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Course to focus on Mideast law
By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
Contributing Editor
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, college and universities across the country have seen a boom in courses that trace how the religions and cultures of the Middle East affect their peoples.
Now, an attorney and matrimonial mediator who was raised as a Muslim in Iran will teach the first such course at the UB School of Law, one that delves into how religion and culture play important roles in shaping the legal status of women in Muslim and Hindu societies, among them Iran, India and Egypt.
The course, entitled "Effects of Religion and Culture on Family Laws in Eastern Countries," will examine the status of women as wives, daughters and mothers in Hindu and Muslim societies, and how that status affects the enactment of family laws and gender gap and equity issues.
"My goal is to begin to develop in students an understanding of how laws—in particular laws affecting the family—are shaped in other societies," said instructor Nadia N. Shahram, an Iranian and UB School of Law alumnus.
"Because I was born and raised until my early teens in a Muslim environment, I feel I have a responsibility to explain what I know of culture versus religion to Americans," said Shahram, an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years.
She explained that while law students learn that the U.S. legal system is based on case law, that is not always true in Middle Eastern countries.
"This is particularly the case for laws that affect families and women in those countries," she said. "These laws often are not created by legal experts making decisions and weighing costs and benefits. Often, they stem from the culture of a society and what that culture views as acceptable."
She explained that many Middle Eastern customs that Americans often assume are religious practices actually stem not from religion, but from a society's culture.
In her native Iran, for example, a woman cannot leave the country without written permission from her husband, a regulation that she says is a cultural, not religious, part of family law.
"Perhaps because Iran is 90 percent Muslim, people assume it is rooted in Islam," she noted, adding that in contrast, Muslim women in India are not similarly restricted.
"Most Americans have also heard that there are religious laws that tell Muslim women to cover their bodies, head to toe," she pointed out. "But in fact, that custom is not religious but rather is rooted in the cultures of the societies in which it is practiced."
Other customs that have legal implications will come as a complete surprise to her students, she noted.
"For example, it is the custom in Iran for daughters to keep their father's names, even after marriage," she said, adding that she takes pride in retaining that custom here, as a married woman in American society where wives usually take their husband's names.
The course also will introduce students to some of the most critical issues affecting women's status in Middle Eastern and Asian countries, including the tragic practice of bride burning, where wives are burned "accidentally" when husbands believe they have not received adequate dowries for the marriage.
According to Shahram, this crime usually is committed by the mother-in-law and the husband.
"This is completely against the law, of course," she said. "But very few perpetrators of this crime are prosecuted and convicted, even though it still occurs."
Shahram said her course will examine not just the facts of these crimes, but also the cultural complicity that allows them to continue.