A current claim focuses on the essential nature of Islam, and in particular, the inevitability of retrograde tendencies in respect to gender, where Islamic law is part of the structure of the state. This paper argues that law, whether based on revelation or constitution, works within a political context that determines its interpretive strategies, and hence the way that law is experienced in the lives of those it governs. Thus, there is little inevitability even about religious law. The situation of women in the Islamic Republic of Iran provides empirical support for this claim. The paper begins with a look at the general historical view of Muslim state entities as governed by shari'a, or divine law, and suggests, on the basis of current scholarship, that view is overstated. It then provides a historical background for examining law and politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), self-described as a shari'a state. It considers the development of the religious and political thought of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the IRI. Finally, it looks briefly at the situation of women and their burdens and contributions after the Iranian Revolution and the establishment of the IRI, and in particular examines two changes in the law of marriage and divorce - providing divorced women with wages for housework and inflation-indexing the marriage gift upon divorce. Both changes reflect the interplay of law and politics and are examples of a shift in thinking about the possibilities of shari'a. This shift, it argues, was made possible by Khomeini's prior recognition of the conflict between governance and traditional understandings of religious jurisprudence, and was made necessary by the demands of women themselves.