“I have no hesitation in saying that the Privy Council have on several occasions absolutely murdered Hindu law and slaughtered Muhammadan law.” Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s censure in the Central Legislative Assembly on February 17, 1925, was provoked by the opposition to Sir Hari Singh Gour’s motion for a Supreme Court in India, which he heartily supported. It was inspired no less by personal experience of over two decades as counsel at the Bombay High Court and as the successful mover of a Bill to override a manifestly wrong decision of the Privy Council. If not set at naught by legislation, it would have ruined many Muslim families all over India. It was in respect of family trusts, which were well recognised in the sharia (Islamic law) for centuries, the wakf alal awlad.
Legislation set right only this one wrong. Under British rule, none could have set right a monstrous wrong born out of sheer ignorance and arrogance of British judges by which they discarded for good, in one fell swoop, the centuries-old sharia in favour of secondary works by British writers. The consequences of their fateful errors are at the core of the current debate on a far more important aspect of Islamic law as practised in India today.
This story is from the January 6, 2017 edition of FRONTLINE.
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This story is from the January 6, 2017 edition of FRONTLINE.
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