Bid to Force Divorce on Feminist Is Turned Aside

A Cairo court threw out a petition by an Islamist lawyer who sought to forcibly divorce outspoken feminist Nawal Saadawi, 70, from her Muslim husband on the grounds that she had abandoned her Islamic faith.

The court ruled as expected that no individual could petition a court to forcibly divorce another person. It said such cases must be raised by a state prosecutor.

Lawyer Nabih Wahsh had claimed that Saadawi had shown she was no longer a Muslim in an interview in which she said the rituals in the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca had pre-Islamic origins. That, he argued, meant she should not be allowed to remain married to her Muslim husband.