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This chapter employs the concept of religious literacy to examine the divorce practices of Finnish Muslims of Somali background and the roles mosques play in issuing religious divorces. Drawing on field-based research, we argue that Finnish Somalis, in their divorce practices, make use of both Islamic and civil state laws, adopting non-binary approach towards both systems. We problematize the essentialist notion of Islamic family law that is posited in opposition to secular state codes, which one often finds in public debates on Islam and family law. We examine, furthermore, how women's unequal access to divorce (compared to men) in Islamic law works in the Finnish context. In relation to this, we shed light on the complexities of the role and authority of mosques in issuing religious divorces to women when their husbands do not consent. We note that women's agency and access to divorce are not merely determined by the legal systems but also by the intersecting structures of power relations and resources in their lives. We conclude with some final reflections on the relevance of the concept of religious literacy with regards to our findings. Keywords Religious literacy • Islamic family law • Muslim divorce • Gender • Governance of Islam 1 Introduction

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This article examines the political process and public debate in Finland concerning the Finnish women and children held captive in the refugee camp of Al-Hol in north-east Syria. The article studies the role of affect in the process of constructing justice in these debates. It argues that the debate demonstrates an affective process of bordering, in which a non-belonging and essentially non-Finnish identity was affectively constructed to the mothers, who were depicted as “converts” and “jihadists”. Emotions such as compassion were mobilised in the process with ambiguous outcomes. On the one hand, reference to compassion served the conservative agenda of attaching rights to worthiness, on the other hand reference to compassion towards the figure of the innocent child served to isolate the children from their mothers. In the legal context, the affectively constructed identities of the mothers as non-belonging were relevant to how the issue of rights and legal obligations of the state became perceived as something belonging to the realm of national law or international law. Este artículo examina el proceso político y el debate público de Finlandia sobre las mujeres y niños finlandeses en cautividad en el campo de refugiados de Al-Hol, al nordeste de Siria. El artículo estudia el rol del afecto en el proceso de construcción de justicia en estos debates. Se argumenta que el debate pone de manifiesto un proceso afectivo de construcción de fronteras, en el cual se construyó afectivamente para las madres una identidad no perteneciente y básicamente no finlandesa, al ser retratadas como “conversas” y “yihadistas”. Se movilizaron emociones como la compasión, con resultados ambiguos. De una parte, la alusión a la compasión sirvió a los propósitos del programa conservador de conectar derechos con valor personal; de la otra, la alusión a la compasión por la figura del niño inocente sirvió para aislar a los hijos de sus madres. En el contexto jurídico, las identidades de las madres, construidas afectivamente como no pertenecientes, fueron importantes porque hicieron que los derechos y las obligaciones jurídicas fueran percibidos como pertenecientes a la esfera del derecho nacional o internacional.

This special issue seeks to enrich readers’ understandings of the transnational family practices and relations of selected migrant groups of a predominantly Muslim background in a number of Western contexts. It presents theoretically and empirically grounded studies that investigate how these family practices and ties are transnationally shaped, navigated and experienced by different family members. It focuses on two aspects of family life: marriage and the second generation’s aspirations and transnational experiences. Under the first theme, this special issue examines how marriage, migration and kinship interplay in transnationally shaped social fields where multiple legal and normative systems intersect in the lives of migrants. With regards to the second theme, the issue investigates how the children of migrants navigate and experience transnational family norms, ties and practices. Throughout the issue, individual articles shed light on the gendered dimensions of the different family practices and experiences.