Equality, Plurality and Personal Status Laws A Research Companion

Preface

Introduction
Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron, Baudouin Dupret and Jean-Louis Halpérin

Part 1: Personal Status Laws and Minorities

Chapter 1. Personal Status in Historical Context
Jean-Louis Halpérin

Chapter 2. Accounting for Legal Pluralism in Action: A Case Study of Interfaith Marriage in Indonesia and its Praxeological Implications
Ayang Utriza Yakin and Baudouin Dupret

Chapter 3. Countries Falling Outside the Scope of the Research
Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron and Zohra Aziadé Zemirli

Chapter 4. From a Static Typology to a Typology of Dynamic Tensions
Jean-Louis Halpérin, Radhika Kanchana and Zohra Aziadé Zemirli

Part 2: Countries Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality

Chapter 5. The Imbroglio of Personal Status in Cameroon between Multi-Ethnicity, Multiculturalism and Equality
Thérèse Atangana-Malongue

Chapter 6. The Long-Standing Quest for the Unification of Egyptian Family Law
Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron and Karim El-Chazli

Chapter 7. Personal Status Laws in India: An Ambiguous Path Towards a Uniform Civil Code
Jean-Philippe Dequen

Chapter 8. Personal Status Law in Indonesia: Discursive and Practical Debate on Equality (Between Muslims and Non-Muslims)
Euis Nurlaelawati

Chapter 9. Personal Status Law in Israel: A Country Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality
Ido Shahar

Chapter 10. Kadhi Courts and the Persistence of Legal Pluralism in Kenya’s Family Law System
Zohra Aziadé Zemirli

Chapter 11. The Principle of Equality and the Pluralism of Personal Status: Reflections based on the Lebanese System
Léna Gannagé

Chapter 12. Personal Law in Malaysia: A Tale of Different Systems – Tensions between Plurality and Equality
Kerstin Steiner

Chapter 13. Legal and Religious Pluralism in Nigeria
Deborah Scolart

Chapter 14. Palestine: “Yasser Arafat Could Have Done What Bourguiba Did, but There’s No Room for That Now”
Lynn Welchman

Chapter 15. Equality in Senegalese Law: Senegal’s Family Code on a Knife-Edge
Marième N’diaye

Chapter 16. Equality and Plural Personal Status Laws in Tanzania: Tensions between Customary Law, State Law, and International Law
Laurean L. Mussa and Erin E. Stiles

Part 3: Countries Witnessing Gaps in the Implementation of Legal Pluralism in Practice

Chapter 17. Examining the Gaps: Implementation of Personal Status Laws and Constitutional Inequality in Bangladesh
Anisur Rahman

Chapter 18. Through an Islamic Lens: Inequalities in Brunei’s Personal Status Laws
Ann E. Black

Chapter 19. Shi‘i Jurisprudence and the Structure of Personal Status Law in Iran
Hengameh Hoveyda

Chapter 20. The Vicissitudes of Personal Status Pluralism in Iraq: A New Tower of Babel?
Harith Al-Dabbagh

Chapter 21. The Absence of a Unified Civil Code in Jordan: Implications for Women and Religious Minorities
Zohra Aziadé Zemirli

Chapter 22. Statutory Weakening and Bureaucratic Hurdles in the Implementation of Legal Pluralism in Myanmar
Elizabeth Rhoads

Chapter 23. A Right to Inequality? Islam and the Development of Pakistan’s Personal Status Law System from Independence to the Present
Martin Lau

Chapter 24. Sudan’s Legal Framework on Personal Status Laws, Equality and non-Discrimination
Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker

Chapter 25. From Confessional Mosaic to Legal Mosaic: Syrian Personal Status Codes
Tarek Al Asfary

Part 4: Countries Witnessing Mild Tension with the Principle of Equality

Chapter 26. Personal Status Laws in Ethiopia: a Country Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality    
Katrin Seidel

Chapter 27. A Near Theocracy for Personal Status – Gender-Based Discrimination in The Gambia’s Marriage and Divorce Laws
Raeesa Rajmohamed

Chapter 28. Plurality of Personal Status Laws in Ghana, a Country Witnessing Tensions with the Principle of Equality
Fulera Issaka-Toure

Chapter 29. The Mufti System and Islamic Law in Western Thrace, Greece
Yüksel Sezgin

Chapter 30. Jewish Law in a Muslim Country: The Survival of Rabbinical Courts in Morocco
Tachfine Baida 

Chapter 31. The Case of Muslimness in Filipino Legal Pluralism
Megumi Kagawa

Chapter 32. Challenges to the Applicability of the Principle of Equality:  The Case of Formal and Informal Jurisdictions in Niger, Mali and Chad
Abdou Samadou Yahaya

Chapter 33. Personal Laws in Singapore: A Balancing Act between Plurality and Equality
Kerstin Steiner

Chapter 34. Constitutional Preservation of Inequalities: Application of Personal Status Laws in Sri Lanka
Binendri Perera

Chapter 35. Legal Pluralism Tolerated: The Implementation of Sharia Law in Thailand’s Southernmost
Eugénie Mérieau

Biography

Nathalie Bernard-Maugiron is a senior researcher at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), France, and adjunct faculty at Sciences Po Paris.

Baudouin Dupret is a directeur de recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, at Sciences Po Bordeaux, and visiting professor at the University of Louvain, Belgium.

Jean-Louis Halperin is a professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France, emeritus since January 1, 2026.

Radhika Kanchana is a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for the Theory and Analysis of Law (CTAD) at the University of Paris Nanterre, France.

Ayang Utriza Yakin is an assistant professor of Islamic Legal and Ethical Tradition at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), Brunei Darussalam, and a research associate at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Belgium, and at Sciences Po Bordeaux, France.

Zohra Aziadé Zemirli is an associate researcher in law at Centre Arabe de Recherches et d’Etudes Politiques (CAREP), France and a postdoctoral fellow at Centre Population et Développement (Ceped), Université Paris Cité, IRD, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, Inserm.