.... That financially secure life has so far eluded her. Molla Sali's two sisters-in-law contested the will on the grounds that, as a member of Thrace's Muslim community, their brother was bound by the precepts of Islamic law, under which they, too, should receive a share of his estate.
The Sali dispute has now escalated into a landmark case at the European Court of Human Rights and prompted the Greek government to radically alter the law governing its Muslims for the first time since they found themselves outside the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.
Greece is the only European country to preserve a bifurcated legal system in which Islamic law coexists with Greek civil and family law.
Molla Sali was vindicated in lower court, which upheld her husband's will under the Greek civil code, but this decision was overturned in the Greek Supreme Court, which ruled the will has no legal standing and Islamic law must apply. [Al Jazeera English] Read more
