion. The question raised in Canada had to do with the
approval given, in civil law, to legal proceedings of a religious nature:
should the privatization of justice be accepted to the point where deci-
sions handed down by religious authorities are recognized in law? Sev-
eral modalities may be envisaged: (1) a privatization that is limited to
religious mediation; (2) religious arbitration; or, finally, (3) full judi-
cial pluralism authorizing the settlement of family disputes by religious
courts. In the third scenario, one may speak of a true judicial pluralism
that recognizes the existence of particular institutions that administer
justice on an equal footing with state courts. The latter form of regu-
lation exists in India, among other places, as well as in Lebanon, but
seems to have little support in the West. In Canada, the second of the
above options was the subject of much discussion after a group in the
Province of Ontario known as the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice (iicj)
announced, in 2003, its intention to create a Canadian Islamic body that
would arbitrate in family matters. It should be recalled that arbitration
is not mediation, but has legal force on condition that the decision com-
plies with state law and therefore does not infringe on the rights and lib-

erties of persons. The communities concerned would thus be required

to accept the primacy of domestic law as regards personal status, but
they would be allowed to set up their own arbitration boards for cer-
tain matters. The state judge would ultimately retain the right to order
a review of the decision and of the procedures followed in reaching it.
An Ontario law has, since 1991, allowed for arbitration by religious
authorities. The iicj merely requested the right of Muslim communi-
ties to have their own arbitration board along the lines of other reli-
gious arbitration bodies already in place, it thus announced its inten-
tion to create a Canadian Muslim arbitration board for family matters
that would be available to all Muslims in Canada. One remembers what
happened: in the debate that followed the iicj’s announcement of its
intentions, the Ontario legislature abolished the option of arbitration.
The challenge came largely as a result of the fear that the religious arbi-
tration would, in practice, infringe on certain individual rights, in par-
ticular those of women, should they not be entirely free to consent to
arbitration but compelled to avail themselves of it under pressure from
the patriarchal rules that prevail in their community, in the name of the
protection which that community affords them and of an inegalitarian
conception of women’s identity in Islam. In sum, Islam was reproached
for its treatment of women. The debate in Canada is now not only
closed, but the path opened by the 1991 Act has been abandoned.
Strangely enough, in the meantime religious arbitration seems to
be blazing a trail through Great Britain, where the Muslim Arbitration
Tribunal (mat) has been authorized, pursuant to the Arbitration Act
of 1996, to offer its services to Muslims who wish to use them to settle
their conflicts.38 Islamic mediation bodies, such as the Islamic Sharia
Councils, as well as Jewish, evangelical and Catholic ones, were already
well established in their role of accompanying conflicts between believ-
ers, which were for the most part familial or sometimes commercial in
nature. Their decisions had no legal force, however, in the eyes of state
law. With the establishment of a true religious arbitration tribunal, the
Muslims of Great Britain appear to have succeeded in opening up the
path that had been blocked in Canada. They have obtained recognition
for specific institutions allowing Muslims who wish to do so to settle
their disputes by means of arbitration. The aim is to open up an alter-
native form of dispute resolution, while respecting certain limitations:
the procedure must abide by the obligation to protect individual rights
and thus fundamental freedoms. It should, however, be regarded as a
form of weak legal pluralism, since it all remains within the confines of
public policy and the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal cannot pronounce
divorce, that is, a divorce that equals a civil divorce.39

It is too soon to draw concrete lessons from the experiment being

conducted at present in Great Britain with the mat, but it would be
very instructive to follow this experience closely and read the evalua-
tions that will be conducted in Britain itself. The benefit to be gained
from religious arbitration is not insignificant; it is very similar to the
advantages of the traditional system of arbitration. In the case of Mus-
lim communities, it is undeniable that the question of accommodation
of rules of conduct drawn from Islam and from the principles of shari῾a
is a lively one. Shari῾a is indeed a complex normative framework of
rules and principles that regulate family life, among other things, and
offer a comprehensive vision of the life of the believer. Family law is
a particularly sensitive domain of law, the more so when it is closely
linked to a religion, since this makes the handling of related matters
from a legal perspective all the more difficult. One would therefore
expect that particular institutions, deeply rooted in the reality and lived
religious experience of a community of believers and, above all, recog-
nized by that community, would handle the responsibility of arbitration
entrusted to them with the requisite expertise and authority. Under the
principle of arbitration, Muslims involved in disputes in Great Britain
may henceforth turn to an alternative space for conflict resolution, one
that is recognized by the state. This body is not free from the oversight
of English law. Time will tell whether this experiment bears fruit, and
thus whether it could serve as a useful path in the context of family law.
The first studies devoted to the mat do not rule out this possibility.
Notes
1 This paper is based largely on one that I presented, in French, at the Conference
on ‘Islam belge’, which was organized by the Centre interdisciplinaire d’études
de l‘lslam dans le monde contemporain, and held at Louvain-la-Neuve, Bel-
gium, on 13 December 2008. The proceedings, edited by Felice Dassetto, Farid
El Asri and Brigitte Maréchal, will appear in a collective volume entitled ‘Islam
belge au pluriel’ published by Presses Universitaires Louvain.
2 See especially J.-Y. Carlier and M. Verwilghen (eds.), Le statut personnel des
musulmans. Droit comparé et droit international privé, Brussels: Bruylant, 1992;
for more recent studies, see also the references cited in note 14.
3 M. Fallon and J. Erauw, La nouvelle loi sur de droit international privé belge. La
loi du 16 juillet 2004, Antwerp: Kluwer, 2004; J.-Y. Carlier, M. Fallon & B. Mar-
tin-Bosly, Code de droit international privé, Brussels: Bruylant, 2008; F. Rigaux
and M. Fallon, Droit international privé, Brussels: Larcier, 2005.
4 See especially M. Nys, L’immigration familiale à l’épreuve du droit, Brussels:
Bruylant, 2002.

5 M. Verwilghen, ‘Conflits de nationalités. Plurinationalité et apatridie,’ Recueil

des cours de l’Académie de droit international 1999 (Vol. 277, No. 2), pp. 9-484.
For an analysis of multiple nationality among persons from Islamic countries,
see K. El Geddawy, Relations entre systèmes confessionnel et laïque en droit inter-
national privé, Paris: Dalloz (Bibliothèque de droit international privé), 1971.
6 See especially P. Bramadat and M. Koenig (eds.), International Migration and
the Governance of Religious Diversity, Montreal & Kingston: Metropolis, 2009.
7 See especially N. Asayyad and M. Castells (eds.), Muslim Europe or Euro-Islam:
politics, culture, and citizenship in the age of globalization, Lanham: Lexington
Books, 2002; S. Benhabib, I. Shapiro & D. Petranovic (eds.), Identities, Affilia-
tions and Allegiances, Cambridge: Cambridge u.p., 2007; H. Coward, J.R. Hin-
nells & R.B. Williams (eds.), The South Asian Religious Diaspora in Great Brit-
ain, Canada and the United States, New York: State University of New York
Press, 2000; A. Erdemir, H. Rittersberger-Tiliç, A. Ergun & H. Kahveci (eds.),
Rethinking Global Migration: Practices, Policies, and Discourses in the Euro-
pean Neighbourhood, Ankara: kora, 2008; M. Howard Ross (ed.), Culture and
Belonging in Divided Societies. Contestation and Symbolic Landscapes, Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009; G.F. Levey and T. Modood (eds.),
Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship, Cambridge: Cambridge u.p.,
2009; J. Nielsen and S. Allievi (eds.), Muslim Networks and Transnational Com-
munities in and Across Europe, Leiden: Brill, 2002; Y. Yazbeck Haddad (ed.),
Muslims in the West: from Sojourners to Citizens, Oxford: Oxford u.p., 2002.
8 See, for example, www.islamonline.net; www.karamah.org/home.htm; www.
islamfortoday.com; www.minaret.org; islamawareness.net.
9 Regarding this option, which is in fact quite recent in the history of democratic
societies, see especially G. Motzkinn and Y. Fischer, Religion and Democracy
in Contemporary Europe, London: Alliance Publishing Trust, 2008; V. Bader,
Secularism or Democracy? Associational Governance of Religious Diversity.
Amsterdam: Amsterdam u.p. 2007; A. Dierkens and J.-Ph. Schreiber (eds.),
Laïcité et sécularisation dans l’Union européenne, Brussels: Ed. de l’Université
de Bruxelles (‘Problèmes d’Histoire des religions’), vol. xvi, 2006; M. Grimpret,
Dieu est dans l’isoloir, Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 2007; G.J. Larouche and
M. Maesschalck, La religion dans l’espace public, Université Laval: Ed. Liber,
2006, no. 8, pp. 60-70; B. Massignon, ‘L’Union européenne: Ni Dieu, ni César’,
Esprit (special issue on ‘Effervescences religieuses dans le monde’), March-
April 2007, pp. 104-111; M. Milot, P. Portier & J.-P. Willaime (eds.), Pluralisme
religieux et citoyenneté, Rennes: p.u. Rennes, 2009.
10 For an analysis of the question, see A.F. March, Islam and Liberal Citizenship.
The Search for an Overlapping Consensus, Oxford: Oxford u.p., 2009.
11 See especially K. El Gedawwy, Relations entre systems confessionnel et laïque
en droit international privé, Paris, Dalloz (Bibliothèque de droit international
privé), 1971. More recently, A. Abdalla, ‘Principles of Islamic Interpersonal
Conflict Intervention: A Search within Islam and Western Literature’, Journal of
Law and Religion, 2002, pp. 151-184.
12 I will confine my references here to a few recent works, cited in alphabetical
order: A. Buechler, Islamic Law in Europe? Legal Pluralism and its Limits in Euro-

pean Family Laws, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011; J.-Y. Carlier, ‘La reconnaissance mesu-
rée des répudiations par l’examen in concreto de la contrariété à l’ordre public’,
Revue trimestielle du droit de la famille, 2003, pp. 35ff; R. El Husseini Begdache,
Le droit international privé français et la répudiation islamique, Paris: La Librai-
rie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 2002; M.-Cl. Foblets and J.-Y. Car-
lier, Le Code marocain de la famille. Incidences au regard du droit international
privé en Europe, Brussels: Bruylant, 2005; L. Gannagé, La hiérarchie des normes
et les méthodes du droit international privé. Etude de droit international privé
de la famille, Paris: La Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 2001; L.
François, ‘La Convention européenne des droits de l’homme est-elle supérieure
aux conventions bilatérales reconnaissant les répudiations musulmanes?’, Chro-
nique Recueil Dalloz (Paris), No. 39, 2002 (pp. 2958-2962), pp. 2958ff; H. Gaude-
met-Tallon, ‘Nationalité, statut personnel et droits de l’homme’, in: Mélanges E.
Jayme, Munich, Sellier, 2004, 219ff; H. Gaudemet-Tallon, ‘Le pluralisme en droit
international privé: richesses et faiblesses (Le funambule et l’arc-en-ciel)’, Recueil
des Cours de l’Académie de Droit International, 2005 (Vol. 312, No. 1); H. Gau-
demet-Tallon, ‘De nouvelles fonctions pour l’équivalence en droit international
privé’, in: Le droit international privé: esprits et méthodes, Mélanges en l’honneur
de Paul Lagarde, Paris: Dalloz, 2005, 302ff; P. Kinsch, ‘Droits de l’homme, droits
fondamentaux et droit international privé’, in: Le droit international privé: esprits
et méthodes, Mélanges en l’honneur de Paul Lagarde, Paris: Dalloz,, 2005, vol. 318;
P. Lagarde, ‘Différences culturelles et ordre public en droit international privé de
la famille’, Annuaire IDI, 2005 (Vol. 71, No. 1), pp. 7-115; Y. Lequette, ‘Le conflit
de civilisation à la lumière de l’expérience franco-tunisienne’, in: Mouvements
de droit contemporain, Mélanges offerts au Professeur Sassi Ben Halima, Tunis:
Centre de publication universitaire, 2005, pp. 175ff; Y. Lequette, ‘Le droit inter-
national privé et les droits fondamentaux’, in: R. Cabrillac, et al. (ed.), Libertés et
droits fondamentaux, Paris: Dalloz, 2006, pp. 99ff; M.-Cl. Najm, Principes direc-
teurs du droit international privé et conflits de civilisations. Relations entre sys-
tèmes laïques et systèmes religieux, Paris: Dalloz, 2005; N.M. Mahieddin, ‘La dis-
solution du mariage par la volonté unilatérale de l’un des époux en droit musul-
man et en droit algérien’, Revue internationale de droit comparé, 2006, pp. 73ff;
A. Mezghani, ‘Le juge français et les institutions du droit musulman’, Journal de
Droit International, 2003 (Vol. 13, No. 3), pp. 721ff; M.-L. Niboyet, ‘Regard fran-
çais sur la reconnaissance en France des répudiations musulmanes’, Revue inter-
nationale de droit comparé, 2006, pp. 27ff; J. Witte, Jr (ed.), ‘Shari῾a, Family, and
Democracy: Religious Norms and Family Law in Pluralistic Democratic States’,
Emory International Law Review (Special Issue), 2011 (Vol. 25, No. 2); K. Zaher,
Conflit de civilisations et droit international privé, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009.
13 For Canada, Jeffrey A. Talpis offers a very fine analysis of a number of issues
which are addressed in this paper. See especially: J.A. Talpis, ‘L’accommodement
raisonnable en droit international privé québecois’, in: J.-Fr. Gaudreault-Des-
Biens (ed.), Le droit, la religion et le raisonnable. Le fait religieux entre nomisme
étatique et pluralisme juridique, Montréal, Themis, 2009, pp. 303-358.

14 See El Gedawwy, Relations entre systems confessionnel et laïque en droit inter-

national privé, 1971 and Abdalla, ‘Principles of Islamic Interpersonal Conflict
Intervention’ 2002.
15 See J. Cesari and S. McLoughlin (eds.), European Muslims and the Secular State,
Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005; J. Cesari, When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims
in Europe and in the United States, New York: Palgrave, 2004 (2nd ed. 2006);
more recently: J. Cesari (ed.), Muslims in the West after 9/11, London: Rout-
ledge, 2009; V. Bader (ed.), ‘Governing Islam in Western Europe. Essays on
Governance of Religious Diversity’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,
2007 (Vol. 33, No. 6); J. Klausen, The Islamic challenge: politics and religion in
western Europe, Oxford: Oxford u.p., 2005; B. Marechal et al. (eds.), Muslims
in the Enlarged Europe: Religion and Society, Leiden: Brill, 2003; J.S. Nielsen,
Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh u.p. Press, 1992 (3rd ed.
2004); J.S. Nielsen, Towards a European Islam?, London: Macmillan, 1999; M.
Rohe, ‘Muslims between Qu’ran and Constitution – Religious Freedom within
the German Legal Order’, in: L.A. Tramontini (ed.), ‘East is East and West is
West’? Talks on Dialogue in Beirut, Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut, Beiruter Texte
und Studien 80, 2006, pp. 151-176; M. Rohe, ‘Islamic Norms in Germany and
Europe’, in: A. Al-Hamarneh & J. Thielemann (eds.), Islam and Muslims in Ger-
many, Leiden: Brill, 2008, pp. 49-81; W.A.R. Shadid and P.S. Van Koningsveld
(eds.), Intercultural relations and religious authorities: Muslims in the European
Union, Leuven: Peeters, 2002; P. Shah, ‘Thinking beyond Religion: Legal Plu-
ralism in Britain’s South Asian Diaspora’, Australian Journal of Asian Law, 2006
(Vol. 6), pp. 237-260; P. Shah, ‘Transforming to accommodate? Reflections on
the Sharia debate in Britain’, in: R. Grillo et al. (eds.), Legal practice and cultural
diversity, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009, pp. 73-92.
16 See note 7.
17 El Gedawwy, Relations entre systems confessionnel et laïque en droit internatio-
nal privé, 1971, and A. Abdalla, ‘Principles of Islamic Interpersonal Conflict
Intervention’, 2002. See also M. Charfi, ‘L’influence de la religion dans le droit
international privé des pays musulmans’, Receuil des Cours de l’Académie de
Droit International, 1987 (Vol. 203, No. 3), pp. 414ff; O. Ewan, ‘L’Islam et les
systèmes de conflits de lois’ in: J.-Y. Carlier and M. Verwilghen (eds.), Le sta-
tut personnel des musulmans, 1992, pp. 313-341; M. Berger, ‘Conflicts Law and
Public Policy in Egyptian Family Law: Islamic Law through the Backdoor?’, The
American Journal of Comparative Law, 2002, pp. 555-594.
18 See especially: P. Cane, C. Evans & Z. Robinson (eds.), Law and Religion in
Theoretical and Historical Context, Cambridge, Cambridge u.p., 2008; H. Goris
and M. Heimbach-Steins (eds.), Religion in Recht und politischer Ordnung
heute, Würzburg, Ergon, 2008; H. Lehmann (ed.), Multireligiosität im vereinten
Europa: historische und juristische Aspekte, Göttingen, Wallstein, 2003.
19 For instance, the principle of paternal guardianship in Islamic law, polygynous
marriage, religious prohibition against mixed marriage, or the discriminatory
share of women in succession, to mention but a few examples.
20 That is a criticism also levelled by J.A. Talpis, ‘L’accommodement raisonnable
en droit international privé québecois’, 2009, p. 313.

21 See especially A.Y. Al-Hibri, ‘The Nature of the Islamic Marriage: Sacramental,
Convenantal, or Contractual?’, in: J. Witte and E. Ellison (eds.), Covenant Mar-
riage in Comparative Perspective, Michigan/Cambridge: W.B. Eerdmans Pub-
lishing Company/Grand Rapids, MI, pp. 182-216.
22 R. Mehdi, ‘Danish Law and the Practice of mahr among Muslim Pakistanis in
Denmark’, International Journal of Sociology of Law, 2003, pp. 115-129.
23 C. Jones-Pauly, ‘Marriage Contracts of Muslims in the Diaspora: Problems in
the Recognition of mahr contracts in German Law’, in: A. Quraishi and F. Vogel
(eds.), The Islamic Marriage Contract. Case Studies in Islamic Family Law, Cam-
bridge: Islamic Legal Studies Programme, 2008, pp. 299-330.
24 I. Yilmaz, Muslim Laws, Politics and Society in Modern Nation States. Dynamic
Legal Pluralism in England, Turkey and Pakistan, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005,
pp. 49ff; See also C. Weisbrod, Grounding Security. Family, Insurance and the
State, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, pp. 25-52.
25 Some difficulties may arise with regard to the validity of clauses included in
wills or donations and relating to the religious practice of the testator or donor.
For a study that surveys these difficulties in the context of the Netherlands,
see S. Rutten, Erven naar Marokkaans recht: aspecten van Nederlands interna-
tionaal privaatrecht bij de toepasselijkheid van Marokkaans erfrecht, Antwerp:
Intersentia, 1997. For Germany, see especially A.K. Pattar, Islamisch inspirier-
tes Erbrecht und deutscher Ordre public: die Erbrechtsordnungen von Ägypten,
Tunesien und Marokko und ihre Anwendbarkeit im Inland, Berlin: Duncker &
Humblot, 2007; J. Bäsedow and N. Yassari (eds.), Iranian Family and Succession
Laws and their Application in German Courts, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004.
26 Regarding this obligation, see several illustrations in A. Quraishi and F. Vogel
(eds.), The Islamic Marriage Contract., 2008. See also: R. Mehdi, ‘Danish Law
and the Practice of mahr among Muslim Pakistanis in Denmark’ 2003, pp. 115-
129; R. Mehdi and J. Nielsen (eds.), Embedding Mahr (Islamic Dower) in the
European Legal System, Copenhagen, djof Publishing, 2011.
27 In this regard, see R. Mehdi, ‘Danish Law and the Practice of mahr among Mus-
lim Pakistanis in Denmark’, 2003.
28 On the privilege of nationality and of religion in the private international law of
Islamic countries, see especially: K. Zaher, Conflit de civilisations et droit inter-
national privé, 2009.
29 M.-C. Foblets, ‘The Admissibility of repudiation: requirements in private inter-
national law. Recent developments in France, Belgium and The Netherlands’, in
R. Mehdi (ed.), Integration & Retsudvikling, Copenhagen, Jurist- og Oknom-
forbindets Forlag, 2008, pp. 151-170.
30 K. Zaher, Conflit de civilisations et droit international privé, 2009.
31 See especially I. Riassetto, ‘Religion et contrat’, in: F. Messner, P.-H. Prelot &
J.-M. Woehrling (eds.), Traité de droit français des religions, Paris: Litec, no. 1520;
B. Moore, ‘Sur la contractualisation de la croyance’, in: J.-Fr. Gaudreault-Des-
Biens, Le droit, la religion et le raisonnable, 2009, pp. 491-530.
32 I will not address here the question of whether or not it would be desirable to
treat religious marriages as a contract in the civil sense. Not only because this
question is far from simple, but also because an analysis of the implications of

such treatment would exceed the scope of this paper. Under the private inter-
national law currently in force in most European countries, the only religious
marriage contracts that are at the same time regarded as marriage contracts in
the civil sense are those entered into abroad in accordance with the law appli-
cable in a country where marriage is governed by religious law; this is the case,
notably, in Islamic countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
33 Regarding this solution, see R. Mehdi, ‘Facing the Enigma: Talaq-e-tafweez a
need for Muslim women in Nordic Perspective’, International Journal of Sociol-
ogy of Law, 2005, pp. 133-147, 141.
34 M. Nys, L’immigration familiale à l’épreuve du droit, 2002.
35 Articles 49, 50 and 55, § 2 of the Law of 16 July 2004 holding the Code of private
international law (Belgian Official Gazette, 27 July 2004).
36 J.-Y. Carlier, Autonomie de la volonté et statut personnel, Brussels, Bruylant,
1992.
37 J. Aslam, ‘Judicial Oversight of Islamic Family Law Arbitration in Ontario:
Ensuring Meaningful Consent and Promoting Multicultural Citizenship’, New
York University Journal of International Law and Politics, 2006, 841ff; J.-Fr.
Gaudreault-DesBiens, ‘The Limits of Private Justice? The Problems of State
Recognition of Arbitral Awards in Family and Personal Status Disputes in
Ontario’, World Arbitration and Mediation Report, 2005 (Vol. 16).
38 R. Gledhill and P. Webster, ‘Archbishop of Canterbury argues for Islamic law
in Britain’, Times Online, 8 February 2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/
comment/faith/article3328024.ece; M. Hickley, ‘Islamic sharia courts in Brit-
ain are now “legally binding”’, Daily Mail, 15 September 2008, www.dailymail.
co.uk/news/article-1055764/Islamic-sharia-courts-Britain-legally-binding.
html; Muslim Arbitration Tribunal, Procedure rules of mat, www.matribunal.
com/procedure_rules.html; S. Bano, ‘In Pursuit of Religious and Legal Diver-
sity: A Response to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the shari῾a Debate in
Britain’, Ecclesiastical Law Journal, 2008 (10), 283-309; A. Schahar, ‘Privatizing
Diversity: A Cautionary Tale from Religious Arbitration in Family Law’ Theo-
retical Inquiries in Law, 2008 (Vol. 2), pp. 573-607.
39 Which is the fear of, among others, A. Taher, ‘Revealed: uk’s First Official
shari῾a Courts’, Times Online, September 14, 2008, www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/
comment/faith/article4749183.ece.

12 Religion, Gender, and Family Law
Critical Perspectives on Integration
for Western Muslims
Zainab Alwani and Celene Ayat Lizzio
Introduction
For well over three decades, Muslim scholars and legal experts residing
in the West and elsewhere have been engaged in a concerted effort to
employ classical legal frameworks and principles to formulate religious
rulings appropriate to the Western sociopolitical and cultural milieu.
These scholars, in seeking to develop jurisprudence for minorities (fiqh
al-‘aqalliyyat), have generated a rich intellectual discourse on how re-
ligious laws can both reinforce civic belonging and adapt to meet the
practical needs of Muslim-minority populations. For instance, there is
broad consensus among such scholars that following the laws of the ter-
ritory within which one resides is incumbent upon Muslims and that a
parallel system of law is unnecessary and undesirable. In general, civil
laws attempt to safeguard persons, life, property, family, and human
dignity; hence, it is understood that civil codes, Western and other-
wise, are roughly in line with the objectives of Muslim religious law.1
Here, the underlying principle is that key aims of religious law, such as
securing the rights of individuals within a family structure, can be se-
cured through civil legislation. This is not to say that the integration of
religious and civil norms is not without its particular challenges, both
practical and theoretical,2 but that integration is the most viable path
forward.
Holding a collaborative conversation across identity borders on
pressing social issues should engender a holistic and productive debate
on the history and future of familial ethics and laws. Across Western
jurisdictions, legislation related to the family cuts across many domains
of the law, creating intricate webs of regulations and procedures span-
ning local, national, and transcontinental jurisdictions.3 While the com-
plexity is inherent, and while the current systems are roughly adequate,
there is room for bureaucratic streamlining to improve expediency and
efficacy. In particular, it should be a priority to close legal loopholes that

allow individuals with nefarious intentions to circumvent provisions

that are otherwise aimed at securing the stability and financial support
of dependant members of the family.4 It should be seen as part and
parcel of Western Muslim civic responsibility to be actively engaged in
working toward the betterment of such institutional frameworks for
securing justice.5 Courts, community activists, religious authorities and
community support networks must work in tandem to secure the inter-
ests of the disenfranchised and vulnerable;6 this is the ultimate, shared
aim.
Debates on integration
The applicability of Muslim family law in Western contexts has been

a subject of vigorous debate on the part of lawyers, policymakers, ac-
ademics, activists, and the general public for decades.7 For instance,
in the early 1990s, a Leiden-based conference entitled ‘Religion and
Emancipation of Ethnic Minorities in Western Europe’ explored the le-
gal rights of ethnic and religious minorities. Arguing for the strength-
ening of Muslim civic institutions and organizations, as well as for a
greater understanding of the existing informal associations, scholars
pointed out the various needs for institutional integration.8 Scholars
at the forum also argued for devoting greater attention to how stereo-
types, anti-immigrant discrimination, prejudices and other structural
dynamics hampers the vitality of ethnic minority and immigrant com-
munities,9 factors which remain relevant today. Within policy confer-
ences and workshops, religion often takes centre stage; yet, for Muslim
populations singled out as problematic or nonconforming, often the
most pressing causes of social disintegration are poverty, unemploy-
ment, linguistic deficiencies, educational and professional barriers, and
in some cases, naturalization policies; at their core, these issues have
little to do with religious identity.10
Some Western commentators go to great lengths to argue that West-
ern and Islamic values are at odds, for instance by citing gender vio-
lence in places such as post-revolutionary Iran and Afghanistan under
the Taliban to illustrate misogynistic Muslim tendencies at large.11
There is no doubt that such deliberate mischaracterizations and culti-
vated mistrust undermine genuine cooperation across ethnic and reli-
gious boundaries and represent an attempt to isolate individuals on the
mere basis of their ethnic or religious identity. Indeed, public debates
on the integration of religious and ethnic minorities are often charac-
terized by neo-Orientalism or laden with xenophobic sentiments.12 Yet,
to be sure, debates on gender justice are rightfully an issue in terms of

religion, gender, and family law 229
the applicability of normative Muslim renditions of familial ethics, in

Europe and beyond. Here, the broader socio-political context requires
brief elaboration.
The rise of Islamism, which has led to Islamist governments in many
Muslim-majority countries as well as fringe groups within some dias-
pora populations in Europe, has led to a chorus of resounding claims
that religious law must be accommodated in the Western context.13 Such
a demand for full-scale adaption of Islamic law typically provides little
in the way of an operational framework for determining which reli-
gious prescriptions are normative, and which are purely idiosyncratic
interpretations of a particular grouping of Muslims that should not be
imposed on Muslims at large. Similar to the dynamics within other
sizeable religious communities, the matter of defining what norms and
practices in fact constitute Islam can readily give rise to acrimonious
debate.
Within this context, the conceptual domains of gender and family
have functioned as jockeying sites where more deeply-ingrained ideo-
logical and postcolonial conflicts are played out. Within intra-Muslim
discourses, the familial sphere is often portrayed as the fortress wherein
religious identity and so-called traditional values must be protected
against the advances of licentious Western capitalist exploitation of
women, and various other tribulations.14 Throughout the colonial era
and beyond, the sphere of family and personal status law has been one
arena in which classical Islamic legal thought has maintained consider-
able sway, a trend that is continuing today.15 Hence, for vocal factions of
Muslims, the sphere of family law is regarded as a fundamental strong-
hold for religious values, and any concessions to perceived Western
influence therein are met with particularly vociferous resistance.
Nonetheless, numerous Muslim intellectuals have long been advo-
cating for family law reforms with measurable successes.16 While sub-
stantive changes in family law in Muslim-majority societies have been
occurring at a modest pace since the early twentieth century, the most
politically and socially repressive Muslim-majority countries are often
taken by Western commentators to be de facto examples of applied Mus-
lim family law. This overlooks the myriad of cases where indigenous
women and men in majority-Muslim societies have been successful in
instituting gender-egalitarian reforms;17 it ignores the vibrant devel-
opments in the West itself;18 and perhaps most strikingly, it neglects
to account for how, in the not-so-distant past, women in Europe and
beyond had to agitate for basic political and economic rights. Hence,
arguing that Muslim women, as a homogeneous category, are some-
how uniquely repressed due to Islam itself is misguided; gender-based

bigotries and asymmetrical power dynamics are not only pertinent to

Muslims, but are central concerns on the agendas of gender activists
and queer movements transnationally. A vast literature exists on this
subject, and it is not necessary to reproduce it here.
Rather, we proceed with specific theoretical and practical examples
of how European Muslims can integrate Muslim familial norms and
customs within the civil legal sphere. We aim to forward critical and
collaborative conversations by drawing on intellectual debates on these
subjects over the past two decades. What is the precedent for Muslims
to follow the ‘law of the land’ when residing in a non-majority Muslim
jurisdiction? What specific measures allow for a marriage to be deemed
legitimate within both a religious and civil framework? How can reli-
giously-based conceptions of marriage adapt to present-day circum-
stances while retaining core moral values and ethical integrity?
In exploring such questions, we advance the following propositions:
1) rather than attempting to develop a parallel system for recognizing
marriages and divorces, Western Muslims should devote their energy to
strengthening existing civil legislation, to developing community sup-
port programmes, and to continuing conversations on the roles, rights,
and expectations of spouses within an Islamic framework of mutual
caring; 2) policymakers, community leaders, and religious authorities
must work together to forward policies and enact procedures that allow
for integration between religious and civil requirements; and 3) activ-
ists, religious and civil together, must work together to ensure that fam-
ily support services can meet exigent demands without marginalizing
the interests of women (or men). In this context, we argue that there are
pressing needs to ensure that female community leadership opportuni-
ties are on par with those available to the male community, and that
women’s purviews and areas of expertise must be sought out and repre-
sented in a much more concerted fashion.
Continuity and Change in Muslim Notions of Family Rights and

Responsibilities
While grounded in more universal objectives, such as guarding human

life and dignity, as well as protecting wealth, family, and property, Mus-
lim religious laws have adapted according to a matrix of socio-political,
cultural, and economic factors. The sphere of religious law is polyvocal,
not only due to intra-Muslim diversity on matters of religious inter-
pretation, but also due to the geographic expanse of Islamic empires,
each with customary practices, administrative procedures, and other

idiosyncrasies influencing how law was developed and applied. The

positive application of law was quite fluid, not only from one region
to another, but also from one epoch to the next. Like legal systems the
world over, methodology developed by formative scholars took into
consideration factors such as prior precedents, exigent circumstances,
and social welfare. Within this context, models for family relations de-
veloped by Muslim scholarly elites took account of a variety of sources,
including scripture, prophetic dictates, dominant customs, perceptions
of sexuality and gender, and so on. With all of the aforementioned vari-
ables at play, systems for the adjudication of family matters were not
static; changing government structures, differing roles for religion in
legal jurisdictions, shifting political ideologies, colonialism and its leg-
acy, and particularly in recent times, the greater involvement of women
in aspects of political and professional affairs, all have affected the char-
acter and range of applications of Muslim family law.19
Notwithstanding this plurality, there are several defining character-
istics of Muslim family law, as originally worked out by the major inter-
pretive schools of law and now as reinforced by influential factions in
the contemporary religious establishment. In this particular account,
we take marriage as the primary example, due to its centrality in the
system of family law. Marriage in classical Muslim family law is not
regarded as a sacrament, but rather as a civil contract of unique impor-
tance, due to its centrality as a fundamental organizing principle of
society. As a contract, both parties may stipulate their own legally bind-
ing expectations and conditions for the arrangement, which if violated
can nullify the marriage or otherwise be grounds for divorce. There
are numerous gender-based prescriptions that became mainstays of the
religiously sanctioned Muslim marriage. By contemporary standards,
certain of these prescriptions etched out by medieval legal authorities
and defended by an overwhelmingly male-dominated religious estab-
lishment are overtly chauvinistic and appear geared to maintaining a
patriarchal social order. These include unilateral divorce rights for hus-
bands, the presumption that men are de facto heads of households, and
exclusively male rights to religiously sanctioned polyandry, within and
beyond the framework of marriage.20
Yet, within this gender-based division of spousal rights and respon-
sibilities, there are some clear benefits for women. Even early medieval
Muslim discussions of family law go to great lengths to consider certain
rights of wives, mothers, and children, particularly from a socioeco-
nomic standpoint. For instance, wives entering into Islamic marriages
retain independent finances and are not thought of as the property of
husbands, and wives are owed a mutually agreed upon monetary or

symbolic marital gift to contribute toward their material security. The

rights are not purely socioeconomic; wives possess notable legal rights
to sexual and emotional satisfaction. There are even some provisions in
classical law that could provide inspiration for contemporary women: a
wife of a Muslim husband is not a priori religiously bound to perform
domestic labour if this is not the social norm for her society or station.
Under certain circumstances, it is legally possible that if she voluntar-
ily performs such tasks, the husband may be compelled to compensate
her monetarily for her labour. From another aspect, Muslim courts in
different regions have long recognized a variety of reasons for wife-ini-
tiated judicial divorce, some of which bear resemblance to contempo-
rary paradigms of ‘no-fault’ due to the irrevocable breakdown of the
marriage. At the very least, wives had recourse to divorce in cases of a
husband’s protracted absence or in unfortunate cases where the hus-
band caused marked physical harm to her person. Many other guide-
lines within family law can be argued to have the wellbeing of the wife
as the underlying concern.
This is simply to argue that shari῾a law need not be seen as inher-
ently or utterly inimical to the interests of women. Guiding principles
for Muslim marriage, and familial ethics more broadly speaking, are
firmly vested in the promotion of families as cohesive social units that
engender successful progeny and social stability. With this objective in
mind, elites considered that the clear articulation of spousal rights and
responsibilities would enable greater marital harmony. What contem-
porary perspectives sometimes interpret as gender inequality, classical
authorities and their modern proponents read as a manifestation of jus-
tice. Perhaps both perspectives can coexist as a pragmatic compromise
between ideological positions; while the institution of marriage has his-
torically upheld a gendered division of marital rights and responsibili-
ties, with a subtle adjustment of the distribution, the framework could
be responsive to contemporary socioeconomic circumstances and cus-
tomary norms.
For instance, within the traditional model of a Muslim family, as
endorsed by a consensus of Muslim legal scholars and authorities since
the formative period, husbands and fathers are given the sole financial
responsibility for the maintenance of the family, including the provi-
sion of food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities. A woman’s main-
tenance is theoretically provided for by her guardian until her marriage
and her husband thereafter. Any belongings, earnings, and inheritance
are entirely her own; she is not, in the theoretical formulation of the
law, required to use her wealth or income for any of her basic needs or
the needs of her children.

While full financial support can be seen as a women’s perk within

Islamic religious law, in times of increasing global financial insecu-
rity and widespread unemployment, particularly among young adult
populations, this model for family finances is no longer practicable
or sustainable. A husband should not have to shoulder the financial,
physical, and emotional burdens of supporting a family unilaterally.
This is particularly true if his wife has a secure job and earns more than
he does, a trend that may very well be on the rise. Here, rather than
maintaining outdated frameworks that posit the husband as the sole
breadwinner and hence authority, a paradigm of reciprocity is more
appropriate. After all, it is a well-recognized principle in Islamic law
that changing times necessitate changing measures, and this princi-
ple applies here. Well intended though they may be, classical gendered
models for family finances must be reconsidered in light of current
economic and social realities. There is no compelling reason to con-
tinue to buttress a gendered division of marital finances. Furthermore,
if marital finances are no longer gendered, the principle of the man as
the de facto head of the household becomes an appendage that serves
little purpose and can be reengineered, given the current custom and
exigent needs.
This is one cursory example of how principles of family law may be
adjusted from within the framework of religion itself. For religiously
committed Muslims, the process will require a sustained commitment
to reasoned debate and deliberation.21 As noted above, Muslim legal
provisions have, in principle, strived to remain in touch with the par-
ticular characteristics, customs, and circumstances of local populations
while also safeguarding more universal concerns for equity, security,
and individual responsibility. The present is no exception. Yet, the scale
and pace of this process of drawing from religious texts and traditions
to inform contemporary realities have to keep pace with ever-growing
populations and ever more sophisticated institutions and bureaucratic
structures.
Getting Married: Recommendations for Western Muslims
While the previous example of how to preserve continuity while adapt-

ing to circumstantial changes was more theoretically oriented, the fol-
lowing example is more practically geared. The goal of our prescrip-
tions is to balance unity and uniformity with particularity; that is, we
maintain the fundamental integrity of the civil framework for recog-
nizing marriage while at the same time legitimize, and in fact advocate

for, several uniquely Muslim considerations for marriage. It is to the

aspects of uniformity that we first turn.
To better protect the rights of spouses and children, Muslim leaders
in the Western context, and particularly imams, to whom the task of
performing marriage ceremonies is commonly given, should require
their constituencies to register marriage contracts with Western civil
authorities before a religious marriage ceremony is conducted.22 The
de facto authority for resolving disputes should be the civil jurisdic-
tion. This standard should serve to integrate families wholly within the
Western legal system to avoid complicated and unreliable recourse to
international private law for the purposes of securing state-endowed
rights or for the purposes of settling any disputes that could arise in
Western civil courts. For couples married outside of the West but cur-
rently holding legal status within Western states, we recommend that
marriages also be registered with civil authorities in the West, where
possible. Domicile should be the primary standard, only to be sup-
plemented with factors such as nationality and party autonomy when
deemed necessary.23
At a basic level, registry could better ensure that adequate records
are present in cases of dispute over marital finances, the paternity of
children, or other such affairs. It would also ensure that Western civil
courts recognize the marital union and can have the authority to dis-
solve the marriage if necessary. Furthermore, traditional religious
frameworks for recognizing marriage are pluralistic, and at times the
line between what counts as a valid marriage and what does not is
ambiguous.24 Setting the clear expectation that marriages be registered
with civil authorities is one step in resolving such ambiguity. The fact
that judges sitting on such courts may not be Muslim does not consti-
tute a barrier. As long as the civil authority is known to be reliable and
accurate in its records, and there is no evidence to the contrary, there
is no compelling reason for Muslims not to rely on civil authorities. In
this case, the purpose of having two upright witnesses is adequately ful-
filled by the bureaucratic institution.
It merits noting that the support of civil institutions is not to envi-
sion that Western laws pertaining to the family are unadulterated, or
are otherwise capable of surpassing or escaping the confusion and even
rancour that can characterize family disputes; rather, it is to affirm that
civil registry of a marriage in no way conflicts with any religious prin-
ciple, and in fact, civil registry can effectively safeguard the rights of
partners in the contract. It provides a more reliable and bureaucrati-
cally advanced framework than that which fledgling Western Muslim
communities are able to offer at present. Muslim spouses could still

make recourse to religiously grounded family mediation and arbitra-

tion services to assist with the resolution of certain extrajudicial issues.
We argue below that the availability, credibility, and resource-base of
such services should be strengthened, but that they should not form a
substitute for the civil registry of marriage and divorce, or the resolu-
tion of any disputes that require the involvement of civil authorities.
In the model that we are advocating, religious networks represent
an important but auxiliary form of mediation. For the reasons stated
above, the civil jurisdiction must have ultimate authority. There is no
harm in having a religiously oriented commemoration of the marriage,
but to avoid confusion and to protect the rights of all parties, as well as
the rights of any potential children that could come from the union,
such a ceremony should ideally be conducted only after the civil con-
tract is filed. While we encourage Muslims to register marriages and
divorces with civil authorities, we maintain that the Muslim notion of a
marriage contract is a useful tool for couples to articulate their expec-
tations for the marriage. The contract can specifically state that it is
supplementary to the civil contract, and Muslim witnesses, two upright
men or two upright women, can sign.25
For instance, traditional formulae for Muslim unions provide oppor-
tunities to recognize conditions and stipulations. While the stipulations
and conditions specified may not have de facto legal value within the
civil framework of the law, as they might within a purely religious court,
civil courts may look into the conditions and stipulations of the religious
contract to help discern the intent of the parties at the time of marriage,
should a legal conflict arise. The contract offers an opportunity for the
couple to develop and clearly document how they will approach the idi-
osyncrasies of their marriage: where will the couple reside? Will a spouse
pursue higher education? There are a host of questions for considera-
tion, on which a new couple should have the opportunity to reflect in
an environment that can reinforce religious values in marriage, such as
kindness, reciprocity, patience, forgiveness, and mutual support. Mus-
lim communities should provide the framework for new and potential
couples to consider such preliminaries. While polygamy is somewhat of
a mute point for Muslims maintaining Western domicile, since Western
laws clearly prohibit multiple marriage partners, nevertheless the mar-
riage contract is also a forum where a wife can reiterate, if relevant, her
expectation of a monogamous marriage.
The marriage contract traditionally functions as documentation of
the mahr, the gift bestowed upon the wife by the husband, or otherwise
promised to her.26 In the Western context, if the gifts bestowed have a
significant monetary value, documentation of the exchange with the

couple’s signatures can be notarized to avoid later disagreements on the

value of the gifts bestowed. For devout Muslims, key financial aspects
of the marriage, namely the nafaqa, the obligation of the husband to
provide a wife with financial support for housing, food, clothing, and
other necessities, as well as ῾idda, the alimony paid by the husband dur-
ing the period of marital disillusionment, remain a religious obligation
which may or may not be deemed relevant in a civil court. We recom-
mend that bank records be kept, if necessary, to prove that such sums
were paid, should a legal need for proof arise. In short, financial settle-
ments between the spouses in the event of a divorce should fall under
the ultimate authority of civil jurisdictions, which are better equipped
to enforce decisions equitably. In order to secure justice in such cases
involving mahr, nafaqa, and ῾idda, Western courts should employ a
comparative legal method and gender justice approach, the theoretical
underpinnings of which have already been articulated.27
As the number of devout Muslims residing in the West rises, so too
does the need for individuals with the appropriate religious training
and background to make legal guidance and pastoral care readily avail-
able, not to mention the need for other social services that together
form a more cohesive support structure for families.28 As practitioners
who have worked extensively at the community level on issues con-
cerning the family, we cannot emphasize this point enough. It is not
merely in the domain of law at the national level where conversations
on this topic need to be occurring, but perhaps even more so, it is at the
local level where needs are most pressing and interventions would be
felt most directly. For instance, Western Muslim organizations should
build their capacities in order to offer wider marital counselling ser-
vices, led by teams of professionals with competence in religious mat-
ters, the behavioural sciences, and law.29
Providing such family support should not fall to the imam of a com-
munity, who is unlikely to have the professional training or resources
necessary to meet the demand. Neither should such a task fall to an ad
hoc tribunal, particularly not the kind that charges exorbitant fees for
services. Finally, all-male councils risk marginalizing women’s interests
and are no longer acceptable according to modern standards. If it is not
possible to find female members to sit on such councils – which would
be highly unlikely – then female-specific training programmes should
be an upmost priority. The goal should be to make readily available
locally tailored, affordable, gender-balanced, professionally competent,
non-binding family dispute mediation and arbitration services, as well
as other holistic programmes aimed at strengthening families.30 Draw-
ing on the expertise of social scientists and community-based profes-

sionals with expertise working at the family level would be particularly

valuable in this context.
Conclusion
Societies the world over have been actively deriving mechanisms and
procedures for secular laws and religious values to coexist for centu-
ries, such that the case of contemporary Western Muslims is best un-
derstood as an unavoidable facet of cosmopolitan civic life, rather than
a peculiar exception to it. That said, each society has its own politi-
cal philosophies, legal structures, and cultural dynamics. Hence, our
argument is not directed toward providing a singular, comprehensive
model for the integration of religious values within largely secular
systems; rather, we have provided recommendations, guided by cur-
rent research and time-tested principles, for how Western Muslims
and their partners can facilitate social and legal integration at the level
of families. We firmly hold that advocating for norms drawn directly
from pre-modern Muslim legal discourses, without a full consideration
of their outcomes and effects in specific Western contexts, is entirely
counterproductive.
Given the preceding discussions, the best path is to seek out continu-
ity in aims between religious and civil law, and to work within existing
systems to enhance their efficiency. As many Muslim-majority locals
move towards even greater reform of their family and personal status
law codes to reflect current transnational standards, it would be reason-
able to expect that conversations engendered by Western Muslims and
lawmakers would impact these wider deliberations. New models for
Western Muslim familial ethics stand to add valuable insights to, and
reap insights from, negotiations of this type that have long been taking
place in Muslim-majority societies. Namely, strengthening organiza-
tions and community networks that cater to family support should be
a high priority. Policy leaders need to continue to work across religious
and national boundaries to establish best practices and forums for col-
laborative engagement. Western partners need to help craft systems of
family dispute arbitration that are relevant to the needs and customs of
local Muslim communities. Western Muslims and their partners can
continue to work to forward a civic discourse that mitigates xenopho-
bia and Islamophobia. So, too, investments of time, resources, and crea-
tive energies are needed from all parties to help institute holistic solu-
tions for meeting the exigent needs of vulnerable populations.

Notes
1 See the arguments of Tāhā Jābir Fayyād Alwānī, Towards A Fiqh for Minorities:
Some Basic Reflections, London; Washington: International Institute of Islamic
Thought, 2003.
2 For a detailed account thereof see Andrea Büchler, Islamic Law in Europe? Legal
Pluralism and its Limits in European Family Laws, Surrey, England; Burling-
ton, vt: Ashgate, 2011; Julie MacFarlane, Islamic Divorce in North America: A
Shari῾a Path in a Secular Society, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
3 See Dieter Martiny, ‘Is Unification of Family Law Feasible or Even Desirable?’
in Arthur S. Hartkamp, Ewoud Hondius, Chantal Mak and Edgar du Perron
(eds.), Towards a European Civil Code, Alphen a/d Rijn/London: Kluwer Law
International bv, 2011, pp. 429-57.
4 On the incompetence of a handful of tribunals in the United Kingdom, see
Irfan al-Alawi, Stephen S. Schwartz, Kamal Hasani, Veli Sirin, Daut Dauti and
Qanta Ahmed, A Guide to Shariah Law and Islamist Ideology in Western Europe,
2007-2009, London: Center for Islamic Pluralism, 2009, pp. 44-49.
5 See related discussions in Andrew F. March, ‘Sources of Moral Obligation to
Non-Muslims in the “Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities” (Fiqh al-aqalliyyāt)
Discourse,’ Islamic Law & Society 2009 (Vol. 16, No. 1), pp. 34-94.
6 For a model approach, see Marie-Claire Foblets, ‘Migrant Women Caught
between Islamic Family Law and Women’s Rights: The Search for the Appro-
priate “Connecting Factor” in International Family Law,’ Maastricht Journal of
European and Comparative Law, 2000, (Vol. 7, No. 1), pp. 11-34.
7 See Jonathan Laurence, The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims: The State’s Role
in Minority Integration, Princeton, n.j.: Princeton University Press, 2012.
8 J.D.J. Waardenburg, ‘Muslim Associations and Official Bodies in some Euro-
pean Countries,’ and J.S. Nielsen, ‘Muslim Organizations in Europe: Integration
or Isolation?’ in W.A.R. Shadid and P.S. van Koningsveld (eds.), The Integra-
tion of Islam and Hinduism in Western Europe, Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing
House, 1991, pp. 24-42 and 43-59.
9 See W.A.R. Shadid and P. S. van Koningsveld, ‘Blaming the System or Blaming
the Victim? Structural Barriers Facing Muslims in Western Europe,’ in Shadid
and van Koningsveld, The Integration of Islam, 1991, pp. 2-21.
10 M. Rohe, Muslim Minorities and the Law in Europe: Chances and Challenges,
New Delhi: Global Media Publications, 2007, p. 15; see also J. S. Nielsen, Mus-
lims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2004, 1st
ed. 1992, pp. 101-104; and Jocelyne Cesari, ‘Islamophobia in the West: A Com-
parison between Europe and the United States,’ in John L. Esposito and Ibra-
him Kalin (eds.), Islamophobia: The Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 11-24 and particularly pp. 25-27.
11 Sonya Fernandez, ‘The Crusade over the Bodies of Women,’ Patterns of Preju-
dice, 2009 (Vol. 43, Nos. 3-4), pp. 269-286.
12 For a detailed account, see Fatima El-Tayeb, European Others: Queering Ethnic-
ity in Postnational Europe, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

13 Irfan al-Alawi et al., A Guide to Shariah Law and Islamist Ideology in Western
Europe, 2009.
14 For one regional analysis, see Gamze Çavdar, ‘Islamist Moderation and the
Resilience of Gender: Turkey’s Persistent Paradox,’ Totalitarian Movements and
Political Religions 11, 2010 (Nos. 3-4). pp. 341-357, see especially pp. 348-350.
15 For an account of the codification and reform of Muslim family law codes
with some comparison to the history of European family law codification, see
Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe, 2004, pp. 108-110.
16 Hanne Petersen, ‘Women, Secular and Religious Laws and Traditions: Gen-
dered Secularization, Gendering shari῾a,’ in Jørgen S. Nielsen, and Lisbet
Christoffersen (eds.), Sharia as Discourse: Legal Traditions and the Encounter
with Europe, Farnham, Surrey uk; Burlington, vt: Ashgate, 2009, pp. 77-88;
see also related discussions in Margot Badran, Feminism in Islam: Secular and
religious convergences, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2009.
17 See for example Yakaré Oulé-Jansen, ‘Muslim Brides and the Ghost of Shari’a:
Have the Recent Law Reforms in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco Improved Wom-
en’s Position in Marriage and Divorce and Can Religious Moderates Bring
Reform and Make it Stick?’, Northwestern Journal of International Human
Rights, 2007 (Vol. 5, No. 2), pp. 181-212.
18 For one example, see discussions in Robin Griffith-Jones, Islam and English
Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
19 Frances Susan Hasso, Consuming Desires: Family Crisis and the State in the Mid-
dle East, Stanford, ca: Stanford University Press, 2011.
20 For an extended analysis, see Kecia Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010.
21 For an apt framework for engagement, see Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims
and the Future of Islam, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, par-
ticularly pp. 9-10, 51-55, 109-115. On the role of religious reason in the political
process see Jeffery Stout, Democracy and Tradition, Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 2004, pp. 63-91.
22 For an analysis of the opinions of leading European authorities for and against
civil registry of marriages, see Vit Sisler, ‘European Courts’ Authority Con-
tested? The Case of Marriage and Divorce Fatwas On-line,’ Masaryk University
Journal of Law and Technology 2009 (Vol. 3, No. 1), pp. 51-78. See also Bowen,
Can Islam be French?, pp. 165-70.
23 On the pros and cons of the various approaches, see Marie-Claire Foblets,
‘Migrant Women Caught between Islamic Family Law and Women’s Rights,
2000, pp. 20-25.
24 For ethnographic examples, see Bowen, Can Islam be French?, pp. 157-165.
25 For a woman’s witness carrying equal weight to that of a man, see Tāhā Jābir
Fayyād Alwānī, ‘The Testimony of Women in Islamic Law,’ trans. Yusuf DeLo-
renzo, in The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, 1996 (Vol. 13, No. 2),
pp. 173-96; see also Fadel, Mohammad, ‘Two Women, One Man: Knowledge,
Power and Gender in Medieval Sunni Legal Thought’, International Journal of
Middle East Studies 1997 (Vol. 29, No. 2), pp. 185-204.

26 Substantial attention has already been devoted to this topic, see Rubya Mehdi
and Jørgen S. Nielsen, Embedding Mahr (Islamic Dower) in the European Legal
System, Portland: International Specialized Book Services, 2011. See also Pas-
cale Fournier, Muslim Marriage in Western Courts: Lost in Translation, Burling-
ton, vt: Ashgate, 2012.
27 As detailed in Lene Løvdal, ‘Mahr and Gender Equality in Private International
Law: The Adjudication of Mahr in England, France, Norway and Sweden,’ in
Embedding Mahr, 2011, pp. 77-112.
28 Such discussions are already emerging at the community level, e.g. Aneesah
and Zarinah Nadir, ‘License to Wed: Muslim couples need to weigh legal issues
entailed by married life,’ Islamic Horizons, 2012 (Vol. 41, No. 1), pp. 55-54.
29 For one successful model see Mohamed Keshavjee, The Ismaili Alternative Dis-
pute Resolution Training Programmes and the Potential for New Directions in
Mediation, London: Institute for Ismaili Studies, 2007.
30 European courts should not be obligated to enforce the recommendations of
such committees; however, expert testimony of such a gender-balanced and
professionally competent committee could be valuable in some cases. See
related discussion in Al-Alawi et al., A Guide to Shariah Law, 2007-2009, p. 39.

13 Reflections on the Development of the
Discourse of Fiqh for Minorities and Some
of the Challenges it Faces
Abdullah Saeed
This chapter examines the context of and debate surrounding fiqh al-
‘aqalliyyat (fiqh for Muslim minorities, hereafter named ‘fiqh for mi-
norities’). After defining and outlining the concept of fiqh for minori-
ties, the concept is then examined in relation to its historical develop-
ment in classical Islamic law. As there is a substantial amount of debate
about fiqh for minorities, some of its assumed benefits are examined,
along with the objections that various critics have made to it. Finally,
some observations are made with regard to the nature of the challenges
it faces today.
Defining Fiqh for Minorities
Fiqh for minorities has been defined as ‘a specific discipline which takes
into account the relationship between the religious ruling and the con-
ditions of the community and the location where it exists.’1 This fiqh
consists of a contextual application of the rules and principles of the
primary sources of Islamic law, and is rooted in a recognition and ap-
preciation of the specific conditions facing Muslims who are living as
minorities.2 In particular, this approach appears to reinterpret those el-
ements of classical Islamic law (fiqh) that, owing to historical changes
in Muslims’ circumstances, have become largely obsolete.3
Fiqh for minorities aims to address the problems that arise every
day for millions of Muslims living in the West or in similar minority
situations, particularly where conflict arises between the culture and
values of the host society and the rules and the framework provided
by classical Islamic law.4 Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah, vice-president
of the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars and a pro-
ponent of fiqh for minorities, has indicated that in situations that are
defined as being of ‘a problematic nature’ or involving ‘hardship,’ fiqh
for minorities outlines the minimum that is expected of a Muslim liv-

ing in minority.5 According to another opinion, fiqh for minorities is

shaped by the broader aims of shari῾a (maqasid al-shari῾a), in the sense
that shari῾a ‘permits all that is good and wholesome and forbids what
is harmful,’ and hence is ‘aimed at making life easier and more conveni-
ent.’6 In terms of its scope, fiqh for minorities addresses personal law
related issues as well as matters of ritual and worship (ibadah). In this
way, it covers a wide spectrum of issues relating to daily life.
The term fiqh al-aqalliyyat was only recently introduced into the
discourse. It was first used in the 1990s by two prominent Muslim reli-
gious figures: Shaykh Taha Jabir al-Alwani (who was then based in the
us) and Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (who lives in Qatar).7 Al-Alwani
appears to have used the term fiqh al-aqalliyyat for the first time in 1994
when the Fiqh Council of North America, under his presidency, issued
a legal opinion (fatwa) declaring that American Muslims are permitted
to vote in American elections.8 Despite the many subsequent contribu-
tions to this area by a range of scholars, al-Alwani remains, in my view,
its most important contemporary theoretician: he continues to contrib-
ute not only fatwas, but also a range of concepts and methodological
tools. He is also at the forefront of those who are arguing for a more
principled approach to fiqh for minorities.
Muslim Residence in Non-Muslim Territory in the Prophetic

Period
While the status of Muslim minorities residing in non-Muslim terri-

tory has been the subject of Muslim juristic debate since at least the
second century of Islam,9 it appears that the issue of Muslims living un-
der non-Muslim ‘rule’ arose among Muslims earlier, and initially dur-
ing the time of the Prophet Muhammad. The Qur’anic verses view the
presence of Muslims among non-Muslims in Mecca during the time
of the Prophet (610-622 ce) as normal. It was only after the Prophet
Muhammad had established a ‘Muslim territory’ in Medina (following
his migration from Mecca in 622 ce) that the Qur’an asked the Meccan
Muslims to migrate to Medina10 as a way of consolidating and strength-
ening the Muslim community there. However, this instruction did not
appear to be a general command for Muslims to migrate from a ‘non-
Muslim’ territory to Muslim lands as such.
On a number of occasions, the Qur’an appears to indicate that what
matters is not whether Muslims live in predominantly non-Muslim ter-
ritories, but whether they are free from oppression and persecution and
able to practise their religion in such places. The Prophet Muhammad

the development of the discourse of fiqh for minorities 243
even encouraged his followers to flee persecution in Mecca and to seek

refuge with a Christian ruler in Abyssinia where they had the freedom
to practise their religion. When his teaching spread across Arabia, the
Prophet seems to have accepted the fact that individual Muslims would
live amongst predominantly non-Muslim communities, as was the case
with Muslims who converted to Islam but preferred to live in their own
non-Muslim tribes.
Muslim Residence in Non-Muslim Territory Under Classical

Islamic law
Although Muslims lived in non-Muslim majority contexts from the

earliest times of Islam, there was no systematic treatment by jurists of
the issue of Muslims living under non-Muslim rule between the sev-
enth and eleventh centuries ce, probably because such presence on a
large scale was not regarded as ‘normal’.11 However, some opinions were
expressed by early jurists that were later taken up by other jurists in the
development of their positions on the issue. Imam Malik (d. 769), who
represented the most strict school of law with regard to Muslim resi-
dence under non-Muslim rule, believed that Muslims should not reside
in non-Muslim territories. He disapproved of Muslims travelling to
non-Muslim lands, even for business.12 Other scholars were more flex-
ible: Abu Hanifa (d. 767) permitted residence for Muslims in non-Mus-
lim territory as long as it was not permanent. Shafi῾i (d. 820) allowed
Muslims to reside in non-Muslim territories if there was no danger of
their being enticed away from their religion. The Hanafi jurist Shay-
bani (d. 805) argued that Muslims were not obliged to migrate from a
non-Muslim territory to a Muslim one. Tabari (d. 923) held that a Mus-
lim’s ability to practise his religion was the key consideration in any dis-
cussion about the permissibility of residence. For the Ja’faris (Shi’a), it
might even be better to reside in a non-Muslim territory in some cases,
because that territory might be free from persecution and oppression.13
Dar al-Islam and Dar al-kufr
Related to the issue of residence is the question of the kind of ‘abode’

(dar) in which a Muslim may reside. While various ‘abodes’ are recog-
nized in juristic literature, much of the discussion surrounds dar al-
islam (abode of Islam) and dar al-kufr (abode of unbelief), the latter
sometimes referred to as dar al-harb (the abode of war or enemy ter-

ritory). While jurists distinguished between the two abodes and often
believed that it was not acceptable to reside outside dar al-islam, there
was no agreed upon conception of what could be considered the dar
al-Islam or abode of Islam. For the Hanafi jurist al-Kasani (d. 1191), dar
al-islam was where shari῾a was manifest and implemented. For Shafi’i
scholars, ‘territorial control’ determined whether the place was dar al-
islam.14 Other scholars argued that in addition to territorial control,
Muslims should be living in security for the territory to be considered
the abode of Islam.15
While it was preferable for Muslims to live in dar al-islam (however
defined), living in dar al-kufr or dar al-harb was often discouraged, if
not outright prohibited. In the pre-modern context there was a pre-
dominant belief that it was only possible for a Muslim to live an iden-
tifiably ‘Islamic’ life under the rule of shari῾a. This, in turn, could only
occur within the context of an Islamic polity dedicated to its applica-
tion.16 Thus, jurists saw a clear dichotomy between the abode of Islam,
where shari῾a ruled, and the abode of unbelief, where shari῾a had no
place.17 There were also other reasons for this discomfort. By residing
in the abode of unbelief, a Muslim could be perceived as inadvertently
strengthening the ‘enemy’ and they might acquire Islamically unac-
ceptable or undesirable values or norms from the predominantly non-
Muslim context.18
Equally, the notion of the ‘supremacy of Islam’ over other religions (a
belief that was then widely held in Islamic theology and law) could not
be maintained in such an environment. In addition, Muslims might not
be able to practise their religion as they should, and there was a chance
that Muslims might convert to the dominant religion, thus leading to
the spread of apostasy (riddah). Moreover, at a social level, non-Muslim
norms and customs in many contexts were considered somehow inap-
propriate for Muslims. Thus for most jurists, the idea of Muslims living
outside the abode of Islam was problematic. It was therefore generally
presumed that Muslims living in dar al-kufr would migrate back to the
dar al-islam. In the meantime, it was understood that these ‘displaced’
Muslims would preserve their religious and cultural identity by isolat-
ing themselves from their host societies.19
Development of the Discourse on Fiqh for Minorities
While it was easy to hold and maintain such views up to the eleventh
century ce or so, this began to change as the political and military
dominance of Muslims began to be challenged and large areas formerly

under Muslim rule came under non-Muslim governance. Although the

situation varied from place to place and from time to time, in Spain un-
der Christian rule, for example, as Christians reconquered parts of Is-
lamic Spain, the freedom to practise Islam gradually deteriorated, par-
ticularly from the thirteenth century ce. In many cases, Muslims had to
live under severe restrictions or were forced to convert to Christianity.
Muslims living under such conditions had to seek fatwas as to what
they should do. At that time, some scholars argued that they should
migrate to Muslim lands where they would have the freedom to prac-
tise their religion; while others argued they should stay in Spain and
practise their religion as much as possible.
As large numbers of Muslims came under non-Muslim rule, not only
in Spain, but also in Sicily, and even in predominantly Muslim majority
lands, such as those that came under Mongol rule during the thirteenth
century ce, Muslim jurists had to address the situation and deal with
legal issues in a more systematic manner. A number of scholars today
highlight this fundamental change to the jurisprudential discourse. For
example, after the loss of Toledo in Spain in 1085 ce, while Muslims
had previously experienced territorial losses,20 the resulting geopoliti-
cal changes were matched by a documented juridical response by Mus-
lim scholars. A rich body of fatwa literature related to these changing
circumstances was gathered, for instance, by the North African Maliki
scholar, Ahmad al-Wansharisi (d. 1508), among others.21
Such fatwas and other juristic views were issued to guide the Mus-
lims who were then living under such conditions. However, the need to
develop jurisprudence to address the context of living in a minority has
become even more crucial over the past two centuries. The second half
of the twentieth century is particularly important in this regard, given
the large number of Muslims who willingly migrated to non-Muslim
lands, particularly in Europe and North America. It is this Muslim
presence that has led to the current discourse of fiqh for minorities.
The Modern Discourse of Fiqh for Minorities
In the modern period, fiqh for minorities has identified that Muslim
minorities, especially those residing in the West, require a specific
legal discipline to address their unique religious needs, which differ
from those of Muslims residing in Muslim majority countries.22 Ac-
cording to al-Alwani, the purpose of fiqh for minorities is not to rec-
reate Islam, but to provide a set of methodologies that govern how a
jurist should work within the existing flexibility of the religion to best

apply it to particular circumstances.23 For al-Alwani, fiqh for minori-

ties is essentially derived from the general fiqh of Islam as a whole, but
it focuses on issues that affect Muslim minorities living among non-
Muslim majorities who are endeavouring to preserve their identities
under somewhat different customs, legislation and laws.24 As such,
Muslim minorities are living under particular conditions and they
have special needs that may not be appropriate for other communi-
ties.25 This therefore requires a discipline, with input from specialists
from different social and religious disciplines, so that problems can
be articulated accurately and solutions found based on a common ap-
proach, broadly based on the universally accepted fundamentals of the
Qur’an and Sunna.26
In comparison to al-Alwani’s approach, most modern Muslim
jurists still appear to treat the situation of Muslim minorities as a highly
exceptional case that requires special consideration.27 They tend to
approach the range of questions relating to laws about food, dress, mar-
riage, divorce, co-education and relations with non-Muslims in terms
of expediency. Consequently, the interpretations are often varied.28 A
wide range of concepts from Islamic jurisprudence, including the com-
mon good, the objective or spirit of law, convenience, common prac-
tice, necessity and prevention of harm have also gained significance in
this discourse.29
Advantages of a Separate Branch of Fiqh for Minorities
Proponents of fiqh for minorities argue that developing a specific

branch of jurisprudence for minorities has a number of advantages.
They claim that the approach will help address the daily problems that
arise for millions of Muslim individuals living in the West or in simi-
lar minority situations.30 One advantage claimed for fiqh for minorities
is that it will ensure that the religious life of the Muslim minority is
protected on both a personal and a collective level.31 In this regard, al-
Alwani has pointed out that the key challenge faced by Western Mus-
lims (and Muslim minorities elsewhere) today is how to ensure their
integration into these societies without losing their religious identity.32
Fiqh for minorities is believed to be of benefit to Muslims in majority
contexts as well.
Although some of the problems addressed by this branch of juris-
prudence may appear to be urgent for Muslims in the West, ultimately,
the whole of the Muslim world will have to respond to the issues that
are being raised (such as gender equality, for instance)33 as the world

becomes more globalized and as Muslim-majority societies are increas-

ingly faced with the influence of modernity. Another advantage claimed
for fiqh for minorities is that it may improve relations with non-Mus-
lims on a cultural and international level, by creating a clear framework
for mutual understanding. Fiqh for minorities may also bring benefits
for the discipline of fiqh itself, by allowing issues of law to be under-
stood from a new perspective.
Despite these potential benefits, this project has been heavily criti-
cized by a number of influential Muslim scholars. The American Shaykh
Nuh Keller and the Syrian Shaykh Buti are among the best known crit-
ics of fiqh for minorities. Shaykh Nuh Keller’s objections are twofold.
Firstly, he rejects the idea that ‘exceptions’ should be created for Mus-
lim minorities. He argues that exceptions have already been built into
shari῾a, case-by-case, and that each situation should be decided based
on its own merits,34 not by a wholesale generalization. In his view, the
approach adopted by fiqh for minorities is a form of ‘sloppy thinking’
and it results in ‘bad fiqh.’35 Secondly, he argues that fiqh for minori-
ties creates two sets of standards: one for Muslims in Muslim-majority
countries, and another for Muslims in Muslim-minority contexts. For
Keller, this means that, ‘anybody who is in a minority… has an excuse
to behave [differently] than [those in] countries where Muslims are
a majority.’36 On the other hand, Shaykh Buti posits that there are no
such things as minorities and majorities in Islamic legal thought. He
argues that shari῾a, as a system of law, is only applied in dar al-Islam,
not dar al-kufr.37
For these critics, there is nothing specific to the situation of minori-
ties that justifies a different treatment in law; they argue that the entire
project of fiqh for minorities should be rejected on this basis. Although
adherents to this view acknowledge that the application of Islamic law
should take context into account to a certain extent, they emphasize
that Islam is one religion and that there is no justifiable reason for a sep-
arate project of Islamic law for minorities. For them, fiqh for minorities
is an unnecessary departure from the classical conception of Islamic
law. They argue that personal juridical reasoning (ijtihad) should be
used to solve these problems, bearing in mind specific circumstances,
rather than adopting a whole new fiqh.38 For them, there is no need to
develop a separate branch of jurisprudence for minorities.
There are other criticisms of fiqh for minorities as well. One is that
fiqh for minorities is a form of innovation in religion (bid’ah) that
must be rejected. Legal positions and views that came to be accepted
as ‘standard’ in classical Islamic law are, from this perspective, to be
respected and maintained. Proponents of fiqh for minorities may

respond by noting that there have been differences of opinion among

the jurists on practically every single Islamic legal problem, and that
the so-called standard views are frequently challenged by other jurists.
In their view there is no ‘innovation’ in fiqh for minorities, as far as the
substance and content are concerned. The only innovation is the new
label that is being used.
Fiqh for minorities can also be criticized because it appears to be
based on somewhat subjective considerations, rather than clear princi-
ples of jurisprudence and rules of interpretation. This arguably makes
fiqh for minorities extremely subjective and therefore of questionable
legitimacy. Fiqh for minorities can also be seen as a discourse that
appears to adopt a somewhat paternalistic attitude towards Muslims
living in minority contexts. By focusing on solutions that aim to make
life more convenient or easier for Muslims in minority contexts,39 fiqh
for minorities appears to present the view that Muslims in minority
contexts are less able to fulfil the same obligations as Muslims who live
in majority contexts. A related idea is that by permitting certain prac-
tices that are considered prohibited (haram) in Muslim-majority con-
texts (based on the legal maxim that necessity justifies such practices),
fiqh for minorities promotes the perception that a diluted approach to
Islam is generally acceptable in minority contexts.
Naturally, proponents of fiqh for minorities have responded directly
to such criticisms, although despite the contributions of figures like al-
Alwani, many supporters of fiqh for minorities still appear to be unin-
terested in asking fundamental questions about Islamic law, principles
of jurisprudence, or the interpretation of texts as they issue fatwas relat-
ing to Muslim minority concerns.
Towards a More Principled Approach?
Much of fiqh for minorities is based on the idea that the positions de-
veloped in classical Islamic law (and upon which there is broad agree-
ment among jurists) must be seen as the standard for Muslims today.
However, in the case of minorities, where there is some flexibility in the
legal tradition (for instance, in the form of differing opinions among
the jurists or different interpretations of a particular text), this can be
used to provide a more lenient view, opinion or a fatwa. The underlying
position of the proponents of fiqh for minorities, with very few excep-
tions, seems to be that there is no need to rethink, in any fundamental
way, principles of jurisprudence or rules of interpretation. Two exam-
ples are noted here.

Example 1: a Muslim woman’s marriage to a non-Muslim
Classical Islamic law is reasonably clear that a Muslim woman may not
remain married to a non-Muslim man. For Muslims living in the West,
this classical legal position has become difficult to maintain, especially
because of the circumstances in which some conversions take place.
Some proponents of fiqh for minorities have therefore proposed, based
on certain minority views in classical Islamic law, that it is acceptable
for a non-Muslim man and woman to remain married, even if one of
the spouses becomes a Muslim. In what follows, this famous fatwa on
this issue, while recognizing the difficulties posed by the almost unani-
mous position in Islamic law that a Muslim woman may not marry or
remain married to a non-Muslim man, accommodates the present situ-
ation (particularly in Western contexts):40
The Council also recognizes and acknowledges the conditions in

which new Muslim sisters in the West find themselves when their
husbands choose to retain their religion. The Council affirms and re-
peats that it is forbidden for a Muslim female to establish marriage to
a non-Muslim male. This has been an issue of consensus throughout
the history of this nation. However, in the case of marriage being es-
tablished prior to the female entering the fold of Islam, the Council
has decided the following:
First: If both husband and wife revert to Islam and there is no shari῾ah
objection to their marriage in the first place, such as blood or foster
relations, which deem the very establishment of marriage unlawful,
the marriage shall be deemed valid and correct.
Second: Assuming that the marriage is properly contracted in the be-

ginning, if the husband reverts to Islam alone, while his wife remains
a Jew or a Christian, then the marriage shall maintain its validity, i.e.
it will not be affected by the husband’s conversion to Islam.
Third: If the wife reverts to Islam while her husband remains on his
religion, the Council sees the following:
1) If her reversion to Islam occurs before the consummation of mar-
riage, then they must immediately separate.
2) If her reversion to Islam occurs after the consummation of mar-
riage, and the husband also embraced Islam before the expiry of her
period of waiting [῾iddah], then the marriage is deemed valid and
correct.

3) If her reversion to Islam occurs after the consummation of mar-

riage, and the period of waiting expires, she is allowed to wait for him
to embrace Islam even if that period happens to be a lengthy one. Once
he does so and reverts to Islam, then their marriage is deemed valid
and correct [emphasis added].
4) If the wife chooses to marry another man after the expiration of
the period of waiting, she must first request a dissolution of marriage
through legal channels.
Fourth: According to the four main schools of jurisprudence, it is for-

bidden for the wife to remain with her husband, or indeed to allow
him conjugal rights, once her period of waiting has expired. However,
some scholars see that it is for her to remain with him, allowing him to
enjoy full conjugal rights, if he does not prevent her from exercising her
religion and she has hope in him to revert to Islam [emphasis added].
The reason for this is to consider the case of women who would find
it difficult to embrace Islam with the condition of being separated
from their husbands and deserting their families. Those scholars
based their view upon the ruling of Umar b. al-Khattab, may Allah
be pleased with him, in the case of the woman from al-Hira who re-
verted to Islam while her husband remained on his religion. Accord-
ing to the authentic narration of Yazid b. Abd Allah al-Khatmi, Umar
b. al-Khattab made it optional for the woman to leave her husband or
to stay with him. They also cite, in supporting their view, the opinion
of Ali b. Abi Talib concerning the Christian woman who embraced
Islam while still married to a Christian or a Jew. Ali said that her hus-
band’s conjugal right was still inalienable, as he had a contract. This is
also an authentic narration. It is also known that Ibrahim al-Nakha῾i,
al-Sha῾bi and Hammad b. Abi Sulayman had the same view.
Thus this fatwa is relying on a minority position in fiqh to provide some

flexibility for women who embrace Islam while their husbands remain
non-Muslim. The justification is based on the opinions of major figures
like Umar b. al-Khattab and Ali b. Abi Talib, even though these views
have not been adopted in classical Islamic law.
While this fatwa is addressing an important issue for contemporary
Muslim women in particular, relying on certain minority views in fiqh,
one wonders whether it would not be more appropriate to ask some
fundamental questions regarding women and Islamic law, in particular
in relation to what is often referred to as the ‘status of women’ and the
interpretation of a range of texts in the Qur’an and Sunna in the light
of that ‘status’ in the past. Such an approach will require rethinking the

role of women in society and coming to terms with the idea of equality
of men and women before the law. There is a range of Qur’anic texts, as
well as Hadith, that can be used to support this idea of equality. How-
ever, because of the perceived immutability of laws relating to women
and family in classical Islamic law, most Muslim jurists today (includ-
ing most proponents of fiqh for minorities) are not prepared to adopt
the approach suggested. Naturally, when examining fatwas related to
women, proponents of fiqh for minorities still seem to maintain the
same view of women that was maintained by classical Islamic law. The
sustainability of this classical legal view today is questionable, and per-
haps should be open to challenge.
Example 2: interest-based mortgages
Another example that demonstrates the utilization of minority views

to support practices that could otherwise be regarded as prohibited un-
der classical Islamic law can be found in the area of finance. Fiqh for
minorities appears to permit interest-based mortgages on the basis of
necessity (darura), despite the fact that classical Islamic law considers
any form of increase over and above the principal in a loan to be riba
and therefore prohibited. This fatwa issued by the European Council
for Fatwa and Research41 on the permissibility of applying for a loan to
buy a house typifies the reasoning on this issue. Having stated that riba
is forbidden (and that bank interest is also riba), this fatwa goes on to
encourage Muslims in Western countries to establish Islamic mecha-
nisms for lending or borrowing money without interest, and to work
with existing financial institutions to develop such mechanisms. If all
of this fails, the Council recommends the following:
If all the above suggestions are unavailable, the Council, in the light
of evidence and juristic considerations, see no harm in buying mort-
gaged houses if the following restrictions are strictly observed: (a) the
house to be bought must be for the buyer and his household; (b) the
buyer must not have another house; (c) the buyer must not have any
surplus of assets that can help him buy a house by means other than
mortgage.
As the fatwa is built on the principles of extreme necessity (darura)

or need (hajah, which is treated in a similar manner to darura), the
Council stresses that there is another rule, which governs and com-
plements the rule of extreme necessity and need. This rule states that
whatever has been made permissible due to extreme necessity must be

handled with great care; it should be restricted to the category of people

who are in real need of a house. The fatwa, therefore, does not cover
taking out a mortgage to buy a house for commercial reasons, or for
purposes other than buying a house for someone who does not have
one.
However, a fundamental question in this area is whether classical
Muslim jurists and contemporary jurists were correct when they inter-
preted the Qur’anic notion of riba simply as interest in all of its forms,
without looking at the ethical dimension of the prohibition, which is
clearly spelt out in the Koran as injustice (zulm). Instead of creating
one stratagem after another to circumvent the prohibition, why not ask
the fundamental question: are all forms of interest riba? Much like their
seeming reluctance to question how classical Islamic law views women,
proponents of fiqh for minorities do not seem to be interested in asking
this fundamental question about the interpretation of riba.
Concluding Remarks
Classical Islamic law faces many problems in the contemporary world,

and the situation of minorities highlights the need for a rethinking of
key areas of classical Islamic law. Solutions are not going to be found
by making minor adjustments here and there or by declaring exception
after exception to general rules (for example, by declaring that it is ac-
ceptable to borrow money on interest in one part of the world but not
in another, or by giving women certain rights in minority contexts but
not in majority contexts). Only by undertaking a rethinking of classical
legal positions can authentic solutions be found to the issues that clas-
sical Islamic law is facing as it engages with the modern world.
For fiqh for minorities to move beyond its current limits, it must
be repositioned within the broader debate on the reform of classi-
cal Islamic law. This requires that temporary and ad hoc solutions be
replaced with a more principled discourse of reform, leading to real
change and new understandings of how Muslims should practise Islam
in today’s world, regardless of where they are located. I am not suggest-
ing that context is unimportant; rather, that fiqh should be reconsid-
ered to account for the specific social, political, cultural, and economic
contexts in which Muslims live, regardless of their minority or majority
status. To achieve this, proponents of fiqh for minorities are required to
have the courage to ask deeper and more fundamental questions about
the application of law, as well as principles of jurisprudence, ethics, and
morality in the contemporary context. They should seek to develop a

methodological framework within which such questions can be asked

and the responses evaluated. They should be prepared to ask hard ques-
tions about how Islamic law was constructed in the first three centuries
of Islam (as a human construct based on divine guidance) and to con-
sider how its social, political, and historical contexts have impacted this
process.
As a result, a whole range of concepts, including dar al-harb and dar
al-Islam, Muslim and non-Muslim relations, the perceived inequality of
men and women, the role of law in being Muslim, and the scope of what
may be considered permissible (halal) and impermissible (haram), may
need to be reconsidered. These new ideas are just as crucial for Mus-
lims living in majority contexts as they are for Muslim minorities. In
short, this will involve a fundamental rethinking of the classical Islamic
legal tradition and its foundations. Those ideas and practices that are
no longer justifiable must be set aside, so that new ideas can be devel-
oped in relation to what it means to be Muslim today.
Notes
1 Mahbubur Rahman (ed.), ‘The Case for the “Fiqh of Muslim Minorities”’,
online article at The Message International.org, 12 January 2011, available online
at http://messageinternational.org/the-case-for-the-%E2%80%9Cfiqh-of-mus-
lim-minorities%E2%80%9D/ (accessed on 14 October 2012).
2 Rahman, The Case for the Fiqh of Muslim Minorities, 2011.
3 Ameer Ali, review of Andrew March, Islam and Liberal Citizenship (2009)
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, in Journal of Muslim Minority
Affairs 30(2) (2010), p. 350.
4 Rahman, The Case for the Fiqh of Muslim Minorities, 2011
5 InterviewWhat is Minority Fiqh? al-’Allamah Sh. Bin Bayyah on SuhaibWebb.
com, 27 March 2008. (Video clip, available at http://www.suhaibwebb.com/
islam-studies/islamic-law/what-is-minority-fiqh-al-allamah-sh-bin-bayyah/
Accessed 14 October 2012).
6 Rahman, The Case for the Fiqh of Muslim Minorities, 2011.
7 Shammai Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat: A Legal Theory for Muslim Minorities.
Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World, Research
Monograph No. 2 (2006). Available online at <http://www.currenttrends.org/
research/detail/fiqh-al-aqalliyyat-a-legal-theory-for-muslim-minorities.
8 Muhammad Khalid Masud, ‘Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities,’ isim News-
letter, 2002 (Vol. 11, No. 2), pp. 17-18.
9 Khaled Abou El-Fadl, ‘Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities: The Juristic Dis-
course on Muslim Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the Eleventh/Seven-
teenth Centuries,’ Islamic Law and Society, 1994 (Vol. 1 No. 2), p. 141.
10 Koran 2:218; 4:89.

11 Abou El-Fadl, ‘Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities’, 1994, p. 136.

12 Sherman A. Jackson ‘Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in the United
States’ in Ali A. Mazrui, Sherman A. Jackson, Aminah McCloud (eds.), Ameri-
can Public Policy and American-Muslim Politics, Chicago: International Strat-
egy and Policy Institute, 1999 (online publication, n.p.) available at http://www.
ispi-usa.org/policy/policy4.html.
13 For these views see Abou El-Fadl, ‘Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities’, 1994,
pp. 134-5. See also Abdullah Saeed, ‘Muslims under Non-Muslim Rule: Evo-
lution of a Discourse,’ in Anthony Reid and Michael Gilsenan (eds.), Islamic
Legitimacy in a Plural Asia, London and New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 14-27.
14 Haitham al Haddad, A Critical Analysis of Selected Aspects of Sunni Muslim
Minority Fiqh with particular reference to Contemporary Britain (PhD Thesis),
University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2010, p. 102.
15 Al Haddad, A Critical Analysis, 2010, p. 90.
18 Andrew Wheatcroft, Infidels: The Conflict between Christendom and Islam, Syd-
ney: Random House, 2005.
19 Masud, Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities, 2002, p. 17.
20 Al Haddad, A Critical Analysis, 2010, p. 130, citing Abou El-Fadl, ‘Islamic Law
and Muslim Minorities’, 1994, pp. 149‐150.
21 Al Haddad, A Critical Analysis, 2010, p. 131.
22 Fishman, Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat, 2006, p. 1.
23 Taha Jabir al-Alwani, Fiqh of the Muslim Minorities, online article at The Mes-
sage International.org, 12 January 2011, available online at http://messageinter-
national.org/fiqh-of-the-muslim-minorities/ (Accessed on 2 February 2012).
24 Al-Alwani, Fiqh of the Muslim Minorities, 2011.
30 Yoginder Sikand, review of Taha J. Al-Alwani, Towards A Fiqh For Minori-
ties: Some Basic Reflections, Richmond, uk: International Institution of Islamic
Thought, 2003. Available online at http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/
16-30Apr04-Print-Edition/1604200454.htm.
31 Sheikh ‘Abd Allāh b. Bayyah, Introduction to the Fiqh of Minorities [Part One]
(2010). Available online at http://islamicstudies.islammessage.com/Minorities
Article.aspx?aid=237. (Accessed on 2 February 2012.)
32 Sikand, book review, Towards A Fiqh For Minorities.
34 Al-Miftah, Islam Not a Cereal: Shaykh Nuh Keller, uk Suhba 2007 on Modernism
and Fiqh Al-Aqaliat online article at Al-Miftah (3 September 2007). Available at
http://al-miftah.blogspot.com.au/2007/09/islam-not-cereal-shaykh-nuh-kel-
ler-uk.html. (Accessed on 2 February 2012.)
35 Al-Miftah, Islam Not a Cereal.

36 Al-Miftah, Islam Not a Cereal.

37 Interview What is Minority Fiqh? al-’Allamah Sh. Bin Bayyah, Suhaib Web,
2008.
38 Gavin Picken, ‘Fiqh Today: Muslims as Minorities’ at 5th Annual amss (uk)
Conference’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, (2004 (Vol. 6, No. 1), p. 151.
39 Interview What is Minority Fiqh? al-’Allamah Sh. Bin Bayyah, Suhaib Web, 2008.
40 Fatwa: ‘I want to Embrace Islam: But Can I Keep My Marriage?’ 24 September
2002. Available online at efenem.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/qaradawis-16.doc.
(Accessed on 2 February 2012.)
41 European Council for Fatwa and Research, ‘Permissibility of conventional
mortgage under necessity,’ Resolution: Fourth Ordinary Session [27-31 Octo-
ber 1999]. Available online at http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_
res/i_econ_fin/ecfr-fatwa_mortgage.htm. (Accessed on 2 February 2012.)

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About the Authors
(in order of their contribution)
Maurits S. Berger
Professor of Islam in the Contemporary West, Sultan of Oman Chair of
Oriental Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
Mathias Rohe
Professor of Private Law and Founding Director of the Erlangen Cen-
tre for Islam and Law in Europe, Erlangen-Nuremberg University, Ger-
many.
Bryan S. Turner
Professor of Sociology and Director of the Religion and Society Re-
search Centre of the University of Western Sydney, Australia, and Pres-
idential Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City Uni-
versity of New York, usa.
James T. Richardson
Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies and Director of the Judicial
Studies Degree Program for Trial Judges at the University of Nevada,
Reno, usa.
Jamila Hussain
Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology,
Sydney, Australia.
Adam Possamai
Associate Professor in Sociology of Religion at the Religion and So-
ciety Research Centre of the University of Western Sydney, Australia,
Co-Director of the Religion and Society Research Centre and President
of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on
the Sociology of Religion.

Jørgen S. Nielsen
Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of the Centre for European
Islamic thought, Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, Den-
mark.
Susan Rutten
Senior Researcher and Lecturer in Private International Law and Islamic
Family Law, Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, the Netherlands.
Besnik Sinani
Lecturer in English, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Angeliki Ziaka
Assistant Professor of the History of Religions and Interreligious Dia-
logue, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, with a doctorate
from Marc Bloch University, Strasbourg, France.
Annelies Moors
Professor of Contemporary Muslim Societies, Department of Sociol-
ogy and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Nadjma Yassari
Head of the Department of Private Law in Islamic Countries, leader
of the Max Planck Research Group on Family and Succession Law of
Islamic Countries, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Interna-
tional Private Law, Hamburg, Germany.
Pascale Fournier
Associate Professor and Holder of the Research Chair in Legal Plural-
ism and Comparative Law, Faculty of Law (Civil Law Section), Univer-
sity of Ottawa, Canada.
Nathan Reyes
ll.m from the University of Ottawa, Canada, and Human Rights Of-
ficer for the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office (unhchr –
monusco).
Professor of Law, Catholic University of Louvain and Department of
Sociology, University of Antwerp, Belgium, and Director of the Depart-
ment of Law and Anthropology, Max Planck Institute for Social An-
thropology, Halle, Germany.

about the authors 283
Zainab Alwani
Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the Howard University School
of Divinity, Washington, usa, and Vice-Chair of the Fiqh Council of
North America.
Celene Ayat Lizzio

Doctoral candidate in Arabic and Islamic Civilizations in the De-
partment of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University,
Waltham, usa, Lecturer on Islam, Gender, and Interfaith Relations at
Merrimack College, North Andover, usa, and advisor to the Merri-
mack College Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Rela-
tions.
Adbullah Saeed
Sultan of Oman Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Director
of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies, University of
Melbourne, Australia.

INDEX
act for America 53 rabbinical ~ 102

adultery 34, 39, 74, 85, 191, 193, 195, 197 religious ~ 55, 98, 102, 143, 159, 219-
African-American 50 20, 228, 230
age autonomy 14, 35, 37, 126-7, 148, 159,
~ of marriage 213 207, 218
under ~ 85 party ~ 99-100, 106, 213, 234
aguna (see also: chained wife) 102-3 personal ~ 16, 217
Ahl-i-Hadith movement 80 sexual ~ 151
Albania, Albanian 13-4, 111-21, 122-3n ~ of the will 18, 211-3, 217-8
alimony 65, 129, 236
Alternative Dispute Resolution Badawi, Zaki 80, 91, 95n
(adr) 30, 35-9, 44n, 93, 122n Bali bombings 67
Alwani, Taha Jabir al- 242, 245-6, 248 Balkan 30, 111, 114, 126, 134-5n
America, American 12-3, 15, 20, 47-61, ~ wars 126, 134n
242, 247 Bayyah, Abdullah bin 241
North ~ 7, 52, 214, 242, 245 Baz, ben (or: Ibn) 147
Amish 48 Belgium, Belgian 38, 93, 96n, 217-8,
apostasy 244 221n
arbitration, arbiters 14, 18, 33, 37, 55-6, best interest 56, 100, 119
60, 70, 87, 92-4, 122n, 211-2, 218-21, Beth Din 37, 70
235-7 Black American Islam 50
~ board 220 Bosnia, Bosnian 41, 96n
~ tribunal 122n, 219-20 burial 8, 11, 74, 81, 132
Archbishop of Canterbury 7, 25, 55, 67 burqa (also: niqab) 16
Arnoldshain, Evangelische Buti, Ramadan 247
Akademie 82
Asad, Talal 114 Canada, Canadian 14, 17, 27, 32, 37-8,
Asia 127, 132, 134n, 226n 55, 57-8, 60, 103, 189-97, 198-202n,
Southeast ~49 209, 211, 219-20
Austria, Austrian 27, 30 Catholicism 48, 113
Australia, Australian 7, 12-5, 20, 55, Catholic(s) 14, 48-9, 70, 87, 112-3, 119,
65-76 149, 159, 162n, 220
authorities 7, 79, 81, 88-91, 93, 97-9, Center for American Progress 56
102-104, 141-2, 144-5, 149, 152, 159, Center for Security Policy 56
210, 212, 231-2, 234-5 chained wife (see also: aguna) 102-4
diplomatic ~ 98, 106 chaplains 47

children 28, 32, 40, 47, 55, 57, 65, 67-8, Federation of Islamic ~s
70, 84, 99, 101, 105-7, 115, 118, 131, 133, (Australia) 71
143-4, 147, 155, 157, 162n, 210, 231-2, Fiqh ~ of North America 52, 242
234-5 Fiqh ~ of the Muslim World
church 47, 49, 53, 70, 74, 82, 97, 103, League 21n, 45n
112, 116, 149, 159 Saudi Arabian Fiqh ~ 147
Churches’ Committee for Migrants Sharia ~ 13, 35-6, 92-3, 101
Workers in Europe (ccmwe) 82 uk Islamic Sharia ~ 81, 91, 93, 96n,
Christian(s) 12, 27, 43n, 49, 51, 68, 70, 220
73-4, 77n, 80, 82, 84, 88, 103, 113, 116, Council of Europe 130
119, 126-8, 150, 243, 245, 249-50 court 16, 28, 30, 32-3, 37, 43n, 46n, 56,
Christianity 13, 74, 113-4, 119, 163n, 66, 69-70, 86, 88, 95n, 99, 136n, 165,
198n, 245 185n, 213, 228
circumcision 100-101 Catholic ~ (also: Catholic tribunal)
female ~ (see: female genital 14, 48, 220
mutilation) civil ~ 36, 93, 103, 125, 131, 214, 216,
citizenship 41, 54, 59, 60, 104, 114, 126, 234-6
128, 129, 131, 132, 172, 174, 189, 201 family ~ 69-70, 81, 84, 87, 90, 92
Civil Liberties Union 56 Islamic ~ 89-90, 117, 125, 232
cohabitation 143, 167-9, 176 Jewish ~ (also: Jewish tribunal) 14,
cohesion (social, legal) 37, 39-40, 104, 46n, 48, 70, 220
209 national ~ 10
community, communities 17, 26, 31-2, religious ~ 14, 48, 103, 129-30, 219,
34-6, 47-50, 52, 57, 59, 69, 72, 75-6, 235
82, 84, 86-9, 92, 112, 116, 119-21, 128, Sharia ~ (see also: Sharia
131, 136n, 142, 144, 190, 208, 210, 212, boards) 14, 39, 55-6, 60, 66, 69
219-21, 228-30, 236-7, 241, 243, 246 state ~ 31, 35, 38, 40, 219
Albanian Muslim ~ (amc) 111, 121 American court – 48, 52-3, 56-7,
Christian ~ 49, 70 64n
Islamic ~ of Kosovo (ick) 111 Australian court – 69
Jewish ~ 70, 87, 102 Canadian Court – 17, 103, 191-7,
Muslim ~ 12-3, 15, 35, 51, 53, 57-8, 201-2n
60-1, 65-6, 72, 74, 80-3, 85-6, 91, 115- Dutch court – 101-2
6, 121, 125-6, 128-31, 155, 210-1, 220-1, German Court – 17, 165-81, 185n,
234-5, 237, 242 187n
conservative modernity 12, 73, 76 Greek court – 130
Convention on the Elimination of All Jordanian court – 194
Forms of Discrimination 65 uk court – 29, 55, 93
counselling 70, 236 crime, 45n, 201n
Council 13-6, 70, 73, 90, 130, 133, 236, honour ~ 17, 189-90, 192-4
249, 251 ~ passionel 192, 194
Central ~ of Muslims in custody 27, 56-7, 65-7, 70, 84, 100,
Germany 37-8 107n, 118, 144, 160n
~ on American-Islamic custom (see also: tradition) 18, 52, 85,
Relations 56 118-9, 128-30, 230-1, 233, 237, 244,
246

index 287
da‘wa 51 express provisions 100

dar extramarital relationship (see also:
~ al-aman 51 adultery) 103, 142
~ al-islam 51, 89-90, 243-4, 247, 253 extremist 11, 25, 34, 44, 60, 90, 150
~ al-harb 51, 89-90, 243-4, 253
~ al-kufr 243-4, 247 fatwa 10, 51, 55, 66, 92, 129, 147, 242,
Darsh, Sheikh Syed M. 79, 82 245, 248-252
darura 251 favour-principle 99-100, 106
defence of provocation 189, 191, 197 Federation of Islamic Councils (see:
Denmark, Danish 32, 94, 182n, 213 Council)
discrimination 51, 65, 67, 103, 194, 197, female genital mutilation 74, 189
228 femicide 192, 194, 196, 199n
non- ~ 213-4 fiqh 51, 52, 83, 87, 89-90, 167
diversity 12, 16, 18-20, 35, 39, 52, 60, Fiqh al-‘aqalliyat (see: fiqh for
66-7, 73-4, 104, 115, 122n, 190, 207, minorities)
230 Fiqh Council of North America (see:
religious ~ 18, 47, 75, 125 Council)
divorce 10-1, 27-8, 31, 35-6, 38, 52, 55-8, fiqh for minorities 10, 19, 227, 241-53
65-70, 72-3, 77n, 81, 83-4, 86, 92-4, filiation 210
99, 102-3, 115, 117-8, 126, 129, 131, foreigner(s) 109n, 120, 133, 165, 179,
144, 146-7, 155, 160n, 167-71, 173-6, 196
179, 184n, 208, 210, 215-7, 220, 230-2, France, French 14, 16, 27, 30, 38, 47, 50,
235-6, 246 80-2, 93-4, 96n, 114, 122n, 189, 193
domicile 27, 31, 174, 234-5 freedom 12, 16-8, 29, 37, 44n, 59, 75,
dower (see also: mahr) 33, 36, 81, 86, 79, 105, 112, 127, 131, 147, 175, 177, 180,
98, 100, 107n, 143, 145, 158, 165, 171, 220
214 ~ of choice 18, 35
~ of religion 15-6, 18, 20, 25, 27, 30,
El Fadl, Abou 51 38, 48, 51, 99, 101, 103, 115, 119, 126,
Egypt, Egyptian 29, 49, 79, 141, 145-8, 132, 149, 219, 243, 245
154, 162n ~ of thought 18
Emirates, Emirati 170, 180, 195 ~ of the wife, woman 179
engagement 92, 118-9, 142, 237 functional approach 166
England, English 7, 8, 10, 12, 25, 35-6, fundamentalism 49, 120
46n, 55, 79-81, 84-7, 90-4, 192, 211-3, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ
221 of Latter-Day Saints 47
equality (see also: rights) 27, 29, 47,
60, 86, 91, 101, 103, 105, 126, 130, 192, gender 11, 18, 86, 91, 101, 103, 105, 126,
195, 197, 213, 246, 251 143, 148, 150, 156-7, 159, 176, 192,
equal treatment 46n, 48, 60 194-5, 199n, 227-33, 236, 240n, 246
eruv 59 gendered violence 189, 191-2, 194-6,
Establishment Clause 56 228
Ethnocentric 190, 198 Germany, German 10, 14, 17, 25, 27-31,
European Court of Human Rights 7, 33, 34, 37-8, 40, 42n, 44n, 80, 82, 84,
17, 27, 103-4 165-9, 171-81, 185-187n, 211, 213
European Convention on Human get 43n, 102
Rights 101, 130 globalization 48, 54, 60, 197

good morals 33, 100, 106, 172, 176 institutions 26, 32, 36, 39, 48, 50, 60,
Great Britain, British 9, 17, 29, 73, 79, 80-1, 84, 88-9, 121, 135n, 165, 190,
83, 90, 189, 191-2, 195, 219-21 195, 198n, 219-21, 233-4, 251
Greece, Greek 13-4, 29, 43n, 123n, religious ~ 14, 16-7, 111-2, 228
125-33, 134-8n state ~ 31-2, 40
Ground Zero 53 Iran 10, 146, 157-8, 169-70, 174-80,
guardian, marriage ~ (see: marriage) 184n, 228
guardianship 27-8, 65, 70, 224n Islamic banking 52, 67, 89, 95n
Gülen Movement 112 Islamic Centre, Hamburg 80
Islamic Charta 38
Habermas, Jürgen 75-6 Islamic finance (see also: Islamic
halal 93-4, 142, 253 banking, mortgage, insurance) 10,
Hanafi (school, tradition) 84, 90, 129, 12, 17, 71
142, 162n Islamic schools (see: schools)
haram 93, 248, 253 Islamism 229
hatib 116, 127, 129 Islamophobia 237
hijab (see: headscarf) Israel 30, 86
headscarf 16, 59, 81, 115, 119-20 Italy, Italien 103
Hindu(s) 47-8
Hofstad network 149-51, 154 Jews 30, 47-8, 77n, 87, 126, 134n
Homeland Security Committee 54 Jewish (community, minority, people,
honour crime (see: crime) world) 48, 59, 70, 102
human rights 13, 17, 27, 41, 45n, 59-60, jihad 53, 149-50
91, 98, 101-7, 125-6, 130-1, 207 Jordanian Law 190-1, 194
Judaism 48
‘idda 236, 249
identity 12-3, 18, 20, 48, 52, 59, 61, 67, Kanun 112-3, 122n
74, 79, 88, 111-2, 114-5, 118, 120-1, khul‘ 36, 69, 92, 170, 174, 176, 184n
122n, 128, 133, 135n, 153, 189-90, 195, Kosovo, Kosovian 13-4, 111-5, 119-21,
201n, 209, 220, 227-9, 244, 246 122n
ijtihad 87-8, 247
imam 38, 51, 57, 66, 68-70, 72-3, 93-4, law
99, 102, 115-20, 127, 129, 132, 141, civil ~ 18-9, 26, 29-30, 58, 69, 72-3,
149-52, 155-6, 162-63n, 171, 234, 236 81, 98, 209-17, 219, 227, 237
immigration (see also: migration) 28, common ~ 41, 45, 57, 66, 68, 90,
39, 105, 132, 138n, 190, 208, 192, 201n
inheritance 27, 29, 31, 38, 55-6, 65, 69, continental ~ 65
84, 86, 100, 125-6, 129, 132, 157, 167, criminal ~ 57, 90, 105, 191
232 devolved ~ 65
insurance 17, 33, 48 family ~ 8, 10-5, 17, 19, 27, 29-31,
integration 19, 53, 84, 99, 104-5, 111-2, 34-6, 38-9, 58, 65-70, 72, 74, 79-82,
119, 135n, 227-8, 230, 237, 246 84-91, 94, 97-101, 105-6, 112, 114-5,
intellectuals, Muslim ~ 50, 84, 229 117, 126, 131, 142-4, 150, 152-3, 165-7,
interest (riba) 32-3, 251-2 172-3, 175-7, 180, 187n, 198n, 207,
Internet 55, 66, 71, 92, 163n 210-1, 213-4, 217, 219, 221, 228-9,
231-3

index 289
foreign ~ 10 dissolution of, dissolving the ~ 28,

Jewish ~ 102 69, 85, 92, 94, 102, 155, 165, 168-70,
~ of marriage 177 173, 178, 210, 214-5, 217, 234
migration ~ 105 forced ~ 74, 93, 108-9n, 153-4, 169n,
penal ~ 26, 38, 42n, 193 189
personal status ~ 67, 90, 185n, 229, ~ guardian 85, 142n3, 145, 156, 160n,
237 232
private international ~ 7, 10, 12, 18, informal ~ 153, 159, 212
26-7, 31, 97, 99-100, 105, 165-6, 207, Islamic ~ 17, 58, 68, 94, 115, 118,
210-3, 215, 217-8, 226n 141-2, 145, 148-59, 162-3n, 214, 231
public ~ 26, 42n kafir ~ 93
religious ~ 30, 55, 68-70, 72, 117, limping ~ 69, 81
119, 136n, 198n, 207-10, 212, 214, 216, misyar ~ 147-8
226n, 227, 229-30, 232-3 registered ~ 146-8, 152, 154
rule of ~ 41, 149, 163n religious ~ 14, 17, 28, 31, 32, 40, 96n,
substantive ~ 38, 98-100, 176 98, 102-3, 116, 132, 145, 148, 152,
~ of succession 27, 44n 171-2, 177, 209, 212, 215-6, 225-6n,
Lausanne 128, 134n 234
~ Conference 127 (Roman-) Catholic ~ 159, 162n
Treaty of ~ 14, 29, 127-30, 134n temporary ~ 143, 146, 157-8
Lebanon, Lebanese 69, 86, 193, 219 ‘urfi ~ 141-2, 144-8
legal hybridity 194 maslaha 119
legal order (see: order) media 57-8, 73-4, 80-1, 121, 141, 144,
legal plurality (see: plurality) 149-50, 194-5, 201n, 219
legal transplant (see: transplant) mediation, mediators 35-6, 38, 117, 219,
limping marriage (see: marriage) 220, 235-6
Locke, John 48 Middle East 49, 51, 115, 118, 132, 141,
226n
madhhab 125 migration (see also: immigration) 37,
mahr 17, 33, 36, 68-9, 81, 86, 118, 165-81, 48, 65, 72, 99, 104-5, 127, 199n, 207,
186-7n, 214, 235-6 242
immaterial functions of ~ 166 millet (see also: neo-milletism) 14, 86,
material functions of ~ 167 129
maintenance 28, 31, 34, 84, 107n, 135n, minority, minorities 13-4, 19, 29, 48, 51,
143, 147-8, 158, 160, 171, 173, 178-80, 56, 75, 83, 90-1, 94, 95n, 104, 115, 119,
192, 232 122-3n, 126-8, 130-3, 135n, 137n, 153,
marital finances 233-4 190, 196-7, 210, 227-8, 241-2, 245-52
marriage mortgage (Islamic ~) 17, 19, 33, 48,
arranged ~ 58, 60, 64n, 109n, 156 251-2
child ~ 109n Morocco, Moroccan 10, 148, 152-3
civil ~ 14, 32, 58, 69, 92-4, 96n, 98, mosque 15, 17-8, 31, 59, 66, 77n, 79-80,
102, 116, 145, 148-55, 157-9, 163n, 111-2, 115-6, 119-21, 129, 132, 150, 171
171-2, 177, 186n, 214 mufti 129-132, 136n, 147
~ contract 28, 55-6, 69, 81, 98, 116-7, multicultural(ism) 47-8, 51, 59-60, 67,
142-4, 147, 151-3, 156, 159, 170-1, 173, 71, 74, 104-5, 114, 133, 160n, 187n,
178, 211, 213-7, 226n, 234-5 189-90, 207

Muslim Arbitration Tribunal 37, 92-3 Ottoman

Muslim World League 92 ~ Empire 111, 126-7, 129, 133-4n,
mut‘a 143 136n, 160n
~ past 112-4
nafaqa 236
name, naming 81, 100 Pakistan 57, 84-6
Nation of Islam 50 parallel system 66, 227, 230
national security 53, 67, 135n, 149 parentage 98
nationality 10, 27, 97-100, 132, 134n, participation 104, 119
151-2, 208, 212, 217-8, 234 party autonomy 99, 106, 234
negligence 102 penalization 105
neo-milletism 14, 125, 129 piety 49-50
Netherlands, Dutch 9-10, 13-5, 17, 32-3, pluralism, plurality
80, 82, 96n, 97-102, 104-6, 109n, ~ of family lifestyles 207
141-2, 148-59, 160n, 163-4n legal ~ 29, 39, 53-6, 59-61, 71, 73, 76
Nigeria 49, 79 religious ~ 13, 104, 106
nikah (see: marriage, Islamic) weak legal ~ 220
niqab (also: burqa) 16 polygamy, polygamous marriage (also:
non-Muslim(s) 34, 37, 41n, 60, 67, 74, polygyny) 10, 28-9, 47, 68-9, 85-6,
83-6, 93, 116, 128, 154, 156-7, 159, 195, 105, 144, 150, 154, 166, 215, 235
216, 242-4, 246-7, 249-50, 253 Pomaks 127-8
~ majority 243, 246 property
~ rule 242-3, 245 matrimonial ~ 171, 178-80, 186n
~ government 245 Prophet 11, 49, 83, 88, 116-8, 242-3
norms 16, 19, 28, 34, 40, 41n, 57-59, 66, Protestant 48, 53, 82
84, 97, 117, 119, 145, 196-7, 198n, 209, public authority 103
213, 217, 227, 229, 232, 237, 244 public policy 26-7, 29, 35, 100, 106,
Islamic ~ 25-6, 32-3, 52, 190, 230 109n, 168, 172, 176-7, 189, 192, 220
legal ~ 27, 34, 45n
open ~ 99-100, 106 qadi 129-30
unstated legal ~ 190, 194-5 qadi justice 52
shari῾a ~ 25-6, 55, 66 Qaradawi, Yusuf 147, 242
North Africans 81 Qur’an 11, 27, 65, 80, 88, 117, 242, 246,
North America 51-2, 214, 242, 245 250, 252
Norway, Norwegian 216
Ramadan, Tariq 121, 123
Ontario 14, 37, 55, 57, 193, 195-6, 219-20 recognition 26, 28, 30-1, 37-9, 47, 58,
open norms 99-100, 106 74, 92, 97, 101, 103-4, 106, 109n, 117,
order 210, 212, 217, 220, 241
informal legal ~ 103, 106 reconciliation 87, 98, 211
legal ~ 25, 29, 31, 34, 37-41, 97-8, reforms 37, 143, 160n, 229
106, 207, 209, 217-8 repudiation (see: talaq)
secular legal ~ 25, 40 riba (see: interest)
social ~ 98, 196, 231 rights
Orthodox Christian(s) 126, 128, 136n equality ~ 103
otherness 75, 189-92, 194-5 fundamental ~ 98, 101, 103-4

index 291
human ~ 13, 17, 27, 41, 45n, 59-60, transnational(ism) 148, 209, 218, 237
91, 98, 101-7, 125-6, 131, 207 transplant, legal 193, 196, 199n
religious ~ 175 tribunal (see also: Muslim Arbitration
Roman Catholicism 149, 159, 162n Tribunal) 14-5, 48, 55, 60, 70, 86-7,
rule of law (see: law) 90, 92-3, 122n, 219-20, 236
Turkey, Turkish Republic 20n, 29-30,
salafi 95n, 141, 149-51, 154, 156, 158 44n, 126-32, 134-5n, 137n, 145, 152
Saudi Arabia 71, 118-9, 147 Turks, Turkish 37, 94, 112, 127-8, 130,
schools, 134-7n, 152, 180
Islamic ~ 67
multicultural ~ 133 ‘ulama 88, 95n
public ~ 115, 119, 133 ummah 115
secular Union of Muslim Organisations
~ization 49, 84, 209, 211 (umo) 29, 43n, 79, 80
~ism 12-5, 61, 88, 115, 119-20 United Kingdom 13-5, 17, 27-9, 33, 35,
~ laws 237 37, 40, 48-58, 60, 67, 77n, 79, 81-2,
~ state 103, 116-7, 119, 122n, 211 95n, 113, 238n
post ~ism 65, 67, 73, 75 United States 14, 27, 47-54, 56-8, 60,
segregation 27-8, 37, 50, 59, 143, 156-7 192, 209
separation of Church and State 47, 97 upbringing 100, 107n
Sharia Awareness Action Network 53 ‘urfi (see: marriage)
Sharia board 37
Sharia council (see: Council) values
Sharia court (see: Court) cultural ~ 7, 61, 66
shari‘a judge (see: qadi) fundamental ~ 105, 197
Shia, Shi‘ites 143, 146, 157-8 legal ~ 213
sigheh 143 social ~ 12, 73
social cohesion (see: cohesion) veil (see: headscarf; for face veil, see:
social order (see: order) niqab and burqa)
social security 28, 34, 40, 154
Society of Americans for National waqf 127
Existence 53 Wansharishi, Ahmad al- 245
Spain, Spanish 14, 28, 39, 181n, 245 witnesses 31, 39, 86, 142-3, 152, 158,
Sunna 27, 65, 117, 246, 250 234-5
Syria, Syrians 49, 86, 172, 193, 247
Switzerland, Swiss 27, 30, 33, 38, 180
Yugoslav Federation 111
talaq 31, 36, 68-9, 92
Thrace (Western and Eastern) 125, 127- zina 142, 157
132, n135-137
tolerance, intolerance 47-8, 53, 75,
104-5, 119-20
tort 90, 102, 104
tradition 39, 51-5, 58, 65-6, 74, 79-80,
83-4, 88-92, 95n, 111, 114, 119, 122n,
128-9, 146, 190, 194, 219, 233, 248, 253

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isbn 978 90 8728 170 0

© M. Berger / Leiden University Press, 2013

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Introduction: Applying Shari῾a in the West 7

Section i: Country Studies

1 Reasons for the Application of Shari῾a in the West 25

6 Albania and Kosovo

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Section ii: Law Versus Culture

8 Unregistered Islamic Marriages: Anxieties about Sexuality

9 Understanding and Use of Islamic Family Law Rules

10 A Language of Hybridity: Honour and Otherness

Section iii: The Need for Accommodation

11 Accommodating Islamic Family Law(s): A Critical Analysis

12 Religion, Gender, and Family Law: Critical Perspectives on

13 Reflections on the Development of the Discourse of Fiqh

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How can we make sense of the new phenomenon of shari῾a in the

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Based on these premises, the discussion in this volume is divided

What do Western Muslims Mean by Shari῾a?

Rather than defining shari῾a as a legal discipline of Islam,4 or as a set

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Shari῾a: a virtuous abstraction

The first answer to what Muslims might mean by ‘shari῾a’ in a Western

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Shari῾a: foreign national laws

Shari῾a: the practices and desires of Western Muslims

Only limited research has been undertaken into manifestations of

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Three observations can be made with regard to these four domains of

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Shari῾a Practices in a Western Legal Framework

Three Western regions

Among the Western legal systems, those of America and Australia

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The chapters on the North Western European countries of the Neth-

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Shari῾a in the West

When surveying these studies, one of the most noticeable findings is

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and liberty, the manifestation of religion – including that of Islam – in

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Western Responses: Law Versus Culture

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Another issue that gives rise to public indignation is that of Islamic

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Adaptation in Western or Muslim Legal Systems?

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Lizzio argue against providing a singular, comprehensive model for

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