Iranian Religious Intellectuals and Challenges to the Dominant Discourses on Hijab

This article explores the content and theoretical foundations of a line of thinking about hijab that has emerged among Iranian religious intellectuals. While criticisms of hijab by women's rights activists and the views of seminary‐trained Shīʿī scholars about a range of other issues are well‐covered in the existing literature, this article illuminates the largely neglected issue of the stances of Iranian religious intellectuals on hijab. First, it presents a summary of the history of pre‐Islamic veiling, the Qurʾānic verses on veiling and the position of modern mainstream Shīʿī ʿulamāʾ on hijab. It then turns to the main discussion, exploring how three contemporary religious intellectuals – Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, Mohsen Kadivar and Sedigheh Vasmaghi – view the Qurʾānic verses on hijab. The article demonstrates how these scholars use a variety of theoretical tools to reason against the idea that hijab is an essential precept of Islam and oppose the policy of compulsory hijab at a societal level.