A New Look at the Jurisprudential Ruling of the 'Female Jihad'

As a result of the complexity of life today and diversity of wars, the issue of jihad of the women is subject to the scientific and Islamic jurisprudential disputes. According to jurisprudential teachings, the women have been removed from the responsibility of primary jihad but not defensive jihad. In the case of primary jihad, one of the important and prominent issues in today’s life is the necessity of women’s involvement in the expansion of Islam and Islamic values and attainment of virtues that are achievable in this area. Therefore, primary jihad or jihad of calling, which means “going into war by Muslims under certain circumstances and conditions in the absence of any attack by polytheists and infidels solely to call hem to Islam”, is held to be non-obligatory for women according to many Islamic scholars. This paper, thus, studies, refines, and verifies the concept of the lack of necessity of primary jihad for women and tries to provide a way to prove the necessity of jihad for women, such as the generalities of the evidences for the obligation of jihad or withdrawing the prohibition of jihad for women in the case of involving physical contact with the enemy. In other cases which doesn’t involve such physical contact with enemy, such as nursing the wounded or cooking for fighters, necessity of jihad for women is well-established.