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Marriage is a way of gaining a peaceful mind and soul, be it monogamous or polygamous marriage. This is the sweetness of marriage as enshrined by Islam. To achieve this wisdom, conditions laid down by the religion and legal requirements must be observed. Otherwise, a marriage may turn into a miserable and thorny life for couples, especially in polygamy. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to disseminate legal knowledge and refine the understanding about polygamous law in Malaysia. The central arguments of this study are two-pronged: (1) to deliberate on the Malaysian legal framework for polygamous marriage and (2) to discuss a crucial legal issue related to polygamy, namely cross-border marriage and its effects. The qualitative method of doctrinal legal research was employed to obtain and analyse primary and secondary data from various sources. It included examining the statutes and decided cases of the Syariah Courts, including reported and unreported cases. The relevant statutes studied were the Islamic Family Law (Federal Territories) Act 1984 and the Enactment of Islamic Family Law (Kedah Darul Aman) 2008. In substantiating arguments, data from e-Syariah Version 3 (ESV3) was used together with existing literature. The findings revealed that refusal or failure to comply with legal requirements pertaining to polygamous marriage may lead to cross-border marriage and its aftermath effects on the legality of the marriage, jurisdiction of the court, and the rights of wives and children in the context of law. Hence, the enforcement of existing laws on polygamy should be emphasised to control any abuse of power by a man to contract a polygamous marriage. More importantly, the laws and enforcement should be strengthened to protect the rights of the wives and children. Future research may focus on issues involving the rights of the wives and children of a polygamous marriage upon the death of the husband or father according to Islamic family law in Malaysia and its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2004 reforms of Islamic family law in Morocco brought about a long-awaited expansion of women's rights. The Moroccan women's movement was a key player in the promulgation of the reforms. We highlight the role of professional women leaders in the movement and show how they developed political capital and the "power of presence" by combining (i) professional attainment, (ii) leadership in women's organizations, and (iii) active participation or positions in politics and civil society. We suggest that more needs to be understood about the implications of women's education and professional attainment for legal change, especially in the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of the Faculty of Law in Belgrade is the property of University of Belgrade, Faculty of Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper looks at the interplay between the administration of Islamic law in Malaysia in relation to Islamic family law and Islamic criminal law; and human rights. The paper examines the basis of the administration of Islam in Malaysia in relation to its history and post-independence mandate. It looks at the position of human rights under the Federal Constitution and the position of the administration of Islamic law under the constitutional framework. The research found that entrenching fundamental liberties through the supremacy clause resulted in the prevalence of human rights over freedom of religion. However, this is not consistently arrived at since the constitutional frameworks allows for plurality of laws and exclusion of personal law from the principle of equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes Islamic legal arguments for the ambitions, possibilities and limitations of Muslim family reform law. Topics discussed are reform strategies that make up the legal arguments including exercising preference, patching, parallel contracts and stipulations and Islamic corpus, as well as the state of legal reform in restricting polygamy, limiting divorce pronouncements, raising minimum marriage age and expanding a wife's access to divorce, and impact of Muslim family law reform.

In the Netherlands, where views of Muslims and Islamic family law are highly politicised, the application of Islamic family laws by Dutch courts is a topic of heated political debate. Especially polygamy and unilateral divorce by men (talaq) are thought to have a strongly negative impact on the position of Muslim women in the family. In order to assess the gendered impact of Islamic family laws in a European context, this article takes a closer look at Dutch state courts' decisions. It asks how the application of Islamic family laws can be understood against the background of Dutch political discourses on Islam, family law and women's rights. While in public and political debates, Islamic family laws are frequently thought to be women-unfriendly, this article shows that the encounter between Islamic family laws and Dutch law often has severe impact on the position of Muslim men living in the Netherlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the differences between jurists of the three Shīʿī sects - Zaydīs, Ismāʿīlīs, and Twelver Shīʿīs - concerning the marriage contract. In general, Zaydī, Ismāʿīlī, and Twelver jurists agree on three elements of the marriage contract of a woman who is an adult, single, and a virgin (bikr). However, they disagree over certain elements of the contract, the dower, the role of the marriage guardian (walī), the minimum legal age for women to marry, and the role of the adult single woman in concluding her own marriage contract. I examine the varying degrees of agency each Shīʿī sect granted women in contracting their marriages in the period between 900 and 1600 ce I argue that Shīʿī substantive law (fiqh) is as restrictive as Sunnī fiqh regarding a woman's role in contracting her marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judicial divorce symbolises women's resistance to the domination of local interpretations and practices of Muslim family law in Lombok, such as male arbitrary repudiation and polygamy. In this pattern, husbands hold the privilege to terminate marital unions unilaterally and remarry without their wives' consent. These practices find their grounds in classical-medieval Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), which is endorsed by the custom of patriarchal society. It is by turning to the court that women attempt to subvert such hegemonic discourses. By examining divorce cases from the religious courts, and looking at their broader socio-religious and cultural contexts, this study attempts to propose an analysis of judicial divorce as a locus of women's resistance against male domination endorsed by local practices of Islamic law, customary law and state law, and examines an important dimension of contemporary practice of Islamic family law, which reveals patterns of domination and resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having a good relationship with family members is the utmost consideration in family life. This socio-legal study focusses on the family institution, in which all family members play pivotal roles in determining the wellbeing of the family. The main objective of this study is to understand family relationships in terms of legal awareness among family members. The survey was the main method used in this study and it will be analysed using statistical techniques. The semi-structured interview was also employed in this research. The study shows that most rural folks prefer mediation in settling disputes. The findings of this research are expected to fill the gap in socio-legal literature on Muslim marriage matters and to provide valid reasons for designing a new policy and regulatory framework to deal with the implementation and enforcement of Islamic Family Law in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the legal institution of mahr in Islamic family law from three research perspectives in order to provide insights into the phenomenon's complexity, particularly with regard to current legal practices. In particular, emphasis is placed both on countries where family law is shaped by Islamic traditions (e.g., Morocco) and on countries whose legal traditions do not have a mahr counterpart (e.g., Germany). First, the social and economic function of dower will be described. As a special form of property transfer, mahr will be analyzed in its historical and present shape in theory and practice. Second, the legal conceptualization of mahr in the German legal context will be discussed. The example of Morocco serves to illustrate the changes with regard to mahr because of the process of incorporation of Islamic legal concepts into a national statutory law system. Given the Muslim diaspora, these insights are important contributions to the legal intepretation of mahr in a transnational context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the legal recognition of religiously-based family law based on the principles of political liberalism in the U.S. Topics discussed include religious concepts as well as politically liberal concepts of the family such as Muslim family law, Islamic concepts of distributive justice within the family and the significance of arbitration in protecting the autonomy of individual religious believers. It also focuses on Islamic concepts of equality within the family.

The article in hand describes the critical review of Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 with reference to Pakistan. The main purpose behind this critique is to make a comparison between Muslim Family Laws and Pakistani Muslim Family Law Ordinance 1961 and to find out the similarities and the contrasts between them. Many of Muslim scholars are of the view that Pakistani MFLO (Muslim Family Laws Ordinance) is not in accordance with the Muslim Laws and Dr. Masud is one of them. According to him the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (1961) not a comprehensive set of code to follow marriages, divorce and dowry matters but compilation of few amendments in the British rules that usually required solutions from Fiqah Hanfia and Shafi to fill the vacuum in settling disputes (Iqbal, Dawn.com, 2009).First of all legal system and brief history has been given. Afterwards the comparison between Muslim Family Laws and Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 has been made. For this, original text of MFLO has been given and after each section, Islamic concept has been given to facilitate the reader. After the research it was found that there are many contradictions in the Pakistani Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 and still it needs to be refined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article analyses a Decree issued by the Chief Islamic Justice in Ramallah, in September 2012, legalising khul' divorce for women without the consent of the fiancé/husband, but only before the consummation of the marriage. The 2008 draft family law intended the same right for women also after consummation. Discussing the term 'khul'', the article shows that it is used as a generic term in these legal texts. The Decree presents a juristic construction that takes as its starting point that the general shari'a norm is that divorce is in the hands of the husband, and that khul' is an exception, allowed by necessity (haja). The khul' may only be claimed when the petitioner harbours such a severe abhorrence of her husband that she fears she will not be able to serve him to his satisfaction and thus not live within the hudud Allah, in which case she might not enter Paradise. It is therefore not woman as citizen that petitions for khul', but woman as homo religiosus. Thus, the existing and proposed rules regulating khul' are construed, not to empower women as equal citizens with men, but rather to cement women's asymmetric legal position in shari'a-based law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Collected Papers of the Law Faculty of the University of Rijeka / Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta Sveučilišta u Rijeci is the property of Pravni fakultet Sveucilista u Rijeci and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, I assess recent developments in the family law of Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE. Based on a presentation of selected areas of substantive law, the article focuses on reform patterns in family law. I outline how, in the process of initially codifying family law, the three Arab Gulf States faced a variety of 'model' codes in the Muslim world, and I consider the impact that such a comparative approach had on the statutory rules currently in force. In addition, the degree to which both governmental and non-governmental actors influenced the codification process is explored. As the introduction of the new family codes coincided with the three states' ratifications of major human rights treaties in general, and CEDAW in particular, I also discuss the interplay of international human rights and national family law in the Arab Gulf. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural and religious diversity has increased across Europe and the wider world in recent decades making legal pluralism a reality in many jurisdictions and a challenge to formal judicial systems. There are a number of reasons for the presence of new complex social identities, and globalisations and advancements in new technologies are certainly two causes. Greater ease in communication and mobility are changing the world. What does this mean for the state legal system, and in particular, how have British Muslim communities responded to their own needs for faith based dispute resolution mechanism? This paper is centred on findings from an in-depth exploration of pertinent questions investigating whether British Muslims can demonstrate understanding of obligations and methodology relating to Islamic family laws, and how dispute resolution using faith based ADR mechanisms is viewed and engaged with. The empirical research, conducted during my doctorate studies concentrated on the exercise of Islamic family law in Britain, dispute resolution and faith based ADR mechanisms such as the Shari'a Councils. The study investigated the approach to Islamic family law and dispute resolution of a sample of 250 British Muslims aged 18-45, primarily British-born, university educated and practicing their faith or understanding their religious obligations. Empirical research was undertaken using both quantitative and qualitative research methods; this provides an insight into younger generations of British Muslims and the transformative processes of the Islamic legal traditions impacting on the application of religious laws. The existence of Shari'a Councils is reflective of the fact that Islamic family laws have great normative influences on the lives of Muslims, with consequences for the formal legal system. They reflect the existence of legal and socio-legal needs particular to this religious group and highlight the pressures for formal and informal mechanisms which respond to these needs. Informal faith based ADR provide a recourse to what is deemed to be an authoritative dispute resolution body, however, this study highlights the lack of confidence British Muslims have in these institutions, while simultaneously recognising that they are a necessity to provide 'expertise' in the relevant dispute areas of marriage and divorce. The uneasy compromise accepts their existence as being necessary but highlights their imperfection in the current form. Public scrutiny of Shari'a Councils within the popular media and political discourse has clearly influenced British Muslim opinion with many respondents within this study formulating views based on perception as opposed to interaction. Thus, this paper conceptualises transformations towards user-friendly Shari'a Councils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the human right crisis faced by the war orphans of Afghanistan and Iraq. Topics discussed include intercountry adoption of the war orphans, impact of the war on the social conditions of orphans and role of Islamic Family Law in the family conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq. It also discusses ramifications of the Quran on the practice.

Islamic family law, more often referred to as Muslim personal law in the South Asian context, is influenced by formal and informal plural normative orders, as secular, religious, customary, and patriarchal norms (Menski, 1998; Ali, 2002; Mehdi, 2005; Shah, 2005).The presence of such plural normative orders has given rise to tensions and conflict between these norms, including various publicly stated commitments and goals of the states to promote gender equality. Islamic family law has thus become a highly contested and politicized issue making change in this area of law difficult. Post-divorce maintenance (Mata’a) for women is one such area where classical interpretation of Islamic law, restricting such maintenance to the Iddat only, continues to apply. Engaging with plural sources of the Islamic legal tradition, this article discusses the potential of employing these to make the case for awarding post-divorce maintenance to Muslim women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the highlights of the 1st World Congress on Integration and Islamicisation of Acquired Human Knowledge (FWCII) held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on August 23-25, 2013. Particular focus is given to the main objectives of the FWCII. Included is a list of keynote speakers at the event. Topics covered include motivations of Muslim professionals in their global humanitarian work and the importance of Islamic family law in the sustainability of the family institution.

This paper employs a newly developed coding of the degree to which Muslim-majority states incorporate a strict version of Shari’a family law into their legal code. This measures the feature of Islamic tradition, which is hypothesised to impede women's sociopolitical equality. I find that the incorporation of a strict version of Shari’a family law is an impediment to sociopolitical gender equality; however, the inclusion of other laws and policies based on Islamic tenets is not. Furthermore, the negative effect of an oil-dependent economy does not hold in the subset of Muslim-majority states once Shari’a family law inclusion is accounted for. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Archbishop of Canterbury's speech on ‘Civil and Religious Law in England’, delivered in 2008, attracted considerable public and academic attention. In the resulting ‘Sharia debate’, traces of (legal) orientalism became especially visible in an essentialist portrayal of ‘Sharia’ as being in opposition to ‘the West’. What is missing in debates conducted at the abstract level of compatibility–incompatibility, East–West, law–religion is an analysis of the actual practices of family law of Muslims in contemporary Britain. People marry, divorce, bring up their children and deal with death by resorting to a variety of norms such as Sharia law, English family law and customary law. Drawing on legal pluralism scholarship and elements of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of the field, this article challenges the exclusive focus on positivist state law as the sole legal framework within which Western conceptions of citizenship are being imagined. It analyses practices of British-Muslim family law as an incipient ‘legal field’ that is developing a corresponding market of Islamic legal services. The article concludes with a discussion of the connection between citizenship, law and orientalism. It shows British-Muslim family law as a set of new hybrid legal practices of citizenship that counter the effects of orientalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines Islamic political and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Malaysia. Groups discussed include the nationalist political party United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the conservative opposition party Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), and the NGO Sisters of Islam. Focus is given to the ways in which these groups interpret Islamic law and subsequently impact Malaysia's Islamic family law and penal law. More specifically, the author examines family law issues such as marriage, polygamy, and divorce, and explains the importance of Malaysian penal law to the country's political opposition coalition groups.

Abstract This article focuses on the issues of conversion to Islam of one party to a non-Muslim marriage. In Malaysia, some legal problems need to be addressed, particularly concerning the rights of a wife to the ancillary claims after dissolution of the marriage such as maintenance, matrimonial property and custody. These issues have been discussed by the Malaysian courts in their judgments when they preside over cases involving conversion to Islam. Among the issues that have been raised is whether a non-Muslim wife is entitled to maintenance after her husband has converted to Islam and, if she is still entitled, for how long. Other problems concern which party shall be entitled to custody of any children as well as the legal status of the marriage. All these issues need to be discussed further as to whether amendment of the existing relevant law is necessary. This article analyses the legal provisions and the cases that have been decided by the Malaysian courts on conversion to Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the historical evolution and the current structure of the Islamic legal system in Malaysia. The structure of the modem Malaysian state has its roots in the region's colonial history. By the end of the nineteenth century the territory that comprises contemporary Malaysia had been subjected to British colonial authority. The British did not, however, rule the region as a single colonial unit. In the directly ruled colonies most matters were governed by English common law, and while Islamic doctrine governed family law, it was applied by colonial courts that were staffed by British or British-trained judges. In the colonies subject to indirect rule an English resident exercised authority over matters of British interest while Malay sultans retained their hereditary titles, and local courts exercised the sultan's authority in matters of Malay adat (custom) and Islam. When the state of Malaysia was created in 1957, the constitution established a federal structure that reflected the pluralistic colonial system. Malaysia is currently comprised of 13 states and three federal territories. Under the constitution, most areas of life are governed by a uniform body of federal law applied by a system of national courts. However, the constitution grants the states the power to apply a version of Islamic law on certain topics enumerated in the constitution, and to create Shari'a courts to adjudicate disputes involving Muslims relating to matters of Islamic law. The subjects included within the states' legislative power include, in addition to personal law and matters related to religious practice, offenses deemed to be against the precepts of Islam. All of the states have exercised the powers granted by the constitution to legislate on matters related to Islam, and every state has established Shari'a courts to adjudicate disputes based on Islamic legislation. A constitutional amendment approved in 1988 eliminated the power of civil courts to hear appeals from decisions of the Syariah courts. At the same time that they are achieving greater autonomy, the Shari'a courts are also seeking to "upgrade" in ways that emulate the civil courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early in 2010 a draft bill on substantive Muslim family law proposed the criminalisation of unregistered marriages and unofficial polygamous marriages in Indonesia. In the debates in the media that followed the current legal situation of unregistered marriage and unofficial polygamy was largely disregarded. In this article we argue that sufficient legal sanctions are already in place and that criminalisation of unregistered marriage is neither necessary nor desirable. The legal history of marriage registration in Indonesia indicates that from colonial times legislation has not been the problem, but, rather, a combination of lack of legal knowledge among the general public and problematic official and unofficial marriage registrars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist human rights advocates often criticise Islam for having a discriminatory attitude towards women especially in matters of family law. In support of this criticism, they refer to various practices of Islam to argue that gender inequality is inbuilt in the Islamic social system. With this criticism in view, the present research paper analytically examines the issue of gender equality in Islam with particular reference to the position of Islamic law on polygamy, endogamy, divorce, inheritance and evidential capacity of women. The paper focuses on the argument that the basic principles of Islamic law are not inconsistent with modern human rights as contained in the UDHR, ICCPR and CEDAW. The paper also makes suitable recommendations for the development of Islamic law to bring it in complete conformity with the needs of modern times without compromising on basic principles of Islam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analogical reasoning (qiyās) is one of the four sources of Islamic jurisprudence. It is recognised that the outcomes of qiyās are generally speculative in nature. However, a vast portion of the corpus of Islamic law is derived based on qiyās. One such area is marital relationship and mutual rights of the spouses. In several areas of marital relationship and mutual rights, the Islamic jurisprudents have applied concepts and tools that are related to commerce or business (tijārah). Such terminologies include bayʿ (exchange/buy/sale) and ijārah (lease). This article examines such employment of business-related framework in the area of marital relationship and mutual rights. Based on both classical and post-classical legal sources, the author analyses the legalistic tendency underlying the legacy of the traditional Islamic law, as exemplified in using business-related framework in an overreaching manner. This article also offers an explanation of how the traditional Islamic view on slavery might be closely connected to this commodified view. Furthermore, it sheds light on how such commodification can impact on family as a central social institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article features with a general characterisation of the Qur’ān with reference to family law and gender equity. Its main purpose is to visualise the broader picture of qur’ānic dispensations and the manner they are manifested in the sharīʿah. A brief outline of the higher objectives (maqās􀌛id) on family welfare and reproductive health is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the degradation of traditional family values and institution, the Islamic family law reform, and the cultural perceptions of Malays towards the roles of men and women in the family.

It is well known that Hittite legal codes consists of many subjects pertaining to criminal, family and property laws. These legal matters found in detail in Roman, Judaic and Islamic laws as well. In our study we have tried to explain how Hittite legal codes had their effect particularly on Roman Law as well as how crimal, family, property and obligation law shaped Judaic and other legal codes. Similarities between Islamic and Judaic laws shows their close resemblance of these legal codes. Hence, we will compare these two laws by pivoting on Hittite legal codes. Since both Hittite legal codes and Roman Laws are mostly of Anatolian origin our study will encompass legal codes meshed into poetry of the contemporary Anatolian culture. Since the Anatolian culture harmonized Hittite and Roman Laws into its culture before the Islamic Law rule it makes appealing to look into similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In some Western countries with Muslim minorities, there has been debate in the last few years about the role of Shari'a in the context of domestic family law. In Australia there has been a negative response to the adoption of Shari'a, as this form of law has been seen as divisive, patriarchal, and inconsistent with the notion of the rule of law. Underlying these responses to Shari'a has been the implication that Islamic law was/is backward and patriarchal whereas Western law was/is both secular and egalitarian. The aim of this article is to do three things: first, to show the extent to which matrimonial settlements by Muslims in divorce cases reflect a variety of personal practices and strategies toward Shari'a and Australian family law; second, to examine the values of Australian law and how law as a “form of practice” excludes Muslim values; and third, to situate this debate within the multiple modernity thesis and argue that, to move the matter further, we should look into working toward a new multifaith pragmatic modern project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Codification of Islamic family law has been one of the most effective recent ways of administering Islamic law. It is obviously due to its many advantages, including making the law certain, uniform and supposedly in tandem with the current needs of society in a modern setting, particularly in solving issues facing Muslim women in contemporary families. Nevertheless, according to critics, this legislative measure has not been free of pitfalls and loopholes, which have worked against women's welfare in many ways. In the Malaysian context, for examples, the most prominent allegation is the gender-bias feature of certain provisions of the applicable law. To remedy the situation, given the cultural sensitivity and moorings of different interest groups in the country, the approaches have been diverse. But by looking at the issue from a purely academic, nonpartisan perspective, one would assume that the problem is rooted in the way that the legislature has construed fiqh and codified it in the form of the existing statutes. In this paper, therefore, I attempt to explore analytically to what to undo in the existing laws in order to make them more robust, effective and responsive to the need of Muslim women in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the reasons why the Moroccan King Mohammed VI, unlike his father, King Hassan II, and the Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has shown a strong reformist commitment to revise the Family Code and eventually launched substantive changes. I argue that those reasons must be found in the opportunities and/or risks for preserving the authoritarian status quo that were created by the specific political context in which the regimes operated. In making this argument I consider the inter-relation of two main political contextual factors as the determinants of the regime's commitment to reform on Shari'a-based issues: first, the position of Islamist parties and other key political parties - being included or excluded - within the formal political space; second, the relationships - cooperative or uncooperative - that Islamists have with the other political actors. The inclusion of Islamists within the formal political space and the arising of cooperative relationships between them and the other opposition parties allowed Mohammed VI to use the family law reforms as a 'divide and rule' strategy to weaken the opposition bloc. The political context did not provide similar incentives to Hassan II or to Bouteflika, thus contributing to their lack of commitment to reform and reducing the impact of the changes enacted. A crucial implication arises from the analysis: the closer the linkage between reforms of Shari'a and the opportunity for the regimes to maintain their power, the more they will have an interest in pushing for substantive changes. Otherwise reforms, if any, will be fated to be at most incremental and cosmetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates in detail the policies adopted and the religious ideas held by the power elite of Pakistan during the years from 1947 to 1969. It has been argued that the religious worldview of the power elite was shaped by the discourse of Islamic modernism which allowed envisioning of a state in which (at least theoretically) democracy, rights of minorities, sovereignty of the parliament and flexibility of Islamic laws could be propagated as the guiding principles of the state. Also, by focusing on the life and ideas of Ghulam Ahmad Parvez and by disclosing the details of his close connivance with General Ayyub Khan during the 1960s, the paper will highlight the steps taken to institutionalize Islamic modernism in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explain trends in dowry levels in Bangladesh by drawing attention to an institutional feature of marriage contracts previously ignored in the literature: mehr or traditional Islamic bride-price. We develop a model of marriage contracts in which mehr serves as a barrier to husbands exiting marriage and a component of dowry as an amount that ex ante compensates the groom for the cost of mehr. We investigate how mehr and dowry respond to exogenous changes in the costs of polygamy and divorce, and show that our model gives a different set of predictions than traditional models. We show that major changes in dowry levels took place precisely after the legal changes, corresponding to simultaneous changes in levels of mehr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the arguments regarding the acceptability of the Sharia Law to be legally recognized as basis for settling family disputes concerning Muslims in Australia. It states that the recognition of the Sharia law is logical because the law itself regulates the legal relationship of many Australian Muslims. However, the recognition of the law was seen to separate Muslims from the wider community and widen the ghetto-isolation for Muslims.

To combat the epidemic of honor killings requires understanding what makes these murders unique. They differ from plain and psychopathic homicides, serial killings, crimes of passion, revenge killings, and domestic violence. Their motivation is different and based on codes of morality and behavior that typify some cultures, often reinforced by fundamentalist religious dictates. In 2000, the United Nations estimated that there are 5,000 honor killings every year. That number might be reasonable for Pakistan alone, but worldwide the numbers are much greater. In 2002 and again in 2004, the U.N. brought a resolution to end honor killings and other honor-related crimes. In 2004, at a meeting in The Hague about the rising tide of honor killings in Europe, law enforcement officers from the U.K. announced plans to begin reopening old cases to see if certain murders were, indeed, honor murders. The number of honor killings is routinely underestimated, and most estimates are little more than guesses that vary widely. Definitive or reliable worldwide estimates of honor killing incidence do not exist. Most honor killings are not classified as such, are rarely prosecuted, or when prosecuted in the Muslim world, result in relatively light sentences. When an honor killing occurs in the West, many people, including the police, still shy away from calling it an honor killing. In the West, both Islamist and feminist groups, including domestic violence activists, continue to insist that honor killings are a form of Western-style domestic violence or femicide (killing of women). They are not. This study documents that there are at least two types of honor killings and two victim populations. Both types differ significantly from each other, just as they differ from Western domestic femicide. One group has an average age of seventeen: the other group's average age is thirty-six. The age difference is a statistically significant one. INSET: Buried Alive for Honor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analize the contents of the Family Codes of the Arab-Muslim world in a gender perspective. The objective is to show the difficulties of the sexual equity in the social practice of many countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article refers to the outlook for legal pluralism in Great Britain and argues that Shari'a Councils should not be incorporated as tribunal entities under the Arbitration Act of 1996 and that the Council's decisions should not be legally binding on British citizens. Shari'a and British family law are discussed with a focus on comparing marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance laws. The severity and inequities of Shari'a or Islamic law are noted. The issues of bad faith law, the case of Halpern v. Halpern, and the possibility of injunctive relief for Muslims who are subject to Shari'a are mentioned. The author says that all religious tribunals formed under the Arbitration Act should be abolished.

Through an ethnographic examination of legal processes in Family Court, this article maps some of the circumstances which Indian Muslim women confront in the area of Family Law. It provides a portrait of the politically interested spaces which govern their lives, indicating the osmosis between 'religious,' cultural and legal realms, rather than essentialisms about the nature of Islam. It provides a reminder that we can no more separate religious practices fundamentally from patriarchal logic than we can separate jurisprudence and the workings of law, indeed the State, from its constitution in multiple embedded sites of patriarchal logic and race and imperial regimes. Optimal strategies for Indian Muslim women to be socioeconomically and legally empowered are also interrogated in this context, as the paper explores the ways in which gender equality and cultural difference and community support can, or not, protect women. It emphasizes the importance of problematizing both notions of 'community' and 'gender equity' in any attempt to address women's rights and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine here the conditions that have impacted on family law reform in unified Yemen. I will argue that during the early 1990s, the political climate of post-unification Yemen was polarized between supporters of the status quo ante— advocates of laissez-faire in the North and state intervention in the South. This division rendered any meaningful debate on family law impossible. Drawing on urban court records from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, I will show that courts are frequented mainly by women of modest origins who sue for divorce and maintenance, but who are discriminated against by judicial interpretation. Elite women use the courts only rarely and are comparatively better served by current judicial interpretation; thus, they have little concern for changing provisions on divorce and maintenance. Evaluating debates on women's rights in the late 1990s, I will briefly introduce some governmental and non-governmental initiatives with respect to family law to gauge current possibilities for reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I consider the nature and implications of the positions taken on Muslim personal status law by different institutional and civil society actors in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip during the period 1994-2000. The article considers positions taken on the sources and methodologies of reform of personal status law, the jurisdiction of the sharī'a courts, and specific areas of substantive law, with a view to identifying the range of opinions within the bounds of which Palestinian family law might be framed. Areas of convergence and divergence emerge not only between but also within the different sectors, while explicit reference to the legislation of other Arab states underlines a strong regional identification and, less explicitly, an emerging 'normative' status attaching to the diverse codified provisions of national laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1957-1958 Moroccan family law was codified in the Mudawwana, a text known for its close adherence to the classical Maliki tradition. Since the early 1980s the debate about reform has become more intense and widespread. The relatively limited reform of the Mudawwana in 1993 was closely linked to the beginnings of a process of cautious democratization. Since then the discussions have become more vehement, especially since the coming to power of a new government in 1998 consisting of former opposition parties. A year later this government presented a plan for extensive family law reforms. The plan has provoked considerable public debate over key concepts such as democracy, development, human rights, civil society, and ijtihād. Upon closer inspection, larger issues are at stake: Who may speak out in public and participate in politics? This new turn in the discussions is related to the emergence of a public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on the debates about the Islamic law regarding domestic relations in Muslim countries, Morocco, Mali, Yemen and Palestine. Factors on which different countries displayed different trajectories of family law reform; Events that impacted on the debates on family law reform; Political changes undergone by the Muslim countries in the 1990s.

The article examines debates surrounding the current family law reform in Mali to account for the way in which broader processes of social change, an international and national context of women's rights activism, as well as various interest groups will shape the ultimate outcome of legislative reform. The article focuses on the five main components of the proposed reform and analyzes the positions of the most important groups participating in the debate: women's rights activists supported by the international women's movement and international donor organizations, protagonists of the two influential wings of the national Muslim organization, and representatives of the state administration. It is argued that although state officials and protagonists of an "Islamic" position hold divergent ideological and normative orientations, they form temporary and shifting alliances around certain issues, often on the basis of pragmatic considerations. Also, while women's rights activists and "Muslim women" claim to represent women tout court, the positions and arguments of the former can be seen as representing particularistic, class-specific interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Egyptian law has maintained the Islamic system of interreligious law in which the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities are governed by their own courts and their own laws. In the course of the twentieth century, however, these separate courts were abolished and the application of non-Muslim laws was restricted to matters of marriage and divorce, and then only if the non-Muslim spouses share the rite and sect of the same religion. In all other cases Islamic law applies. In addition, non-Muslim laws may not be applied if they violate Egyptian "public policy", a European concept which refers to the fundamentals of a national legal order. Egyptian public policy can be defined as those principles which are essential in Islamic law. In this article I analyse the status of the non-Muslim Egyptian in contemporary personal status law, based on Egyptian case law and legal literature. The concept of public policy plays a key role in understanding the mechanics of interreligious law in Egypt. I will argue that public policy serves as a legal barometer of the coexistence between Muslim and non-Muslim communities in Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]