Excerpt:
Lawyer Zahra Jenab often comes face to face with couples embroiled in acidic disputes over a small fortune in gold.
The West Vancouver family lawyer, who was born in Iran and raised in Canada, works frequently with ex-partners wrangling over thousands of gold coins, which may or may not have been given by the husband in a dowry under Islamic Shariah law.
Canadian courts are increasingly being called upon to rule on religious laws of the Middle East and Asia. But they're finding it tricky to distribute family property across nations and in an era when dowries contain symbolic promises of Qur'ans along with valuable coins.