¹ Yakar, Sümeyra, “The Usage of Custom in the Contemporary Legal System of Saudi Arabia: Divorce on Trial,” Kilis 7 Aralık Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 6, no. 11 (2019): 371–94Google Scholar, at 372.

² Yakar, “The Usage of Custom in the Contemporary Legal System of Saudi Arabia,” 372; Yakar, Sümeyra, Islamic Jurisprudence and the Role of Custom: A Comparative Case Study of Saudi Arabia and Iran (New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2022), 72 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ al-Atawneh, Muhammad, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity: Dār al-Iftā in the Modern Saudi State (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 8, 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 6.

⁵ Yakar, Emine Enise and Yakar, Sümeyra, “The Symbolic Relationship between ‘Ulamā’ and ‘Umarā’ in Contemporary Saudi Arabia,” Middle Eastern Studies 13, no. 1 (2021): 23–46 Google Scholar, at 32–34.

⁶ The Ten Point Program had the following aspirations: (1) to promulgate a Fundamental Law, establishing the relationship between the ruler and those being ruled, and to define State administration; (2) to regulate the provincial administration; (3) to establish a Ministry of Justice; (4) to establish an iftā’ council; (5) to propagate Islam (da’wa); (6) to reform the Committee for Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong; (7) to improve the nation’s quality of life; (8) to issue new regulations accommodating new social developments and economic changes; (9) to promote financial and economic development; and (10) to abolish slavery in the kingdom. See “Ministerial Statement of 6 November 1962 by Prime Minister Amir Faysal of Saudi Arabia,” Middle East Journal 17, no. 1/2 (1963): 161–62.

⁷ Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 17.

⁸ Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Āl al-Shaykh is one of the prominent religious figures who had a powerful influence upon the Saudi society, so until his death, King Faysal did not initiate any reform policy within the structure of the Dār al-Iftā’. To a great extent, Shaykh Ibrāhīm Āl al-Shaykh’s charismatic religious personality and broad institutional power frustrated King Faysal’s aspiration to restructure the Dār al-Iftā’. See Yakar, Emine Enise, Islamic Law and Society: The Practice of Iftā’ and Religious Institutions (New York: Routledge, 2022), 27–28 Google Scholar, 52; Yakar and Yakar, “The Symbolic Relationship between ‘Ulamā’ and ‘Umarā’ in Contemporary Saudi Arabia,” 33–38.

⁹ Royal Decree A/90, 1 March 1990, https://www.saudiembassy.net/basic-law-governance.

¹⁰ Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, xiv.

¹¹ Royal Decree A/90, 1 March 1990.

¹² Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 21, 25, 42.

¹³ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 64–71.

¹⁴ Vogel, Frank, Islamic Law and Legal System: Studies of Saudi Arabia (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 115–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Yakar, “The Usage of Custom in the Contemporary Legal System of Saudi Arabia, 379, 385.

¹⁵ Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 41.

¹⁶ Al-Atawneh, 2, 147; Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 225–26.

¹⁷ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 74–75.

¹⁸ On the changing functions and authority of the office of the Shaykh al-Islam during the Ottoman Sultanate, see Emine Enise Yakar, “A Critical Comparison between the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) and the Office of Shaykh al-Islâm,” Kilis 7 Aralık Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 6, no. 11 (2019): 421–52, at 422–33. For the political influence of fatwās issued by the muftīs in the office of the Shaykh al-Islam, see also Erdoğdu Başaran, Reyhan, “Does Being Rafidi Mean Shi`ite? The Representation of the Kızılbaş Belief in the Sixteenth Century Ottoman Records,” Trabzon İlahiyat Dergisi 6, no. 1 (2019): 11–35 Google Scholar, at 19n27.

¹⁹ Zeki Salih Zengin, “II. Meşrutiyet Döneminde Islahat Çalışmaları Çerçevesinde Medreselerin Kuruluş Sistemi ve İdari Teşkilatı” [Within the framework of reform activities the establishment system of madrasas and administrative organization in the constitutional period II], Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, no. 9 (1999): 431–49, at 436, 444–45; Arzu Güldöşüren, “İki Farklı Merkez İki Farklı Nizamnâme: 1914 Islâh-ı Medâris ve 1921 Medâris-i İlmiyye Nizamnâmesi” [Two different centers, two different regulations: 1914 Reform of Madrasas and 1921 Regulation of Madrasas Science], in Osmanlı Medreseleri Eğitim, Yönetim ve Finans [Ottoman madrasas’ education, administration and finance], ed. Fuat Aydın et al. (İstanbul: Mahya Yayıncılık, 2019), 491–520, at 499, 502–03.

²⁰ Akman, Ahmet, “Tanzimat Sonrası Osmanlı Usûl Hukukundaki Gelişmeler” [Development in the Ottoman procedural law after the Tanzimat period], Manas Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi 8, no. 1 (2019): 431–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 433, 444–46; Yakar, “A Critical Comparison,” 432–33.

²¹ These reforms can be regarded as the preparatory stage to declare the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. Ali Akyıldız, “Şer‘iyye ve Evkaf Vekâleti” Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi [Turkish religious foundation of the Encyclopedia of Islam] (İstanbul: TDV Yayınları, 2010), 397–98; Yakar, “A Critical Comparison,” 433, 442–43.

²² Yakar, “A Critical Comparison,” 434.

²³ Act no. 429 dated 3 March 1924, Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), no. 63 (March 6, 1924), https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/arsiv/63.pdf. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Turkish are the author’s.

²⁴ Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, 1982, article 2, https://global.tbmm.gov.tr/docs/constitution_en.pdf.

²⁵ Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, 1982, article 4.

²⁶ Act no. 633 dated 22 June 1965, Resmi Gazzete, no. 12038 (July 2, 1965), https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/arsiv/12038.pdf.

²⁷ Act no. 6002 dated 1 July 2010, Resmi Gazzete, no. 27640 (July 13, 2010), https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2010/07/20100713-2.htm.

²⁸ Act no. 6002 dated 1 July 2010.

²⁹ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 75.

³⁰ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 96–97, 99–100; Yiğit, Yaşar et al., Religious Affairs Presidency: High Religious Affairs Committee (Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Yayın Matbaacılık ve Ticaret İşletmesi, 2010), 4 Google Scholar.

³¹ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 92.

³² Act no. 93/4257 dated 19 February 1993, Resmi Gazzete, no. 12567 (April 30, 1993), https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/arsiv/21567.pdf.

³³ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 102; Thomas, Joshua E., “Improving Education through Devotion: A Religious Solution to Eastern Turkey’s Gender Gap,” William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice 24, no. 3 (2018): 665–88Google Scholar, at 674.

³⁴ Calderini, Simonetta, Women as Imams: Classical Islamic Sources and Modern Debates on Leading Prayer (London: Tauris, 2021), 13 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 160.

³⁵ Calderini terms the first approach “conservative” and the second approach “progressive” in analyzing the issue of female prayer leadership to evidence the use of the tradition and the recovery of the past in building the present legal opinions. Calderini, Women as Imams, 7, 13, 166–71. Instead of using Calderini’s denomination, I prefer to term the first approach “orthodox” for its predominant acceptance among majority Muslims and the second approach “reformist” because of its emphasis on a need of reform, especially in the realm of ‘ibādāt (ritual practices) whose forms, limits, and rulings were identified and fixed by the Prophet in a way that is not open to any change. A minority of Muslim scholars espouse the reformist approach.

³⁶ For the Dār al-Iftā”s fatwās on this issue, see the following: Fatwā No. 2428, in Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 7:391–92, accessed August 30, 2021, https://www.alifta.gov.sa/En/IftaContents/PermanentCommitee/Pages/FatawaSubjects.aspx?cultStr=en&View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&RamadanEntryID=0&RamadanEntryName=&NodeID=633&PageID=2552&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=2593&MarkIndex=19&0#Isitpermissibleforawomanto; Fatwā No. 2218, in Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 7:392, accessed August 30, 2021, https://www.alifta.gov.sa/En/IftaContents/PermanentCommitee/Pages/FatawaChapters.aspx?View=Page&PageID=2553&CultStr=&PageNo=1&NodeID=1&BookID=7. For the Diyanet’s fatwā, see Kurulu, Din İşleri Yüksek, Fetvalar [Fatwās] (Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı Yayınları, 2015), 169 Google Scholar.

³⁷ Fatwā No. 2218.

³⁸ Fatwā No. 2428.

³⁹ Fatwā No. 2428. For further detail of the Umm Waraqa ḥadīth, see Calderini, Women as Imams, 99, 102–06.

⁴⁰ Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu, Fetvalar, 169.

⁴¹ Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu, 169.

⁴² Din İşleri Yüksek Kurulu, 168–69. The Ḥanafī school qualifies the women’s leading women in prayer as a reprehensible act; the Mālikī school rejects such a position; and the Shāfi‘ and Ḥanbalī schools approve women leading women in prayer, applying the ‘A’isha and Umm Salama ḥadīths as legal evidence. For details on the positions of the four schools, see Calderini, Women as Imams, 62–77.

⁴³ Fatwā No. 11780, in Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 17:13–16, accessed May 5, 2022, https://www.alifta.gov.sa/En/IftaContents/PermanentCommitee/Pages/FatawaChapters.aspx?cultStr=en&View=Page&PageID=6291&PageNo=1&BookID=7.

⁴⁴ Āḥād hadith means reports that were transmitted by a limited number of chains of transmission.

⁴⁵ Fatwā No. 11780.

⁴⁶ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları” [The participation of women in business and political life], Din İṣleri Yüsek Kurulu Dini Bilgilendirme Platformu, accessed August 27, 2015, https://fetva.diyanet.gov.tr/Karar-Mutalaa-Cevap/2913/kadinlarin-is-hayatinda-ve-yonetimde-yer-almalari. Currently, this report is not available on the Diyanet’s website, but it is available (in Turkish) at Sorularla İslamiyet (website): “Kadınların devlet başkanı, hakim ve vali olması ile ilgili, ‘Bir kavmin başına kadın hükümdar gelirse, o kavim helak olmaya mahkumdur.’ şeklinde bir hadis-i şerif var mıdır?” [With regard to appointing women as president, judge and governor, is there a hadīth meaning that if a woman ruler is appointed to her community, this community is doomed to vanish?], Sorularla İslamiyet, accessed August 6, 2021, https://sorularlaislamiyet.com/kadinin-devlet-baskani-hakim-ve-vali-olmasi-ile-ilgili-bir-kavmin-basina-kadin-hukumdar-gelirse-o. I provide translations of key passages of the Diyanet’s report throughout my analysis.

⁴⁷ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁴⁸ Fatwā No. 11780. The ḥadīth states: “Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler.” Abū ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn Ismā’īl al-Buhārī, Hadīth no. 7099, in Mokhtaser Sahih al-Bukhari: Text and Translation, vol. 9, trans. Ahmad Zidan and Dina Zidan (Cairo: Islamic Inc. Publishing, 1999), 1583. In the other version of the same hadith, Abū Bakra relates, “God benefited me during the days (of the battle) of Al-Jamal [Camel], Allāh benefited me with a word I heard from Allāh’s Messenger after I had been about to join the companions of Al-Jamal (i.e., the camel) and fight along with them. When Allāh’s Messenger was informed that the Persians had crowned the daughter of Kisra (Khosrau) as their ruler, he said, “Such people as ruled by a lady will never be successful.” Al-Buhārī, Hadīth no. 4425, in Zidan and Zidan, Moktaser Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukharī, vol. 5, 436.

⁴⁹ Metcalfe, Beverly Dawn and Mutlaq, Lulwa, “Women, Leadership and Development: Reappraising the Feminine in Leadership Theorising in the Middle East,” in Leadership Development in the Middle East, ed. Metcalfe, Beverly Dawn and Mimnouni, Fouad (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2011), 328–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 334.

⁵⁰ Fatwā No. 11780.

⁵¹ al-Atawneh, Muhammad, “Wahhābī Legal Theory as Reflected in Modern Official Saudi Fatwās: Ijtihād, Taqlid, Sources, and Methodology,” Islamic Law and Society 18, nos. 3–4 (2011): 327–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 346.

⁵² Brown, Jonathan A. C., “Did the Prophet Say It or Not? The Literal, Historical, and Effective Truth of Ḥadīths in Early Sunnism,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 129, no. 2 (2009): 259–85Google Scholar, at 276.

⁵³ Fatwā No. 5082, in Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 4:364–65, accessed May 5, 2022, https://www.alifta.gov.sa/En/IftaContents/PermanentCommitee/Pages/FatawaSubjects.aspx?cultStr=en&View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&RamadanEntryID=0&RamadanEntryName=&NodeID=4046&PageID=1242&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=1246&MarkIndex=0&0#SomepeopleholdthatHadith-ul-Ahad.

⁵⁴ Fatwā No. 5082.

⁵⁵ Farhat Naz Rahman and Kiran Memon, “Political Participation of Women: Contemporary Perspective of Gender and Islam,” Weber Sociology & Anthropology 1, no. 1 (2015), 1–4, at 1 (article ID wsa_108, 50-53, 2015).

⁵⁶ The Qur’an 60:12 reads: “O Prophet! If believing women come to you, taking oath of allegiance to you that they will ascribe nothing as partner to Allah, and will neither steal, nor commit adultery, nor kill their children, nor produce any lie that they have devised between their hands and feet, nor disobey you in what is right, then accept their allegiance and ask Allah to forgive them. Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” Sahib Mustaqim Bleher, ed., The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an: An Explanatory Translation by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall […] (Istanbul: Islamic Dawah Centre International, 2015), 330.

⁵⁷ Rahman and Memon, “Political Participation of Women,” 1.

⁵⁸ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁵⁹ Emir Kaya, “Balancing Interlegality through Realist Altruism: Diyanet Mediation in Turkey,” PhD diss., University of London, 2011, 124.

⁶⁰ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁶¹ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁶² Fatwā No. 11780.

⁶³ Al-Atawneh, “Wahhābī Legal Theory,” 348, as cited from Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Rāziq al-Dawīsh, Fatawā al-Lajna al-Dā’ima li al-Buḥūth al-‘Ilmiyya wa al-Iftā wa al-Da‘wā wa al-Irshād [Fatwās of the Permanent Committee for Scientific Research, Legal Opinion, Invitation and Guidance], vol. 13 (Riyadh: Maktabad al-‘Ibīkān, 2000), 15.

⁶⁴ Glassé, Cyril, s.v. “Battle of the Camel,” in The New Encyclopedia of Islam: Revised Edition of the Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2001), 80 Google Scholar; Al-Ṭabarī, “The Community Divided: The Caliphate of ’Ali I A.D. 656–657/A.H. 35–36,” vol. 16 of The History of al-Ṭabarī, trans. Adrian Brockett (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 125–73; Lindsay, James E., Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2005), 67–70 Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Calderini, Women as Imams, 56.

⁶⁶ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁶⁷ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 118–19.

⁶⁸ Şamil Dağcı, “Din İṣleri Yüsek Kurulu Karalarına Fetva Konseptinde Bir Yaklaşım” [An approach to the fatwā concept of the High Board of Religious Affairs], Diyanet İlmi Dergi 38, no. 4 (2002): 5–20, at 11 (my translation).

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⁷³ Jalajel, Women and Leadership, 66.

⁷⁴ Fatwā No. 11780.

⁷⁵ al-Rasheed, Madawi, A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics, and Religion in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 16–17 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁶ Fatwā No. 11780.

⁷⁷ Fatwā No. 11780.

⁷⁸ Fatwā No. 11780.

⁷⁹ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁸⁰ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁸¹ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

⁸² Calderini, Women as Imams, 28.

⁸³ Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 186–90; Amalkhon Y. Azimova, “Political Participation and Political Repression: Women in Saudi Arabia” (master’s thesis, University of Denver, 2016), 19.

⁸⁴ Within the legal methodology of the Ḥanbalī madhhab, a ḥadīth—whether it is transmitted along multiple paths (mutawātir), solitary (āḥād), widespread (mashhūr or mustafīḍ), or strange or rare (gharīb)—constitutes an invaluable and indispensable legal source. Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 186–87.

⁸⁵ In applying āḥād ḥadīths as legal evidence, the Ḥanafī madhhab identifies some conditions, so the probative value of these ḥadīths is controversial within the legal methodology of this madhhab. Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 189–90.

⁸⁶ Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 14–15.

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⁹⁰ Al-Rasheed, 19–20.

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⁹⁵ Kandiyoti, 38.

⁹⁶ Maritato, Chiara, Women, Religion and the State in Contemporary Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 2020), 265–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁹⁸ Esra Özdıl Gümüş, “A Brief History of Women’s Role in Conservative Turkish Politics,” Daily Sabah, October 30, 2019, https://www.dailysabah.com/op-ed/2019/10/30/a-brief-history-of-womens-role-in-conservative-turkish-politics.

⁹⁹ Çaha, Ömer, “The ‘Islamic Women’s’ Movement: Transition from the Private Domain to the Public Sphere,” in Economic Empowerment of Women in the Islamic World: Theory and Practice, ed. Azid, Toseef and Ward-Batts, Jennifer L. (London: World Scientific, 2020), 190–293 Google Scholar.

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¹⁰¹ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

¹⁰² Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 100.

¹⁰³ Al-Atawneh, 100.

¹⁰⁴ Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 20.

¹⁰⁵ Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 101–07; Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 68–9.

¹⁰⁶ Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 101; Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 68–69.

¹⁰⁷ Al-Atawneh, Wahhābī Islam Facing the Challenges of Modernity, 106.

¹⁰⁸ Al-Atawneh, 107; Yakar, Islamic Law and Society, 69.

¹⁰⁹ Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 21, 150–51,171–72; Azimova, “Political Participation,” 11–12.

¹¹⁰ Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 20–21; Safaa Fouad Rajkhan, “Women in Saudi Arabia: Status, Rights and Limitations” (master’s thesis, University of Washington Bothell, 2014), 15–16.

¹¹¹ Azimova, “Political Participation,” 5, 10–12.

¹¹² Fatwā No. 11780.

¹¹³ Azimova, “Political Participation,” 11.

¹¹⁴ Kandiyoti, “End of Empire,” 22.

¹¹⁵ Kandiyoti, 22.

¹¹⁶ Arat, Zehra F., “Turkish Women and the Republican Reconstruction of Tradition,” in Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East: Tradition, Identity, and Power, ed. Göçek, Fatma Müge and Balaghi, Shiva (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 62–63 Google Scholar.

¹¹⁷ Arat, “Turkish Women and the Republican,” 57.

¹¹⁸ Bennett, Clinton, Muslim Women of Power: Gender, Politics and Culture in Islam (London: Replika Press, 2010), 109 Google Scholar; Arat, Yeşim, “Gender and Cititzenship: Considerations on the Turkish Experience,” in Women and Power in the Middle East, ed. Joseph, Suad and Slyomovics, Susan (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 159–66Google Scholar, at 159, 161.

¹¹⁹ Sumeyye Pakdil Kesgin, “Profile of Power: Muslim, Turkish Women as Political Leaders,” PhD diss., University of Iowa 2017, 42.

¹²⁰ Sevig, Yesim, “The Participation of Women in Economic, Professional and Social Life in Turkey,” Quaderns de la Mediterrània 22 (2015): 129–31Google Scholar.

¹²¹ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

¹²² Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 265–67.

¹²³ Thomas, “Improving Education through Devotion,” 665, 681–82.

¹²⁴ Since 2003, the number of women religious officers in the Diyanet has incrementally increased. Women have been employed as Qur’an teachers, religious experts, and vice-muftīs. In 2017, Huriye Marti also assumed the vice-presidency of the institution. See Chiara Maritato, “Addressing the Blurred Edges of Turkey’s Diaspora and Religious Policy: Diyanet Women Preachers Sent to Europe,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, no. 27 (2018), paragraphs 1–3, https://doi.org/10.4000/ejts.6020. However, despite this increased inclusion of women into the body of the Diyanet, as noted, no woman has joined the High Board of Religious Affairs—the highest religious body that is responsible for issuing fatwās—since its establishment.

¹²⁵ Azimova, “Political Participation,” 21.

¹²⁶ Azimova, 43.

¹²⁷ Azimova, 24.

¹²⁸ Doumato, Elenaor Abdella, “Women in Saudi Arabia between Breadwinner and Domestic Icon?” in Women and Power in the Middle East, ed. Joseph, Suad and Slyomovics, Susan (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 166–76Google Scholar, at 166–68.

¹²⁹ Ali Hadi Omair, “Stereotypes of Saudi Women among Saudi College Students” (master’s thesis, DePaul University, 2017), 26, https://via.library.depaul.edu/csh_etd/226/.

¹³⁰ Omair, “Stereotypes of Saudi Women,” 35.

¹³¹ Lama Gazzaz, “Renaissance of Saudi Women Leaders’ Achievement,” PhD diss., Brunel University 2017, 48.

¹³² Samah al-Agha, “Female Judges in Saudi Arabia, Hope versus Reality,” Arab Law Quarterly (2021), published ahead of print, https://doi.org/10.1163/15730255-BJA10084.

¹³³ Fatwā No. 11780.

¹³⁴ Fatwā No. 11780.

¹³⁵ The ḥadīth identifies two types of deficiencies in women: one in religion and one in intellect. In the ḥadīth, the Prophet is narrated to explain that women’s deficiency in reason is linked to being incomplete witness and their deficiency in religion is connected to their state of impurity through menstruation, which prevents them from regular prayers. Abū ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn Ismā’īl al-Buhārī, Hadīth no. 477, in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukharī, vol. 1, trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan (Riyadh: Dar al-Salam, 1997), 210. Muslim scholars have differently explained deficiency in women and its limits. For example, Dabūsī construes the deficiency in women as a legal inability that is only restricted to the realm of ‘ibādāt. In his view, this legal inability does not extend to the realm of mu‘āmalāt. See Hakime Reyyan Yaşar, “Taḳvîmü’l-edille fi’l-uṣûl Adlı Eserde Akıl ve Akıl-Mükellef İlişkisi” [Reason and relationship between reason and obligant in the treatise Taqyīm al- Adilla fī’l-Uṣūl], in Akıl Kitabı—7 Mantık, Metafizik, Ahlak, Din, İnanç ve Dilde Akıl [Reason book—7, Logic, metaphysic, ethic, religion, belief and reason in language], ed. Turgut Akyüz (İstanbul: Ravza Yayınları 2021), 205–30, at 221.

¹³⁶ Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 5; Azimova, “Political Participation,” 14.

¹³⁷ Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 5.

¹³⁸ Omair, “Stereotypes of Saudi Women,” 27.

¹³⁹ Fatwā No. 11780, Fatwas of the Permanent Committee, 17:13–16.

¹⁴⁰ Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 57.

¹⁴¹ Al-Rasheed, 16–17, 57, 119–20, 153–74.

¹⁴² Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

¹⁴³ Arat, “Gender and Citizenship,” 160.

¹⁴⁴ Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 95–97.

¹⁴⁵ Çaha, “The ‘Islamic Women’s’ Movement,” 298–99.

¹⁴⁶ Kesgin, “Profile of Power,” 150–52; Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 16–18, 100.

¹⁴⁷ Kesgin, “Profile of Power,” 188.

¹⁴⁸ Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 253–57.

¹⁴⁹ Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

¹⁵⁰ Maritato, Women, Religion and the State, 253–54.

¹⁵¹ Maritato, 271–72, 281, 283–84.

¹⁵² Diyanet, “Kadınların İṣ Hayatında ve Siyasette Yer Almaları.”

¹⁵³ Ali Akbar, “Promoting Gender Equality within Islamic Tradition via Contextualist Approach,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 10, no. 8 (2016): 2617–22, at 2617, https://zenodo.org/record/1125643.