Experiencing ‘nikah captivity’ in the West. Gendered conflicts over ending Muslim marriages

Based on interviews with Muslim minority women and Islamic authorities, this article proposes a step-based model for understanding Muslim divorce processes in diaspora. Such processes are highly dependent on individual women’s embedding in gendered geographies of power: Second-generation women may quite easily end unwanted marriages fully, while first-generation women may end up living in year-long ‘nikah captivity’, unable to have their nikahs dissolved, even though they have obtained a divorce under Danish law. When (ex)husbands keep (ex)wives in such nikah captivity, it can be regarded as a type of post-separation violence facilitated by the migration-induced separation of Muslims from Islamic institutions.