Foundations of Saudi Arabian law: Islamic legal traditions and the formation of the Kingdom, Sharia and the Basic Law, the sources and hierarchy of law, codification, and international law

Islamic law in the peninsula. The legal tradition of the Arabian Peninsula is that of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), the science by which scholars derive rules from the Quran, the Sunnah (the recorded practice and sayings of the Prophet), consensus and reasoning. In central Arabia the dominant school has been the Hanbali, and the judges (qadis) traditionally decided cases by consulting classical texts of that school, with wide discretion and few written statutes. In the Hejaz, with its trade and pilgrimage, administrative practice was shaped earlier by Ottoman and local regulations.

The Kingdom. King Abdulaziz united the territories into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. As the state grew it added ministries, a Council of Ministers (1953), a Board of Grievances for complaints against the government and a series of royal decrees and regulations on trade, labour, companies, oil and the administration. The Basic Law of Governance of 1992 gave the Kingdom a written statement of its constitutional foundations, followed by the Shura Council Law and the Law of Provinces the same year, and the Council of Ministers Law in 1993.

What the Basic Law says. Article 1 declares the Kingdom a sovereign Arab Islamic state whose religion is Islam and whose constitution is the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Prophet; Article 7 says the government draws its authority from the Quran and the Sunnah; Article 8 bases government on justice, consultation (shura) and equality in accordance with Sharia; and Article 48 says the courts apply the rules of Sharia to cases before them, according to the Quran and Sunnah and the laws issued by the ruler that do not conflict with them. Sharia and legislation are therefore not two competing systems: legislation operates inside the Islamic framework, and the courts apply both.

Why a statute is called a ‘regulation’. Because the Basic Law treats legislative authority as belonging to God, a Saudi statute is called a nizam, usually translated as ‘law’ or ‘regulation’, and the Council of Ministers and the King issue it as regulation within Sharia. The rules that implement a nizam are the executive regulations (lai’ha). This is more than a matter of words: it signals that every instrument is read together with Sharia.

Publication. Laws and regulations are published in the official gazette (Umm Al-Qura) and on the website of the Bureau of Experts at the Council of Ministers, which is the first place to look for the current Arabic text. Arabic is the language of the law and of the courts, so any English version is a translation and a certified Arabic version is needed for court use. Dates in the gazette follow the Hijri calendar.

Codification. Until recently, private and criminal law were largely uncodified: judges applied classical fiqh with discretion, so similar cases could end differently. The Kingdom has therefore moved to written codes: a Law of Procedure before the Sharia Courts and a Law of Criminal Procedure (2013), an Evidence Law (2021), a Personal Status Law (2022), a Civil Transactions Law (2023) and a Commercial Courts Law (2020), with the codification of penalties (ta’zir) announced and being developed in stages. The aim is clarity and predictability for citizens, residents and investors. The codes draw on Islamic jurisprudence and, in places, on modern comparative law, and they do not replace Sharia as the source of the law; they state it in written form.

Courts and precedent. The Saudi courts do not follow a strict doctrine of binding precedent as in the common law. They apply the text of the law, fiqh where the law is silent, and the principles the Supreme Court sets to encourage consistency; the Ministry of Justice publishes judgments and judicial principles, which makes the law easier to research than before.

International law. The Kingdom is a member of the United Nations (since 1945), the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the World Trade Organization. Treaties and agreements are issued and amended by royal decree (Article 70 of the Basic Law), after review by the Council of Ministers and the Shura Council; once issued, they take effect as Saudi law, subject to Sharia. The Kingdom has ratified several human rights treaties, such as the Convention against Torture, CEDAW and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with reservations that protect Sharia, and it has not become a party to the two main international covenants on civil and political and on economic and social rights. It is a party to the New York Convention on foreign arbitral awards (Module 8).

• Check the date. Many Saudi laws were issued or replaced in the last few years; always check the current text and its executive regulations.
• Read the Arabic. A translation is a guide; the Arabic text governs.
• For a foreigner. Ask which law and which authority govern your matter, and whether Sharia raises a question the law does not answer.