On March 10, 2016, and as part of KARAMAH’s efforts to liaise with activists and advocates who work to promote women’s rights worldwide, KARAMAH met with a delegation of Afghan attorneys with experience working on criminal, property, and family law cases.
KARAMAH regularly meets with delegations of global Muslim leaders to exchange ideas and information and to develop a broader understanding of women’s rights. KARAMAH also shared with each delegation its vision: handling societal issues with sound Islamic jurisprudence.
These visitors were invited to the United States as a part of the of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program and were part of a program arranged by the Institute of International Education titled “Building a Foundation for Private Legal Services in Afghanistan: Economic Sustainability of the Bar.”
The Afghan attorneys were very interested in learning about KARAMAH’s work adjudicating diverse cases involving family law and domestic violence in the U.S.
Ms. Rahman explained that KARAMAH’s advocacy work is based on educating the community on family law issues from an Islamic and civil perspective, and providing direct legal representation to survivors of domestic violence. This way, KARAMAH insures that women not only know their rights, but actually obtain them.
The attorneys shared with Ms. Rahman some of the challenges facing women in Afghanistan and which they are working to overcome. Many women in there cannot obtain their financial rights accorded to them by Islamic Law including inheritance, owning property and receiving a marital gift (mahr) upon marriage or divorce. As in other Muslim countries, this is largely due to the encroachment of cultural norms on religion.
According to the visitors’ experience, the most common types of divorce in Afghanistan are talaq (divorce is initiated by the husband) and tafriq (judicial divorce initiated by the wife). In both divorces, the wife is entitled to financial rights according to Islamic Law. Unfortunately, many women still do not obtain their financial rights upon talaq or tafriq. One of the main reasons is that in many marriages in Afghanistan, the mahr is not identified at the time of marriage.
Khul’ (divorce initiated by the wife whereby she provides financial consideration in exchange for her divorce) is rarely used in Afghanistan.
Ms. Rahman then said that many women, in the U.S. and elsewhere are led to give up their financial rights upon divorce either under pressure from religious leaders or the husband. Even when women can plead harm, they are made to accept khul’ instead of tafriq, thus relinquishing their financial rights.
Ms. Rahman reminded the visitors of the Islamic philosophy and objective of mahr. While mahr often becomes an issue at the time of divorce, God prescribed mahr to be given at the time of marriage. Moreover, Muslim scholars unanimously agree that no one can impose an upper limit to mahr, which is contrary to laws in some Muslim countries like Afghanistan.
“And give the women [upon marriage] their gifts graciously (saduqaatihinna nihlah). But if they give up willingly to you anything of it, then take it in satisfaction and ease” (Qur’an, 4:4.)
For more on mahr in the context of the Islamic marriage contract, click here.
KARAMAH works to enlighten Muslim women about their legal and financial rights and to enable them to stand for those rights. KARAMAH also empowers leaders, advocates, and attorneys with Islamic family law knowledge and skills to advocate effectively for women’s rights in the U.S. and globally. Our work empowers leaders to affect legal changes at their local constituencies in a way that conforms to the gender equitable principles of Islamic law.
We hope that these attorneys’ efforts advocating for making the amount of mahr clearly identifiable in the marriage contract will be fruitful. We also hope that further work will be done to guarantee women in Afghanistan more financial rights.
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