Administration of Islamic Personal Law for Muslims in Lagos State: Institutional Review and Reform Proposals

Lagos State's Muslim population of approximately five million lacks access to formal Sharia courts, relying instead on the Shia Sunni Muslim Personal Law Application Committee and Customary Courts exercising limited Islamic personal law jurisdiction. The institutional adequacy of these arrangements for administering Islamic family law, inheritance, and waqf matters for Lagos Muslims is a professional governance question with significant practical implications. This study conducts a professional institutional review of Islamic personal law administration in Lagos State and develops evidence-based reform proposals. A professional institutional assessment methodology is applied, reviewing the Muslim Personal Law (Application and Enforcement) Law of Lagos State, selected case outcomes from the Committee, and conducting structured interviews with twenty Islamic scholars, fifteen legal practitioners, and ten former litigants. The study evaluates the Committee's jurisdictional scope, the binding status of its decisions, the qualifications of its members, and the enforcement mechanisms for its orders. Available professional legal administration literature from South West Nigeria identifies the non-binding, consultative nature of Committee decisions as the fundamental structural deficiency. The Islamic jurisprudential principle of effective Nafs al-Hukm (binding judicial authority) and comparative institutional models from Kelantan (Malaysia) and Zanzibar provide the professional analytical framework. Findings are expected to confirm critical institutional inadequacies. Recommendations address legislative reform conferring enforceable adjudicatory authority, professional qualification requirements for Committee members, and an accessible Islamic law advisory service for Lagos Muslims. Keywords: Islamic personal law, Lagos State, institutional reform, Muslim law administration, South West Nigeria.