A Critical Theory of Gender and Islamic Jurisprudence: Toward a Feminist Islamic Legal Theory for Northern Nigeria

The engagement between feminist theory and Islamic jurisprudence has produced a growing body of scholarship on gender-conscious Quranic interpretation and Fiqh reformation that has not been systematically applied to the specific doctrinal challenges and social contexts of northern Nigerian Islamic legal practice. This study develops an original critical feminist Islamic legal theory for northern Nigeria, grounded in both Islamic jurisprudential methodology and gender-conscious textual analysis. The theoretical methodology integrates three traditions: classical Usul al-Fiqh reformist methodologies (particularly Maslaha and Istihsan), feminist Islamic legal theory from Amina Wadud, Asma Barlas, and Ziba Mir-Hosseini, and Nigerian feminist socio-legal scholarship on women and law. Through systematic analysis of the gender-differentiated provisions of northern Nigerian Sharia Penal and Personal Status Codes across twelve states alongside forty court decisions from 2005 to 2023 affecting women's rights, the study identifies the doctrinal sites where gender-conscious Ijtihad could transform legal outcomes. The original theoretical contribution is a Northern Nigerian Feminist Ijtihad Framework specifying six doctrinal principles for gender-equitable Islamic legal reform that respect Islamic jurisprudential foundations while challenging patriarchal interpretive assumptions. The framework addresses divorce rights, inheritance, Hadana, and evidence law as the four priority reform domains. Available feminist Islamic legal theory literature from Nigeria identifies the absence of an indigenously developed Islamic feminist jurisprudence as the primary theoretical gap limiting reform advocacy. Keywords: feminist Islamic legal theory, Ijtihad, northern Nigeria, gender jurisprudence, Fiqh reform.