Samara from Lebanon

[ChristinaRizkallah]

Oh, I'm sorry about the confusion. I think you interviewed Nour on gilded serpent a few years ago, that is where I got the name Ekaterina because you were the interviewer!

Originally Posted by nuringa

Nour's former name was not Ekaterina it was Tatyana! Tatyana Fedyaeva

Ekaterina is mine name :) by the way

yes i think her official name on documents is Nour now

Her only daughter - 2 month old Nataly is her only child by now ;)

[ChristinaRizkallah]

Lotus: thanks again for your explanation, you are really knowledgable in this subject! I didn't realize it was such a technical field with all these rules/regulations.

Originally Posted by lotus

Hi Christina,
I think the marriage contracts tend to be written like prenups. So the guy has to pay whatever he agreed to beforehand in addition to the alimony. But also IIRC there is generally a lump sum settled on the woman in addition to alimony, which is recurring payments.

The lump sum comes from the "mahr" which is dowry paid by the groom to the bride. argh, where is my notebook from class? The bride is not required to contribute the household expenses whatsoever, and the mahr is her money. If a woman contributes to household expenses whatsoever, it qualifies as charity and she accrues the same benefit spritually as if she gave to any foundation. So, theoretically, if the mahr is a good size to start with she should be ok after a divorce.

I've read in one place that if the woman really wants to get out of a marriage, but the husband has technically done nothing wirng, she can apportion part of her dowry to him in exchange for a "khul" divorce, but I don't know how kosher, urm I mean "halal" this is technically.

Besides alimony, which is damages for the marriage itslef - if there are children the man still has to pay a salary to the mother, plus household, medical and educational expenses for the children.

If a girl's family is looking out for her, I assume they would encourage the contract to also include a lot of other clauses to make the guy sorry he ever changed his mind as well.

Inwiritng the contract, one person is the holder of the 'isma (the knot). This is the more powerful position, as the holder of the knot is empowered to initiate divorce proceedings. It is usually the man, but can be the woman.

Anyway, all this stuff is what we are learning in my jurisprudence class. In real life, I'm sure people pull all kinds of tricks during a divorce, regardless. Human nature and all.

[ChristinaRizkallah]

Thanks for the perspective from Lebanon. I am surprised that a mother can be considered unfit if she is a Christian? There are a lot of Christians in Lebanon, right? My family from Lebanon (by marriage) is Christian. But I guess with all Middle Eastern countries, Islam is still dominate and Christians are still persecuted. Thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by jessedan

I think another problem for dancers with children in the case of an eventual divorce is that if the father can prove that she is lacking in "good moral character" he can obtain custody of the child. Probably not difficult to do considering how dancers are looked upon in the middle east.
This is from a website that deal with child custody laws in Lebanon:

Among Sunni Muslims, the father has physical custody of a daughter over the age of nine and of a boy over the age of seven. For Shia Muslims the father generally has physical custody at for boys at age 2 and for girls at age 7.

If a father establishes that the mother is unfit or lacking good moral character, she will lose any right to the child. Muslim law requires a child to be raised in the Muslim faith, and if it were proven that a mother tried to raise the child as a Christian, she could be found unfit.

http://www.international-divorce.com/ca-lebanon.htm

Regards
Priscilla

[ChristinaRizkallah]

Lotus-thanks. I'll check out the book title. Thanks for the recommendation. Yes, I am Egyptian, but Coptic (and there are no Muslims in my family) because generally, Christians and Muslims do not intermarry in Egypt; hence the reason why I am not familiar with the Islamic laws as they pertain to marriage and divorce. There was one divorce in my family but because it involved a Coptic; therefore, her divorce was totally different than the guidelines of Islam.

Originally Posted by lotus

PS - Christina, this isn't so much about marriage, but since you're Egyptian I thought you might be interested in this book I read last fall for a differenct class. It is about women in Cairo. I had always assumed you were Coptic? and this book talks about the Islamic da'wa womens' piety movement, but it's really interesting, especially in terms of how Egyptian society is changing and the personal role that religion plays in a person's life. Chapter 5 has great stuff about Egyptian social attitudes toward marriage

"Politics of Piety" - saba mahmood.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jcy...KClTU#PPA40,M1

[jessedan]

Yes there are alot of Christians in Lebanon, I think they are about 40% or so of the population. This includes many different Christian denominations, Maronites, Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox & Protestant. In Lebanon Christians aren't persecuted at all though. They get along splendidly with Lebanese Muslims and rarely have problems.
Now if two Lebanese Christians marry, it's a whole different set of rules.
Samara is Muslim, so I don't know what kind of arrangement she had with her husband about children, or whether she is Shia or Sunni.
I couldn't help wondering though, if this might have been one of the things that Nour was concerned about when she converted to Islam.

Regards
Priscilla

Originally Posted by ChristinaRizkallah

Thanks for the perspective from Lebanon. I am surprised that a mother can be considered unfit if she is a Christian? There are a lot of Christians in Lebanon, right? My family from Lebanon (by marriage) is Christian. But I guess with all Middle Eastern countries, Islam is still dominate and Christians are still persecuted. Thanks for sharing!

[ChristinaRizkallah]

Thanks for the information. My half Lebanese cousins are Christian. Yes, I do believe that this situation has something to do with Nour converting to Islam. In an interview a long time ago, which is posted on tribe.net, Nour explains (through an interpreter) that if Yasser her husband were to die, his family would get custody of her children, but somehow by converting to Islam, she is enabling herself to have custody of her children. Because I am not Muslim, I do not understand the logistics of this. I only know about Coptic marriages, etc...

Originally Posted by jessedan

Yes there are alot of Christians in Lebanon, I think they are about 40% or so of the population. This includes many different Christian denominations, Maronites, Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox & Protestant. In Lebanon Christians aren't persecuted at all though. They get along splendidly with Lebanese Muslims and rarely have problems.
Now if two Lebanese Christians marry, it's a whole different set of rules.
Samara is Muslim, so I don't know what kind of arrangement she had with her husband about children, or whether she is Shia or Sunni.
I couldn't help wondering though, if this might have been one of the things that Nour was concerned about when she converted to Islam.

Regards
Priscilla

[bul_bul_ksa]

If you like Samara's dancing I saw that a video clip of hers was added about a month ago to youtube. I don't want to embed a video so I'll type the addy as two separate bits - just delete the space between the backslash and the watch www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FiDcvCSZ8CE

[jalilahzam]

Is there any news about this story? I just found this thread now. I Love Samara's dancing and as a mother I find this story both disturbing and heartbreaking.
Jalilah
(producer of "Jalilah's Raks Sharki" Cd series)
p.s.Can't figure out how to change the wrong information on my bhuzpage