Women’s Ijtihad and Lady Amin’s Islamic Ethics on Womanhood and Motherhood

Abstract

Women’s position, identity, and value in Islam have been affected by androcentric interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith throughout Islamic history. Women’s roles in society, as well as their position vis-à-vis Islamic sources and authority, have been shaped by these interpretations. In Shi’a Islam, due to the majority male clergy’s resistance, women have rarely reached the highest loci of Shi’i authority and jurisprudence. However, there have been women scholars who have transgressed these normative frameworks. Lady Amin, who was one of the most prominent Iranian theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries, is a notable example. Lady Amin had great knowledge of jurisprudence and gained the status of mujtahida at the age of forty. Her scholarly work addressed not only interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith, but also women’s issues and gender politics of her time. This study addresses women’s ijtihad in Shi’a Islam and investigates Lady Amin’s teachings on the topics of womanhood and motherhood. This study focuses on Lady Amin’s book of Islamic ethics, titled Ways of Happiness: Suggestions for Faithful Sisters, written as a Shi’i source of guidance with a specific focus on women and gender in Shi’a Islam.

Temporary Marriages, Mahramiyat, and the Rights of the Child in Shiʿi Adoption

“…Iranian laws should be seen as a possible site for fiqhi and non-religious perspectives to work as competing as well as moderating forces. In fact, in the contemporary Twelver Shiʿi model of fiqh, the focus on the social potential of fiqh and the significance of orf could be instrumental in reinterpreting shariʿa and might lead to change in the existing epistemological and authoritative orders (Rahbari 2020b). The notion of social fiqh is central in the Islamic Republic's interpretation of shariʿa and refers to religious jurisprudence that goes beyond individual prescriptions and targets direct or indirect social implications (Shakeri and Abdoli 2015).27 As such, social fiqh is based partly on the idea that religious rulings should be grounded, contextualized, and drawn on the social and political realities of the context.…”

Redefining Motherhood as A New Perspective: Transmission of Motherhood in Women Terrorism

“…Motherhood is known crosses with various values, from class, ethnic (Lim H, 2019), religion (Rahbari, 2020), ability (Korzec, 1997), sexuality (Rosenthal & Lobel, 2016), popular culture (Bates, 2018), economy (Glauber, 2018), neoliberalism (Boyer, 2014), globalization (Kuleshova, 2015), politics (Christensen, 2018), social media (Harding et al, 2021), to agency or maternal activity (Cook, 2020). Unfortunately, these studies are not interrelated with other issues and there is no single study which focus its discussion on the development of the scope of motherhood values, especially those that lead to terrorism.…”

Biopolitics of Non-Motherhood: Childfree Women on a Persian-Language Digital Platform for Mothers

“…The Iranian society is not homogeneous and has diverse attitudes toward voluntary non-motherhood (childfreeness) that vary dramatically based on many factors such as but not limited to religiosity, education, socio-economic background, and rural-urban settings. Motherhood is traditionally valued, especially among the majority of the country's Shi'ite population, who adhere to the Twelver Shi'a branch of Islam (Rahbari, 2020b). Overall, non-motherhood could be considered a less-privileged position in both society and politics.…”