OTORITAS KEAGAMAAN PEREMPUAN (Studi atas Fatwa-Fatwa Perempuan di Pesantren Kauman Jekulo Kudus)

This paper examines about religious authority of women in the Islamic Boarding School Kauman Jekulo Kudus. The problem of female ontology which is described as God's creation from men’s ribs has a negative impact on women's lives in both the private and social spheres. The problem does not have much effect on the position of women who have scientific and high social status, such as nyai, ustazah and lecturers. Doubts about women’s competence coincided with religious dogmas that explicitly refer to women as being under estimate, raising doubts about women’s credibility. This study is a qualitative approach with data collection techniques through observation or documentation and interviews with several community leaders, women activists and communities around the pesantren in Kauman, Kudus, Central Java and the data obtained were analyzed descriptively. The results showed that the authority of the fatwa issued by women was only binding on one’s own family and did not affect to other communities. Women’s religious fatwa (nyai) only binds female students and women around the village. Meanwhile, in general religious authority was still controlled by men. Thus, women did not have a significant role in the pesantren environment and the general public, because the community and santri trusted the religious fatwa issued by men, even though it was from the Islamic cleric with credibility under it. This phenomenon became interesting because dogmatically Islam did not distinguish between sexes in delivering religious fatwas. However, the public believed more in men’s fatwas in conveying their religious authority