Reformulating transnational Muslim families: The case of sharīʿah-compliant child marriages

Abstract Nowadays, an increasingly diverse demographic profile and higher figures of cross-national kinship formations characterize European countries. Paying attention to transnational Muslim families, the article examines the challenges posed to Western legal systems by (un)registered and potentially unacknowledged early marriages, as well as the techniques developed for underage Muslim spouses to enter into Islamically-compliant relationships. Investigating the so-called ‘child marriages’ of first- and second-generation migrant Muslim partners in two European countries (Italy and the U.K.), the paper compares the responses given by Civil and Common Law to similar phenomena and unveils (discriminatory) provisions resulting in undisclosed nuptial paradigms involving young partners. Muslim marriages are however complex in nature, particularly in socio-legal situations shaped by transnational processes. Sharīʿah-compliant practices constantly evolve while fluidly adjusting themselves to current environments and local normativity. Consequently, both Muslim multi-sited actors and European legal systems engage in a hermeneutic exercise of normative reframing among social acceptability, religious admissibility, and legal permissibility.