Review of Pascale Fournier, Muslim Marriage in Western Courts: Lost in Transplantation

Abstract

Legal scholar Pascale Fournier’s Muslim Marriage in Western Courts: Lost in Transplantation skillfully outlines the complex and contradictory ways in which mahr, typically understood as a gift to the bride stipulated in the nikah (Islamic matrimonial contract), has been translated in contemporary Canadian, American, German and French courts in post-migration divorce rulings between 1879–2005 (with most cases from the 1970s-1990s). Fournier offers a close reading and analysis of an impressive number of divorce cases related to mahr, demonstrating that Western courts have ruled unpredictably both nationally and internationally, ranging from a penalty imposed on Muslim husbands (where, for instance, they would be responsible for the division of family assets, spousal support and mahr) to a punishment for Muslim wives (where mahr replaces alimony and the equitable division of property). Fournier argues that ‘once mahr is uprooted from Islamic family law and transplanted into a Western chamber of law, it can never go back home again’ (p. 2). These cases also underscore how the interpretation of law has regulatory power over individuals not only in the politics of divorce but also in conceptions of marriage and in broader lived gender relations. The book begins with a comprehensive background of how mahr has been differently conceptualized with attention to its dynamic and changing interpretations in schools of Islamic law. Scholars of law and feminism are also diverse in how they define it, ranging from a feminist entitlement to a patriarchal disempowerment. Fournier charts how mahr is discussed in the Qur’an and other pertinent Islamic legal sources (cited at length in two appendices). The ability to initiate divorce (for Muslim women) and the relative costs of mahr in divorce depend on whether the Cont Islam (2013) 7:255–257 DOI 10.1007/s11562-011-0175-6