SerpApi.Org
After multiple legal setbacks, relatives of a Christian girl who was forcibly converted to Islam and married to her Muslim kidnapper are hoping Pakistan’s highest constitutional court will revisit a controversial ruling that upheld the marriage, her family’s lawyer said.
Supreme Court Advocate Muhammad Saqib Jillani said that the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is scheduled to hear on Friday (July 24) a review petition challenging its Feb. 3 judgment validating the purported marriage of 13-year-old Maria Shahbaz to 30-year-old Shehryar Ahmad.
“We filed the review petition in May, and after seeking an early hearing because of the child’s continued illegal custody and concerns for her well-being, the court has now fixed the matter for July 24,” said Jillani, a leading Pakistani lawyer who has successfully litigated several high-profile cases related to human rights violations.
The FCC committed several errors of law by recognizing an unlawful marriage despite official government records establishing that Maria was below the legal age for marriage, he said.
“The court ignored compelling evidence that the marriage was a sham and violated Pakistan’s child marriage laws because Maria was underage according to her official birth documents,” Jillani told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
Among the principal grounds raised in the review petition, the attorney contends that the FCC mischaracterized the family’s legal arguments.
“The judgment states that the petitioner argued that a Christian woman cannot lawfully marry a Muslim man,” he said. “The family’s previous counsel never advanced such an argument or questioned Islamic law. The court’s reliance on earlier judgments concerning interfaith marriage was therefore irrelevant to the issues before it.”
Instead, he said, the central legal question was whether a girl below the legally prescribed age could validly contract a marriage and whether legal weight could be attached to Maria’s statement recorded under Section 164 of Pakistan’s Criminal Procedure Code, in which she purportedly claimed to have willingly married Ahmad.
“The court also exceeded its jurisdiction by commenting on the validity of Maria’s religious conversion,” Jillani said. “That was not the issue before the bench. The real question was whether an underage child could legally enter into a marriage.”
A central argument in the review petition relies on the Federal Shariat Court’s (FSC) recent ruling in the Ali Azhar v. Province of Sindh case, which upheld legislation fixing the minimum marriage age at 18 and rejected claims that such laws are inconsistent with Islamic principles, he said.
Jillani said that although the FCC acknowledged that the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, applies to both Muslims and non-Muslims, it failed to consider the FSC’s authoritative interpretation of Islamic law.
“The FSC made it clear that marriage in Islam is not merely about biological puberty or sexual relations,” he said. “It establishes legal rights and responsibilities that require mental maturity, psychological stability and economic capacity. The FSC distinguished between the Islamic concepts of Balugh (physical puberty) and Rushd (mental maturity), noting that classical Muslim jurists have consistently recognized them as separate concepts.
“Mental maturity often develops later than physical maturity because it depends on intellectual, emotional and educational development,” Jillani said, adding that the FSC cited classical Islamic scholarship, including the opinion of Imam Abu Hanifa, who regarded 25 years as a reasonable benchmark for attaining full Rushd.
The review petition also argues that the FCC overlooked Article 203-G of Pakistan’s Constitution, which grants the FSC exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether laws conform to the injunctions of Islam.
“The Federal Shariat Court is the only constitutional forum empowered to decide such questions,” Jillani said. “The FCC effectively disregarded a binding precedent issued by the competent constitutional court.”
He further challenged the FCC’s conclusion that while the Child Marriage Restraint Act criminalizes marriage with a child, it does not invalidate such a marriage.
“The judgments relied upon by the FCC are per incuriam because they were rendered without considering the FSC’s latest ruling,” he said. “Those earlier precedents have effectively been overtaken by the FSC’s Ali Azhar judgment.”
The petition also disputes the FCC’s findings regarding Maria’s age. The court questioned the reliability of records issued by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) because Maria’s father, Shahbaz Masih, reportedly stated a different age when filing the First Information Report (FIR) after her disappearance.
Jillani argued that the discrepancy should not have undermined official government records.
“Any inconsistency could easily have resulted from Shahbaz Masih’s emotional distress when reporting his daughter’s abduction or from an error by the police officer recording the complaint,” he said. “Such a minor discrepancy cannot outweigh official documentation establishing that Maria was underage.”
He also rejected the court’s observation that Maria’s birth certificate and NADRA registration were unreliable because they were issued several years after her birth.
“There was no evidentiary basis for the court to question the authenticity of these official documents,” he said. “This was not a trial where the petitioner bore the burden of proving their genuineness.”
Similarly, he said, the FCC attached undue significance to an apparent age discrepancy between Maria and her younger sister in NADRA records.
“Even if there were an administrative error in government records, it does not alter the undisputed fact that Maria was still a child and legally incapable of entering into a valid marriage,” Jillani said. “The court gave greater weight to the age recorded in the disputed marriage certificate than to official government records.”
The review petition also argues that Pakistan’s Constitution should be interpreted consistently with the country’s international human rights obligations.
Jillani noted that Pakistan is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
“These treaties require Pakistan to protect children from abduction, forced marriage, trafficking and sexual exploitation while ensuring that the best interests of the child remain the primary consideration in all legal proceedings,” he said.
He added that the alleged forced religious conversion of a minor violates internationally recognized protections for freedom of religion or belief.
“Article 14 of the CRC protects a child’s freedom of thought, conscience and religion under parental guidance, while Article 18 of the ICCPR guarantees every person’s right to adopt or change a religion free from coercion,” he said. “The targeting of minor girls from religious minority communities for forced conversion and marriage constitutes a compounded violation of equality, dignity and religious freedom.”
According to Jillani, Pakistan’s courts have an established constitutional obligation to interpret domestic law consistently with the country’s international commitments wherever possible.
“In Maria’s case, the alleged abduction, forced marriage and coerced conversion not only violate constitutional guarantees but also place Pakistan in breach of its international obligations,” he said. “We remain hopeful that the court will adopt an interpretation consistent with both constitutional principles and international human rights law and provide the victim with the protection she is entitled to receive.”
Maria’s case has become one of Pakistan’s most closely watched religious freedom cases, drawing international attention from human rights organizations and European lawmakers concerned about the abduction, forced conversion and marriage of underage girls from religious minority communities.
On July 9, the European Parliament adopted a resolution highlighting Maria’s case and urging Pakistan to establish a national mechanism to receive complaints from families of abducted or forcibly converted girls from religious minority communities.
The resolution also called on Pakistani authorities to ensure Maria has access to legal counsel, her family and psychological support. It condemned the abduction, forced conversion and forced marriage of underage minority girls, describing Maria’s case as emblematic of broader human rights violations in Pakistan.
Maria was abducted from her family in July 2025, according to relatives, who say Ahmad forcibly converted her to Islam and compelled her to marry him. After the family petitioned the FCC seeking her return, the court ruled on Feb. 3 that the marriage was valid and ordered that she remain in Ahmad’s custody.
Following the European Parliament’s resolution, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International, which is supporting Maria’s legal case, welcomed the lawmakers’ intervention.
“Throughout Pakistan, the pattern of abductions, forced conversions and coerced marriages of underage girls to much older men is alarming,” Tehmina Arora, ADF International’s director of advocacy for Asia, said in a July 9 press statement. “Hundreds of girls each year become victims of these sham marriages, losing their freedom and facing exploitation and abuse. Maria is only 13 years old, yet she has endured more than any child should ever experience. The court now has an opportunity to deliver justice, restore her freedom and establish a precedent that protects other vulnerable girls from these grave abuses.”
