Islamic Legal Reform and Gender Justice in Sharia Family Law in Northern Nigeria: A Maqasid Approach

This dissertation proposes a Maqasid-grounded Islamic legal reform framework for advancing gender justice within Sharia family law as practised across northern Nigerian states. Gender injustice outcomes in areas including child marriage, women's right to divorce, marital maintenance (Nafaqah) enforcement, and child custody (Hadanah) have been documented across northern Nigerian Sharia courts, raising urgent questions about the relationship between Islamic legal tradition and women's human rights. The study employs a critical Islamic legal research methodology, combining jurisprudential analysis of classical and reformist Fiqh positions on family law, critical analysis of 70 selected Sharia family court cases from Kano, Sokoto, and Kebbi, and in-depth interviews with 30 Sharia judges, 25 women's rights advocates, and 20 Islamic scholars on gender jurisprudence. Data are analysed through Maqasid feminist jurisprudential analysis, critical legal studies, and gender justice frameworks. The original contribution is a Northern Nigerian Sharia Family Law Reform Framework grounded in Maqasid principles of Hifz al-Nasl (protection of lineage and family) and Hifz al-Nafs (protection of life and dignity), offering jurisprudentially rigorous reform proposals for minimum marriage age, women's divorce rights, and joint custody protocols. Findings reveal significant jurisprudential resources for gender-just reform within the Islamic tradition that are currently suppressed by culturally conservative judicial practice. Keywords: Sharia family law, gender justice, Maqasid, Islamic legal reform, northern Nigeria.