Development of Women’s Right to No-fault Judicial Divorce (Khul‘) in Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is the first Muslim country, which recognized women’s unilateral right to no-fault judicial divorce (khul‘) under Islamic family law in 1959. In contemporary Pakistan, Muslim women have the unilateral right to dissolve their marriages through summary court procedure. This has been made possible because of the gradual changes in case law and procedural law stretching over more than half a century. Despite questioning the validity of state-enforced Islamic divorce law on the basis that it is not in line with classical Islamic law (sharī‘ah/fiqh), traditional ‘ulamā’ (religious scholars) accept the validity of court decrees of the dissolution of marriage based on khul‘. As a result, the validity of judicial khul‘ under Islamic law is well established in Pakistan. This shows that the judges of the superior courts act as final arbiters by determining the binding interpretation of the Qur’ān and sunnah and the same has been approved by the ‘ulamā’.