Article

Shari’ah and the State: Reassessing Legal Pluralism in Malaysia Through the Kelantan Controversy

Author

• • Ms Saumya Verma View profile of Ms Saumya Verma. saumyaverma@soundaryainstitutions.in Email Ms Saumya Verma. (compose email, opens in email app.) Ms Saumya Verma ORCID profile. (opens in new tab)
  • Assistant Professor
  • Law
  • Soundarya College of Law, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Abstract

This article deliberates over the Malaysian case as an intriguing illustration of robust legal pluralism. It offers an opportunity to reconsider and debate the relationship between state and religious practices, particularly the incorporation of Shari’ah law, in a diverse democratic constitutional state like Malaysia. Malaysia as a state is a significant example of multiculturalism, pluralism, and modern Islamic society. The reforms in Malaysian Shari’ah law since the 1980s indicate that the understanding of Islamic legal practices is highly influenced by the context. The expression of form and substance in Islamic legal practices is a result of politico-legal and judicial struggles, influenced by power configurations that shape Islam into different streams of thought, ranging from democratic-egalitarian to authoritarian-orthodox, which are not mutually exclusive. This article further examines the tension between the primacy of Islam and the supremacy of the Federal Constitution (FC) as they arise in Malaysian courts, with a special focus on a recent case from Kelantan. It discusses the FC’s constitutional primacy idea and how Islam and Shari’ah authority fit within it. It also analyses the attitude of civil courts towards the legitimacy of contentious laws passed under the guise of Shari’ah (i.e., claiming divine authority) and highlights the significant divide that emerged between constitutional theory and judicial practice in the 1990s followed by the Kelantan case, in which the Malaysian apex court struck down 16 Shari’ah provisions as unconstitutional. This landmark ruling has significant implications for the country’s legal framework. The concluding section discusses the extent of legal pluralism in Malaysia and proposes suggestions to deal with the present legal deadlock.

Keywords: Legal pluralism, Malay Muslims, Kelantan, Shari'ah Courts, Federal Constitution

How to Cite: Verma, S. (2026) “Shari’ah and the State: Reassessing Legal Pluralism in Malaysia Through the Kelantan Controversy”, UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence. 15(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.2052-1871.2157