jisso wrote:
> In what will undoubtedly be a MILESTONE in justice for Muslim WOMEN in
> the United States, a Maryland appeals court has ruled a husband cannot
> divorce his wife simply by saying three "I divorce thees," and walking
> away with all their acquired wealth and property.
>
> The precedent-setting decision is a welcome change to the way wives
> can be treated when a marriage is ending and the wife faces a very
> short end of the stick.
>
> Perhaps in several decades the ruling might make its way into the
> divorce "customs" of Muslim communities in other nations. But given
> centuries-old Muslim pro-male practices that accord virtually NO legal
> rights to women, maybe that's expecting too much.
>
> But for starters, if "men" in countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq,
> and Pakistan would stop stoning, burning, and beheading women in
> "HONOR KILLINGS," some humanity, charity, kindness and enlightenment
> might start to be squeezed into the behavior of Muslims everywhere.
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> "Islamic Divorce Ruled Not Valid in Maryland"
>
> "Custom Allowing Men to End Marriage With Oral Declaration Lacks 'Due
> Process'"
>
> By Ruben Castaneda
> Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer
> Thursday, May 8, 2008; B02
>
>
>
> After his wife of more than two decades filed for divorce in
> Montgomery County Circuit Court, Irfan Aleem responded in writing in
> 2003, and not just in court.
>
> Aleem went to the Pakistani Embassy in the District, where he executed
> a written do***ent that asserted he was divorcing Farah Aleem. He
> performed "talaq," exercising a provision of Islamic religious and
> Pakistani secular law that allows husbands to divorce their wives by
> declaring "I divorce thee" three times. In Muslim countries, men have
> used talaq to leave their wives for centuries.
>
> But they can't use it in Maryland, the state's highest court decided
> this week.
>
> The state Court of Appeals issued a unanimous 21-page opinion Tuesday
> declaring that talaq is contrary to Maryland's constitutional
> provisions providing equal rights to men and women.
>
> "Talaq lacks any significant 'due process' for the wife, its use,
> moreover, directly deprives the wife of the 'due process' she is
> entitled to when she initiates divorce litigation in this state. The
> lack and deprivation of due process is itself contrary to this state's
> public policy," the court wrote.
>
> The decision affirms a 2007 ruling by the Court of Special Appeals,
> the state's intermediate appellate court, which also said that talaq
> does not apply in the Free State.
>
> Under Islamic traditions, talaq can be invoked only by a husband,
> unless he grants his wife the same right.
>
> According to the Court of Appeals' opinion, Irfan Aleem, who worked
> for years as an economist with the World Bank, is worth about $2
> million, half of which Farah Aleem is entitled to under Maryland law.
> When Irfan Aleem tried to divorce his wife under the concept of talaq,
> a sum of $2,500 was mentioned as a "full and final" settlement,
> according to the appellate decision.
>
> That amount was written into the marriage contract Farah Aleem signed
> the day she married him in their native Pakistan in 1980, according to
> the appellate decision. The contract was in accordance with Pakistani
> custom. At the time, he was 29 and she was 18. The couple moved to the
> Wa****ngton area in 1985.
>
> "I don't even know how to express how happy I am. I am ecstatic,
> relieved," Farah Aleem, 46, said yesterday.
>
> Over the years, a lack of financial sup****t from her ex-husband caused
> hard****p for her and her son and daughter, who are in college, she
> said. "All I ever wanted was my fair share, not a penny more," said
> Aleem, who lives in the Wa****ngton area, works full time for an
> accounting firm and is pursuing an accounting degree at night.
>
> At the direction of the judge who presided over the Aleems' divorce
> proceedings, the couple's Potomac home was sold, and half the proceeds
> -- about $200,000 -- went to Farah Aleem, said Susan Friedman, her
> attorney.
>
> Friedman said she thinks that Irfan Aleem, who retired in recent
> years, invoked talaq to avoid paying Farah half of his World Bank
> pension, which provides him with $90,000 annually, the attorney said.
>
> "It will be very pleasant when [Farah] gets her share of that,"
> Friedman said. "She's delighted about that."
>
> Friedman said she will serve papers on the World Bank showing that the
> original order from the Circuit Court -- that Farah Aleem is entitled
> to half her ex-husband's pension -- is now final and that the bank has
> to give her half.
>
> Irfan Aleem, who is in his late 50s, lives in Pakistan, Friedman said.
>
> His attorney, Priya R. Aryar, said, "We're very disappointed with the
> decision. We think this could have adverse ramifications for a whole
> bunch of people who reside in the D.C. area under diplomatic visas and
> assume that their family law rights and obligations are governed by
> the laws of their country of citizen****p."
>
> A legal scholar and an Islamic leader said the appellate court's
> decision was not surprising.
>
> "For the most part, Muslims expected this kind of ruling," said Muneer
> Fareed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America in
> Plainfield, Ind. "The contrary would be a surprise to them. They do
> not expect the U.S. legal system to give full recognition of talaq."
>
> Julie Macfarlane, a legal scholar who is researching a book about
> Islamic divorces in North America, said the decision was not
> surprising. "There's no legal enforceability [for talaq] in U.S.
> courts," said Macfarlane, a professor at the University of Windsor in
> Canada.
>
>
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050703592.html
Is anybody surpirsed that "at will" marriages aren't legal in the US!
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