Reinterpreting religious authority: Women as Islamic jurists for addressing gender justice in Pakistan

Abstract

This article provides a rigorous re-examination of women's religious authority in Islam through a focused inquiry into the permissibility and implications of appointing women as jurists (muftiyyāt) in Pakistan. Deploying contemporary feminist hermeneutics alongside classical and modern Islamic Jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh), it argues that the historical marginalization of women from formal law-making is a contingent socio-political construction rather than a theologically mandated prohibition. By exposing the patriarchal epistemologies embedded within Pakistan's religious and juridical institutions, the article reconceptualizes ijtihād as a Qurʾānically grounded practice oriented toward justice, equity, and compassion. It contends that the systematic inclusion of women's interpretive voices constitutes not only a doctrinally defensible development in Islamic legal thought, but also an ethical imperative for realizing gender justice, human dignity, and accountable moral agency in contemporary Pakistan. Recognizing women as authoritative interpreters of Islamic Law thus emerges as both a normative requirement and a practical catalyst for jurisprudential renewal and reform.