Abstract

Unlike many other religious legal systems Islamic law considers marriage as a contract though there are some differences with the concept of civil contract strictly speaking. It also accommodates a scope to terminate a contract in a number of ways. Thus, Islamic sharia law prescribes certain specific procedures to terminate a marriage. It may be terminated by acts of the parties, by death or by operation of law. Apart from unilateral termination to be made by the husband or by the wife being empowered by delegated power of divorce there is also a scope to dissolve a marriage through mutual consent. In whatever method a marriage is dissolved the sharia law nowhere requires any notification to be made to any formal authority expressly in this regard. But, many countries by legislation added some statutory formalities to be observed to terminate a marriage even under Islamic law. The status of those statutes sometimes seems to be obscure for want of clear provision regarding its observance and consequence of its non-observance. Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961 is one such legislation that is now applicable in Bangladesh that lays down certain procedural formalities to be observed to pronounce a talaq in whatever mode, inter alia, section 7(1) of this Ordinance prescribes a talaq to be notified to the Chairman, a local government authority who in turn will take certain steps to conciliate the dispute and after the expiry of 90 days on and from the day of receipt of notification’ by tile Chairman talaq will become effective. It is also mentioned in section 7 that non-observance of such