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The paper examines how Islamic legal thought has responded to transgender sex-reassignment surgery (SRS), focusing on two influential fatwas — by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and Sheikh Muhammad al-Tantawi in Egypt — that legalised SRS under Islamic law, overturning earlier views that such surgery was unquestionably forbidden. It explains why these scholars arrived at more permissive rulings through traditional methods of Islamic jurisprudence (ijtihad) and argues that these opinions represent a significant expansion of tolerance toward transgender Muslims. The article also suggests that the same interpretive approach could open up debate on other gender and sexuality issues in Islam.
The paper examines how Islamic legal thought has responded to transgender sex-reassignment surgery (SRS), focusing on two influential fatwas — by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and Sheikh Muhammad al-Tantawi in Egypt — that legalised SRS under Islamic law, overturning earlier views that such surgery was unquestionably forbidden. It explains why these scholars arrived at more permissive rulings through traditional methods of Islamic jurisprudence (ijtihad) and argues that these opinions represent a significant expansion of tolerance toward transgender Muslims. The article also suggests that the same interpretive approach could open up debate on other gender and sexuality issues in Islam.