Contracts
OH Dowry Ruling is Appealed; Important Muslim Marriage Issue
Posted Nov 1, 2007, 11:21 am CDT
By Martha Neil
In a case that has attracted national interest, an Ohio woman is appealing a court ruling that her ex-husband doesn't have to pay the dowry she is guaranteed in her Muslim marriage contract.
Although courts in other states reportedly have enforced similar religious marriage contracts, the judge in Raghad Alwattar's case said her ex-husband wasn't legally required to pay her the agreed $25,000 dowry. That is because the Muslim marriage contract, known as a mahr, didn't comply with Ohio standards for for prenuptial contracts, explains the Associated Press. In particular, her now-former husband, who says he didn't understand at the time he signed the mahr (PDF) in their case that he was agreeing to pay a dowry, didn't have a chance to consult a lawyer beforehand, said Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Dana Priesse.
As a result of the Oct. 10 ruling, which was the first in the state on the issue, those involved in Muslim marriages are now being urged to make sure that future mahrs comply with Ohio law on prenuptial contracts, so that they are enforceable. At least one Columbus imam is now having husbands-to-be sign promissory notes concerning the dowry.
The dowry is important security to a woman in a traditional Muslim marriage, an earlier ABAJournal.com article notes, because wives often don't work outside the home and are unlikely to marry again after divorcing.
Noure Alo, who is representing the 21-year-old Alwattar, is still drafting the appeal but plans to argue that both constitutional and contract law were misapplied, he tells ABAJournal.com. He is being joined in the appeal by Ahmad Nassar and other lawyers from Patton Boggs, a Washington, D.C.-based national firm that has agreed to represent Alwattar on a pro bono basis.
But James Adair, who represents ex-husband Mohammed Zawahiri, 29, tells ABAJournal.com that the case was correctly decided at trial. "It was just painfully obvious, when I read this one-page contract, that it wasn't enforceable, in my view, in civil court," he says.
Generally speaking, practitioners representing Muslim clients should be aware that a mahr may exist that could be relevant not only in a divorce case but in a probate matter, Adair notes.
An article in Southern California Law Review (PDF) that was cited by the judge discusses the issue of court enforcement of Islamic marriage contracts in detail.
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Comments
Posted by John D. Gregory - 11 months, 1 week, 3 days, 22 hours, 36 minutes ago
A court in Ontario several years ago refused to enforce a mahr on the basis that it was a religious, not a civil obligation, and thus not justiciable. A British Columbia court apparently has gone the other way.
If courts will enforce these obligations, are they going to face arguments that other elements of Islamic family law should go along with it, such as extremely limited (by common law standards) support payments after divorce? “You got the mahr/dowry, so you don’t get more than 3 months’ support.”
or will each element be taken on its own as matters of general law, i.e. law of domestic contract or debt, law of marital support? Different jurisdictions (in US or Canada) may have different rules about parties’ ability to contract out of usual support obligations by domestic contract.
Posted by Allan M. Huss - 11 months, 1 week, 3 days, 21 hours, 53 minutes ago
Wait a minute. I read the agreement linked to the article. Both parties agreed to submit the matter to binding arbitration under religious principles. Why did this ever get to Common Pleas Court in the first instance? Enforce the arbitration agreement and let the chips fall where they may.
Posted by Daniel Reitman - 11 months, 1 week, 3 days, 12 hours, 59 minutes ago
Courts also are split on whether to honor Jewish marriage agreements, but the primary issue in such cases tends to be whether provisions for ceremonial divorces are to be specifically enforced. (There is an ALR.)