“In short, Islam has offered the Muslim woman some unequalled rights: she can end the marriage through khula’ and she can sue for a divorce. A Muslim wife can never become chained by a recalcitrant husband. It was these rights that enticed Jewish women who lived in the early Islamic societies of the seventh century CE to seek to obtain bills of divorce from their Jewish husbands in Muslim courts. The Rabbis declared these bills null and void. In order to end this practice, the Rabbis gave new rights and privileges to Jewish women in an attempt to weaken the appeal of the Muslim courts.”

[David W. Amram, The Jewish Law of Divorce According to Bible and Talmud, Philadelphia: Edward Stern & CO., Inc., 1896, pp. 125-126]