Marriage settlement among minority muslim by datok imam masjid in south thailand

Abstract

Most of Thailand Moslem community live at the plateau of its South area. As the minority, they cannot perform sharia laws formally under official acknowledgment. Therefore, in practicing the law, particularly marriage settlement, they rely on the rules of fiqh school followed by each local Datok Imam Masjid. The Datok exists in every village even sub-village and is a delegation from the Committee of Islam at Province. However, The Committee does not arrange particular rules in the marriage settlement so that the practice is fully guided and handled by the Datok. This research uses qualitative approach through descriptive method. It finds that principles and requirements of marriage settlement are in line with common Islamic laws in the Qur an and hadith. Most of South Thailand Datok serving as penghulu (staffs of marriage settlement) furthermore affiliate to Shafi i school. However, as each datok has different views and beliefs on certain issues, the rules become too flexible such as the minimum age for the brides and bridegrooms or the existence of wal? (Islamic guardian mainly from the family line) as the marriage requirement. Additionally, the marriage settlement with a newly converted Muslim and "free" polygamy are two big issues as there found no exact rule governing all the details. The settlement is also sometimes often hard to hold due to expensive request of mahr (dowry) which causes the high number of eloping cases.