ABSTRACT
Although it is still among the least systematically studied,1 one of the most interesting and significant facets of the introduction and assimilation of Islam in tropical Africa is that of the interaction in the field of social organization and personal relations between the provisions of the Shari'a and the canons of customary legal procedure. Disregarding differences between the two major Law Schools-Maliki in West Africa and the eastern Sudan, and Shafi'i in North-East and East Africa, it can at once be said that those ordinances of the Shari'a which refer to secular rather than to purely religious matters have achieved their widest and most rigorous application in theocratic states. But, as in the history of Islam generally, even in such congenial conditions the theoretical regulations of the Shari' a are in their actual application much modified by the recognition accorded to local custom ('ado, or 'urf), as an auxiliary source of law. In less theocratic circumstances, as in most modern Muslim states, the scope of Islamic Law is often confined largely to matters of personal status administered by qadis (in West Africa, alkalis [H. ]), other legal issues being decided by the courts of the secular authority.
