Kecia Ali, ed. Half of Faith: American Muslim Marriage and Divorce in the Twenty-First Century (Boston: OpenBU, 2021). https://hdl.handle.net/2144/42505
Half of Faith gathers a selection of resources on, and reflections and analyses of, Muslim marriage and divorce in twenty-first century America. In the United States as elsewhere, marriage is central to ongoing Muslim conversations about belonging, identity, and the good life. The articles collected here, written over the course of two decades, provide a window onto moments in American Muslim life and thought. Though far from comprehensive, topics covered include diversity in Islamic legal thought, marriage contracts, wedding customs, dower norms, divorce practices, and experiences of polygyny. Contributors engage—and disagree—with each other, and sometimes with their past selves. By bringing together and making more widely available existing publications alongside a few purpose-written essays, this reader aims to enrich current conversations and to help document scholarly debates and community activism.
This work gathers previously published and newly written material on American Muslim weddings, marriage, and divorce.
The Editor's Introduction by Kecia Ali, Aminah Beverly Al-Deen's article “Rethinking Marriage Guardianship: Lessons from the Role of the Wali of American Muslim Women”, Zahra Ayubi's article “What to Consider If You're Considering Divorce”, and Kecia Ali's afterword, "Toward Love and Mercy: A Concluding Note" are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
All other portions of this book have been republished with permission by the authors and publishers and all rights are reserved.