What sharia actually is, what it asks of a Muslim living here, and what Canadian law says — every claim traced to a source, and where the four schools of law differ, we say so.
Different starting points, same facts. Both doors lead to the same pages — written once, carefully, for both readers.
The short answer: Canadian law is the only law that governs in Canada. No court or tribunal applies sharia, and since 2006 a family arbitration conducted under any religious law has had no legal effect in Ontario. What sharia actually is — to the 1.8 million Muslims who live here — is a longer answer, and it is written down calmly on these pages.
The straight answer → What actually happened in Ontario in 2005 →Domain by domain — worship, marriage, money, food, death — with the Canadian legal position always beside the Islamic one, the four schools' differences stated, and every position attributed to a source. We report positions; we don't issue rulings. Where your case turns on a difference, we say so and point you to a scholar of your school.
Browse the domains → Where Islamic law binds you — and where Canadian law governs →The 2006 change is the Family Statute Law Amendment Act, 2006, which followed the Boyd Report (2004). Freedom to practise a religion is protected by s. 2(a) of the Charter. The four schools are set out on The Four Madhahib.
Most confusion about "sharia law" is confusion about words. These three pages fix the vocabulary — what the law is, where it comes from, and who interprets it.
The distinction nearly every page on the internet blurs. Sharia is the path itself — God's guidance in the Qur'an and the Prophet's ﷺ example. Fiqh is the human jurisprudence scholars derive from it: argued, recorded, and organised into schools. Collapse the two words and disagreement looks like incoherence instead of what it is — jurisprudence.
The definitional reference →The four agreed sources, in order: the Qur'an, the Sunnah, ijma' (scholarly consensus) and qiyas (analogy) — and what ijtihad and a fatwa actually are. A fatwa is a scholar's answer to a question put to him; it binds no one and no court.
Qur'an, Sunnah, ijma', qiyas →Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali — four disciplined traditions of reading the same sources, each over a thousand years old. Not sects, not rivals. What all four agree on is far larger than where they part; both halves are set out, school by school.
Read The Four Madhahib →One question nobody on the current search results has answered plainly, and one history everyone argues about instead of telling.
The honest, practical answer. Islamic law binds as personal religious obligation — worship, food, family ethics — and gains civil force only when written into ordinary Canadian instruments: a contract, a will, a marriage agreement. Canadian law governs everyone, and it leaves a broad lane: testamentary freedom lets a will follow the faraid shares, and contract law enforces a properly written mahr.
Read the answer →It dominates Canadian search results, and it is mostly argued about, rarely told. The chronology, calmly: private arbitration under the Arbitration Act, 1991; the 2003 proposal for an Islamic tribunal; the Boyd Report; the September 2005 decision; the 2006 Act — and what the law has been ever since.
Read the chronology →Each page carries the Islamic obligation with its sources, the four schools' differences, the Canadian legal position — and what a person here actually does about both.
Prayer, fasting, zakat, hajj: what is obligatory and on whom — and the Canadian duty to accommodate religious practice at work and school, under the human-rights codes.
Salah · sawm · zakat · hajj →One ceremony can be both nikah and legal marriage. Courts enforce a written mahr. Talaq and the Divorce Act are separate tracks — and a couple must run both, deliberately.
Nikah · mahr · divorce →The prohibition of riba in Surah al-Baqarah 2:275, the halal-finance structures actually sold in Canada — murabaha, musharaka, ijara — and the positions named scholarly bodies take on mortgages by necessity.
Riba · halal finance →What makes food halal, where the schools differ — seafood, gelatin, additives — and the actual Canadian rule: since 2016, a "halal" claim on a food label must name the certifying body.
Halal · labelling law →The deepest ground on this site: janazah and the first 72 hours, funeral costs city by city, the fixed shares, the executor's duties. This page routes you into all of it.
Burial · faraid · wills →221 glossary terms defined plainly, and 501 answered questions — each with the Canadian position and the Islamic one, side by side. Free, no login.
Glossary · 501 answers →Most writing about Islamic law presents one position as "the" Islamic position. The scholars themselves never did.
When a paternal grandfather survives alongside the deceased's brothers and sisters, the Hanafi school excludes the siblings entirely — the grandfather stands in the father's place — while the Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools have the grandfather share with them. Same family, same facts, materially different outcome.
That is why our inheritance calculator asks which school you follow before it asks anything else — and why every page in this section states each school's position by name rather than averaging them.
The Four Madhahib — where they agree and where they part →The question usually means one of two things. Practising Islam — prayer, halal food, religious marriage, Islamic burial — is lawful and protected by section 2(a) of the Charter, like the practice of any religion. Applying sharia as enforceable law is a different matter: no Canadian court or tribunal applies it, and since 2006 a family arbitration conducted under any religious law has had no legal effect in Ontario.
No — and there never were. What existed until 2006 was private arbitration under Ontario's Arbitration Act, 1991, which parties of any faith could use for family disputes. A 2003 proposal to formalise an Islamic tribunal under that Act led to the Boyd Report, a national controversy, and then the opposite of what the headlines feared: Ontario ended religiously governed family arbitration for everyone.
No. Canadian law is a law of general application — it governs everyone in Canada, of every faith. Islamic law binds a Muslim as a matter of personal religious commitment, not civil enforcement. Where the two speak to the same subject — inheritance is the clearest example — the practical path is to express the Islamic outcome through ordinary Canadian instruments: Canadian testamentary freedom is broad enough that a will can follow the faraid shares exactly.
Sharia is the path itself — the totality of God's guidance in the Qur'an and the Prophet's ﷺ example. Fiqh is the scholars' recorded understanding of that guidance: human, argued, and organised into schools. Almost every misunderstanding of "sharia law" in public debate starts by collapsing the two — treating one school's fiqh, or one state's legal code, as if it were the revelation itself.
None. Where the four Sunni schools agree, we say so — the agreement is far larger than the differences. Where they differ, we state each school's position by name and point you to a qualified scholar for your own situation. This site reports positions; it does not issue rulings.
Every factual claim on these pages traces to a listed source: the Qur'an and the hadith collections for Islamic positions; statutes, government pages and CanLII decisions for Canadian ones; and named institutions — Al-Azhar, Dar al-Ifta, the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Cambridge Muslim College, Zaytuna College — for contemporary scholarship. Each page ends with its full citation list, and content is reviewed by a Canadian estates lawyer and a qualified scholar before publication.
221 glossary terms, 501 answered questions, 20 worked case studies — free, no account, no paywall. If your question isn't answered yet, send it in and we'll research it.