The focus on family law in the Sharia

Attention to the issue of divorce in Islamic Sharia seems to be getting more and more attention these days. The issue featured prominently at a conference in Bahrain on violence and discrimination against women in the countries comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council. Conference participant Dina Mamoun submitted a paper about the unequal marital status of women in the Gulf, and argued that “Men obtain divorces in some cases in a reckless way.� It's a response to those who argue that if the "emotional" women had the same right to divorce as the man, then they would be seeking divorce for trivial reasons, thus undermining the institution of marriage.

The issue of Islamic Sharia and family law has been getting quite a bit of attention in recent weeks. Here in Egypt there was the Human Rights Watch report on divorce, which was followed by a renewed push from women's groups for a new personal status law. Then the Wafaa Constantin debacle triggered a flurry of articles in the Egyptian press on the legal discrepancies between Copts and Muslims in family law issues such as marriage and divorce.