Application of Islamic law by country in case legislation is silent or unclear. Sharia courts handle personal status laws. A personal status law was codified in 2009 to regulate personal status matters. It applies only to Sunni Muslims; there is no codified personal status law for Shiites. In a Shari’a court a Muslim woman's testimony is worth half of that of a Muslim man. Marriage, divorce, alimony and property inheritance are regulated by Sharia for Muslims. The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 (XXVI of 1937) applies to Muslims in all matters relating to Family Affairs. Islamic family law is applied through the regular court
Sharia slaves. However, manumission required that the non-Muslim slave first convert to Islam. A non-Muslim slave woman who bore children to her Muslim master became legally free upon her master's death, and her children were presumed to be Muslims like their father, in Africa and elsewhere. Starting with the 20th century, Western legal systems evolved to expand women's rights, but women's rights under Islamic law have remained tied to the Quran, hadiths and their fundamentalist interpretation as sharia by Islamic jurists. Early Islamic law developed a number of legal concepts that anticipated similar such concepts that later appeared in English common