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California County Rules On Divorce Law For Muslims
WASHINGTON, April 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A California appeals court in Santa Ana, California, has ruled that Islamic marriage laws cannot be applied to Orange County's divorce laws, the Orange County Register reported Friday.
The ruling is expected to have widespread implications on the division of property and other issues faced by Muslim couples who file for divorce in the state.
The three judges of the Fourth District Court of Appeals issued the ruling in the case of a Muslim doctor who claimed that a $30 Mahr (dowry) that he gave his wife 27 years ago in Egypt qualifies as a prenuptial agreement. The court, however, ordered him to pay $1.5 million to the wife.
The prenuptial agreement, often called simply as "prenup" in the United States, formalizes the division of community property among divorcing couples. Mahr, or dowry, under Islamic law, is a gift of money or property promised by the husband to be paid or delivered to the wife in consideration of the marriage.
Sherifa S. Shaban and Ahmad Shaban, both 51 years of age, were married in Egypt 27 years ago when the doctor paid the $30 Mahr. They have been living in United States for 17 years and have a grown daughter and a teenage son. They filed for divorce in 1998.
Sharifa Shaban had sought half of the total assets of Ahmad, valued at around $3 million.
Ahamad Shaban, however, argued that the $30 Mahr he paid was in effect a prenuptial agreement voiding any claims on his assets by his estranged wife. But the judges thought otherwise, and ruled that Ahmad Shaban's argument not only reaches the "outer limits'' of reason, but "falls off the edge''.
Sherifa's counsel, Marjorie G.Fuller, told the Orange County Register, "The dowry contract was just a marriage certificate and not a prenuptial agreement.''
Ahmed Shaban, a prominent gastroenterologist, in an interview to the paper said the court unfairly portrayed him as a man who bought his wife from her father and now wants to throw her out on the streets.
"Nothing could be farther from the truth. This isn't white slavery."
He said that the court did not take into consideration the facts about Islamic divorce laws and also ignored his wife's decision to abide by Sharia' laws in the marriage contract.
"We dated for 2 1/2 years, and she fully consented [to the dowry agreement] when we were married in front of hundreds of people,'' Shaban said. "She was a college graduate who worked for the Argentine Embassy.
"We knew we were moving to California. We could have been married in California if she wanted a California marriage,'' he said. "But we wanted an Islamic marriage."
Ahmad Shaban's attorney, Ronald Anteau, said the court refused to hear testimony from an Islamic law expert he had flown in from London who would have proved that Mahr contracts met the requirements of a prenuptial agreement.
He also said that Ahmad Shaban was not leaving his wife with nothing, she left the marriage with substantial property, as well as many items that he had given her.
The paper also reported that the Muslim community in Orange County was evenly divided on the issue. While some argued the Mahr amounted to a prenuptial agreement, others opined that U.S. laws should hold precedent over Islamic laws in such matters.
This controversy is expected to prop up again in U.S. courts as the incidence of divorce among American Muslims increases.
Los Angeles attorney Asifi Quraishi said, "It's a very topical issue that American courts will have to deal with more and more. There are different precedents on the books."
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