Muslims living in non-Muslim lands are faced with a conundrum—on the one hand, they want to live their lives in accordance with the Shariah, but on the other hand, they do not have recourse to courts that can protect their Shariah-given rights. This is especially true for law related to marriage, divorce, child custody, alimony, lineage, and adoption, as an incorrect understanding of these rulings can either lead to wronging others or lead to the inability to protect ourselves from being harmed.
Without proper knowledge, women in particular are susceptible to being wronged. In the past, women’s rights were protected by Muslim judges who prevented husbands from abusing the Shariah. These days, however, it is imperative for women to pro-actively protect themselves by learning the Shariah. By understanding, for example, the marriage contract, they can stipulate appropriate conditions within the contract that would give them the right to divorce in the event of specific problems that may arise.
Learning to look at family law through the lens of the Shariah helps you to remove misunderstanding that surround laws related to marriage, divorce, child custody, alimony, lineage, and adoption. The goal of this course is to give Muslims practical guidance on marriage and divorce in the context of today’s world—namely, an understanding of how the laws of the fuqaha are implemented in real life situations.
The instructor of this course, Dr. Ashraf Muneeb is uniquely suited to do this because of his extensive experience dealing with marriage and divorce cases, as well as his understanding of Western marriage law. His PhD dissertation was a look at Muslim family problems in the West and included a thorough study of Californian marriage law. He also, along with his wife Ustadha Hedaya Hartford, authored the book Your Islamic Marriage Contract.
By the end of this course, you will be able to write a marriage contract, stipulate valid conditions within it, identify mistakes in contracts, and conduct a marriage. Given a marital problem scenario, you will know what divorce options exist. Given a divorce scenario, you will understand the status of the marriage and the divorce. And once a divorce has occurred, you will understand the obligations on both the husband and the wife after divorce, as well what happens to the children. Also in regards to children, you will understand the place of modern techniques used to confirm or negate lineage. Finally, you will understand the legal ruling of adoption and its consequences.
This course is highly recommended for every Muslim, but is obligatory knowledge for anyone planning on getting married, spouses filing for divorce, imams and family counselors who deal with family disputes, and lawyers or students of law wishing to specialize in family law.
