Decentering the Sharia Court: Practical Authority and Islamic Legal Pluralism in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Scholarship on Islamic legal pluralism has largely taken the Sharia court as its measure of institutional significance, asking how Islamic norms are incorporated, accommodated, or made enforceable by the state. Sierra Leone resists that starting point. Its Constitution and the local courts Act 2011 recognise customary adjudication, and the Mohammedan Marriage Act gives civil effect to Muslim marriages, yet no Sharia court exists and no Islamic adjudicatory jurisdiction has been delegated to any religious institution. This article asks how Sharia-informed mediation acquires practical authority under these conditions. It uses a qualitative documentary socio-legal case study of constitutional and statutory texts, justice-sector and governance reports, and peer-reviewed scholarship, read through Griffiths, Moore, Tamanaha, and Weber. The analysis finds that such mediation derives no jurisdiction from the state but operates in a plural justice environment. Community recognition, Islamic normative legitimacy, established mediation practice, and uneven access to courts and legal aid leave room for religious actors to take part in dispute resolution. The article defines practical authority as the socially recognised capacity of a non-state normative institution to structure, facilitate, or influence dispute resolution without state-delegated adjudicatory competence, and distinguishes it from formal jurisdiction, normative authority, and social legitimacy. Because the evidence is documentary, the findings do not establish how often mediation occurs, whether disputants prefer it, or whether its outcomes are complied with. The article decentres the court as the measure of Islamic legal authority and shows how religious normativity can matter institutionally without becoming jurisdictional.