Khula Law in Pakistan

Two aspects are kept in mind in the law of khula: one legal, one religious. Our Constitution of Pakistan is built on Islamic laws and Islamic principles. Any law that goes against the Qur'an and Sunnah is wrong — the Council of Islamic Ideology is an institution that continually gives its own laws and its own views on this; whether they are acted upon or not is a separate debate.

The Islamic concept of khula is that a woman wants to obtain divorce from a man, and she herself tells the man to divorce her, and the man, of his own free will, after understanding the circumstances, gives her the divorce — and in exchange for this divorce or khula, he takes half the dower, the full dower, or waives it. This is called khula. The Council of Islamic Ideology has declared that khula without the husband's consent is un-Islamic. The Council of Islamic Ideology declared that khula is the husband's right to grant — a court cannot grant khula without the husband's consent. In our country, NGOs have come to dominate matters of Sharia; they have their own agenda, and driven by love of money they are running blindly, ruining their Hereafter while earning worldly gain. I have told you the concept of khula — that khula without the husband is not permissible at all, it is un-Islamic — this is what the Council of Islamic Ideology, our specialized institution, says.

Now, on the other side, there is the matter of the law: a woman gets a khula decree and now wants to reconcile, or a woman gets a khula decree and the husband wants to reconcile. There is a very high proportion of such cases, and the main reason for such problems is unfamiliarity with Islam and the law. The courts of Pakistan have declared that khula is equivalent to a divorce — this is PLD 2010 Karachi, page 131 — this was exactly the same issue as with those siblings of mine [i.e. a similar case]. Khula is not complete until you pay back the consideration for khula, whether it is one rupee of dower or five crore rupees of dower. When the khula decree is passed, the dower that was paid to you has to be returned, regardless of how much it is — the court has said it has to be returned. Returned to whom? To the husband. Therefore khula cannot happen without informing the husband. All of this — Islam is now a complete code of life; there is no religion better than Islam. The solution to every worry, every difficulty, has been given in a manner that does not create disorder in society. A man gave three divorces together — Islam made it very clear: you did wrong, bear the consequence, the divorce has taken effect. There are some schools of thought that say no, it will be counted as only one. The Sunni school of thought says that three divorces have occurred — you did not follow the laws given by Allah, the principles set by Allah, so bear the consequence.

Now, on khula, the court also declared in 2000 MLD 822 that it is a divorce. And it was further stated that until you return that dower, your marriage does not come to an end. Now if khula is a divorce according to the law, then you can remarry without any third party's intervention and carry on with your life. In this matter there should be proper legislation regarding this storm of misconduct that has arisen around khula, where a woman comes, writes down a wrong address for the man's house, takes khula, submits it to the Union Council, and after having it submitted, obtains a divorce decree and remarries — the woman does not understand that this is against her.