Women’s Social Participation with Respect to Ayatollah Mutahhari’s Theory of Justice

This article investigates Ayatollah Murtada Mutahhari’s understanding of the principle of justice and its impact on women’s social participation. Mutahhari (1919-1979) is one of the foremost thinkers of contemporary Iran who proposed a new theoretical foundation for the study of women’s rights based on rational-philosophical principles. Treating justice and natural rights as meta-jurisprudential principles, he supported women’s public life. Although Many studies have been conducted on Mutahhari’s views on women’s rights and have made significant contributions to the study of Mutahhari’s thought in terms of describing and examining his arguments, my article has certain features which distinguish it from previous studies. I pay particular attention to Mutahhari’s philosophical methodology of writing on gender-related issues particularly his approach to the principle of justice in his ijtihad methodology because I believe his ideas are the significant outcome of his rational methodology of ijtihad. In addition, most studies on Mutahhari’s thought on women’s questions mainly concentrated on his views on women’s familial rights, however, his contribution to women’s public life has been ignored. This study reveals that by adopting Mutahhari’s views of the principle of justice and its position in Islamic jurisprudence, different understandings of female social participation could be developed.