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In a 3-2 decision, the Supreme Court of India declared triple ṭalāq unconstitutional and gave India’s parliament six months “to consider legislation” for handling triple ṭalāq. In its opinion, the Court cited global advances in Islamic family law (in India, called Muslim personal law) in “even theocratic Islamic states” as evidence of the need for reform.  The Court also noted that the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act of 1937, which protects the religious freedom of Muslims in India, does not constitutionally protect practices deemed “anti-Qur’anic.” Asserting that triple ṭalāq is such a practice, the Court held that it could not be protected under the Indian Constitution.

In December 2018, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) considered the question whether Muslim citizens who lived in the Greek province of Thrace could be required to submit to the jurisdiction of Islamic law, as detailed by local experts called muftīs. In Greek law, Islamic law usually governed matters of family law—such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance—in cases involving the Muslims in Thrace. This arrangement was a legacy of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres and the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. When the ECHR considered whether this arrangement should persist, it considered a case in which a Muslim man had died, leaving everything to his wife in his will. His sisters contested the will, arguing that it improperly circumvented the authority of the muftīs. Greece’s highest court agreed with the sisters. With the will invalidated, the muftī distributed one-fourth of the estate to the widow, and the rest to the sisters, in accord with Islamic inheritance law. The widow appealed to the ECHR. This Court determined that the Greek government had misinterpreted the treaties, which did not require a separate legal framework for Muslims. It further noted that Greek case law was inconsistent about “whether the application of Sharia law [sic] is compatible with the principle of equal treatment and with international human rights standards.” In addition, the Court emphasized a right to "free self-identification”: people should be free to opt out of differential treatment from the government on the basis of belonging to a minority group, and the government should not force minorities into a special legal category in the name of protecting them. The Court held that Greece, by compelling the Muslim minority of Thrace to follow Islamic law, had violated Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Hajj and Umrah made the decision, dated 22 June 2020, to impose strict limitations on this year’s Hajj (1441H/2020AD) in light of the continued risks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than cancelling the event altogether, these limitations will only allow Saudi pilgrims and those from other countries already inside the Kingdom to partake in this year’s Hajj.

In November 2021, the UAE government issued a new personal status law from Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, president of the UAE federation of seven emirates, titled Law No. 14 of 2021 Concerning the Personal Status of Non-Foreigners Muslims in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The law covers civil marriage, divorce, alimony, joint child custody, proof of paternity, and inheritance. Most notably, this new law allows for civil marriage, not just marriage under Islamic law. It allows expats, tourists, and non-residents to marry in Abu Dhabi and allows foreigners to follow their home countries’ laws on matters of inheritance and divorce.

The UAE government issued Federal Decree Law no. 31 of 2021 amending the country’s criminal law code, with major amendments to the prior code, Federal Law no. 3 of 1987. The new law amended three major provisions of the existing Code. First, it expands the scope of the laws of rape and sexual assault by raising the age limit for statutory rape from 14 to 18, in which anyone under the age of 18 is now considered a minor, and introducing a penalty of life imprisonment for rape that may increase to capital punishment if the case matches any of the conditions outlined by the law. Second, the law partially decriminalizes out-of-wedlock sexual relationships, by reducing the penalty from one year to six months if a complaint is filed by a relative or woman’s guardian. Third, the law introduces provisions for out-of-wedlock parenting in which anyone who has a child out-of-wedlock can avoid the default minimum sentence of two years’ imprisonment if they marry, acknowledge parenthood of the child (either jointly or separately), and provide formal issuance of the baby's identification documents.

Plaintiff Shawn Sharp, an inmate in the custody of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), brought this civil rights action pursuant to the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and RLUIPA, claiming that two prison facilities unlawfully denied his request to accommodate his particular religious group. The plaintiff claimed that the Sunni Muslim services offered at the DOC did not allow him free exercise of his religion, since he is a member of the so-called Habashi sect of Islam, which has ideological differences from the prison’s recognized Sunni group. The prison’s Muslim chaplain disagreed, stating that if Sharp was a Sunni Muslim, as he claimed to be, then there was no reason why Sharp could not attend the already-provided services of Sunni Muslims. The Court decided in favor of the Defendants, determining that the DOC successfully presented a qualified immunity defense, and that the plaintiff’s request had no rational connection to any legitimate penological interest.