The qadi's role has been reshaped considerably by the modern nation-state's general move toward codified, unified national legal systems: many Muslim-majority countries today limit sharia courts and qadi jurisdiction specifically to matters of personal status, marriage, divorce, inheritance and religious endowments, while criminal and commercial law operate under separate, often civil-law-derived national codes, a division of jurisdiction largely absent from the more comprehensive judicial role a qadi historically held. Some countries, including Israel and several majority-Muslim states with religiously plural populations, maintain sharia courts as a recognized part of the national judicial system specifically for their Muslim citizens' personal status matters, appointing qadis as state judges operating within this defined jurisdiction alongside the country's secular courts.
In several Western countries with significant Muslim populations, informal sharia councils staffed by qualified scholars, sometimes styled qadis, offer religious rulings and mediation, particularly on Islamic divorce, without holding any binding civil legal authority under the host country's own law, a voluntary, community-based arrangement that has drawn both support, from Muslims seeking religiously recognized resolution of family matters, and public debate over its relationship to national family law and women's legal protections.