ABSTRACT
This chapter is a study of women’s rights in Iran, with an emphasis on the legal provisions in the Iranian Civil Code. As Homa Hoodfar asserts, “The single most important area of Iranian women’s concern is the Family Code, which, as it stands, effectively renders any legal gain women may have made in other areas futile.” 1 The Iranian Civil Code was approved in three stages. Volume I on properties (articles 1-955) was enacted by the majlis in 1928. Volume II on persons (articles 956-1256) was enacted in 1934. Volume III on evidence in proving claims (articles 1257-1335) was enacted in 1935 2 during the rule of Reza Shah Phalavi (r. 1925-1941) as part of his modernization and secularization attempts “to reduce the judicial role of the clergy” and to establish “a centrally controlled legal system”. 3 The Iranian Family Law was codified as a part of the Iranian Civil Code between 1928 and 1935. As Nikkie Keddie notes, that while the 1928 Civil Code “shows French influence, it largely restated shari’a principles, updated where modern exigencies required”. 4 According to Hamid Bahrami Ahmadi, a number of ulama were
1 Homa Hoodfar, “Iranian Women at the Intersection of Citizenship and the Family Code: The Perils of ‘Islamic Criteria’ ” in Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Suad Joseph (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 288.
