Muslim Family Law in Western Courts

This book focuses on how Islamic family law is interpreted and applied by judges in Europe, in Australia and North America. Covering a wide number of countries, it uses court transcriptions and observations to discuss a number of issues, including how the most contentious marriage-related issues - consent and age of spouses, mahr, polygamy, divorce, and kafalah - are adjudicated. The solutions proposed by different legal systems are reviewed, and some broader questions are addressed: how Islamic principles are harmonized with norms based on gender equality, how parties bargain strategically, and how Muslim diasporas align their Islamic worldview with a Western normative narrative.