Believing Bodies: Gender, Islam, Violence and Transformation in Contemporary Iran

This article examines the role of religion in shaping conflict and peace in contemporary Iran through the lens of gender and Islamic feminist activism. Drawing on a historical genealogy from the Qajar era to the Islamic Republic and to present times, it shows how women’s bodies and legal status have been central to the biopolitical construction of the modern nation and to the contested terrain where emergent gender identities and state violence have intersected. At the same time, the article highlights how Iranian Muslim feminists—scholars, activists, and ordinary women—have articulated internal critiques of patriarchal jurisprudence through renewed interpretations of the Qur’an and Islamic law. These reinterpretations challenged structural violence, promoted legal reform, and generated educational spaces that cultivate critical reasoning and ethical agency grounded in Islamic tradition. Nowadays, rather than offering definitive solutions, Islamic feminism provides culturally situated tools for rethinking conflict, expanding interpretive authority, and fostering everyday practices of nonviolent transformation within the framework of the Islamic Republic.