Women's sense of their hak, divine justice, and economies of divorce in Istanbul

Building on life story interviews with Muslim women – divorced and living in Istanbul – this article traces women's evocations of hak (haqq, , right) and other related terms in their narratives about financial arrangements during divorce proceedings. Mainly denoting right, justice, truth and due, the polysemic notion of hak encompasses a complex set of meanings that are contextually shaped. My interlocutors’ sense of their hak and justice are relationally and affectively configured not only through normative orders, legal entitlements and the idea of sound moral conduct, but also through their imaginary of divine justice, which they understand to be meted out by God, whether in this world or in the afterlife. Their visions of hak exceed the normative and human‐centred realm, and are shaped by the ultimate authority of God. By putting the scholarship on rights in conversation with the recent discussions in anthropology of Islam that has drawn attention to Muslims’ intimate relationship with God, this article shifts the focus of discussions about rights away from the state, law, and social movements to the affective worlds as well as moral and religious vocabularies.