Can a woman also seek a divorce under Islamic law?
MF: Under Muslim law, a woman can also seek for divorce. The woman can ask for ‘redemption’ from her marriage, get her freedom if she feels that the marriage is no longer working for various reasons. It could be on the ground of battery, domestic violence. It could also be on the ground of the sexual state of the husband. But what we find in Nigeria is that any time a woman attempts to seek for divorce using this method – especially in Kano because the judges that are there are also patriarchal in their thinking – they make the process difficult for a woman to achieve. IPS: Divorce by means of proclaiming, I divorce you three times. Is this not the normal standard in Islam? MF: To divorce a woman through pronouncing it three times at a go is not found anywhere in Muslim law or contained in the Islamic jurisprudence. It is just that over the years, it has become the tradition. It is out of place. The Islamic provision is that if you are divorcing a woman, it has to be spread over a thre
