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
Ban on sharia law restrict judges from consulting Shariah, or foreign and religious laws more generally". As of 2013, all but 16 states have considered such a law. In November 2010, voters in Oklahoma approved a ballot measure to amend the state constitution to ban sharia from state courts. The law was then updated to include all foreign or religious laws. The law was challenged by an official of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. In November 2010 a federal judge ruled the law to be unconstitutional and blocked the state from putting it into effect. The court found the ban had the potential to