Nonetheless, this was subject to the qualification that in cases where the introduction of English law would cause hardship and injustice to the inhabitants, they would be allowed to follow their own personal law. Penang and Malacca became British colonies and therefore the English law was introduced via the Charter of Justice 1826, which set up the courts of judicature and provided in effect that the Courts should apply the English law. Malacca and the rest of the Malay states came under the jurisdiction and administration of the British while Indonesia was governed by the Dutch. Malaya was officially colonised by the British in 1824 via the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which divided the Malay Archipelago into British and Dutch spheres of influence. It was, in other words, placed in the embarrassing position of attempting to administer a local law without knowing its contents! Replacing Islamic Law The British arrival in Malaya led to the introduction of the English law thus replacing the hitherto Islamic law. Hooker in commenting this case wrote: However, as the judgment makes clear, the Court really had no idea of what the rules of this so-called ‘local law’ were in respect of the issue before it. Thus, there were provisions based on the Islamic law dealing with qiṣāṣ (section or s. Ghafur Muhaiyyuddin Shah (1592–1614 A.D.) following the Undang- undang Melaka, the present authors found that the influence of the Malay custom was less than the Islamic law which was generally followed. The Pahang laws which were formulated during the reign of Sultan Abd. When the kingdom of Malacca was defeated by the Portuguese in 1511, the texts of the Malay laws were taken and adapted with modifications in the various Malay states including Pahang, Johore and Kedah (Ibrahim, ). It may have been an oral tradition (Mahmood Zuhdi ). This is because the constitution for a federation may not necessarily be in writing. On the other hand, Mahmood Zuhdi commented that, even if the matters relating to the Federation were not mentioned in Malacca Laws, this does not mean that absenteeism of the said laws in writing can be taken as grounds to say that the basis of Islamic constitution never existed at that particular time.
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