The Lives of Two Mujtahidāt : Female Religious Authority in Twentieth-century Iran

Abstract

The chapter introduces two Iranian female mujtahidāt, Nuṣrat Amīn (1886-1983) and Zuhrah Ṣifātī (1948-), two outstanding female religious authorities of 20th century Iran. Nuṣrat Amīn is one of the most influential Shī‘a female religious authorities of modern times, who in her own right granted men ijāzāt of ijtihād and riwāya. Zuhrah Ṣifātī is the most prominent female religious authority of the Islamic Republic and a long-time member of the Women’s Socio-Cultural Council, where she heads the committee on fiqh and law. Both women’s work was strongly influenced by the socio-political environment in and against which they defined themselves. While Amīn underwent her formative period as an Islamic scholar at a time when madrasahs were slowly replaced by secular public schools and religious courts by the apparatus of a modern state judiciary, Ṣifātī experienced the reversal of some of these reforms when the 1979 Revolution sought to Islamicize the entire legal system and enhanced the status of religious learning. A comparison of the two women’s lives and works shows the extent to which political circumstances have shaped the opportunities for women to aspire to and acquire religious authority.