Description of political and religious changes in Iran over the past quarter-century and their influence on the position and lives of women. In part I Halper describes the formal changes that took place in the area of family law after the Revolution when Shari'a became the law of the state. Part II examines the situation of women before and during the Revolution. Part III considers the impact of the politics of the revolutionary period on the post-revolutionary legal regime, paying particular attention to the crucial roles that women played in the Revolution. She concludes with a discussion of veiling and the ways in which that issue has come both to symbolize and also impact women’s status. In Part IV she examines the phenomenon of 'Islamic feminism' and the attempts to reconceive a religious jurisprudence that eliminates misogynistic tendencies. Halper concludes that Shari’a law is open to reinterpretation through a process of political and social negotiation within its framework, and that Iranian women have been agents of that reinterpretation.