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Mehrangiz KarSouth AsiaIndia (including pre-1947
Pakistan and Bangladesh)
The modern legislative bases for Muslim law in
India (and pre-1947 Pakistan and Bangladesh) are
the Shariat Act of 1937, which established the
inheritance rights of Muslim women, and the Dis-
solution of Muslim Marriages Act of 1939 (Hida-
yatullah and Shankardass 1968, 3), which dealt
with divorce. These acts modified the £anafìlaws,
which applied to Muslims in the Indian subconti-
nent by incorporating the laws of other Muslim
jurists to enable Muslim women to have the best
available options in divorce and inheritance.
British colonial power in nineteenth-century
India limited the political and economic options
available to Hindu and Muslim communities.
Changes were only possible through communities
and social constituencies (including women) work-
ing cohesively through political and social organiza-
tions. As a result the nineteenth century witnessed
the passage of a number of secular laws regarding
women’s rights, including the Sati Abolition Act of
1829, the Widow Remarriage Act of 1856, the
Female Infanticide Act of 1870, and the Child
Marriage and Enforced Widowhood Act of 1891.
Family laws pertaining to Hindus and Muslims
(including those relating to marriage, divorce, and
inheritance), however, were treated as religiously
derived and left uncodified partly to stem claims of
interference in the rites and rituals of personal law.
Due to the administration of all laws through the
south asia 469English court system many existing regional cus-
toms and traditions came to be accepted by English
courts as Islamic. This Anglicization of Muslim law
coincided with the abolition of the advisory post of
kazi (qà∂ì, Muslim judicial adviser) in 1864 (Pearl
and Menski 1998, 333–4), depriving many Muslim
women of rights to divorce, remarriage, mahr, and
inheritance. It was not till the heightened political
activities of the nationalist movement and the
women’s movement and the formation of the
Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Hind in 1919 (Ali 2000, 147)
that attention began to focus on Muslim women’s
rights and the perception that codifying personal
laws to restore women’s Sharì≠a rights and would
unify the community.
Despite common nationalist goals and cross-over
membership, the differences between the Hindu
and Muslim communities and their political and
social goals became increasingly apparent follow-
ing the formation of organized political parties (the
Congress Party in 1885 and the Muslim League in
1906) even when women of both communities
were jointly forging a powerful women’s move-
ment in the 1920s. The period immediately preced-
ing the passage of the Age of Consent Act of 1929
(which increased the age of marriage of both girls
and boys) highlighted the differences between the
goals of men and the unity of women of both com-
munities. The extensive evidence gathered by the
Age of Consent Committee across the country to
promote passage of the legislation brought forth
political arguments establishing their differences
though both supported the legislation. The passage
of the legislation focused attention on the conflu-
ence between women’s rights and the political
agenda of each community, with women’s rights
representing the area deemed immutable by both
sides.
The debates preceding the adoption of the Age of
Consent Act presaged those attending the passage
of the Shariat Act of 1937 and the Dissolution of
Muslim Marriages Act (DMMA) of 1939, both
passed in the heightened political and social aware-
ness raised by the activities of the Indian National
Congress, the Muslim League, the Indian women’s
movement (Lateef 1990, 55–73), and Muslim
Ullema groups (Narain 2001, 20, Ali 2000, 151–6).
Muslim and Hindu women leaders of the All India
Women’s Conference and the Women’s Indian
Association supported the legislation. The effect of
both acts was to unite the community under one
law and provide Muslim women with rights to
property, succession, divorce, mahr, and remar-
riage denied them under customary law. From