QUR’ĀNIC PRINCIPLES OF SULḤ AND TAHKĪM IN MARITAL DISPUTES: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THEORY AND PRACTICE IN BANGLADESH

Authors: Tareque Bin Atique, Abu Tayub Md. Nazmussakib Bhuyan & Muhammad Saleh Uddin

ABSTRACT

This study interrogates the Qur’ānic paradigm of sulḥ and tahkīm, centred on An-Nisāʾ 4:35, and critically evaluates its institutional embodiment within Bangladesh’s Muslim personal law regime. Adopting a hybrid doctrinal-normative and socio-legal methodology, it exegetically reconstructs the revelatory model’s normative architecture while scrutinizing statutory instruments (the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961; the Family Courts Ordinance 1985), judicial praxis, and informal shalish mechanisms. Findings expose a systemic disjuncture: despite nominal conciliatory intent, merely advisory authority, a bureaucratic composition, and a secular-positivist epistemology, marginalize the Qur’ānic requisites of qualified hakamayn, binding ethical wilāyah, and taqwā-centric justice, yielding abysmally low reconciliation rates and entrenched gender asymmetries. The research affirms the enduring superiority of the Qur’ānic framework—defined by graduated intervention, familial arbitration, and transcendent maqāṣid—and advances a practicable reform agenda: reconstitution of Arbitration Councils as certified Hakamayn Boards, mandatory pre-litigation tahkīm, professional mediator training, and seamless integration with Family Courts. Such reconfiguration promises a substantial reduction in judicial backlog and marital dissolution while restoring marriage’s sacred telos as a covenant of sakinah, mawaddah, and raḥmah. The study thereby contributes significantly to applied Qur’ānic legislations and post-colonial Muslim family law reform.

Keywords: Qur’ānic Family Law, Sulḥ, Tahkīm, Marital Dispute Resolution, Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961, Islamic Alternative Dispute Resolution.

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