In a small, rectangular dimly lit room, Khatun Shaikh, a female qazi (Islamic judge) in a women's sharia court, lent a patient ear to women who approached her with complaints of marital discord and violence. The sharia court is an alternative dispute resolution forum run by members of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (Indian Muslim Women's Movement, henceforth BMMA), a social movement led by Muslim women aimed at achieving equality and justice in the adjudication of Muslim family law in India. These alternative forums were frequented by women from poor neighbourhoods in Mumbai who did not have the wherewithal to access the formal justice system. As cases of marriage, divorce, maintenance and domestic violence were discussed and debated in these forums, quarrels broke out between the spouses and their relatives. Allegations of abuse and counter-allegations flew thick and fast. In the midst of these heated exchanges between spouses, Shaikh often emphasised the importance of raham (compassion) as an everyday, lived ethical ideal that both the spouses ought to practice. While the disputes revolved around women claiming specific rights during and after the breakdown of their marriage, Shaikh insisted on how both men and women needed to be compassionate. According to Shaikh, one could display compassion in moments of crisis in the marriage by avoiding the use of harsh words, refraining from overt displays of anger and addressing each other respectfully. This practice of compassion thus entailed using the body in specific ways while claiming one's rights. Shaikh construed compassion as a lived ideal that resonated with the teachings of the Quran and the life of the Prophet. The pursuit of this ideal was closely tethered to the realisation of equality (barabari) and justice (insaf) in the domain of the family.

The sharia court emerged as a space of self-making for both the activists of the BMMA and the women visiting the court. Women spoke their mind. They spoke about the violence and injustice in the family. Interactions between activists, lawyers and the women who visited these forums helped in creating a supportive community space for women who faced injustice in their marital homes. On some days, the court room also doubled as a space where activists of the BMMA conducted training sessions on Muslim family law, the Quran and the Constitution for women of the neighbourhood.

This chapter explores the question of whether the epistemology of the secret of international law and the necessities it puts in place can be resisted. No definite answer to that question is sought here and only tentative reflections on the possibility of resisting the epistemology of the secret are provided in the following paragraphs. This chapter proceeds as follows. This chapter starts by elaborating on why it matters to spare no effort to resist the epistemology of the secret and rein in its consequences. The chapter then recalls that a mere termination or discontinuation of the epistemology of the secret, of its necessities, and of all the literary, hermeneutical, critical, economic, and ideological attitudes it entails is an impossibility. Resistance, it is subsequently argued, can only take the form of an act of obnubilation, a notion whose concrete implications for international legal thought and practice are subsequently spelled out.

On 22 August 2017, the majority judgments of the Supreme Court of India pronounced oral, unilateral divorce, known in popular parlance as triple talaq, un-Islamic and hence illegal. A few months following the Supreme Court judgment, the right-wing BJP government proposed a legislation to criminalise the practice of triple talaq. While the fight to declare triple talaq unconstitutional had united most Muslim women's groups, the move to criminalise the practice saw a wide chasm between multiple voices seeking to represent Muslim women and a Muslim community. Across the country, a public sphere of fierce debate about law reform was shaped by competing voices that sought to speak for the Muslim community. However, this debate did not fundamentally challenge the idea of a homogenous Muslim community whose identity rests on a state-defined conception of Muslim personal law based on a gendered division of labour in the heterosexual family. Against the backdrop of this fierce debate, women navigating the legal domain of the women's shariat adalat in Mumbai – a space which is also a part of the BMMA's struggle for gender justice in community spaces – continually challenged the narrative of a homogeneous Muslim community founded on a Muslim family. The logic of the shariat adalat was based on a recognition of the violence and fragility of the family and the fluidity of gendered roles in the family. It provided women with a space of comfort where they could openly talk about the violence of the family and fight for a divorce at points of crisis in the heterosexual family. In that sense, the alternative dispute resolution forums were semi-public spaces situated in between the public sphere of debate on law reform and the home. These spaces provided a supportive environment where women could talk about the violence at home.

A small room at the end of a courtyard housed the sharia adalat of the Indian Muslim Women's Movement (BMMA) in Mumbai. A group of men and women waited inside the room as the female judge (qazi) presided over cases. The female qazi usually sat in one corner of the rectangular room surrounded by some other activists of the BMMA as she heard cases of divorce, marriage and maintenance. Though this was an alternative dispute resolution forum meant to adjudicate Muslim personal law, the cases often included instances of criminal violations such as domestic violence. On the days when the shariat adalat was not hearing cases, this space hosted meetings with human rights organisations that trained women in approaching the police in instances of domestic violence. Stacks of leaflets and pamphlets provided by this human rights organisation lay in one corner of the sharia adalat. These resource materials provided details of how women citizens could access the police, how an FIR might be filed in a police station, and so on. These materials circulated within and beyond the shariat court. Activists of the BMMA distributed these materials to women who frequented the sharia court. They also distributed these materials in neighbourhoods in Mumbai where they conducted workshops on issues of gender equality and Muslim law with women. Some activists of the BMMA were also part of other activist networks. They frequented the meetings with senior police officials organised and facilitated by the members of the MCMT. In these meetings, activists exchanged pleasantries with police officials even as they recounted the difficulties that they faced in approaching the police. These events were held once a month in an auditorium where several activist groups and non-governmental organisations would assemble.

During the hearings of the cases, state laws were often invoked rhetorically by the qazi to convince men to pay post-divorce maintenance to their wives. The coercion of the state and state law remained an imminent threat, under the shadow of which marriage, divorce and maintenance claims were adjudicated by the female qazi. Deliberations on criminalising a certain form of oral, unilateral divorce by the right-wing BJP government found their way to the sharia adalat.