Mahmoud Aldebe of the Muslim Association of Sweden (Sveriges Muslimska Förbund) wrote in an opinion article that he would like to see judicial family councils. These councils, he emphasizes, would not establish parallel Islamic law or serve as Sharia courts, but will deal with the difficult cases in which Muslim women marry according to Muslim law, but divorce under Swedish law.
"I haven't demanded parallel Islamic laws or Sharia courts in Sweden,on the contrary - I want to renew and adapt part of Swedish family law for solving many difficult divorce cases."
These family councils will "cooperate with Swedish courts to solve these difficult divorce cases and prevent them."
In the past Aldebe had suggested, among other things, that divorces between Muslims should be approved by an imam. These demands were rejected by most other Muslim organizations in Sweden.
This article was written in response to one written by Mehrdad Darvishpour and Zenia Hellgren, which I had not managed to find. Aldebe accuses the two of showing only the bad sides of Islam.
"Islam is an adaptable religion," he says and adds the the two want to force Swedish family laws, originating from Christianity, on Muslims countries and that their residents living in Sweden will be second class citizens.
The most important thing for improving people's lives, especially immigrant's, is to encourage modern Muslims to demand democratic right in their homelands through democratic means," and not by creating different laws for the other.
He adds that the two writers portray themselves as modern Muslims, but are actually showing disrespect for the other.
"They want Swedish tradition to dominate all the time. Share instead your cultural heritage with the majority society," he says.
What's missing in his opinion article is some basic reasoning. Sweden recognizes divorces only if they take place in Swedish courts. However, nobody is stopping Muslim women from going through a divorce in Muslim courts as well, as far as I know. If a Muslim women divorces only according to Swedish law, it must be because she isn't able to divorce according to Muslim law, or she prefers not to. In either case, there is no reason Swedish law should force her to do anything about it.
Of course this causes problems. Muslim countries, which do not recognize anything but Muslim law, do not recognize such divorces. Women who marry according to Muslim laws and divorce by Swedish laws are not considered divorced in their homelands. If they marry again and travel back home, they can be arrested for bigamy.
The question is which problems Swedish law should deal with - those of its residents, or those of their homelands.
Source: City (Swedish), The Local (English) , h/t FOMI (Swedish)
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