Debating Islamic Feminism; an Iranian Case

The debate between the secular and religious women groups heightened the controversy around Islamic feminism in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has undergone a radical shift from a secular monarchy toward a Shia Islamic theocracy. Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran established the rule of a clerical caste (velayat-e faghih) whose authority over social-political-religious system is absolute, wherein they enforced a kind of fundamentalist Islamism in both ideational and behavioral level. This is the reason why an extreme polarization occurs among Iranian scholars and activists in terms of their methodology and strategy for achieving gender equality and justice in the context of Islamic Republic.