“I hereby declare our divorce,” wrote Mahra, the daughter of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. “I divorce you, I divorce you, and I Divorce You. Take care. Your ex-wife.”
In repeating the phrase “I divorce you” three times, the princess appeared to be referencing the controversial practice of triple talaq. Customarily, under Sunni Islamic law, triple talaq allows a Muslim man to divorce his wife by saying talaq — the Arabic word for divorce — three times. The man does not need to offer a reason or obtain his wife’s agreement.
In the UAE, Islamic law governs marriage and divorce proceedings for Muslim couples, as well as for couples of a Muslim man and a non-Muslim woman, according to the country’s government website. Non-Muslim expatriate couples, however, have the option of seeking a divorce in their home country or of petitioning the court to request that their home country’s laws be applied in the UAE.
Under sharia law, women typically receive a dowry — or, in Arabic, mahr — from their husband or their husband’s family upon marriage. Once a woman returns the mahr, she is able to legally obtain a separation, called khula.
Mahra married Sheikh Mana bin Mohammed bin Rashid bin Mana Al Maktoum, who is also a member of the UAE’s royal family, in a glamorous ceremony last May. The couple welcomed a daughter less than three months ago.
The princess suggested in her Wednesday post that her husband had been unfaithful to her, saying that he was “occupied with other companions.” Her apparent invocation of triple talaq broke from the practice’s typical implementation, as it is men who invoke talaq under Islamic law.
Mahra is hardly the first female relative of Sheikh Mohammed to take a stand that counters the emirate’s norms.
Sheikha Latifa, Mahra’s sister and a fellow princess of the emirate, described her father as a “major criminal” and deemed him responsible for imprisoning disobedient women before she fled Dubai, the New Yorker reported last May. Though the prime minister of the UAE has highlighted gender equality in his public and political life, particularly while engaged in diplomacy with the West, Latifa saw Dubai as repressive for women — even as the ruler’s daughter.
Latifa is one of at least two Dubai princesses who attempted to escape their family by fleeing the emirate, The Washington Post reported in 2019.
Sheikh Mohammed also had a lengthy and contentious international custody battle with his sixth wife, Princess Haya Bint Hussein. Hussein sought asylum in Germany in 2019, the BBC reported, and ultimately went into hiding in London, as she feared for her life after fleeing from her husband. The prime minister has at least 20 children with at least six wives.
In the UAE, a Muslim woman is not legally permitted to marry a non-Muslim man without proof of his conversion. A Muslim man is permitted to marry a non-Muslim woman and is also permitted to have up to four wives, so long as he offers “equal sustenance and equal treatment to all,” according to the government website.
Since Mahra’s announcement, both she and Sheikh Mana appear to have scrubbed all photos of each other from their respective Instagram pages.
