The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 is a Central Act of the British Indian legislature, enacted on October 7, 1937, to govern the personal matters of Muslims in India. The Act's origin lies in the demand to replace diverse and often discriminatory local customs with the uniform application of Islamic law, or Shariat, particularly to protect the inheritance rights of Muslim women which were frequently denied under customary laws.
The core mechanism is established in Section 2, which mandates that the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) shall be the "rule of decision" for Muslims in matters including intestate succession, marriage, dissolution of marriage (such as talaq, khula, and mubaraat), maintenance, dower, guardianship, gifts, and wakfs. This provision explicitly overrides "any custom or usage to the contrary". Section 3 allows a Muslim to voluntarily declare that the Shariat will also govern matters of adoption, wills, and legacies, which are otherwise excluded from Section 2.
The Act connects to several related laws and concepts, most notably the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, which was enacted to replace the original Section 5 of the 1937 Act and grant Muslim women specific grounds to seek divorce. The Act is also central to the ongoing debate around the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
The Act has been significantly impacted by judicial and legislative changes. The Supreme Court, in Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017), declared the practice of instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) unconstitutional, a practice previously covered under Section 2. Subsequently, the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, made instant talaq illegal and a cognizable offense. Furthermore, the Act's territorial extent was amended in 2019 to apply uniformly to the whole of India, including the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir.