Islamic Family Law in American Courts
In our global village, marriages, finance and commercial transactions are crossing borders. Not surprisingly, American courts must regularly interpret and apply foreign law — including Shari’a — to everything from the recognition of foreign divorces and custody decrees to the validity of marriages, the terms of an Islamic finance deal, the enforcement of money judgments or the elements of damages in a commercial dispute or a tort action. In this course, we will focus on what every family attorney needs to know about Islamic family law in American courts. We will survey case law from around the country covering Muslim marriage contracts, mahrs (dower), Islamic marriage absent marriage licenses, foreign divorces, foreign marriage, religious instructions in custody matters and other related topics.
