The Registrar's office then issues a marriage certificate. No marriage in US and Canada is recognized as legal marriage unless it is registered. Some Muslims do not follow these procedures. They say that in Islamic marriage paper work in not necessary. However, there are some cases where Muslim women have greatly suffered, due to these unregistered marriages.
Some Muslim men marry without any legal papers and then they leave their wives.
These women do not know what to do and how to get divorce from their husbands who abandon them. They go to the US and Canadian courts and they are told there that according to the local laws they are not considered married. These women have no proof of their marriage and the courts have no marriage record of these women. They go to the local Islamic centers in US and Canada and the centers are unable to help them, because the laws in these lands do not give the right of divorce to anyone except to the local superior courts. It is important for Muslim men and women to have their marriages and divorces properly documented.