Political and social positions of women from the perspective of the Shia Jurisprudence and Constitutional Law of Islamic Republic of Iran

Making accurate multi-dimensional judgments about women’s rights, specially where they relate to taking political and social positions, must be based on truthful understanding of many criteria such as principles, bases, foundations and jurisprudential and legal causes of these rights. A lot of books and papers are published in the areas of jurisprudential causes and legal bases of women rights, but the issue of bases and principles of rights are mostly ignored. This thesis, attempts to investigate and scrutinize the principles and bases without studying the examples of social and political positions and their jurisprudential and legal assessment in detail. Reflecting on the ontological, anthropological and pivotal principles that determine rights and duties shows that taking political and social positions at the highest levels is possible for women in special circumstances. In jurisprudential terms, the results of this thesis show that with the exception of “leadership” and “judgment”, taking positions are not in themselves prohibited by religious law unless they are related to matters that Islamic Sharia does not accept them. It should also be noted that even with the assumption of the religious prohibition taking some administrative positions, in case there are some social interests, legal jurisprudential prohibitions of taking these positions must be eliminated by the order of the Islamic leader. In the legal system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, it seems that there are no prohibitions on taking political and social positions, except for three positions: supreme leader, president and judgment, though existence of restrictive approach to taking the position of president in Iran comes from concerns on necessities, special requirements and duties of such great responsibility. Thus, according to the principles, there is no restriction on taking social and political positions. Based on jurisprudential rules, there are restrictions on taking leadership and judgment; thus derived from institutional law of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there also exist restrictions on taking the positions of supreme leadership, president and judgment. In all such cases where there is no prohibition on taking positions, attaining of positions depends on exact observance of Islamic concerns and the provisions of the Constitution and ordinary laws that are intended to protect the Islamic identity of the society and defend the personality and identity of the Muslim woman.