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On 22 November 2025, Dr Tiba Bonyad, Postdoctoral Researcher for the BILQIS project at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, presented her latest research at the Irish Association of Law Teachers (IALT) Annual Conference, held at Ulster University.

Her paper, “In the Margins of the Law: Navigating Access to Islamic Divorce in Sweden,” offers a detailed examination of how Shia Muslim women in Sweden navigate Islamic divorce processes in a context shaped by legal pluralism, multicultural policy, and strong welfare-state institutions. Sweden’s lack of a direct colonial history in the Muslim world provides a distinctive setting in which to study the interaction between Islamic family law, state law, and community-level religious authority. Dr Bonyad’s analysis combines a close reading of a Swedish high court decision on mahr (the Islamic bridewealth) with qualitative interviews with Iranian and Afghan women who have sought Islamic divorce.

Her study shows how these women interpret and mobilise mahr, how they contend with competing sources of authority, and how local and transnational religious actors influence their lived experiences of Islamic family law. The research highlights the strategies women develop to move between institutional and religious systems and illuminates the broader dynamics of agency, legal reasoning, and gendered vulnerability within diasporic Muslim communities in Scandinavia.