Post-divorce maintenance for Muslim women in Pakistan and Bangladesh: A comparative perspective

Islamic family law, more often referred to as Muslim personal law in the South Asian context, is influenced by formal and informal plural normative orders, as secular, religious, customary, and patriarchal norms (Menski, 1998; Ali, 2002; Mehdi, 2005; Shah, 2005).The presence of such plural normative orders has given rise to tensions and conflict between these norms, including various publicly stated commitments and goals of the states to promote gender equality. Islamic family law has thus become a highly contested and politicized issue making change in this area of law difficult. Post-divorce maintenance (Mata'a) for women is one such area where classical interpretation of Islamic law, restricting such maintenance to the Iddat only, continues to apply. Engaging with plural sources of the Islamic legal tradition, this article discusses the potential of employing these to make the case for awarding post-divorce maintenance to Muslim women.