Chapter I§1–6
The Act
The Act is short and self-contained — six numbered sections in a single PDF, no chapter divisions in the source. Despite its length it is the gateway through which Muslim personal law enters every Indian civil court. Section 2 is the heart: it tells the court that custom no longer prevails, the Shariat does. Sections 1 and 6 do the territorial and repealing housework. Section 3 lets a Muslim opt in to a wider personal-law regime that also covers adoption, wills and legacies. Section 4 lets State Governments make procedural rules. Section 5 is now a repealed shell — judicial divorce was carved out into a separate 1939 statute.
Sections in this chapter
- §1
Section 1
Short title and extent
Section 1 does two pieces of housekeeping. Sub-section (1) gives the Act its formal name — 'The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937' — which every pleading, judgment and Government circular must use. Sub-section (2) sets the territorial reach: the whole of India. The source PDF you are reading still prints the footnoted history — the original Act was confined to the 'Provinces of India'; it later excluded Part-B States until 1960; the J&K exception was carried until 31 October 2019 when the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019 erased it. Today there is no carve-out. The only practical exception is the 'Renoncants' of the Union Territory of Pondicherry (inserted by Act 26 of 1968) — French-law citizens who had renounced personal law — who remain outside the Act in respect of Pondicherry. There is no separate commencement clause — the Act came into force on enactment, 7 October 1937.
- §2
Section 2
Application of Personal Law to Muslims
Section 2 is the heart of the Act and one of the most consequential single sentences in Indian civil law. It tells every Indian court, every Sub-Registrar, every Tehsildar and every Family Court Judge that — when both parties are Muslims — the rule of decision in the listed matters is the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat). Custom or usage, however ancient or however well-documented in a Gazetteer, is displaced. The list of subject-matters is long and deliberate. It covers: intestate succession (i.e., where there is no will); the 'special property of females', including dower payments, gifts and inherited assets; marriage; dissolution of marriage, expressly including talaq, ila, zihar, lian, khula and mubaraat (each of which is a distinct mode of divorce under classical Hanafi law); maintenance; dower (mahr); guardianship of person and property; gifts (hiba); trusts and trust properties; and wakfs (the Muslim equivalent of a religious-cum-charitable endowment), but only private wakfs — charities and charitable / religious endowments are excluded. Two important carve-outs. First, the explicit exclusion of 'questions relating to agricultural land' — agricultural inheritance is left to State revenue laws, which historically protected customary tenures. Second, the exclusion of charities and charitable institutions and charitable / religious endowments from the wakf coverage — those are governed by the Wakf Act, 1995 and equivalent statutes. The opening words 'Notwithstanding any custom or usage to the contrary' are the most important. Before 1937, in many parts of India — especially Punjab, North-West Frontier Province and parts of South India — Muslim families followed Hindu-influenced customs in succession and gift. After 1937, those customs lose their legal force in the listed matters. A notable State variant: Kerala (Act 42 of 1963) substituted a fresh Section 2 that drops the 'agricultural land' carve-out. So in Kerala, the Shariat governs even agricultural-land disputes between Muslims.
- §3
Section 3
Power to make a declaration
Section 3 is an opt-in mechanism. Section 2 deliberately leaves out three subjects — adoption, wills (testamentary disposition) and legacies. Section 3 lets an individual Muslim, by a one-time formal declaration before the prescribed authority, extend Section 2 to those three subjects as well. Once the declaration is accepted, Shariat governs adoption, wills and legacies for that person, his minor children and their descendants. The declarant has to satisfy three preconditions: (a) he is a Muslim; (b) he is competent to contract under Section 11 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (i.e., he has attained majority, is of sound mind and is not disqualified from contracting by any law); and (c) he is a resident of the territories to which the Act extends — today, the whole of India. Sub-section (2) provides an appellate safety valve. If the prescribed authority (typically a designated official under State rules made under Section 4) refuses to accept the declaration, the declarant can appeal to an officer appointed by the State Government. If the appellate officer is satisfied, he can direct the lower authority to accept the declaration. In practice, Section 3 declarations are rare. Most Indian Muslims are content to leave wills and adoption to general principles of Muslim personal law (which restricts willed disposition to one-third of the estate and does not recognise full legal adoption in the Hindu sense). The opt-in is, however, a useful planning tool in mixed-tradition families.
- §4
Section 4
Rule-making power
Section 4 is unusual in vesting the rule-making power in the State Governments rather than the Centre. The reason is constitutional: at the time of enactment (1937), 'Mahomedan Law and Hindu Law' was a Provincial Legislative List subject under the Government of India Act, 1935. Under the present Constitution, personal law sits in the Concurrent List (Entry 5 of List III), but Parliament has not displaced the State rule-making power. Sub-section (1) is a general power to make rules to carry into effect the purposes of the Act. Sub-section (2) sets out the two specific matters: (a) the authority and form for Section 3 declarations; and (b) fees and times for filing declarations and for attendance at private residences. Sub-section (3) gives the rules legislative force — they take effect 'as if enacted in this Act' once published in the State Official Gazette. Sub-section (4) — inserted by Act 20 of 1983 — requires the State Government to lay every rule before the State Legislature, mirroring the parliamentary-control mechanism in most modern Indian statutes.
- §5
Section 5
[Dissolution of marriage by Court in certain circumstances] — Repealed
Section 5 has been a shell since 17 March 1939. It originally provided for judicial dissolution of a Muslim marriage in certain circumstances (such as desertion, cruelty, impotence and false accusation of adultery). Within two years of the Act's commencement, Parliament took that subject out and gave it a more elaborate, dedicated statute — the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939 — and repealed Section 5 of this Act as a consequential clean-up. Today, a Muslim wife seeking judicial divorce relies entirely on Section 2 of the 1939 Act, which lists nine grounds (whereabouts of husband unknown for four years, failure to maintain for two years, imprisonment for seven years or more, failure to perform marital obligations for three years without reasonable cause, impotence at the time of marriage, two-year insanity or leprosy or virulent venereal disease, marriage before fifteen with right of repudiation before eighteen, cruelty, and any other ground recognised under Muslim law). Section 5 here is preserved in the source PDF only as a historical anchor.
- §6
Section 6
Repeals
Section 6 is a tidy-up clause. Before 1937, several Provincial statutes — the Bombay Regulation of 1827, the Madras Civil Courts Act of 1873, the Oudh Laws Act of 1876, the Punjab Laws Act of 1872, the Central Provinces Laws Act of 1875 and the Ajmere Laws Regulation of 1877 — each contained a provision that, in respect of personal-law disputes, directed the courts to apply 'usage' or 'custom' before personal law. Those provisions had been used over decades to apply Hindu-influenced custom to Muslim families in Punjab, Oudh, the Central Provinces and elsewhere. Section 6 repeals each of those provisions 'in so far as they are inconsistent' with this Act. The phrase 'in so far as' is important — the repeal is partial. The Provincial statutes survive for their other subjects; only their custom-priority clauses fall. Entry (3) of the original list was omitted by the 1943 amendment (it referred to a provision that had separately become redundant). The numbering in the source PDF therefore skips from (2) to (4).
Real life
What this chapter means in practice
A daughter's inheritance dispute in a Punjabi Muslim family
Setup. A Muslim landowner in Punjab dies intestate in 2024. The family runs a wholesale-cloth business, owns four shops in the town and farms 18 acres of agricultural land in the village. The sons argue that, by family custom, the daughters should be cut out of the business and shops; on the land, they say a male-line custom has always prevailed.
What the law does. Section 2 of the 1937 Act applies to the business and the shops — Shariat governs, the daughters take their share (typically half of a son's share). On the agricultural land, the carve-out in Section 2 ('save questions relating to agricultural land') means the Punjab Tenancy / Revenue law applies. Whether the male-line custom survives there depends on the State revenue law — a separate inquiry. The pre-1937 Punjab Laws Act, 1872 custom-first clause is gone under Section 6, so the brothers cannot resurrect it.
Estate planning for a cosmopolitan Indian Muslim
Setup. A Mumbai-based Indian Muslim with assets in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Dubai wants to ensure that adoption, wills and legacies in his family are decided by Shariat, even decades from now.
What the law does. He files a Section 3 declaration before the prescribed authority in Maharashtra. Once accepted, Section 2 of the Act extends to adoption, wills and legacies for himself, his minor children and their descendants. His estate plan can then validly rest on Shariat's one-third bequest rule and on Hanafi rules of intestate succession. Dubai-situate assets are governed by UAE law, but Indian-situate assets follow Shariat by virtue of the declaration.
Frequently asked
Common questions about this chapter
Read the full Act
Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1937.pdf
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