Re: Significance of Haq Mehr in a non-islamic country.
What is the value of 400 dinar nowadays?
i can understand how annoying that could be Sarah. If the bride has no say in it then why even bother asking her! I'ld feel lousy if i had a $1000.00 haqmehr or something. It would have been helpful if an percentage had been fixed like it was for zakat.
Re: Significance of Haq Mehr in a non-islamic country.
My understanding is that Mehr can paid in two parts and this has to be mutually agreed at the time of Nikaah. First an amount at the time of Nikaak and the second at the time of divorce. Their is no limit and percenatge split defined anywhere. It is up to the parties to agree on what they believe is appropriate.
My suggestion to you would be to have your sister immediately register the marriage in US. The US consulate when granting visa would take the Nikaah nama to accept her as spouse for granting a dependent visa for residency. Once in US, regsiter the marriage with the appropriate office as this will carry equal weight like in civil marraige in US and in the event of dovorce she will have equaly right to half the wealth that the man owns irrespective of its location and what is written in the Nikaahnama as Mehr amount. I strongly suggest this an my sister-in-law is going through the same process and it becomes very important when you have children and the issue of child-support and who keeps the children becomes an issue.
Hope this helps.....
Re: Significance of Haq Mehr in a non-islamic country.
I got mine right after the Nikkah even though we haven't had our Rukhsati done yet.. In our family, it's always a sharyai amount paid in full right after the Nikkah, and I think it's a fixed amount for all of us grls in the family. My in laws don't do it this way but my mom told them that money for haq mehr doesn't guarantee a stable marriage anyway so we would like to go with the amount that is fixed! Even though it wasn't a big amount at all but that's how it goes it our family since ages, so I think it depends on your family rituals as well.
I went to this wedding here where they had a haq mehr of $40 million.. I was just shocked and I don't think the guy paid anything upfront since he had just come from Pakistan and even his parents were not around for the wedding because they couldn't afford to come over!!!
Re: Significance of Haq Mehr in a non-islamic country.
It is not logical to return the haq mehr in full in case of divorce. Should it not depend on the number of years of shaadi?Like let us assume a 40 year life span of a marriage. Then the return of the haq mehr should start at 100% to be reduced 2.5% every year. At the end of 40 years the present day value of haq mehr should be zero.