On 11 May 1917, the participants of the All-Russia Muslim Congress elected a woman, Mukhlisa Bubi, as a qāḍī (a Muslim judge) to the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Inner Russia and Siberia. Granting legal authority to a woman at a central religious institution was unprecedented in the Muslim world. This article explores how this...
Read More »Book: Female Religious Authority in Shi’i Islam, Past and Present
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...
Read More »The Life of Two Mujtahidahs: Female Religious Authority in 20th Century Iran
The present chapter introduces two Iranian female mujtahidahs, Nuṣrat Amīn (1886 - 1983) and Zuhrah Ṣifātī (1948 - ), who represent like few other contemporaries the status of female religious authority in 20th century Iran, divided by the...
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