Female Religious Authority in Shi'i Islam

13 case studies of women exercising religious authority in Shiʿi Islam from the classical period to the present

Islamic religious authority is conventionally understood to be an exclusively male purview. Yet when dissected into its various manifestations – leading prayer, preaching, issuing fatwas, transmitting hadith, judging in court, teaching law, theology, and other Islamic sciences and generally shaping the Islamic scholarly tradition – nuances emerge that hint at the presence of women in the performance of some of these functions.

This collection of case studies, covering the period from classical Islam to the present, and taken from across the Shiʿi Islamic world, reflects on the roles that women have played in exercising religious authority across time and space. Comparative reflection on the case studies allows for the formulation of hypotheses regarding the conditions and developments – whether theological, jurisprudential, social, economic, or political – that enhanced or stifled the flourishing of female religious authority in Shiʿi Islam.

Key Features

• Features case studies of women exercising religious authority, including hadith transmitters, jurists, scholars of religion, women acting as representative for a leading ayatollah and women judges
• Addresses the classical, medieval and modern periods
• Brings together scholars from Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Anthropology, History and Art History
• Provides insight into contemporary debates about female religious authority in Islam
• Questions assumptions about the inherently progressive agenda of female religious authorities

Contributors

• Yasmin Amin, University of Exeter
• Michael Barry, American University of Afghanistan
• Alyssa Gabbay, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Robert Gleave, University of Exeter
• Mirjam Künkler, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study
• Raffaele Mauriello, Allameh Tabataba'i University
• Maryam Rutner, New York University
• Devin Stewart, Emory University
• Edith Szanto, University of Alabama
• Liyakat Takim, McMaster University
• Yusuf Ünal, Emory University