Demand for and effects of Islamic law on European Muslims: evidence from Northern Greece
Principal Investigator: Dr Vasiliki Fouka
Duration: March 2026 - February 2028
Europe’s Muslim population has been steadily increasing over the past decades, amounting to roughly 5% of the total population as of 2017. This demographic shift has sparked public discourse about the compatibility between Islamic religious and political doctrine and the principles of liberal citizenship. Such diversity entails competing moral and legal frameworks – what Rawls (1993) termed “comprehensive ethical doctrines” – that challenge the ability of liberal states to maintain a shared political conception of justice.
Nowhere is this tension more salient than in Greece, where the Muslim minority of Western Thrace represents a rare case of institutionalized legal pluralism within the European Union. Since 2018, members of this minority have been allowed to use Greek civil courts for family matters if at least one party so chooses, marking a significant shift from the previously exclusive use of Islamic religious law for such issues. In the past, these matters were resolved solely by religious leaders (Muftis), but they can now be addressed in the Civil Courts of First Instance. While the legislative change covers all family matters, in practice the minority has primarily used it to settle divorces. As a result, the reform is particularly impactful for women, empowering them to seek divorce under more favorable terms, thereby increasing their agency and reshaping intra-household bargaining dynamics.
This project addresses two questions that contribute to the debate on how integration in European societies and access to liberal institutions affect Muslim populations. First, do Muslims choose civil courts over Islamic law (Sharia) when given the opportunity, and what does this imply for their attitudes toward institutions? Second, what are the social and economic causal impacts of such a transition – particularly on women – through the mechanism of female empowerment?
To answer these questions, we combine primary data collection from the historical archives of the three Courts of First Instance in Xanthi, Komotini, and Orestiada with various administrative and other data sources, including the Greek population census, national full-count matched employer–employee data, the Greek Business Registry, and the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC).
Our preliminary results indicate that the legislation was welcomed by members of the minority, leading to a gradual shift away from religious leaders and toward civil courts. Following the reform, minority women reduced time spent in domestic tasks at home and increased self-employment in the labor force. Both the uptake of the legislation and its effects on women’s labor force participation were concentrated in localities where traditional social norms were more prevalent.
To deepen our understanding of the mechanisms behind these results, we will conduct a targeted survey in cooperation with Kapa Research. The survey will elicit minority members’ attitudes toward civil versus religious institutions, their perceptions of fairness and legitimacy, and any changes in intra-household decision-making and social norms following the reform. It will also help uncover heterogeneous responses – for example, whether women’s increased labor force participation reflects greater autonomy, evolving attitudes toward gender roles, or purely economic incentives. By combining these measures with observed patterns in the data, the survey will provide a richer, micro-founded explanation of how legal empowerment translates into institutional trust and socio-economic change within the minority community.
Research Team
Principal investigator: Vasiliki (Vicky) Fouka, Bing Professor of Human Biology, Associate Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Team Member: Vaios Triantafyllou, Ph.D. candidate in Economics, Cornell University