Muhammad v. Muhammad

Robert and Debra Muhammad (plaintiff and defendant) moved with their young child to a highly restrictive Islamic community in Mississippi, where women were required to submit to their husbands, breastfeed on the community's terms, and were denied freedom to leave, communicate freely, or make basic life decisions, while the family lived in a single room, ate a limited one-meal-a-day diet, and had their mail censored and calls withheld. Debra, allegedly on the verge of a nervous breakdown according to her mother, eventually left the community with the couple's two children and returned to Michigan, while Robert remained; he filed for divorce on grounds of desertion, and Debra countersued for divorce on grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment, which the trial chancellor granted in her favor.