This book is a collection of essays that aims to identify the multitude of ways in which Australian Muslim women negotiate both Australian Family Law and Islamic Family Law in the key areas of marriage, divorce, child custody, property settlement and inheritance. The book also seeks to provide a timely and significant insight into the various legal, cultural and social processes that Australian Muslim women use when disputes in these key areas arise.
In recent years, all over the western world, a conversation has begun about the role of Islamic law or Shariah in secular liberal democratic states. Often this has focused on the area of family law, including matters of marriage and divorce. Islamic Family Law in Australia considers this often-controversial issue through the lens of multiculturalism and legal pluralism. Primarily, its main objective is to clarify the arguments that have been made recently. In both Australia and overseas, debates have occurred which have been both controversial and divisive, but have rarely been informed by any detailed analysis of how Muslim communities in these countries are actually dealing with family law issues. Islamic Family Law in Australia responds to this need for accurate information by presenting the findings of the first empirical study exploring how Australian Muslims resolve their family law matters. Through the words of religious and community leaders as well as ordinary Australian Muslims, the book questions the assumption that accommodating the needs of Australian Muslims requires the establishment of a separate and parallel legal system. Islamic Studies Series - Volume 16
"Muslim women in Australia are at the forefront of a culture war, and not necessarily by choice. As visible representatives of Islam, veiled women face discrimination and abuse, and carry the stigma of a culture frequently deemed unacceptable and inferior. Despite these adverse conditions, Muslim women have demonstrated a remarkable resilience by maintaining their presence in the public domain and by continuing to make a positive contribution to Australia. The experiences of Muslim women in Australia cannot be typecast as a sisterhood of oppressed females. Challenging Identities questions the assumption of incompatible 'Australian values' and 'Islamic values', and provides valuable first-person accounts from the lives of Muslim women in Australia."--Publisher description.
Within Muslim communities in Australia, there is great diversity in Islamic practice and religiosity. When it comes to marriage and divorce, however, many Muslims still wish to observe religious procedures alongside civil ones, and while marriage is relatively straightforward, divorce raises more complications. The situation of women in ‘limping’ marriages in particular has raised debates among Muslims and the Australian public regarding the autonomy of Muslim women and the function of community family law processes. Based upon in-depth research with divorced Muslim women, community leaders and local religious authorities, Buckley reveals the complexities facing Muslim women in negotiating family expectations, cultural norms and traditional Islamic laws. Through their stories and experiences, the Muslim women in this book demonstrate how they are able to navigate the intricacies of religious and civil processes and in so doing, are reformulating what a ‘complete’ divorce looks like. Islamic Studies Series - Volume 29
In recent years, all over the western world, a conversation has begun about the role of Islamic law or Shariah in secular liberal democratic states. Often this has focused on the area of family law, including matters of marriage and divorce. Islamic Family Law in Australia considers this often-controversial issue through the lens of multiculturalism and legal pluralism. Primarily, its main objective is to clarify the arguments that have been made recently. In both Australia and overseas, debates have occurred which have been both controversial and divisive, but have rarely been informed by any detailed analysis of how Muslim communities in these countries are actually dealing with family law issues. Islamic Family Law in Australia responds to this need for accurate information by presenting the findings of the first empirical study exploring how Australian Muslims resolve their family law matters. Through the words of religious and community leaders as well as ordinary Australian Muslims, the book questions the assumption that accommodating the needs of Australian Muslims requires the establishment of a separate and parallel legal system.
Explores the present-day realties of Islamic family law, with particular emphasis on the rights of women, and focusing on law in its living social context as reflected in public opinion and personal experience.
This is a uniquely comprehensive and up-to-date volume spanning nine regions and 38 Islamic countries around the world. More than a billion Muslims have their lives in such matters as marriage, divorce, maintenance, paternity and the custody of children governed by certain aspects of the Shari'a, commonly known as Islamic Family Law. But as the team who have put together this resource book point out, this does not mean that identical principles apply everywhere. In fact, as the socio-cultural and historical contextualisations which precede each country's legal profile make clear, the practical application of Shari'a principles is often modified by theological differences of interpretation, particular customary practices in the country concerned, and state policy and law. This volume documents the scope and actual manner of application of Islamic Family Law worldwide. Part of its purpose is the assumption that while changing social conditions - including a commitment to certain universal human rights -- make legal reform necessary, any strategy must be based first of all on the best possible factual foundations. And secondly, since Islamic Family Law has become contested ground between conservative and fundamentalist forces on the one hand and modernist and liberal trends on the other in most Islamic countries, reform must be conceived only in realistic terms and advocated in ways that motivate and empower potential supporters working in their own communities. This work is a uniquely valuable resource for lawyers, social policymakers and scholars. It is also a contribution to the historical challenge which Islamic societies confront in reforming personal and family law.
Gender equality is a modern ideal, which has only recently, with the expansion of human rights and feminist discourses, become inherent to generally accepted conceptions of justice. In Islam, as in other religious traditions, the idea of equality between men and women was neither central to notions of justice nor part of the juristic landscape, and Muslim jurists did not begin to address it until the twentieth century. The personal status of Muslim men, women and children continues to be defined by understandings of Islamic law codified and adapted by modern nation-states that assume authority to be the natural prerogative of men, that disadvantage women and that are prone to abuse. This volume argues that effective and sustainable reform of these laws and practices requires engagement with their religious rationales from within the tradition. Gender and Equality in Muslim Family Law offers a groundbreaking analysis of family law, based on fieldwork in family courts, and illuminated by insights from distinguished clerics and scholars of Islam from Morocco, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia, as well as by the experience of human rights and women s rights activists. It explores how male authority is sustained through law and court practice in different contexts, the consequences for women and the family, and the demands made by Muslim women s groups. The book argues for women's full equality before the law by re-examining the jurisprudential and theological arguments for male guardianship (qiwama, wilaya) in Islamic legal tradition. Using contemporary examples from various contexts, from Morocco to Malaysia, this volume presents an informative and vital analysis of these societies and gender relations within them. It unpicks the complex and often contradictory attitudes towards Muslim family law, and the ways in which justice and ethics are conceived in the Islamic tradition. The book offers a new framework for rethinking old formulations so as to reflect contemporary realities and understandings of justice, ethics and gender rights. "
An exploration of family law as it pertains to women with regard to marriage, divorce and inheritance in the Middle East. This second edition is revised to expand and update coverage of family law reforms that have taken place throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. It focuses on the historical and legal context for reform, and the methodology and extent of contemporary legal trends, particularly in Egypt and Pakistan.
