Divorcing Traditions

Divorcing Traditions is an ethnography of Islamic legal expertise and practices in India, a secular state in which Muslims are a significant minority and where Islamic judgments are not legally binding. Katherine Lemons argues that an analysis of divorce in accordance with Islamic strictures is critical to the understanding of Indian secularism.

Lemons analyzes four marital dispute adjudication forums run by Muslim jurists or lay Muslims to show that religious law does not muddle the categories of religion and law but generates them. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research conducted in these four institutions-NGO-run women's arbitration centers (mahila panchayats); sharia courts (dar ul-qazas); a Muslim jurist's authoritative legal opinions (fatwas); and the practice of what a Muslim legal expert (mufti) calls "spiritual healing"-Divorcing Traditions shows how secularism is an ongoing project that seeks to establish and maintain an appropriate relationship between religion and politics. A secular state is always secularizing. And yet, as Lemons demonstrates, the state is not the only arbiter of the relationship between religion and law: religious legal forums help to constitute the categories of private and public, religious and secular upon which secularism relies. In the end, because Muslim legal expertise and practice are central to the Indian legal system and because Muslim divorce's contested legal status marks a crisis of the secular distinction between religion and law, Muslim divorce, argues Lemons, is a key site for understanding Indian secularism.

Runner-up for South Asia Muslim Studies Association Book Prize 2020 (United States) Runner-up for Michelle Rosaldo Book Prize 2019 (United States) Runner-up for Association for Political and Legal Anthropology Book Prize in Critical Anthropology 2020 (United States)

“"This ethnographically rich and analytically astute book examines how secularism, rather than separating law from religion, unsettles any hard distinction between those two domains. With brilliant insight, Katherine Lemons underscores the entanglement of political economy in kinship, religion, and law. Divorcing Traditions is an original intervention into the study of secularism, religion, and gender."”

Divorcing Traditions makes a valuable contribution to understanding the relationships between religion, kinship, and personal law. Lemons' case study brings to the fore the place of minority differences in the practices of secularism.

Lemon's book meticulously points to the double labour Indian Muslims must perform under the sign of the Indian secular... Divorcing Traditions is a timely and groundbreaking contribution to the study of Indian politics, to legal history and anthropology, and women's and gender studies.

Divorcing Traditions is an excellent work that challenges the discussion on divorce by islamic and religious scholars and can stimulate new reflections and more cautious judgements about practiced Islam.

This ethnographic account of Muslim practices of dispute resolution through non-state institutions is highly relevant in understanding India's plural and diverse identity. The book also critically assesses "with what effects the state recognizes" these Islamic legal forums, demonstrating the continuous interactions of society, law, and religion that shapes India's legal pluralism and secularism.

Katherine Lemons is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at McGill University.

Divorcing Traditions is an ethnography of Islamic legal expertise and practices in India, a secular state in which Muslims are a significant minority and where Islamic judgments are not legally binding. Katherine Lemons argues that an analysis of divorce in accordance with Islamic strictures is critical to the understanding of Indian secularism. Lemons analyzes four marital dispute adjudication forums run by Muslim jurists or lay Muslims to show that religious law does not muddle the categories of religion and law but generates them. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research conducted in these four institutions--NGO-run women's arbitration centers ( mahila panchayats ); sharia courts ( dar ul-qazas ); a Muslim jurist's authoritative legal opinions ( fatwas ); and the practice of what a Muslim legal expert ( mufti ) calls "spiritual healing"-- Divorcing Traditions shows how secularism is an ongoing project that seeks to establish and maintain an appropriate relationship between religion and politics. A secular state is always secularizing. And yet, as Lemons demonstrates, the state is not the only arbiter of the relationship between religion and law: religious legal forums help to constitute the categories of private and public, religious and secular upon which secularism relies. In the end, because Muslim legal expertise and practice are central to the Indian legal system and because Muslim divorce's contested legal status marks a crisis of the secular distinction between religion and law, Muslim divorce, argues Lemons, is a key site for understanding Indian secularism.

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