2nd Issue Brief- Muslim Family Laws. What Makes Reform Possible? (English)

Muslim Family Laws. What Makes Reform Possible is part of a series of knowledge briefs for women’s rights activists to provide advocacy arguments and convey key ideas and concepts related to Muslim legal traditions in a simple and appealing way.

 Reform is often resisted on the grounds that Muslim family laws are divine and thus not open to change. Yet in reality change and reform have been inherent in Muslim legal tradition. Islamic legal theory is rich with concepts and tools that have been continually used in the past and that can pave the way for family laws that are more in line with contemporary Muslim realities, as well as with modern notions of justice which, in the course of the twentieth century, have come to include gender equality.

This knowledge brief was produced under the UN Women  Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).