WASHINGTON, May 9: A large number of Muslims living in the United States backed the decision of a US court which forced a Pakistani man to share half of his $2 million assets with his wife and refused to recognise oral divorce.

“If you live in America, you should observe American laws,” said Mian Shakil, a resident of Springfield, Virginia, who is associated with several local mosques.

Ambreen Khan, a social worker in Silver Spring, Maryland, noted that Irfan Aleem was worth more than $2 million and yet he paid Farah, his wife of 23 years, only $2,500 when he divorced her.

“This is exploitation, pure and simple. No religion allows this,” she said.

Even Muslim religious organisations refused to back Irfan. “For the most part, Muslims expected this kind of ruling,” said Muneer Fareed, secretary- general of the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA is on of the largest Muslim organisations in the United States and Canada and runs hundreds of mosques, schools and welfare organisations in the region.

In 2003, Farah Aleem initiated divorce proceedings in Montgomery County, Maryland. Irfan then went to the Pakistani Embassy in Washington and obtained divorce papers by performing Talaq, which involves the husband saying “I divorce thee” three times.

Farah Aleem, 46, was 18 and Irfan was 29 when they married in 1980 in Pakistan. They moved to Washington in 1985.

In Pakistan, unless the marriage contract provides for the spouses to get a portion of each other’s assets upon divorce, each party leaves the marriage only with the property titled in his or her name.

The terms of the marriage contract were largely silent on property rights but gave Farah a deferred dower right worth about $2,500.

Irfan maintained that payment of that amount “is all that is due the wife, as opposed to the one half of almost two million dollars that she might be entitled to under Maryland law.”

Farah was left virtually penniless with a son and a daughter to support. She later joined an accounting firm where she now works full time and also pursues an accounting degree at night.

Citing the precedent that foreign law will be respected only so long as it does not infringe on local public policy, the Court of Appeals agreed with the Montgomery County Circuit Court and the Court of Special Appeals that Farah was entitled to a portion of the pension.

Judge Dale R. Cathell wrote that recognising Pakistani law in this matter would violate Maryland’s Equal Rights Amendment.