Abstract Postcolonial Indian politics have been punctuated by major debates about Muslim personal law: the law and case precedent that applies to Muslims in matters of marriage, divorce, adoption, succession, and inheritance. These debates ask whether gender equality for members of all religious communities can be achieved in a religiously differentiated legal system. While some argue that a uniform civil code would be the critical mechanism to protect women’s rights, we suggest that Muslim personal law in fact plays a marginal role in family courts, where shared statutes already hold a much more significant place. Based on a mixed-methods analysis of cases from a New Delhi Family court, we demonstrate that Muslim women almost exclusively file cases under common, non-religious laws, and that the few cases filed specifically under Muslim personal law are often adjudicated on the basis of a combination of laws rather than on Muslim law alone. Yet, our findings also confirm that Muslims are only marginally present in state courts, and mostly use other means to adjudicate family disputes. This situation pushes against the idea that the “harmonization” of religious personal laws is sufficient to understand the legal complexities confronting minority women.

中文翻译：

---

穆斯林属人法的狭隘性：德里家庭法院的法律协调实践

摘要 后殖民时期的印度政治一直被关于穆斯林属人法的重大辩论打断：适用于穆斯林在婚姻、离婚、收养、继承和继承方面的法律和判例。这些辩论询问是否可以在宗教差异化的法律体系中实现所有宗教社区成员的性别平等。虽然有些人认为统一的民法将是保护妇女权利的关键机制，但我们认为穆斯林属人法实际上在家庭法庭中扮演着边缘角色，在家庭法庭中，共同的法规已经占据了更重要的地位。基于对新德里家庭法院案件的混合方法分析，我们证明穆斯林妇女几乎完全根据普通的非宗教法律提起诉讼，并且特别根据穆斯林属人法提起的少数案件通常是根据法律的组合而不是仅根据穆斯林法律来裁决的。然而，我们的调查结果也证实，穆斯林在州法院中只占少数，而且大多使用其他方式来裁决家庭纠纷。这种情况违背了宗教属人法的“统一”足以理解少数族裔妇女面临的法律复杂性的观点。