Islamic Sharia Council subservient to the English law." In an April 2013 report, the BBC's "Panorama" asked whether the Islamic Sharia Council was "failing vulnerable women and mothers" by requiring women seeking divorce to give back their marriage dowry (or "mahr"). The question of "khula" divorce often turns on the dower: if the woman is seeking the divorce, she has to return the dower to the man, or else the divorce cannot proceed. Since in traditional Islamic society, men are traditionally the bank account holders and women are traditionally homemakers, the woman has no purchase, and cannot obtain a loan in order to
Application of Islamic law by country are sharia trial and circuit trial courts in Mindanao, which is home to the country's significant Filipino Muslim minority. Sharia District Courts (SDCs) and Sharia Circuit Courts (SCCs) were created in 1977 through Presidential Decree 1083, which is also known as the Code of Muslim Personal Laws. Islamic law only applies to civil cases involving all Muslims nationwide. Cases are handled in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and a couple of Mindanao provinces that are not part of ARMM by both sharia district and circuit courts, organised into five sharia districts. Outside these areas, sharia-related cases are processed in