Short title and extent
(1) This Act may be called the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937.
(2) It extends to the whole of India.
In plain English
What this section actually means
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.
Real life
What this looks like in real life
A 1939 Lahore High Court order today
Setup. A property dispute traces back to a 1939 order of the Lahore High Court that decided a Muslim succession question under custom rather than Shariat.
What the law does. The 1939 order was passed when the Act was already in force (post 7 October 1937). The court should have applied Section 2 — Shariat overrides custom. If the order rested on custom, it can be challenged today as being contrary to Section 2 of the Act read with Article 13 of the Constitution.
Does this Act apply in Ladakh today?
Setup. Two Muslim brothers in Kargil dispute a 2024 inheritance and one of them argues that the Act does not apply because of the historic J&K exception.
What the law does. The J&K Reorganisation Act, 2019 omitted the 'except the State of Jammu and Kashmir' phrase from Section 1(2) w.e.f. 31 October 2019. The Act now applies to both Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh. The brother's argument fails.
Frequently asked
Questions about Section 1
Open this section in the source PDF
Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1937.pdf
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