KSLU Solved Question Papers
Family Law II (Mohammedan Law and Indian Succession Act)
Previous Year Question Paper with Solution
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) · Sem 6
2025 Jun Examination
munotes.in
Mumbai
B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Sem 6 Family Law II (Mohammedan Law and Indian Succession Act) 2025 Jun Question Paper with Solutions
First published on munotes.in on 21 October 2026.
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Contents
The questions below are the paper as Karnataka State Law University set it at the 2025 Jun examination, in the order it was set.
MarksPage
MarksPage
The Paper as Set
The questions in this volume are the questions asked at the 2025 Jun examination, reproduced as Karnataka State Law University set them, in the order it set them. Long reading passages are shortened to their first and last lines and our summary; the original paper prints them in full. Only the answers are ours. See the original question paper.
Duration 3 hours · Total marks 80 · 20 questions answered
Instructions printed on the paper
- N.B. (1) Answer all five Units. (2) One essay type question and short note/problems is compulsory from each Unit. (3) Figures to the right indicate marks. (4) Answer should be written either in English or in Kannada completely.
How to use this volume
Solve the paper first, under exam conditions and against the clock. Then read the answers here and mark your own. Reading a solution before attempting the question feels productive and teaches very little, because recognising an answer is not the same as being able to write one.
Q1
Unit I
(a)Explain the origin and development of Muslim law.[10]
Answer
For full marks, cover: pre-Islamic Arabia and its customs; the period of the Prophet (the Quran and the Sunna); the period of the Companions and the caliphs; the age of the jurists and the formation of the schools (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali, and the Shia schools); the closing of independent reasoning (taqlid); Muslim law in India under the Mughals (Fatawa-e-Alamgiri) and the British (the Plan of 1772, translations, Anglo-Muhammadan law); the twentieth-century statutes; developments after 1950; Abdul Kadir v. Salima, Shah Bano and Shayara Bano explained; a conclusion.
1. Pre-Islamic Arabia
Before Islam, Arabia was governed by tribal custom. Women had few rights. A man could marry any number of wives and divorce at will. Women and younger children were often excluded from inheritance, which passed to the adult male fighters of the tribe. Islam reformed many of these customs and kept others where they did not conflict with its principles.
2. The period of the Prophet
The Prophet Muhammad received the revelations recorded in the Quran over about twenty-three years. The Quran laid down rules on marriage, dower, divorce, the waiting period, maintenance and, in detail, inheritance, including fixed shares for women. The Prophet's own words, acts and approvals (the Sunna) explained and supplemented the Quran. In this period the law came directly from these two sources.
3. The period of the Companions
After the Prophet's death his Companions and the early caliphs decided new questions by reference to the Quran and the Sunna. Where these were silent, they reasoned from them and reached agreed opinions. This practice was the beginning of ijma (consensus). A dispute over the leadership of the community after the Prophet's death later produced the division between Sunnis and Shias.
4. The age of the jurists and the schools
In the eighth and ninth centuries scholars systematised the law. Their differing methods gave rise to the schools.
- Hanafi school, founded by Abu Hanifa of Kufa. It gave wide room to reasoning (qiyas and istihsan). Most Sunni Muslims in India follow it.
- Maliki school, founded by Malik ibn Anas of Medina. It relied heavily on the practice of Medina.
- Shafii school, founded by al-Shafii. He systematised the four sources and the method of reasoning.
- Hanbali school, founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal. It kept closest to the texts of the traditions.
- Shia schools, mainly the Ithna Ashari (with the Ismailis among others). They accept the authority of the Imams and reason (aql) in place of qiyas.
5. The closing of independent reasoning
Over time the view spread that the great jurists had settled the law. Later scholars were expected to follow an established school (taqlid) rather than reason afresh (ijtihad). This gave stability but slowed the law's growth from within.
6. Muslim law in India
- Mughal period. Muslim law was the general law of the State. Under Aurangzeb, scholars compiled the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, a digest of Hanafi law.
- British period. Warren Hastings' Plan of 1772 directed courts to apply the law of the parties. Muslim law was applied to Muslims in matters of inheritance, marriage, caste and other religious usages. English translations such as the Hedaya and Baillie's Digest were used, and judges were assisted by Muslim law officers. The criminal and commercial parts of Muslim law were replaced by statutes, leaving personal law. The law that emerged through the courts is often called Anglo-Muhammadan law.
- Statutes before independence. The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act 1937 made the Shariat the rule of decision in personal matters, overriding contrary custom. The Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act 1939 gave wives statutory grounds of divorce. The Mussalman Wakf Validating Act 1913 restored the family wakf.
- After independence. Parliament passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 and the Waqf Act 1995, amended in 2025. It later passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 2019. The Constitution's guarantees of equality now shape how courts read the personal law.
The leading cases
Abdul Kadir v. Salima (1886) ILR 8 All 149. A husband sued for restitution, and the wife resisted for unpaid prompt dower. The Allahabad Full Bench, through Mahmood J., worked out the answer from the Hedaya and other classical texts. It held that marriage is a civil contract and that a conditional decree was proper. The judgment shows Anglo-Muhammadan law at its best: classical texts applied by an Indian court.
Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum, AIR 1985 SC 945. The Supreme Court held that a divorced Muslim wife unable to maintain herself may claim maintenance under section 125 of the Code. It read the Quran itself in her favour. The political reaction led to the 1986 Act, a turning point in modern development.
Shayara Bano v. Union of India, AIR 2017 SC 4609. The Supreme Court, by three to two, set aside instant triple talaq. Parliament followed with the 2019 Act. The case shows the Constitution now driving the development of Muslim personal law.
Conclusion. Muslim law grew from Arabian custom reformed by the Quran and the Sunna. The jurists systematised it into schools, and it reached India as the law of the Mughal State. Under British rule it narrowed to personal law administered by courts, and statutes from 1937 onwards reshaped it. Abdul Kadir, Shah Bano and Shayara Bano mark the stages of its development in India.
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