Sharia

Abstract

This chapter examines three cases of British Asian marital breakdowns going through the civil courts, one a divorce proceedings including ancillary relief, and two child contact applications. The chapter offers routine examples of Islamic divorce law being brought to play in civil legal proceedings, of where the cultural difference of the disputants enters the court, and of how cases run in the grooves of kinship and ethnic relations. However, the chapter concludes that an equally important element is the courts’ enforcement of its assumptions about what is and is not a legitimate use of court time, which is about how the workings of civil law are inflected by social class no less than ethnicity and religion.