A Jurisprudential Study of Women's Management in the Light of Revelation With Special References to Imam Khomeini's Jurisprudential Approach

The main thrust of the present paper is to find out whether appointment of women to top managerial positions (such as general director, minister and head of the three branches of government) is permissible from jurisprudential point of view. In the first place the Quranic verse on the basis of which jurisprudents try to prove the impermissibility of appointment of women to managerial or governmental positions are analyzed and then their connotations are critically studied. The main verse used by the jurisprudents is the verse 34 of Chapter 4 of the holy Quran. Imam Khomeini’s fatwa as well as his argumentation given in his book, Tahrir al-Vasileh, is discussed in this paper. An analysis of the said verse makes it clear that the "protector and maintainer" refers to the role of husband (man) in the family which denotes to man’s responsibility in protecting the family. The Arabic concept of fadhl means affluence and its referent, based on some part of the said verse (some of them to others) is men’s power of reasoning and physical health as well as emotion and beauty of women. This verse does not at all prove the absolute guardianship of men over women and hence through connotation one cannot infer the impermissibly of governance and management for women. Neither other verses refer to the impermissibility of managerial or governmental positions for women.