[picinaRefadia]

A divorced Turkish sister who recently settled in the UK has been snapped up by the local matchmakers and may be considering nikah. However she is rather worried to have been told that "proof of talaq" may be required (or a civil divorce/ death certificate) - worried because she has no such document and is unsure of how to acquire it - religious nikah/ talaq is not recognized in her own country, and her husband absconded years ago after issuing her the requisite talaqs so she is not actually civilly divorced (although she assumes that she could probably apply to the Turkish courts for written proof of his absconding etc. - but for that she would need to go back to Turkey just weeks after arriving in the UK).

Surely there isn't really so much bureaucracy involved in religious events in the west? Surely any scholarly brother can - and should - perform the ceremony without demanding forms and paperwork in triplicate etc.? Surely the UK obsession with forms and paperwork hasn't invaded the Muslim community to such an extent? Granted, it sounds like a good thing for a conscientious imam to want to perform the ceremony only on people who are eligible for nikah, but not everybody may be able to acquire all the requisite paperwork and yet be fully eligible for nikah - and any sin involved would belong to the lying party, not to the imam?

I told the sister that I thought she'd misunderstood. She said no, that civil bureaucracy was intertwined with deeni acts in the UK as much as - if not more than - here in secular Turkey, and also said that to be a normal masjid imam one needed proper "academic" institutional qualifications, just like in Turkey.

Please tell me that she's just seeing the UK through Turkey-tinted spectacles...?!