Divorce, Al-Azhar, the state and other separations that can’t be spoken into existence

People have worked to improve conditions for families going through divorce for decades, but the already conflicted terrain has been supercharged in recent years by constantly worsening economic conditions. Bitter disputes manifest in asset division battles fought over marital homes and their contents, from furniture to cutlery. Wars over custody and child rearing are waged at the expense of children, alimony disputes leave women without a source of income, and remarriage or separation disputes become toxic  — often culminating in physical attacks and violence.  Throughout those decades, the state has been unable to pass a law to radically change that state of affairs. The last breakthrough was more than 20 years ago, with the hard-fought-for reforms that opened the door for Muslim women to initiate divorce.  Those reforms have yet to be built upon under Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, despite the president’s repeated calls for further change. Since he first emerged on the political scene, the president has zeroed in on verbal divorce – the practice that permits husbands to speak divorce into existence, requiring only that they register it with a religious notary within a year. The practice, which does not currently require civil documentation of any kind, leaves many verbally divorced women in a dangerous void between civil and religious practice that can and does deprive them and their children of spousal and parental support. With weighty and often futile court proceedings necessary to try and obtain the two years’ worth of spousal support payments  the repudiated wife is religiously and legally entitled to, the effect is that many women are left unable to pursue recompense: abandoned by both religion and the state. But despite the president’s repeated attempts to bring about reforms, he has so far been unable to bring about the political momentum required to change that reality. One roadblock is Al-Azhar and its Council of Senior Scholars. The religious authority that establishes doctrinal wisdom on religious practice has held firm throughout years of struggle with the presidency on its position that verbal divorce is a religiously legitimate practice.  But in the latest round of the debate, sparked by the suicide of blogger Bassant Soliman, who took her own life after years of publicly discussing her struggle to care for her children after divorce, Sisi’s government submitted a new draft law. Years in the making, the bill was submitted under presidential instructions as part of a broader legislative package that also included accompanying legislation for Christians and a social support fund, in what the government has pitched as a comprehensive overhaul of the status quo. But when the legislation arrived at Parliament, it transpired that all the talk of comprehensive reform in the context of verbal divorce has only amounted to a few amendments to the status quo that many women’s rights advocates said was insufficient. And even so, Al-Azhar came out this week to distance itself from the new draft.  So will the state be able to pass the law this time? Two informed sources from Al-Azhar who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity say that the Islamic authority’s position on what the law should be is slightly different from the vision laid out in the government’s bill.  But the overwhelming sense, they say, is that the religious authority feels it has been willing to shift toward a compromise on verbal divorce that would establish a middle-ground between the civil and the religious.  As the fight over family laws unfolds against the backdrop of a broader rift between the religious establishment and the presidency over Al-Azhar’s independence from the state and the role of religion in public affairs, the question is whether the middle ground will hold — and whether it will be enough for those who have waited decades for tangible progress. *** Following the outcry that ensued after Soliman’s death, the president instructed that the family law drafts that have been years in the making be sent to Parliament. Soliman’s story is one of many. A source close to the executive body says that the president’s stance on family laws is tied to the country’s steadily rising divorce rate, itself linked to growing economic hardship in recent years. A source close to Al-Azhar’s grand imam too acknowledges that more and more women have been coming to the religious authority to seek divorce (khula), but saying they are unable to bear the financial burden of doing so.  It was against these competing and pressing dynamics that Parliament finally received, at the end of April, a completed version of the draft law. Both men’s rights activists, who have grown increasingly frustrated with the financial liability marriage entails, as well as feminist activists rushed to evaluate the bill. Regulating verbal divorce was among the most anticipated reforms, with promises of new penalties and limitations on the practice covered in the press for years. Upon reviewing the new bill, however, many were disappointed. The draft does not outlaw verbal divorce. Instead, it states that a husband must, according to Article 75 of the draft, register verbal divorce within 15 days at a civil notary in order for the marriage to be considered legally dissolved. Article 171 also introduces fines and imprisonment as possible penalties for men who fail to register verbal divorce. Otherwise, the husband remains financially responsible for his spouse and children, and is legally liable for failing to fulfill that responsibility.  Feminist groups say the verbal divorce change is not enough. They say it is a diluted form of change, and one that still gives undue power to husbands in the marital relationship, arguing that men are able to renege on their household commitments with no more than a word and without considering the impact on the lives of their wives and children. They ask what will happen if and when husbands don’t register the verbal divorce? Will the state and police really step in to enforce the obligation? Or to pursue husbands who say they are divorced but refuse to commit to spousal support payments for which they are both legally and religiously liable? *** Adding fuel to those concerns is Al-Azhar’s proactive endorsement of, and even advocacy for, the legitimacy of verbal divorce. The staging of this clash in positions is well-known, taking place almost a decade ago at a state celebration of the anniversary of January 25, where both Sisi and Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb were present. At the event, broadcast to millions on television, Sisi articulated a more radical position, one that would outlaw verbal divorce altogether — an intervention that many believe would be a more genuine and effective engagement with the issue from the state.  “So we shouldn’t issue a law that says divorce can only be done in front of the marriage registrar so that people have a chance to reconsider? And it shouldn’t be just a word that [the husband] says like that?” the president said, pushing rhetorically against the long-held position of the council of scholars, the governing body at the global seat of religious authority for Sunni Muslims around the world. “Or what, Your Eminence? You’ve exhausted me, Your Eminence,” Sisi said, addressing the question, and some of the frustration that millions of women feel about the religious position, toward Tayyeb directly. But two weeks later, the Council of Senior Scholars issued a retort, not merely confirming the necessity of verbal divorce, but refuting the validity of Sisi’s position, in a clear and explicit challenge to the president’s proposal. Not only did the council of scholars’ statement confirm that, as long as it meets the criteria of religious law, verbal divorce is valid “without requiring witnesses or documentation,” it also placed the ball back in the state’s court. “The divorcer must take the initiative to document this divorce immediately upon its occurrence, in order to preserve the rights of the divorced woman and her children. It is the right of the [the state], according to Sharia, to take the necessary measures to enact legislation that ensures the imposition of a deterrent disciplinary punishment on whoever refuses to document or delay it, because this harms the woman and her legal rights,” the opinion stated.  The scholars emphasized at the time that high divorce rates “will not be eliminated by requiring witnesses or documentation,” especially since the announced divorce statistics, which Sisi referred to in his speech, are documented and proven divorce cases rather than undocumented verbal ones. And Al-Azhar has continued to express this position since.  In 2023, when Sisi once again announced plans to proceed with reforms to outlaw verbal divorce, Tayyeb used one of his daily Ramadan television appearances to insist that “changing the ruling on verbal divorce requires a new religious consensus.” Tayyeb’s only concession to the state position was to say that it would be religiously acceptable for divorce not to be recognizable under civil law unless officially documented — a perfect encapsulation of the status quo that many say has placed men’s marital behavior beyond the law’s reach. The stance was perceived as yet another chapter in the tug of war between the heads of state and religious establishments, playing out again in a row over family life that is fast-devolving into a zero-sum game for men versus women. But as far as that religious establishment is concerned, this position is a concession rather than a challenge to the presidency’s stance on the matter, according to Al-Azhar source and another source in conversation with the grand imam.  According to the source close to the grand imam, Tayyeb has suggested to people who have spoken with him on the matter that there should be legislation on verbal divorce that obligates husbands to legally notarize it in order to guarantee the wife’s rights and the soundness of her position, both legally and religiously.  The suggestion is slightly different from those in the current bill. According to the source, in the event that the husband fails to notarize the verbal divorce, the wife should have the right to resort to the relevant legal authority to demand that it be notarized within a limited period of time, during which the legal authority could summon the husband to ensure that his verbal divorce was “not prompted by of anger or disturbance.” In the event that the husband did not notarize the divorce, the legal authority would be required to take over the documentation of the divorce. The second source, who speaks with the grand imam, says Al-Azhar isn’t seeking conflict on matters in which the state’s positions doesn’t align with Sharia. Tayyeb is not at all seeking to get involved in any clash, said the source. But at the same time, he can’t back down from what he views as decided in terms of religious jurisprudence.  The grand imam himself derives his authority from the Council of Senior Scholars and is convinced of the importance of adhering to the council’s consensus. *** However, this brings up an unavoidable conflict. The source describes a prevailing sense that the head of the executive branch feels all official bodies must align unhesitatingly with the president’s pronouncements — a demand the grand imam refuses to submit to. Tayyeb is also committed to preserving the independence Al-Azhar regained in 2012 from the political arm of the state, according to the first source. He feels he cannot take positions that contradict the consensus of senior scholars, says the source, and refuses to be among those who conform to everything the head of the executive authority says.  “[Tayyeb] insists that the independence of Al-Azhar from the executive authority, one of the most important gains of the January 2011 revolution, is non-negotiable,” the source says.  Sisi has always been clear, however, that he wants the religious authority implicated in bringing about a cultural shift.  “The law alone is not enough,” the president said in 2014, in a televised interview during his first presidential campaign.  “Other [institutions] must work, such as the media, education, places of worship and the family. Aren’t these the ones that contribute to shaping personality and forming awareness? So we must work on these mechanisms and improve them,” he said.   “Do you want to know how I, as president of the republic, will act? I say it very clearly: these state mechanisms, which are educational institutions, places of worship and the media, must contribute with us to controlling the situation and the morals we all say we have a problem with.” But as Al-Azhar preserved its independence through the early years of the presidency’s religious reform discourse — and through successive legislative efforts to bring it back under state auspices and place religious institutions more broadly under government authority — the friction has grown.” In addition to media attacks on the grand imam on channels close to the state, the president has made repeated insinuations about Al-Azhar’s failure to reform religious discourse. At the same time, cultural programming in the broadly state-curated media has stepped in. In recent years, Ramadan series have increasingly shown sympathy with the plight of families going through divorce, including the 2021 series Newton’s Game, which prompted another wave of public debate about verbal divorce.  Other programming has highlighted other personal status issues facing women, while a 2026 Ramadan series focused on some of the issues men face in divorce, fuelling wider societal debate about reforming the law. *** Has this wave of popular media messaging been enough to push the bill through Parliament conflict-free?  After Parliament is done with their first review of the draft law, they will refer it to Al-Azhar for its opinion. The Islamic institution confirmed as much this week when it distanced itself from the bill, saying it is yet to formally receive a copy.  The House is not bound to follow Al-Azhar’s opinion. But contradicting Al-Azhar’s views on matters of Islamic law is an extremely sensitive matter.  The first source close to the grand imam notes that in 2020, former House Speaker Ali Abdel Aal was forced to suspend discussions on an amended version of the Personal Status Law after receiving a letter from the grand imam requesting permission to address Parliament to explain his position on the issue of verbal divorce. Just a year prior, Al-Azhar had prepared its own draft law — a text that lists more or less the same divorce stipulations proposed in the new law. So far, the leading figure involved in the new bill’s preparation has projected confidence that the bill will be passed. Judge Abdel Rahman Mohamed is the head of the committee formed in 2022 to draft the law. During his televised appearance on Hadret Al-Mowatin earlier this month, he confirmed that Al-Azhar had agreed to no less than 90 percent of the bill’s articles before clarifying that only newly introduced articles were yet to be presented to the Islamic university.  This was just five days before Al-Azhar publicly denied participation in drafting the bill.  But since then, Mohamed has made another television appearance, insisting that Al-Azhar would agree to the verbal divorce portion of the law. *** If the bill passes as it is, can it be viewed as a victory for the state?  The first source close to the grand imam says that although Tayyeb was subjected to a media campaign he would rather have avoided, he has remained steadfast in his position.  The source noted that the grand imam had once again explained his stance on the legal validity of verbal divorce during one of his televised daily talks during the last week of Ramadan.  The second source in conversation with Tayyeb notes that the effect is that Al-Azhar retains its independence and cultural influence independently of the state. Tayyeb is aware that he has brought Al-Azhar back to the forefront as an active institution in public life, rather than a purely religious institution confined to rigid interpretations of religious matters, says the source — even if that result was unintended. But this is a role Tayyeb insists is linked to public affairs, not politics, the source says. However, this role has effectively put the religious authority at odds with the state on several affairs of major public interest and of importance to the political authority, most recently over the famine in Gaza and, more foundationally, over the violent dispersal of the Rabea al-Adaweya sit-in. Whether the state or Al-Azhar chooses to double down on the minor differences in their positions on verbal divorce, the articles in the current bill would only represent a minor change in Al-Azhar’s influence on family life.  And many feel the bill fails to achieve even that. Azza Soliman, head of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance, tells Mada Masr the legislation fundamentally fails to change the philosophy behind the current law — and all the stress and pain that philosophy continue to inflict on families. The post Divorce, Al-Azhar, the state and other separations that can’t be spoken into existence first appeared on Mada Masr.