The Digital Qadi: Paratext, Nostalgic Coding, and Islamic Justice on TRT’s “Mehmed: Fetihler Sultanı”

How does the framing of a YouTube title shape what audiences say about Islamic justice? This study presents a three-corpus comparative analysis of Kadı Hızır Çelebi's scenes in Mehmed: Sultan of Conquests (2024–2025), drawing on 28 videos and 2,886 commentaries. Sharia discourse remained below 2% in neutral compilations but rose above 11% in both thematically titled clips and independent fan channels, while Ottoman nostalgia stayed at 29–34% as a supra-format baseline. Because fan videos outside corporate curation reproduced the same pattern, the paratextual effect derives from content–title interaction rather than corporate preference. The article advances two conceptual contributions and two analytical observations. Nostalgic coding names the mechanism by which political demands take on apolitical nostalgic language. The digital qadi names the platform-mediated reanimation of Islamic judicial independence as a vehicle for critique. Productive counter-Orientalism extends inverse-essentialism critique into platform-mediated self-representation, and nostalgic reversal extends passive-revolution diagnosis into bottom-up appropriation of state nostalgia. A double temporal operation, where the past is made present through nostalgic coding while the present is made past through scripted embedding, further distinguishes neo-Ottoman drama from historical entertainment. These concepts position paratext as a political filter foregrounding the infrastructural role of historical drama in mobilizing audience desire.