i thee dread
The Maryland Court of Appeals
ruled this week that the Islamic practice of
talaq violates a woman's right to
due process in the state.
Talaq is the practice (and in Pakistan, the law) that allows men to divorce their wives by saying "I divorce thee" three times. Maryland resident Irfan Aleem had moved to the D.C. area in 1985 with his wife, Farah, to work for the World Bank and raise a family. When she filed for divorce in Maryland in 2003, he one-upped her by heading to the Pakistani embassy and performing
talaq, thereby divorcing her under Pakistani law, under which she had signed a marriage contract agreeing to a $2,500 divorce settlement in 1980 when she was 18. Since his divorce, he moved back to Pakistan and has been denying his wife financial support. The Maryland court said:
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