I. Introduction
That is definitely a genuinely fascinating case from Bahrain, involving the applying of “international” Jewish customs in a succession dispute that seems to be between Jewish Bahraini nationals. Though the case appears to lack any international component, its relevance to battle of legal guidelines is nonetheless clear, since – to my information – that is the primary case during which the applicability of “international” spiritual customs in issues of private standing has been explicitly admitted in what seems a purely home case. The case additionally gives a broader analytical framework, elevating questions concerning the place and applicability of non-state regulation in personal worldwide regulation (this contrasts of the current resolution of the French Supreme Court docket denying the applicability of Jewish regulation, albeit in a unique context) and, extra usually, concerning the compatibility of non-Islamic spiritual norms with home public coverage frameworks in Muslim-majority authorized programs.
II. Information
The case issues a home succession dispute involving Jews in Bahrain. Though the ruling doesn’t expressly state this, the absence of any reference to choice-of-law guidelines strongly means that the events concerned have been Bahraini Jews and that the case contained no international components.
Following their brother’s loss of life, Y1 (the deceased’s brother) introduced proceedings in 2024 earlier than the Excessive Civil Court docket in opposition to Y2 (the deceased’s nephew) and Y3 (the deceased’s sister), in search of the opening of the property, the identification of the heirs, a listing of the property, and the devolution of the property. The courtroom ordered the opening of the property and held that Y1 and Y2 have been entitled to equal shares.
X et al. (the deceased’s sisters), who weren’t events to the unique proceedings, filed a third-party objection in search of annulment of the judgment and a redistribution of the property amongst all heirs, together with themselves, in equal shares, primarily based on Jewish inheritance customs or, subsidiarily, Islamic regulation. The objection was dismissed on the deserves, and this consequence was upheld on enchantment. X et al. then appealed to the Supreme Court docket of Bahrain, difficult their exclusion from the inheritance.
Earlier than the Supreme Court docket, X et al. argued that the decrease courts had relied on Chapter 27 of the Torah (the Outdated Testomony), a textual content which, they contended, not displays modern Jewish social or spiritual observe. They maintained that Jewish inheritance guidelines have developed over time and that present customs inside Jewish communities grant ladies equal inheritance rights within the absence of a will, an strategy adopted by many rabbinical courts worldwide. Within the absence of established Jewish inheritance guidelines or regionally recognised customized in Bahrain, they argued that prevailing international customized ought to apply, because it doesn’t battle with Bahraini public coverage.
III. Ruling
In its resolution of 1 December 2025, the Supreme Court docket dominated in favor of X et al. holding as follows (detailed abstract):
Below Bahraini regulation, the Excessive Civil Courts have jurisdiction over all private standing issues regarding non-Muslims. The place no statutory rule applies, Article 1 of the Civil Code requires courts to use the customs of the spiritual neighborhood involved.
Such customs aren’t restricted to these established regionally in Bahrain. If no native customized is confirmed, courts might apply normal or international customs, offered that they’re genuinely noticed by the members of the faith involved. The applying of international customized is topic to 2 circumstances: first, that it’s really and constantly adopted and thought to be binding inside the neighborhood, that’s, it has not fallen into disuse; and second, that it doesn’t battle with public coverage in Bahrain. The place these circumstances are met, the related international customized governs issues of private standing regarding members of the faith in query.
On this case, the decrease courtroom utilized Chapter 27 of the Torah on the bottom that no native Jewish customized governing the distribution of inheritance existed in Bahrain, thereby excluding any consideration of customs prevailing outdoors the Kingdom. Nonetheless, as soon as its existence is established, international customized could also be disregarded solely the place it conflicts with a statutory provision or with public coverage. The failure to look at whether or not related international Jewish inheritance customs existed and happy the required circumstances—specifically, that they’re utilized in a constant, steady, and well-known method amongst members of the Jewish religion, that they’re regarded by them as binding, and that they don’t violate public coverage—justifies the quashing of the choice and the remittal of the case.
III. Feedback
Usually talking, the applying of international regulation within the MENA area has lengthy been a difficult problem query marked by uncertainty and resistance in observe (for a normal comparative overview, with a particular give attention to civil and industrial issues, see Béligh Elbalti, “Selection of Legislation in Worldwide Contract and Overseas Legislation earlier than MENA Arab Courts from the Perspective of Belt and Highway Initiative”, in Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit, Sai Ramani Garimella (eds.), Authorized Challenges of China’s One Belt One Highway Initiative – Personal Worldwide Legislation Issues (Routledge, 2025), pp. 145-150). In opposition to this background, the acceptance by the Bahraini Supreme Court docket of the applying of international customs in issues of private standing in a purely home case is all of the extra noteworthy, insofar as sure circumstances are met.
The case raises specifically two basic questions: (1) the applicability of non-Muslim authorized norms in Bahrain; and (2) the relevance of public coverage on this context.
1. The applicability of non-Muslim authorized norms in Bahrain
a) Basic Relevant framework
Not like some non-neighboring nations within the area, the place issues of private standing of non-Muslims—whether or not foreigners or nationals—could also be ruled by particular laws (see, for instance, UAE federal laws on Civil Private Standing), Bahrain has not adopted any particular authorized framework relevant to non-Muslims.
There are, nonetheless, a couple of notable exceptions.
First, the 1971 Code of Civil and Business Process (CCCP) units out conflict-of-laws guidelines which are expressly relevant to private standing issues involving non-Muslims (Article 21 of the Bahraini CCCP).
Second, Legislative Decree No. 11 of 1971 regulates inheritance and the devolution of estates of international non-Muslims.
Third, Legislative Decree No. 42 of 2002 on Judicial Jurisdiction gives, in Article 6, that disputes regarding the non-public standing of non-Muslims fall inside the jurisdiction of the civil courts, versus the Muslim Sharia courts, which, in contrast, have subject-matter jurisdiction over all disputes regarding the non-public standing of Muslims, except for sure disputes regarding succession, which fall inside the jurisdiction of the civil courts (Article 13). On this context, the Muslim Sharia courts are required to use Bahrain’s Household Legislation of 2017 (Legislation No. 17 of 2017), which up to now constitutes the one legislative framework governing household regulation issues in Bahrain. This regulation, nonetheless, applies completely earlier than the Muslim Sharia courts, which lack jurisdiction over disputes involving non-Muslims.
Accordingly, whereas the civil courts have jurisdiction ratione materiae to listen to private standing disputes involving non-Muslims, Bahraini regulation doesn’t specify the substantive regulation to be utilized by these courts in such issues—besides the place the events are foreigners and international regulation is relevant pursuant to Bahraini choice-of-law guidelines, or the place the dispute issues the succession of international non-Muslims, during which case Legislative Decree No. 11 of 1971 applies.
b) Customs as a supply of regulation
It’s on this context that the Bahraini Supreme Court docket relied on Article 1 of the Bahraini Civil Code of 2001, which authorizes courts to use customs (‘urf) within the absence of legislative provisions. The reference to customs is critical, provided that Bahraini household regulation doesn’t comprise any provision permitting non-Muslims to invoke the applying of their very own spiritual regulation, not like a number of neighbouring jurisdictions within the area (see Article 1(2) of the UAE Private Standing Legislation of 2024; Article 364 of the Kuwaiti Private Standing Legislation of 2007; Article 4 of the Qatari Household Legislation of 2006; and Article 282 of the Omani Private Standing Legislation of 1997).
The Bahraini Supreme Court docket’s case regulation is constant on this level. In a earlier resolution of 4 April 2023, the Supreme Court docket quashed a decrease courtroom judgment that had utilized the 2017 Bahraini Household Legislation to a dispute involving spouses of the Bahá’í religion, with out analyzing whether or not there existed any legal guidelines or rules amongst members of the Bahá’í religion in Bahrain governing their private standing issues, or whether or not any customs regulated such issues. Not like the case mentioned right here, the 2023 resolution did contain a conflict-of-laws problem within the sense of personal worldwide regulation, which was resolved by making use of Bahraini regulation because the lex patriae of the husband (Article 21(3) of the CCCP). It was at then that the Supreme Court docket emphasised the absence of Bahraini laws governing private standing issues for non-Muslims and justified recourse to Article 1 of the Civil Code, thereby overruling the decrease courtroom’s resolution for failing to contemplate the applicability of Bahá’í regulation or customized.
Nonetheless, what’s exceptional within the current case is that the courtroom prolonged the scope of the “customs” referred to in Article 1 of the Civil Code to incorporate “normal and international (exterior) customs”, within the absence of a neighborhood one (‘urf mahalli). Reference to international (exterior) customs is, nonetheless, topic to 2 cumulative circumstances: (1) the international customs have to be usually noticed by members of the related spiritual neighborhood, within the sense that they have to not have fallen into disuse; and (2) they have to not be inconsistent with public coverage in Bahrain. With respect to the primary situation, the appellants argued that the classical Jewish rule prioritizing male heirs and permitting ladies to inherit solely within the absence of sons has develop into out of date in modern Jewish social and spiritual communities. They contended that it has develop into frequent observe throughout Jewish communities worldwide to permit ladies to inherit on an equal foundation, a observe constantly endorsed by rabbinic courts in numerous authorized programs worldwide.
2. Consistency with public coverage
One other key query issues whether or not succession guidelines that depart from Islamic Sharia needs to be thought to be opposite to public coverage. Given the centrality of Islamic Sharia within the authorized programs of many MENA nations, succession guidelines increase a very delicate problem after they diverge from its ideas. That is extra so, figuring out that, in some jurisdictions, equivalent to Egypt, the place non-Muslims are permitted to use their very own spiritual guidelines in issues of household regulation, succession stays ruled by a unified regime primarily based on Islamic Sharia, which applies equally to Muslims and non-Muslims.
Within the current case earlier than the Bahraini courts, the relevant Islamic Sharia guidelines would have entitled the deceased’s sisters to inherit, however solely on the premise of the precept {that a} male inheritor receives a share equal to that of two feminine heirs (Quran 4:176). As well as, distant male agnates, equivalent to nephews, will likely be excluded. It’s due to this fact comprehensible that X et al. invoked Islamic Sharia within the different, since, not like the classical Jewish rule at problem, it might a minimum of safe them a share within the property, albeit an unequal one (on the reliance of Jewish neighborhood on Islamic Sharia courts, see Jessica M. Marglin, “Jews in Shari‘a Courts: A Household Dispute From the Cairo Geniza”, in A. E. Franklin et al. (eds.), Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Trendy Instances – A Festschrift in Honor of Mark Cohen (Brill, 2014), pp. 207-25).
The central problem, nonetheless, is whether or not an equal division of the property amongst all potential heirs, with out gender distinction, would increase issues of Islamic public coverage. On this level, comparative observe within the area reveals a constant reluctance to deal with divergence from Islamic Sharia guidelines as such a violation. Courts throughout the Center East have usually held that, in disputes involving non-Muslims, the applying of international or spiritual guidelines differing from Islamic inheritance ideas doesn’t, in itself, offend public coverage (for an in depth evaluation from a non-public worldwide regulation perspective, see Béligh Elbalti, “Relevant Legislation in Succession Issues within the MENA Arab Jurisdictions – Particular Give attention to Interfaith Successions and Distinction of Faith as Obstacle to Inheritance”, RabelsZ, Vol. 88(4), 2024, pp. 734). In opposition to this background, it’s unlikely that the Bahraini courts would take into account an equal distribution of the property amongst heirs to be opposite to public coverage, notably the place the relevant framework already permits recourse to non secular or customary norms within the absence of particular laws.
