Alimony Provisions in Cases of Religious Differences: A Comparative Jurisprudential Study

Abstract

The study aims to define Islamic minorities in relation to the Sharia provisions concerning family matters and address the misconception that Sharia fails to address contemporary issues. The inductive analytical approach was adopted. The study is divided into an introduction and three sections covering the impact of religious differences on the wife's alimony, the impact of religious differences on the alimony of parents and relatives, and the impact of religious differences on the alimony of direct descendants. The study findings showed that there was no alimony for a wife who voluntarily abandoned Islam, but alimony was maintained if she converted to Islam while her husband abandoned faith. If the husband abandoned religion without the wife's involvement, the Muslim wife was entitled to alimony until her waiting period ended or the husband was killed. If the wife abandoned religion without her husband's involvement, there was no alimony. Alimony was obligatory for direct descendants towards their immediate parents, regardless of any religious conversion. Scholars agreed that religious differences did not affect the obligation of a father to provide alimony to his direct descendants.