Islamic Sharia Council repay the dower to receive an Islamically recognized divorce. The Islamic Sharia Council must recognise a British divorce, by virtue of the law of the land, if the petitioner shows them a decree absolute. However, the Islamic Sharia Council is displeased if the dower remains unpaid. Writer, broadcaster and academic Myriam Francois-Cerrah has pointed to "serious problems" with the councils, citing a case in which a Muslim woman seeking advice was reportedly directed to a "controversial cleric" who urged her to give up her custody dispute with her husband and "hand over full custody of her seven year old child"
Application of Islamic law by country Law 59 of 1953 (amended by Law 34 of 1975) is essentially a codified Islamic law. The Code of Personal Status is applied to Muslims by Sharia courts. In Sharia courts, a woman's testimony is worth only half of a man's. The government is declared to be secular in the constitution. However converting a Muslim is a crime. In Yala, Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla provinces, Islamic law is allowed for settling family and inheritance issues under a 1946 law. The remaining provinces of Thailand have a civil law system with common law influences. As part of Atatürk's Reforms, sharia was