Bradford, and Glasgow, it is by no means a nation-
ally recognized body, at least among Muslims. In
fact, a large number of Muslim people are not
aware of its existence. It is primarily a self-consti-
tuted body, has no legal status and deals solely with
Islamic divorce; civil marriages dissolved by the
British courts and issues related to maintenance
and child custody fall outside its purview. The
council can claim success in some of the cases pre-
sented to it, but the fact remains that these are a tiny
minority. Also, despite the fact that its decisions are
binding, it has no legal base to enforce them if the
husband decides not to cooperate. Its ability to
handle divorce cases efficiently is called into ques-
tion; at the moment there is only one secretary who
manages the daily work of the council. The result is
lack of communication, misinformation, and long
delay; it is estimated that a resolution dispute could
take up to three years.
When women fail to secure divorce via a Muslim
mediator, very often they go to British courts to
obtain civil divorce; this can be done if they have
marriage status according to United Kingdom law.
A number of Muslim women in Britain do not have
marriage status, primarily because they did not
marry according to United Kingdom law. As such,
they are left in limbo at the mercy of their husbands
who refuse to grant them †alàq. Once a woman
petitions for divorce in a United Kingdom court,
apart from some obstacles related to cost, igno-
rance of the Islamic Sharì≠a, and lack of faith-sensi-
tive support during the crisis and after it is resolved,
she is able to obtain a decree absolute, mainte-
nance, and control and custody of the children.
This is because the majority society as well as the110 divorce and custody: contemporary practices
British authorities tend to be sympathetic toward
women in disputes concerning divorce and child
custody. However, even after obtaining civil divorce,
a Muslim woman is still not completely free to start
a new life. This is because civil divorce is not recog-
nized in Islamic law and therefore she is still techni-
cally not free to remarry. Here, the woman could
easily be blackmailed into submission by a brutal
husband; the price could be financial, or, much
more importantly, child custody. In Islam, child
custody rules are based on scholarly opinions and
vary considerably from one school to another.
These rules, in general, favor the father, especially if
the mother decides to remarry after separation. In
this context, the husband can strike a good deal in
return for Islamic divorce, undermining the benefit
she gains from the civil divorce regarding finance
and child custody.Bibliography
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