pakistan muslim lawyer?, i need help!?

Question

I need some advice about my divorce process about children so i need your help in the muslim law perspective. i am living in chicago, i wanted some questions to be answered according to muslim laws. please contact me thru email and then we could talk over the phone. i need someone who knows muslim law, retired lawyers are also welcome too answer my question. -thank you

Answer 1

Are you the husband or the wife?

Under Shari'a, the husband has a total right to *legal* custody of his children. The wife has a right to *physical* custody of a boy child until he is 7, and of a girl child until she reaches marriageable age - ie her first menstrual period. This right, however, is dependent on the mother remaining a Muslim in good standing with her Mosque, remaining unmarried, and remaining under the authority of a male relative.

After the children reach this age, the mother no longer has any rights at all with regard to the children, not even to visitation.

If you are divorced secularly in the US then a Shari'a court will NOT recognize the validity of the divorce, nor of any child custody arrangements ordered by the Court. A Pakistani Shari'a court "may" recognize a divorce issued by a US Mosque, or they may not. They will NOT recognize any child custody arrangements that do not follow the guidelines above.

If you are divorced in the US and allow your children to go to Pakistan with their father the courts in Pakistan will NOT enforce any promise he may have made to bring them back, nor does any court order for him to do so from an American court have any standing or authority in Pakistan.

Richard