ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the regulation of sexual relations. It explains family law chronologically from betrothal and marriage to separation, including the legal effects of marriage such as parentage. The chapter discusses the regulations regarding succession. The terms ‘family law’, ‘succession’ and/or ‘personal status law’ are modern Western categories adopted by contemporary Muslim states in the process of modernizing Shariʿah law and codifying it. Family law and succession are extensively dealt with in the Qurʿan and Sunnah. Schacht and Layish consider the Qurʿanic reform of succession as an improvement for women who did not inherit anything in pre-Islamic time. Excluded from succession are slaves and persons who have caused the death of the deceased. Islamic pre-modern law differentiates between matters of ritual and worship versus relations among human beings of which marriage and succession fall, broadly speaking but not exclusively, under the second category.
