Experts in Islamic law and religion who are based in the U.S. said they agreed with the court's ruling. Abdullahi An-Na'im, a Muslim scholar and law professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said "there can only be one law of the land."
An-Na'im, who wrote Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari'a, said that "if Muslims wish to influence what the law of the state says, they must do so through the normal political process and in accordance with civic discourse that is equally open for debate by all citizens, and not on the basis of religious beliefs."
Julie Macfarlane, a law professor at the University of Windsor, Ontario, who has spent two years on a research project titled "Understanding Islamic Divorce in North America," said she was surprised that Aleem had tried to force the notion of talaq on a U.S. court.
"It's unclear how he even thought he was going to make a successful legal argument on this point," Macfarlane said.
Many North American Muslim religious leaders, known as imams, now treat a woman's request for a divorce as a right, Macfarlane said, an evolution from the common scenario under which she may split up with her husband only if he consents.
"The theory of Islamic law is that the man has the right and that the woman has to ask for it, but what's fascinating is that in practice, Islamic divorce is evolving to fit contemporary mores," she said. "Women are asking for divorce now. Two decades ago, they were not."
Muneer Fareed, secretary-general of the Islamic Society of North America, said that if Aleem had traveled to Pakistan and invoked his talaq there, it might have been recognized in a U.S. court under the concept of comity, under which nations accept the premise of a law in another country "whether or not we agree with the law or its spirit."
But Aleem, he said, attempted to circumvent any such agreements.
"There was a certain lack of faith here because the husband initiated the talaq after his wife had filed for divorce," Fareed said. "He was trying to defeat the ends of justice within the American legal system."
nick.madigan@baltsun.com
