BAGHDAD — For years, most of the solemn young couples who sought out Sayid Rafid Husseini were looking for a marriage certificate. Now, the robed cleric says, many who make their way to his office near a revered Shiite Muslim shrine want a divorce.
"I try to convince them not to do it," Husseini says.
But times are hard. Waves of killing and displacement, not to mention sectarian pressures, have ripped families apart. And soaring unemployment is adding unbearable strain, turning what was once an almost unthinkable taboo into an increasingly common reality of Iraqi life.
The number of divorces granted annually by Iraqi courts has doubled since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003, from 20,649 that year to 41,536 in 2007, according to figures provided by the Supreme Judicial Council, which oversees the nation's courts. But the real number is probably higher.
Instead of going to court, a growing number of Muslims content themselves with a separation according to Sharia, or Islamic law. For a Sunni man, that can be as simple as declaring his intent three times in front of two witnesses. For Shiites, it means persuading a neighborhood cleric such as Husseini to give them a certificate.
Iraq's personal status law is based on Sharia, which frowns on divorce except under exceptional circumstances such as illness, sterility or abuse. Judges refer most couples to social workers, who try to help them patch up their differences.
Anam Salman, a matronly woman wearing a head scarf, has been reuniting families at the west Baghdad civil affairs court for 26 years. She scolds and cajoles, teases and sympathizes with the tearful couples who come to her office.
"If we see any chance that they could reconcile, we push harder," Salman said. "We tell them we need to do another session, and in between sessions, we call them. We use up all our money on phone cards."
When the social workers are done, they send the report down a grimy hallway to Judge Abdullah Alousi, who holds court in a small office jammed with clerks and lawyers clutching files for his attention.
There was a time, Alousi says, when a divorce request was rare. But these days he processes almost as many separations as marriages.
"Based on my experience as a judge for the last quarter of a century, I think the main reason behind divorces is a lack of religion," said Alousi, a balding man with a white mustache who is meticulously attired in a pinstripe suit and silk tie. "Under Islam, divorce is the very last option. This isn't the case anymore."
