From Male Authority to Female Agency: A Genealogical Study of Discursive Shifts in Contemporary Theology of Hijab

Mohajer Milani, Amir

doi:10.22059/jstmt.2025.395069.1791

Document Type : Research Article / Original Article

Author

Amir Mohajer Milani

Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Jurisprudence and Law, Women and Family Research institute, Qom, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22059/jstmt.2025.395069.1791

Abstract

In the years preceding the Iranian Constitutional Revolution, the gradual incorporation of modern epistemic frameworks into Iranian intellectual life posed profound challenges to the authority of established, tradition-bound modes of thought. Confronted with these epistemological disruptions, religious discourses could no longer rely exclusively on doctrinal rigidity or devotional orthodoxy. At the same time, the deeply entrenched character of traditional knowledge—shaped by centuries of religious and cultural continuity—significantly constrained its capacity for adaptation and reconfiguration in response to emerging paradigms.Within this context, interpretations of the hijab, grounded in premodern epistemologies and largely devoid of women’s subjective presence, were frequently shaped by patriarchal assumptions and, at times, explicit misogyny. Such readings increasingly proved untenable amid the shifting intellectual and social dynamics of modern Iran. As traditional epistemes fractured and were reconstituted under the pressures of modernity, religious thought was compelled to reassess its foundational premises. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s archaeological method, this study investigates the nature and conditions of this epistemic rupture within contemporary Islamic thought. By dividing the historical trajectory into three key periods—pre-Pahlavi, the Pahlavi era (excluding its final decade), and the years immediately preceding the Islamic Revolution—the study traces transformations in discourses surrounding the hijab. It argues that the entanglement of religious tradition with cultural norms, together with the emergence of female agency in public and intellectual life, necessitated a reformulation of religious language—one that is gender-inclusive and responsive to a transformed epistemological landscape.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Intellectual, historical and civilizational traditions of Muslim social thought

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Social Theories of Muslim Thinkers

From Male Authority to Female Agency: A Genealogical Study of Discursive Shifts in Contemporary Theology of Hijab

References

References

Volume 15, Issue 4
December 2025
Pages 19-40

From Male Authority to Female Agency: A Genealogical Study of Discursive Shifts in Contemporary Theology of Hijab

References

References

Volume 15, Issue 4December 2025Pages 19-40

Volume 15, Issue 4
December 2025
Pages 19-40