Can women become ‘Minister’ in Islam?

Abstract

This study aims to investigate Muslim women’s rights of obtaining the top rank religious position, from Mutahhari’s perspective. Mutahhari (1919-1979) was one of the contemporary prominent Shia philosopher and theologian who changed the traditional style of discussion from specialized jurisprudence to a socio-rational argument. As a result of his new approach to the question of women’s position, he brought novel interpretations suggesting that women could objectively take part in socio-political activities and occupy top-ranking religious authority. Mutahhari’s idea on women’s right to issue fatwas suffered a wave of criticism from the religious authorities that continues today. A substantial proportion of the prominent religious authorities exclude women from this domain.

The poster examines Mutahhari’s methodology in the use of the primary religious texts of the Qur’an and hadith traditions. In this process, some of the key concepts of women’s intellect, faith and justice (idalat) in the Qur’an and aḥādīth will be scrutinized. Then it will be concluded that, in Mutahhari’s thinking men and women share equality of right in obtaining high rank religious authority and there is no reason to confine the right of issuing fatwa to men’s authority only.