Abstract

The field of religio-legal authority, whether in Islam, Catholic and Eastern Christianity, or Judaism, is still by and large a field that lacks gender diversity. Rarely are women accepted as interpreters of religious law, as prayer leaders in front of mixed congregations, or as religious leaders whose advice is sought beyond questions pertaining to the private sphere. But in Islam the field is slowly changing, and has been for the better part of a decade now, as in several states programs are underway that train women as Islamic juristic authorities: the women ayatollahs of Iran come to mind, as do the murshidat of Morocco, female jurists that have joined fatwa boards in pre-war Syria and Indonesia, and women who have been appointed judges to Sudanese and Malaysian courts applying Islamic law.

This lecture will offer an overview of new initiatives promoting women’s juristic authority in Islamic law and the jurisprudential as well as political justifications that are given in each of these contexts. It will discuss the extent and forms of these programs and offer a typology of what type of authority women tend to be trained in. It will be suggested that contrary to public perceptions, in many of these contexts local Islamic legal traditions are more permissive regarding women’s religio-legal authority than current social practices would indicate.