Encyclopedia of Islam

divorce

  

199  J

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woman need not even be present when he pro-

nounced divorce, and no formal judicial process 

was required. Medieval Islamic divorce law put 

Women

 at a significant disadvantage, but it was 

partly mitigated by 1) the recommendation that 

the three proclamations of divorce be performed 

on three separate occasions, 2) the requirement 

that the husband pay the woman all or part of her 

dowry, and 3) the requirement that the husband 

provide her with lodging and support for a wait-

ing period of up to three menstrual cycles (about 

three months). The husband could revoke the 

divorce during this period as long as he had not 

pronounced the divorce declaration a third time. 

If the woman was pregnant, he was obliged to 

support her for the duration of her pregnancy, and 

both mother and child had to be maintained for 

up to two years while the child was being nursed. 

The divorce was irrevocable once the three-month 

waiting period had ended and the pronouncement 

had been made a third time. A woman could not 

initiate a divorce, but in special circumstances she 

had the right to petition a judge to annul the mar-

riage. The m

aliki

 l

egal

 s

chool

 of Sunni Islam is 

considered to have been the most liberal in this 

respect, for it allowed a woman to request an end 

to the marriage because of the husband’s cruelty, 

inability to support her, desertion, or contracting 

an illness that could be harmful to her. 

apostasy

could also be grounds for divorce. Shii law con-

cerning divorce was similar to that of the Sunnis. 

In actual practice, a divorcee was often at the 

mercy of her former husband’s willingness to ful-

fill his legal obligations and a judge’s willingness 

to intervene if he did not.

During the 20th century, Muslim reformers 

sought to change traditional divorce law to give 

women a more equitable footing in initiating 

divorce and to protect them from its arbitrary use 

by their husbands and ad hoc judicial rulings. 

New legislation concerning divorce was adopted 

by many newly created countries to make this 

possible. Among Muslim-majority countries in the 

forefront of reform were t

Unisia

,  e

gypt

,  t

Urkey

, 

a

lgeria

, J

ordan

, and l

ibya

. In some instances, tra-

ditional Islamic law has collided with secular law, 

as occurred in the controversial 1985 case of Shah 

Bano Begum, an impoverished divorcee in i

ndia

. 

The Indian Supreme Court ruled on the basis of 

that country’s civil law code that Shah Bano was 

entitled to receive alimony after her husband of 

43 years divorced her to take a second wife. The 

decision sparked widespread demonstrations by 

India’s Muslim minority, who saw it as an affront 

to their religion by Hindus. The result was the 

passage of the 1986 Muslim Women Act, which 

upheld the traditional Islamic law that limited the 

obligation of the husband to pay for the divorcee’s 

maintenance for only the duration of the three-

month waiting period. In Western countries, most 

Muslims adhere to local civil codes governing 

marriage and divorce.

See also 

children

; h

indUism

 

and

 i

slam

; 

reneWal

and

 

reForm

 

movements

.