ABSTRACT
In January 2001, the High Court of Bangladesh ruled it illegal to pronounce fatwas (opinions on a point of law), after hearing a case in which a Muslim woman was forced, by edict of a local religious authority, to marry her ex-husband’s cousin. Shahida did not want to divorce her husband; nor did her husband want to divorce her, despite his pronunciation of talak (divorce) in anger. They continued to live together as a married couple and even had a child. But their neighbor, many months later, issued a fatwa that their marriage had been dissolved by the talak; if Shahida wanted to stay with her husband, she would have to marry another man before she could re-marry her husband. This type of arrangement, called hilla/hila in Bangladesh (tahlīl marriage), allows a woman to return to her husband—if both so desire it—after talak has been pronounced, but requires her to marry another person, consummate the marriage, and divorce before returning to her first husband. Having followed the directive, however, Shahida was left to face a husband who no longer wanted her. The High Court took up the case suo moto (on its own initiative), with two human rights organizations arguing against the use of fatwas (Editor vs. District Magistrate 2002: 228–32). 1
