Question

AsalaamuAlikum Dear respected Mufti,

My wife wanted a divorce. We went to local scholar and they give an Islamic ruling, I accepted  the rulings but she didn’t. She wants to take me to court. I booked a session with local sharia Council who can deal with all matters, but she applied for divorce to a  sharia Council 200 miles away- who only deal with divorce, and not kids and finance matters.

They only communicated with me via email, and I clearly asked them NOT to deal with our matter as they only deal with divorce and not with kids and finance matter. But they still issued a fasq to her. I requested to communicate with their Mufti but they didn’t reply.

Questions

1. As they are 200 miles away from us, and they don’t have jurisdiction over us. and I haven’t recognised their authority, Is their Fasq valid?

2. She is taking me to court for money, is this going to be halal for her which she gets from the court system?

3. She is using a Muslim solicitor, I have submitted my sharia based proposal to him, written with the help of scholar. They ignored this, and still continuing with court system. Would they be sinful for preferring man made system over Allah’s solution?

JazakAllah khirun

Answer

We pray that Allah the Almighty eases yours situation.

1. As we are not aware of the exact process adopted by this shari’ah council when issuing a faskh, we cannot comment on whether the faskh issued by them is valid or not. We would need to conduct a thorough investigation regarding their process and procedure in dealing with such matters, and this is not within our scope at this moment in time.

As for the matter of jurisdiction, there are no official jurisdictional boundaries which have been designated for the shari’ah councils. One reason for this is that there are only a few shari’ah councils across the country and each one operates independently, rather than being controlled by one central body. Hence, they will deal with cases that are brought to them regardless of where the case has come from.

The difficulty in your situation and other similar situations is that even if you do not accept their authority in this matter, that is not going to have much impact, as your wife has already received a faskh, and is most likely going to act according to that. Even if you insist that she is still your wife, unfortunately that will be of no benefit. Yes, if the faskh was issued unjustly, and with the intent of depriving you from your rights then this will be unlawful and they will be sinful for this.

The best way forward for you is to accept that she has been issued a faskh and focus on other unresolved matters and moving on. This will prevent you from wasting your time and energy in a matter which is out of your control and does not have any viable alternative solution.

2. If via the courts, she claims more than what she is entitled to from an Islamic perspective, then she will be sinful for this and taking these additional sums will be religiously unlawful.

3. Any Muslim who supports an unlawful acquisition will also be sinful.

Answered by:
Ifta Research Fellow

Checked & Approved by:
Mufti Abdul Rahman Mangera
Mufti Zubair Patel