In April 2016, twenty-six-year-old Shayara Bano from Uttarakhand, a northern state in India, alleged that her husband subjected her to much cruelty. He had taunted her for inadequate dowry, forced her into abortions, and eventually pronounced an arbitrary unilateral divorce, uttering the word talaq three times. Bano pleaded that the arbitrary divorce was pronounced without her consent and would force her into destitution. Her husband, on the other hand, pleaded that “triple talaq,” or talaq-ul-bidat, was not only valid, but the most common procedure for divorce between Muslims in India, which had repeatedly been upheld by the Indian courts...