Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat and the Application of Islamic Law in Sri Lanka: Harmonising Muslim Religious Practices with the National Legal Framework

Abstrak

Sri Lanka’s Muslim community follows the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act of 1951 under Quazi courts largely unchanged since enactment. Fiqh al-Aqalliyat, developed for diaspora communities, has not yet been applied systematically to this centuries-old, constitutionally codified minority. This article asks how maqasid al-shariah, maslahah, and talfiq can defensibly reform the MMDA within Sri Lanka’s own constitutional framework. It employs a normative-juridical method, analysing primary Islamic and constitutional sources alongside secondary doctrinal and socio-legal scholarship. The analysis first shows why Fiqh al-Aqalliyat suits Sri Lanka's Muslims despite their difference from the diaspora contexts it first addressed. It then demonstrates that Articles 9 and 16 (1) jointly immunise the MMDA from constitutional challenge. This leaves legislative reform, rather than litigation, as the only viable pathway toward change. Comparative evidence from Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore shows talfiq already enables female judicial appointment within Shafi'i-majority settings elsewhere. The article's principal contribution reframes minority protection through a covenant of citizenship, integrating maqasid al-shariah with equal-citizenship reasoning. This framing repositions the post-2024 consultation process as a citizenship claim grounded in Islamic legal reasoning, not external pressure. The findings indicate that doctrinal defensibility no longer obstructs MMDA reform inside Sri Lanka’s constitutional order. Political will, not doctrine, now stands as the binding constraint on Quazi court modernisation and gender-equitable outcomes.