Mirjam KÜNKLER

Although numerous historical examples attest to women serving as muftīyāt (interpreters of Islamic law), faqīhāt (jurists of Islamic law), muḥaddithāt (transmitters of hadith), and scholars of Islam across the centuries, women are rarely accepted as authoritative interpreters of Islamic law today. The 20th century in particular has seen various legal and educational barriers for women who seek to acquire Islamic religious authority on par with men. Notably, the contemporary situation is often more restrictive for women than injunctions of the schools of Islamic law (madhāhib) allow for.

The book provides examples of authoritative female interpreters of Islamic law in the history of Islamic civilizations and examines why women have by and large less religious authority today than the classical sources allow for. It also highlights the important initiatives that are underway in various part of the Muslim world to counter existing restrictions. The past decade in particular has witnessed some consequential changes as several Muslim-majority states have established or reformed institutional and legal frameworks to allow for the training and certification of women as muftis, vice muftis, judges, or advisory judges. The book documents these efforts.

Prof. Dr. Mirjam Künkler studied Political Science, African Studies, Oriental Studies, and Economics at the Universities of Leipzig, Paris, and Cape Town. In 2008, she earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University, NY, with a dissertation on “Democratization, Islamic Thought, and Social Movements: Coalitional Success and Failure in Iran and Indonesia” under the mentorship of Charles Tilly, Alfred Stepan, and Said Arjomand. Subsequently, Mirjam Künkler taught Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. She was also a guest professor at the University of Tehran and the Islamic State University of Makassar in Indonesia. She has published books with Columbia University Press, Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press, and is a PI of the Iran Data Portal. She is co-editor-in-chief of the Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and Politics and the Cambridge Journal of Law and Religion. She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (Wiley), the International Journal of Islam in Asia (Brill), the Digest of Middle East Studies (Wiley) and Iranian Studies (Cambridge).

• KÜNKLER, Mirjam and Hadi ENAYAT. The Rule of Law in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Power, Institutions, and the Limits of Reform. Cambridge University Press, 2023, 420 p

• KÜNKLER, Mirjam. “Lawyers in the Muslim World: Between Social Transformation, Judicial Control, and Feminisation” in Rick Abel, Ole Hammerslev, Hillary Sommerlad, Ulrike Schultz (eds.). Lawyers in 21st-Century Societies: Comparisons and Theories. Oxford: Hart, 2022, pp. 73-97.

• KÜNKLER, Mirjam and Devin STEWART (eds.). Female Religious Authority in Shi’i Islam: Past and Present. Edinburgh and Oxford University Press, 2021, 320 p. A Persian translation is forthcoming with Elmi Publishers, Tehran, titled

مرجعیت دینی زن در شیعه : گذشته و حال      

• KÜNKLER, Mirjam, “The Bureaucratization of Religious Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” in Arif A. Jamal, Jaclyn L. Neo, and Daniel Goh (eds.): Regulating Religion in Asia: Norms, Modes, and Challenges, Cambridge University Press, 2019, 187-206.

• KÜNKLER, Mirjam, John MADELEY and Shylashri SHANKAR (eds.). A Secular Age Beyond the West. Religion, Law and the State in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Cambridge University Press, 2018, 440 p.

• KÜNKLER, Mirjam and Alfred STEPAN (eds.). Democracy and Islam in Indonesia. Columbia University Press, 2013, 272 p. [Arabic version: Mirjam KÜNKLER and Alfred STEPAN (eds.). Al-Dimokratia va al-Islam fi Indonisia, Beirut, 2016.]