IECL Lunchtime Seminar with Yüksel Sezgin – Judging through Narrative: Muslim Family Laws in Non-Muslim Courts

The IECL Lunchtime Seminar Series offers our Academic Visitors an opportunity to share their research, exchange ideas, and connect with colleagues on both substantive and methodological aspects of their work. 

Each seminar usually lasts 30–45 minutes, with 20–30 minutes for the presentation followed by 10–15 minutes for Q&A. A light sandwich lunch will be provided.

Associate Professor Yüksel Sezgin
Judging through Narrative: Muslim Family Laws in Non-Muslim Courts

Abstract: 

This presentation examines how courts govern minority communities not only through rulings, but through the narratives that justify them. Focusing on Muslim Family Law adjudication in Israel, Greece, India, and Ghana, it asks why similar personal status regimes produce divergent outcomes—some fostering reform and trust, others generating alienation. I argue that the key mechanism is narratival cohesion: the degree to which courts articulate consistent normative frames across decisions, levels, and time. When judicial narratives are cohesive and resonate with surrounding communities under conditions of extrajudicial “ripeness,” they diffuse beyond the courtroom, shaping legal consciousness, facilitating socio-legal reform, and strengthening perceptions of procedural justice. When narratives are fragmented, they send conflicting signals that stall reform and deepen distrust; when cohesive but exclusionary, they amplify estrangement. Drawing on analysis of roughly 3,000 decisions and 400 interviews, and ethnographic research, the presentation explains how judicial storytelling shapes state-minority relations and the social life of law.