From In re Ayad, decided Friday by the Texas Supreme Court:
Relator Salma Mariam Ayad married real party in interest Ayad Hashim Latif in 2008. In connection with their marriage, they signed … [an] "Islamic Pre-Nuptial Agreement" …. In the Agreement, the parties recite their "belief that Islam … is binding on [them] in all spheres of life." As relevant here, the Agreement provides that "[a]ny conflict which may arise between the husband and the wife will be resolved according to the Qur'an, Sunnah, and Islamic Law in a Muslim court, or in [its] absence by a Fiqh Panel."
The Agreement then explains how the members of the three-person panel will be selected and provides that the panel "will not represent the parties in conflict, but rather, serve as impartial arbitrators and judges, guided by Islamic Law and [its] principles." According to the Agreement, "the majority decision of the Fiqh Panel will be binding and final."
Although Ayad's signature appears on the Agreement, she alleges that she did not become aware of its contents—or even see it—until she and Latif began experiencing marital difficulties in 2020. This, Ayad asserts, is when she learned she had been "defrauded" into signing a premarital agreement that violates her fundamental rights. According to Ayad, she received the two documents in a stack with the Marriage Contract [which she acknowledges she did sign, and which isn't at issue here -EV] on top, and she thought the Agreement was another copy of the Marriage Contract.
